Saturday, March 27, 2010

INTERIORS FOR SALE

Here's how it goes. You mail me a check, I mail you an interior!
Yes! An interior of your choice, custom made and lovingly flourished!

Wash + Dryer included! Heat and Electric included! Wireless internet! My signature!

To order your interior email me at: hubbel99@newpaltz.edu

An interior is something that can bring happiness to your life. Take the reaction
of this fine fellow as proof!

Contrary to what may seem like photographic evidence, neither of us were drunk in these scenes. What you are seeing is pure INTERIOR ELATION™



Thursday, March 25, 2010

Backgrounds and bios

I've been wanting to give my blog a little makeover, so I looked into getting custom backgrounds. I have since discovered that there are oodles of free backgrounds to be had online specifically designed for blogs. I have also learned that most of them are for girls.

I wanted something sleek and dark, but all I found were these amazingly intricate patterns, all of them bright with floral fruity motifs. Pink Victorian wallpaper with stitched trim and strawberry stickers...cute happy go luck ghosts swirling over multicolored tracing lines...

It was all so damned sappy. But in looking into all this I realized that the coding used is actually quite simple. And so I shall endeavor to create my own background. We'll see how that goes. But I was also able to edit out some things that annoyed me. The top dashboard is, for example, no longer that awful blue strip that screams "THIS IS BLOGSPOT."

I digress.

While taking Senior Art Seminar with Venetia Dale, one of the exercises was to write an artist bio, which I have just now supplemented over the "about me" section. I wrote one, and three other comic ones. Here they are:


Justin Hubbell is most well known as the premiere graphic novelist of his time. After his work on Suicide, Manhood, and Race, he left America with his wife to pursue independent work in the Bahia, Brazil. Justin Hubbell is a native of Rochester and thinks that the city "is not so bad."

Justin Hubbell has attended school for the past seventeen years. Though he is known for his work with comics, the artist states that "I really haven't lived much yet," and is looking forward to life outside of college. He aims to publish his graphic novels.

Justin Hubbell was born on cold December afternoon. His mother has remarked that he didn't put up much of a fight. This makes sense considering that Justin Hubbell has a hard time bench pressing anything over 30 lbs.

Justin Hubbell is known for his mastery of the Unreal Tournament gladitorial circuit. Now retired, he currently spends time training disenfranchised youth how to properly operate forklifts. He may in fact, be a moth.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

An interior from the heart!


For my beloved Alex.

•••

Interesting discovery. I wrote a post on how I was invisible on Google. No more! I looked up Justin Hubbell, and found myself at the top of the list...complaining about how I was invisible on Google.

I suppose it would be a good practice to somehow insert my full name into each post.
How does one do that with panache?

I have no Justin Hubbell clue...

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Ah the politics of pens...

Since winter break I have fallen desperately in love with my fountain pen.
I would like to get some new nibs but I shall always remain faithful to the original.

The problem with fountain pens, however, is the line quality you get when scanning them. This was most evident to me in the latest comic.

If you look (and you don't even have to look carefully), the line edge has this sort of fuzziness to it. This is because nib of the fountain pen presses into the paper instead of rolling on top of it. The edges left on the embossing get picked up by scanners, and as a result the line quality is not quite as crisp as when I was just using Microns.

Just look at the comparison.


vs


Oh well? What's a guy to do?
Reading over some of my favorite graphic novelists I'm always shocked at the lack of detail in the drawings. Comforted too.

More tales from The Great War




I'm a little worried that people will associate this villainous character with Lucius Malfoy.
Of course I only realized the similarity until after I finished doing the comic. That's life.

I had a dream once of making a book out of The Great War, but it seems to me now an impossibility. I say this because in spite of the various comics I've done...there really is no story. I've come to realize that the series is more a practice in dialog than anything else. Good writing is hard, but it good storytelling is perhaps even harder.

As always, The Great War offers a little slice of the big picture...

•••

I had a lovely time with Alex in Alfred!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The Great War


TOLD you I'd do a comic soon.
Things have been great recently.
My work for my thesis has been approved by all fronts.

Now all that's left to do is work out the finishing touches.
Postcards.
Labels.
And of course, additional prints.

My girlfriend Alex has spent her spring break with me in New Paltz, and soon I will be spending mine with her in Alfred. We've had a merry time of things. She says "hi."

Soon an INTERIOR ETCHING PRINT will be available to the public. That means, you can buy one if you like! Yes! You can buy a print from me! Signed and everything!
Woo!

I'm getting into The Great War again. I've come to realize that at the heart of it, The Great War series represents my view of America, more or less. At least politically.

Exciting news, I've developed a new character for the series. Death. You'll see it soon.
Well, in a week or so. That's soon, geographically speaking. That's like a minute.
5 minutes.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Augh!


It's gotten to the point where I'm drawing interiors simply to pass the time.
I have done other work, but looking at this blog it seems like interiors are the only thing I draw.

I think that will change soon. I want to start doing comics for my school newspaper.
I'll start tomorrow!

Graphic novels are novels. Comic strips are poems.
It's hard work, comic strips, it's hard to write a poem.

In both cases you have to limit yourself to the constraints
of purity. You must pick and choose only what works.
Elaboration becomes a luxury and a risk all at once.

I could never do comic strips professionally.
People like Charles Schultz and Gary Larson. No idea how they did it.

•••

The rug on the second floor of this interior is a little distracting. I went a touch too far with it.