Claudia Black

Danielle Staub without makeup

Okay, to be honest I'm not trying to be insulting to this woman--I actually find her kind of attractive--I just couldn't resist fucking around.

Dannielle Staub

Louis CK

Some sketches I did while watching a recent episode of Louis CK's new show "Louie" on FX. A show I identify with strongly, despite the fact that it's about a fat, bald, depressed 42-year-old New York City dad who wears a lot of black t-shirts. I mean, maybe there's something on that list that resonates with me for some reason, but I dunno. The t-shirts I guess.

"Pawn Stars" guys

Boy, my TV interests sure went downhill in a hurry now that "Lost" is over.

Lost 6/15: Jacob

Okay, I'm back! What'd I miss? Ten episodes? And the show ends forever in a week? Aw crap. That plan of mine for illustrating an episode a week didn't really pan out did it. I must have driven myself a little batshit trying to do the first four of these, because I haven't had the stomach to attempt another for the last two months.

And speaking of batshit: by way of commentary on the most recent episode, "Across the Sea", I'd like to copy and paste verbatim what I posted on Nikki Stafford's "Lost" blog late last night. I don't pretend that it makes any rational goddamn sense whatsoever, I merely offer it as evidence that this show is melting my brain out my ears and really does need to come to an end as swiftly as possible:

The two brothers seem to be representative of duality. The simple read is that Jacob is good and Brother is bad. But I'm starting to sense a more complex thing going on: The simple white and black represents how Jacob sees things, while MiB's outlook is more... complicated. Jacob represents dualism--the tendency to classify phenomena into "good" and "bad". Exemplified by the frantic impulse in monotheistic religions to categorize everything in the world either as holy/good/Godlike, and unholy/evil/Demonic. MiB represents non-dualism, the idea found more often in Eastern religions that everything in the world exists on an axis between the sacred and the profane, but all originating from the same source. MiB sees everything in shades of grey. He chooses to be with his Roman people, but he's not blind to the flaws in their character. He believes his "mother" to be hopelessly insane, but when she's right, she's right. Mother appreciates the mix of light and dark that burns so strong in MiB; it makes him special. It makes him the ideal candidate to stand astride this twilight realm between heaven and hell, taking on the souls of those who can't let go of this life, adding them to his strength to protect the source of all life. Jacob--poor, simple Jacob--played his part because accepted and continues to accept his mother's cover story. He sees himself as the good one and MiB as the bad one because he is incapable of seeing complexity. I guess he plays his part still in some way, as he endlessly scours the human race for "good" candidates. Meanwhile MiB rages helplessly, just fucking stop it. He's enraged at Jacob and enraged at himself for having unwittingly played into his mother's scheme.

There, I defy you to make sense out of that.

Lost 6/4: Locke

An illustration based on "Lost" Season 6, Episode 4, "The Substitute".

I loved everything about this episode. Particularly that scene at the dining room table that I pulled the quote from. Such a quiet scene, but in its way it was the payoff to everything Locke has struggled with throughout his life. The dude has continually been used, duped, blindsided, and ultimately threw his life away. And he was vulnerable to it all because he could never let go of his grandiose fantasies of the life that could have been, if only this or that had gone differently. In that one moment with Helen he bravely chose to let life be as it is, and thus opened the door for happiness to finally come to him.


Here's my thumbnail for the next illustration, based on Episode 5, "The Lighthouse." Ah, the breaking-glass montage composition, beloved of hack comic book artists since time immemorial.

Lost 6/3: Kate

An illustration based on "Lost" Season 6, Episode 3, "What Kate Did".

I liked this episode a lot. I don't share the antithapy to Kate episodes that many fans seem to have. Not to be some kind of Kate-apologist, I'm just saying that I think her stories tend to be as well-done as those of any of the other characters. It's not as if I'm harboring some kind of ridiculous schoolboy crush on the woman. Well maybe I am saying that. The second thing.

...and my rough sketch for the next illustration, based on Episode 4, "The Substitute." Seeing as how Episode 8 is going to air in a couple days, I'm already getting hopelessly behind.

Lost 6/1: Sawyer

Welcome to my Lost Season 6 project.

I'm trying once again to produce artwork corresponding to each new episode of this show that I'm so hopelessly obsessed with. Instead of a bunch of head sketches like I did last season, I thought it might be interesting to do full illustrations. It gives me a chance to continue to practice drawing likenesses, while also integrating type and experimenting with various other montage effects.

One thing that hasn't changed since last season is that I'm still running several weeks behind each episode! Partially that's due to my laziness, partly to my desire to let each story percolate in my mind until I settle on a single image that best represents it.

If you're a Lost fan, I hope you take this journey with me, and please take the time to leave a comment. Thanks.

Lost 6/2: Locke

Kelly Rutherford

In case you're wondering, these aren't just practice sketches of some random celebrity I saw in a magazine. I had a good reason for drawing this person given that I'm so well informed about her. Like for instance, I learned from looking at the caption of this photograph that she's one of the stars of Gossip Girl, which I'm certain is definitely a show on, uh... TV, I guess. It must be TV. Is it TV? They still make TV shows, right?

Well, I'm glad we settled that. All this research is exhausting.

BSG: Baltar

From episode 3:12, "Taking a Break From All Your Worries".

Bill Goldberg

A character study in preparation for a storyboard job for a Speed Network show. Not WWE-related, oddly enough, though it was sandwiched in between two WWE gigs. Go figure.

BSG: Bulldog (2)

I think this guy has a fascinating face to draw. Great presence overall, actually. They should have kept him around on the series.

Time: 90 minutes, counting the first attempt that I trashed.

BSG: Bulldog

I've been working my way through Battlestar Galactica lately, and really liking it, but I've been slow to take it up as a sketch subject.

Could be because I spent the summer with blog burnout after those epic Lost posts. Or because the comic strip has been eating up too much of my time. Or it could just be that Jamie Bamber doesn't really inspire me to leap up and race to the drafting table to capture his fascinating range of two or three expressions.

In any event, this is the fighter pilot from Season 3 who escapes his Cylon captors and turns up with a boosted Raider and a dark secret from Adama's past. Awesome bone structure too.

Time: about an hour.

Kate With Gun

Stacy London

A warm-up study for a storyboard job. The fact that I'm storyboarding TLC stars should tell you that I'm still pretty far from getting that call from Hollywood. Nobody's putting Stacy London in an action movie anytime soon. 

At least this time they gave me a celebrity that I'm actually familiar with. This is because I used to take the jetBlue red-eye from NYC to Denver a lot, and the onboard TV pickings at that time of night were pretty grim. it was either "What Not To Wear", or the History Channel's epic 57-part series, "Can We Think Of Another Fucking Thing To Say About World War II."

Conan O'Brien

I thought for a minute this week about jumping on the Michael Jackson memorial bandwagon (or "Jacksploitation", as Bunche calls it). But then I remembered that I intensely disliked MJ for most of the time that I was aware of his existence on the planet, and that his death didn't move me in the slightest.

So, I don't know, here's a drawing of another creepy looking white chick instead.

(if my writing seems a little terse today, it's because the 'o' is shot on my keyboard, and I don't have time to get it fixed, so every time I type anything I have to copy an 'o' to the clipboard and paste them in as I go. Wasn't there something like this in Stephen King's Misery? I can't stop thinking that Cathy Bates is mad at me for something.)

LOST: Sayid

The drawings in this post are from the most recent Sayid-centric episode, "He's Our You".



Sayid sure is a dashing fellow. Not to continue to dwell on the good looks of certain male cast members, but I think of Naveen Andrews as one of Saddam's enforcers in the same way I think of Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist: It's nice to imagine that people in that line of work could be so photogenic, but I kind of doubt it.



Sayid is in many ways more evolved than many of his fellow survivors. Unlike Kate, Jack, Locke and Sawyer, Sayid is perfectly capable of getting out of bed in the morning and putting on his socks without suffering a crisis of identity. Unfortunately this leads him to get sidelined a bit by the writers because he offers less dramatic potential. He's generally a can-do, helpful fellow to have around. He doesn't add complication to the plot by making ten baffling, self-sabotaging decisions before breakfast.



Sayid's identity problem revolves around one thing: the fact that this sensitive, cultured, and compassionate person happens to be a brutal thug by trade. He's understandably uncomfortable with the fact that he used to torture and kill people for a living. It's not a deeply-held neurosis, it's more like a sizeable black mark on his employment history. Or so it seemed. This episode's function, character-wise, was to show that Sayid has struggled all his life with the question of whether he's a lover or a killer.



Appropriate to this season when many of the characters are learning giant, soul-searing things about themselves, this episode gets to the heart of the question he is asking about himself: Is he a brutal thug by circumstance or by nature. Ben maintains that killing is Sayid's nature, however much he pretends to shun it. This could be Ben saying whatever's convenient to get Sayid to do what he wants. But I think that the Others are very much concerned with the acknowledgement and integration of the shadow parts of the personality.



In terms of acting, I was struck by the "war face" that Sayid wears when he's carrying out an execution. His eyes get several degrees colder as he does what he's best at, and he seems to show no remorse. I tried to capture that chilling look in these last two sketches, but I seem to have failed because everybody who looks at it thinks it looks like he's Jesus, or he's stoned, or both.



Next up: Kate. Mahalo at ya boy!

Jim Cramer on the Daily Show

What a treat to see this guy get his ass handed to him by Jon Stewart the other night. In the world of cable infotainment, it's refreshing when you can witness a bit of honesty and genuineness. And that bit was the undisguised look of fear on Cramer's face as he sat there and kissed the ring. Apart from that I'm pretty sure it was total horseshit.

To Stewart's credit, he really held Cramer's feet to the fire with his questioning, forcing him to try very hard to appear candid and affable while answering a completely different set of questions than he was asked. You can see the carny man's mind working feverishly throughout the interview, wondering how long it can go on and knowing that he's only one bad step away from whatever purgatory awaits guys like Michael Richards and Dog the Bounty Hunter.

And Cramer did his time in the barrel, and then, I don't know, Stewart gave him a stamp on his snake-oil seller's license or something, and they shook hands. And then the audience left and they both cackled menacingly and toasted evil. True story!