Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Old Pieces from 1998 & from 2007

I was organizing one of my flat files & came across some old pieces that caught my eye. This one i did the summer before i started & dropped out of art school. I think i killed my eyes with those smallest size microns on this type of linework. Pieces would take a bit long as well.
Starman old piece from 1998

I don't think i ever scanned this one in. These guys are man-made golems that are later trained to operate their own self-production alchemical machines that transform ground up humans into these new meat-men & thus their only use for humanity is to be captured & processed into new golem-men.
On The March old piece from 2007?

Junk Heap 2









Saturday, March 27, 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Mostyn comics

Hey everyone. I am starting some work soon on some new comics. I may even have a long project in the works. I am thinking about putting up a new blog so I can post weekly. I will let you know when I get it going. If I do, I waould appreciate you linking to it and checking in now and again. BTW, some very nice work around here lately. Thank you. Mostyn

Sunday, March 21, 2010

60 Faces


60 Faces, originally uploaded by SEAN ÄABERG.


I'm working on a whole bunch of patterns & backgrounds for various projects. These guys are going to be used for possibly the Pizza Party wax packs, for sticker backgrounds, possibly be made into individual buttons, & a huge painting on a door.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Save Jojos Bizarre Adventure from cancelation!!!









When the 2d fighting game of Jojos Bizarre Adventure came out, I bought it just because of the genre it was, but when I played it for a while, it had a profound and inspiring effect on my imagination and I was definitely changed by it. It had some of the most weird and wonderfully absurd ideas I’ve ever witnessed and the visual style was very personal and idiosyncratic.
I found out that most of the stories, characters and ideas in the game were taken from the third series of an epic comic that has been running in Japan since the late eighties and is currently on its seventh series.

The American Viz editions of the third series will finish at 16 volumes by the end of this year and unless the sales pick up dramatically in that time, the series will be cancelled and it will be a very long time before anyone ever considers translating and printing the fourth series and onwards. This CANNOT happen.

The popularity of manga and anime in the west has evolved into something really horrible in a lot of ways, because a lot of the key franchises from Japan that got people interested in Manga in the first place have been seriously neglected in the past decade. In the eighties and nineties a lot of what was attracting people to Japanese art and entertainment was instense, visceral and insane. The Japan of Shinya Tsukamoto, Takashi Miike, Strange Circus, Crazy Lips, Melt Banana and The Boredoms. Now, so much of what is imported is inane, generic, predictable and often lacking any distinctive qualities at all, somehow that stuff sells really well.

If you were living in the start of the nineties and were told that there would come an enormous explosion of manga imports, you would probably assume that Devilman and Fist of the Northstar would be among the first to be completed. To this day neither of those has been even halfway translated into English print, yet they were very important to getting the interest started. I don’t think Go Nagai has had any single one of his stories completed in English yet he is a very important manga giant. Shigeru Mizuki too.
There was briefly a nice amount of great horror work from Hideshi Hino, Junji Ito, Kazuo Umezu and Suehiro Maruo, but all that has dried up now and many of their great works are still unavailable to us. Clearly people are not buying the good stuff.

Show support for the more interesting side of manga and maybe that will fight away the generic crap and give manga the reputation it deserves and have a positive influence on the comic industry in general.

If you want wonderful glam rock homoeroticism, abundant funny music references, vampire hunters in Egypt, tarot card imagery, violent wine spitting, decapitated heads fighting with their last breath, zipper portals, tidal waves of cars, maniacs in fridges with killer puppets, fighters wielding fishing rods, perverse orangutans and fantastic artwork, BUY JOJOS BIZARRE ADVENTURE!!! Jojo is enormously influential and a lot of the kids reading the current new generation of manga don’t realise how much their favourite stuff takes from Jojo. . Jojo is one of the top ten most popular manga series in Japan and it has a healthy following in Italy and France, don’t make America and Britain look stupid by saying “that looks too weird and camp for me”. Just buy them.

I’m going to post this message any relevant place I can and I’d appreciate it if every Jojo fan or anyone sympathetic to this cause spread the word around and make some noise about this, I cant do this by myself.
Viz page for series 3
Wikipedia entry

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Mutation Nation

Pizza Party Pineapple Face Prototype

More prototypes. Seeing how they sit with me. Getting a feel for them. Touching their privacy. Let me know what you think?!

Monday, March 15, 2010

Pizza Party Prototype: Collexor

I'm going to start rolling out the prototypes of these ones pretty soon. Seeing how i like them. Notice on bottom left hand corner you can do the RO SHAM BO with them.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Interview with Ludovic Levasseur

G: Would maggots in the nose be an acceptable mean to heal the brain?

L: Like Père Ubu I would say the brain, in decomposition and being nibbled on by maggots, functions beyond death, and it is its dreams which are heaven…





http://www.flickr.com/photos/ludovic-levasseur/

G: I distinguish different moments in violence: its premonition, its execution and its result… I noticed that in your drawings those three moments seem to coincide… Are you not fascinated by some kind of damnation, post mortem suffering and a sin which never ceases to be accomplished?

L: Certainly not, the only thing there is after death, if we aren’t mummified, is the decomposition of our body’s tissues. I am totally free of any religious preoccupation and in general so are my images, neither while I draw them nor afterwards.

I try to fill the surface with a maximum of intensity, in each case with the elements which I find graphically - and therefore intimately - satisfying: it is perhaps here where the vice lies. You never knows why this or that form satisfies or displeases you. It is without a doubt a kind of abundance whithin the image which gives you the impression of simultaneous moments, an atmosphere of generalised violence, which is, from my point of view, difficult to dissect into a sequence. Anyhow, I’m generally not in favor of psychological interpretations of works of art, and I’m not talking only about my own images. I certainly would have difficulties drawing a flowerpot; and I also viscerally reject the sketchiness of a certain kind of pseudo-contemporary drawing.

G: It seems like the things you reject, find disgusting or hate are the same as mine… disdain and lucidity simply are delicious means to enter into a highly subjective view: I was very touched by your affirmation of intimacy. Am I wrong or does it seem like your drawings are evolving towards a certain “harmony” or at least more of an equilibrium in the characters’ relations, more ambivalence? There seems to be a growing restraint in them…

L: I have the impression that as time passes we find sneakier ways to say things which we used to assert in a more straight forward manner before, in art or any other practice. Language is becoming more complex because our vocabulary is growing, at least it ideally should be like that. One should try to become more and more radical but in a more and more subtle way, in a double self-contradictory move: these are great principles though, easier to proclaim than to follow.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/ah-pook/

G: Your drawings of carnage (which have a baroque aftertaste) suggest some effort of staging or composition; how much of it is improvisation?

L: By the same logic of there not being any preconceived idea or imposed significance, I don’t anticipate any composition a priori, the whole arranges itself –or doesn’t - in the course of something like an improvisation. All my difficulties come from that. In fact, I spend my time pruning, trying to harmonise something which is often wobbly. Well, it doesn’t seem to me that I make so many carnages… The baroque aspect - as you call it - of my backgrounds probably stems from a slightly decorative anxiety, a will not to end up in the total violence that the elements of the foreground would often suggest.


G: Yes, I used the word “baroque” more or less like that: cluttered, but also in terms of the line, which is not “ideal” but mostly vivacious, stark and with various ruptures. I wonder about how you draw… Do you think you’re rather nervous, dreamy, precise, slow, or fast in your gesture?

L: If the line isn’t ideal, it is actually in spite of myself ! I can’t do better. I am slow and precise, and very compelled by engraving. Always weighing the pros and cons, trying to harmonise as one goes along. It is quite laborious with rather long periods of discontinuation. Maybe the ruptures result from this. I must be lazy, incapable of working tightly all the time. Well, the best things generally come quickly, that is quite evident. However, there is no absolute rule: sometimes it is torture to achieve a satisfying result.



G: The dolls, being material entities detached from context, agonise or exult in there innermost being. I’m curious; could you to tell us more about them, their fabrication, their sizes and maybe the little more sentimental things which are related to them…

L: On the contrary, to me they are dead objects, rather mummified, fossilised… Products of taxidermy. In my mind, they have to be ancient things, or impossible to date. Also, I need to be scared when making them, and as a result they cause some kind of deadly fear in the viewer. Here, causing reactions is easier than with two-dimensional images; but again I try not to get as dark and disturbing as the “Grand guignol” (puppet show). Im not sure if I mange to…

I started with little runts of 15 cm and ended up with adult size mannequins, with some baby sized and one or two adolescent sized monsters along the way. I’m more attached to some of them, not for sentimental reasons but quite simply because I feel like they’re greater thechnical achievements. It’s a practice to which I’ve devoted myself for only a few years now , and it used to function as a sort of recreation in relation to engraving. I more or less invented my mixtures myself and, if it can be said, I “progressed” rather quickly in this bizarre technique. In general I oscillate between the two practices. At the moment, I’ve stopped with the dolls. Anyhow, there isn’t necessarily a link between the two activities, in some ways, they’re each other’s polar opposites.







G: You pursue quite a wide range of activities; in addition to drawing and the dolls you also produce etchings. Anne Van der Linden, Nuvish, Remi, Caroline Sury have a collection of images which you printed for them…

L: I don’t do drawings, except for some sketches here or there, I exclusively do engravings - for its rigid rules, not because of a taste for constraints, but enables me to canalise the mess a bit. There is the resistance of the technique.
You’re right to speak of a “collection”. It is when seeing how we worked at Le Dernier Cri, with Pakito Bolino and Caroline Sury, that got the taste for the adventure of working in a collective and I felt like “publishing” those friends, whose graphic oeuvre I admired and, when done as engravings, I thought would produce great results, and it wasn’t a failure.
They conceived the drawings, then etched them on plates that I had given them. At this point I have printed about twenty etchings: four portfolios by Remy, Caroline Surry, Nuvish and Anne Van der Linden who, by the way, goes on doing engravings at my home and with whom I’m doing an exhibition soon*.

In my mind, by conceiving those engravings the four of them have delivered the most intimite part of the oeuvre, the one which touches me in their respective art. The emulation is mutual, it in turn motivates me to try to do things a bit better than usual. It is an adventure which permits you to move away from your own little artistic narcissistic belly button. There are few things more interesting to do with people than working with them.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/ah-pook/

G: What does your workshop looks like?

L: It is my home, I live in it: my engraving workshop is in the lounge, the acid trays are in the garage or in the bathroom during winter. I tinker about a little bit in every room. I varnish my copper plates in the kitchen, the dolls are in the cubby-hole and on the walls, and I fabricate them in the garden when it’s sunny outside.

G: How much do your working materials cost?
L: After having frequented a workshop for a long time where all materials were there, but where I couldn’t work at my leisure, I bought a second hand press a few years ago. The principal expenses concern the paper and especially the copper the market price of which hasn’t risen for few years but underwent a surge some time ago. I always keep an eye on metal prices, I’d really like to print on silver and gold, but it is too expensive. The dolls are predominantly made up out of found ingredients, culled at the beach and pulled out of the dentists’ and fishmongers’ garbage cans.
Anyway, as a general rule, in addition to the material cost the artistic practice -like culture itself - isn’t a very democratic thing. If only for the time which it takes, it is relatively incompatible with salaried employment.

G: How long does it take to make an etching ?

L: That’s a question which often turns up. It’s difficult to quantify. It depends on the way each one works, Remi for example can work quick and effectively, while Nuvish will obsessively perfect his lines. I for my part am rather slow, it can take three or four weeks to make the drawing if I work on it a bit every day, which is scarcely the case. Sometimes I put the plate aside for six months if I don’t get the results I wanted, and then I take it up once more. One cannot expect to produce more than fifteen good engravings in one year. And I don’t even think I’ve ever managed as much as that.

G: How many printings are possible?

L: At the moment I’m doing drypoint engravings on zinc; there I will get less than twenty good prints and not even ten definitive achievements. It’s possible to do fifty prints from an etching on copper, but I never did as many from an engraving, I favour small editions. The biggest print runs were the ones for the portfolios I edited, between 20 and 30 prints.

G: Have you ever tried the mezzotint?

L: I think that the drypoints that I do at the moment look like mezzotint, setting aside the laxness. I won’t engage in this technique which is, after all, quite boring. It would require employing a rocker for days to roughen the plate, or buy plates already prepared, but those are very expensive. But I generally find that this technique produces somewhat weak images.


G: How do you evolve in your artistic environment?

L: I’ve made very few efforts to artistically socialise, very few efforts in general, except the ones which seemed worth it; this could appear flimsy, but I’m satisfied with it: I exhibited in the world‘s best library, Un Regard Moderne in Paris, I publish and exhibit with the best editor of the world, Le Dernier Cri à Marseille, and I worked with artists who are among the closest to me, the ones I mentioned, as well as Marie Noël Döby, whom I made hybrid dolls with, or Le Tampographe Sardon who edited “Poupée Viande”, a box of rubber stamps.

Right now I’m hesitating between two contradictory plans: either going deeper into what I’ve already been doing with the same people, and try to do it a little better still - or quitting this deplorable artistic activity to exclusively devote myself to the practice of curling, trying to be good enough to be selected for the next world championship… which, considering the small number of practitioners of this sport in France, shouldn’t be too difficult.



* Anne Van der Linden et Ludovic Levasseur : Gravures et dessins, du 27 février au 27 mars 2010. Galerie Une poussière dans l’œil, 17 bis, chemin des Vieux arbres, 59650 Villeneuve d’Ascq.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/ludovic-levasseur/


Liens :
Gravures (et portfolios) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/ah-pook/
Anne Van der Linden : http://heavyshop.free.fr/

Sunday, March 07, 2010

ultraomegamegahydracolor


ultraomegamegahydracolor, originally uploaded by SEAN ÄABERG.

This is about as crazy as i'm going to get with these right now, but it's just itching for more heads...

Friday, March 05, 2010

Mega Omega Hydra


Mega Omega Hydra, originally uploaded by SEAN ÄABERG.

The other day i figured out where all of those floating heads i draw come from... the Mega Omega Hydra... this one isn't even the craziest one, there's another with a hundred heads just waiting to be drawn.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

John Waters

Here's an illustration I just did for the dutch magazine Zone 5300 to an article about John Waters.

Monday, March 01, 2010

TUMBLR LR LR LR

CHECK OUT MY TUMBLR. IT'S CALLED MASTERTRONIC.

CURSE OF THE MUTATED BLOOD BATS!

It's been awhile since I last posted so I thought I should probably give a shout for what I'm working on at the moment. Lots of fun projects, some are secret and won't be done for a long time, others will be out this year. I'm starting to think about my Land of the Moth project and how to realistically get that turned into a published book. I'll be working on a Krampus illustration that is going to be evil with a capital E. I have illustrations getting published in a book on Black Sabbath this spring or summer, a book involving a cabinet of curiosities, covers to a few other books and album covers. And I'm looking into a pitch to get Monster Brains turned into a book. Lots of things to do, so little time to do it.