ALTERNATIVE COMICS A Heroic Assimilation

HEY APATHY! Alternative comics

Flicker, flicker, the gigantic screen transmits sublimated imagery faster than a speeding bullet. The repetitive yet ever so slight evolution of the messages bombards our homes, the streets and the theatre offering us heroic salvation with each flashing new scene. The superhuman, having arrived from a far off star , brings promise of hope and freedom as he expends his supernatural abilities in the name of justice. As his presence brings joy to the world with each new adventure, the attention mounts tensely and all eyes turn towards the alien.

 At first he was publicized as an enigma, and shortly thereafter mimicked, but despite all his triumphs the man receives no solitude. He had devised a secret home far from civilization but the documentary crew sought it out for use as a stage. Forced to reside in among men of the city, the hero falls upon financial hardship. The monetary rewards for the dispersion of evil were few and far between until the sponsors stepped in. Running shoes, capes, band aids and ice packs and any and every other product under the sun would come to bear his likeness and dignified symbol until the media madness began to take it’s toll. After missing the opportunity to thwart a fascist power due to a photo-op worth millions the hero underwent an alarming change. Realizing that his battles proved far less profitable and that the villainous regime was disempowered just the same, the alien turned towards more commercial endeavours all but forsaking his predestined quest.

Over the course of a few months, several movies and commercials, the alien became fixated on a cola he’d endorsed. Supplied with a life time quantity the hero proceeded to devour first two, then three and as many as twelve cans per day. Oddly enough the reasonably harmless cola churned malice and addiction against the unusual extraterrestrials DNA. At first the consumption resulted in malaise but soon ate away at the soldier’s physique. His skin peeled off in a leprous fashion and his skeleton underwent painful malformations. His abilities subsided as did his will until there was nothing left of the once glorious figure but a zombie-like core. Fortunately for the corporations which proffered him wealth his deformations remain a secret to this very day and no one seems to miss the champion of the future because severak younger and palatable actors have filled his place.

more strange stories at http://www.heyapathy-comics-art.com/

ALTERNATIVE COMICS HEY APATHY! CHARACTERS

HEY APATHY ! ALTERNATIVE COMICS

Still plugging away at the Character descriptions and drawings for the HEY APATHY! comics. I've finished all the heroes except for BLACK BEARD, who I'll draw today, as well as most of the villains. Between animation stills, scanning and uploading, making monster comics, and these web drawings I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I've got to finish this little whim of a project today so as to get back to some more serious work. Here are a couple more of the drawings...

Studabaker Hawk, once an insignificant business person whose unwillingness to succumb to the technological and dehumanizing mechanized epidemic transformed him into an insignificant superhuman. Despite overwhelming odds and inevitably futile efforts this strange and generic hero fights to retain a balance between man and machine in the city of GEARS.

Master Kazou was once a legendary and righteous guardian to the city of Gears. While training the skilled swordsman was injured resulting in the loss of his left eye. Whether it was the injury or a technological infection on the part of his cybernetic optic replacement is unknown, but following the injury the former guardian became with drawn, devious and eventually vanished. Rumours have it that that Master Kazuo is now operating underground as part of some strange and diabolical society whose intentions cannot be understood by sane men.

  

Alternative Comics and Animations

 
ALTERNATIVE MONSTER COMICS! Heroes and Perversions

 Inspiration bound, yet unable to locate severall of the necassary tools I required to pursue the ensueing creativity, I had little choice but to tidy my studio yesterday morning. Despite the time taken to regulate my disorder and find my ink refills, the venture into the piles of papers and supplies proved fruitful. With a clean set up I had a clear mind and was very productive the rest of the day. I also found a small set of 5 x 5 inch ink drawings I made a while back  while working the streets.

It was interesting to find these illustrated panels because only days earlier I was thinking about all the works that I made and never documented. In particular I recall one of these 5 x 5 drawings depicting the first astronuat landing done during he Christmas season 2006. I have a poster of the landing in my studio and am frequently reminded of these artworks. So it was really nice to find them. I fixed them up with some digital inking magicianship and posted them here like a comics page. The photo below shows you what they actually looked like. Note the exploding building illustration in my hand, you can actually differentiate the parts done with marker ( shimering grey in the sunlight) and the india ink explosion ( flat black in the middle of the arcetechture.

The HEY APATHY! online comic is made in a similar manner to the panels I posted above. The strange adventure compiles all the comics I've made since 1999 chronologically in order to tell a larger tale. I am adding new pages in between the reprints in order to connect the anthology. The stories are made up from both fully drawn shorts and collaged artworks (like the ones on this page). It is also of interest to note that although some parts of this comic book have been printed before, most were only released as photocopy zines, and the print runs did not exceed 200. Chances not to many people ever saw them.

The most exciting, and ultimately frustrating act, of publishing the books online is the way I can intermingle stories, illustrations, and videos into the "Book" seamlessly with out the restrictions of paper back publishing. However my computer skills are novice at best and I am finding difficulties in accomplishing even some of the most simple online tasks.

Today I added sound to one of my animations. I planned to embed the video from youtube (as I can't seem to do it from my desktop, novice I know ) right into the story as comics panel you could watch. Well unfortunately the video capture for the animation comes from the middle of the movie and doesn't match the panel to panel narration.  The colour contrast is also way off on the film and I may have to re-shoot the stills digitally. This copy was made from a video transfer of ill-exposed 16mm film stock. Some one changed the aperture on me during the shoot and the whole thing came out yellow and grey instead of black and white. Anyways I dig the audio, it's a clip of me playing this awesome electric piano ( the piano is awesome not me) at one of the weekly jam sessions I attend with friends.Consider this a work in progress....

 

short HEY APATHY! animation from 2002