Good Riddance 2020, Ye Fucker - salvaging(?) a non-blogging year, Part 1

Yeah, it just wasn't happening blogging-wise during this wretched year. Not even because of Covid - in fact this blog has been dragging its feet for a couple of years now. Guess the reason for that is the lack of response, to be honest. The year's artistic output was decent though, so I'll put the finer ones up here anyway before midnight. Then we'll see what next year brings... Maybe it's time to move over to Instagram?

Something Corvin-related to kick it off. Palatine Gara,one of the lesser antagonists (at least for the time being), decidedly drawn in the style of José Luis-Munuera, the sole creator of the awesome Les Campbell comics series.

Since we're talking Corvin, let me firmly state that Book 3 is in the works. Being made in the usual not-so-superfast pace, but I think it will be fine. Especially if I can figure out the middle part I'm getting into right now. Here's a preview of the first couple of pages:

So, as the title character would say: "Onwards, till we finally meet those rascal Ottomans!"

Getting back to the year's illustration chronology, the next one was made for a sad occasion. Albert Uderzo, one of the greatest comic book artists passed away at the end of March. I drew this sad, drinking Asterix as a tribute to him.

Now for something lighter: the above mentioned Campbells all-ages pirate comic is really tons of fun, and inspired me to fanart its notorious troublemaker, Carapepino, among a few other characters.

One of spring's definite artistic community highlights was the Six Fanarts Challenge, that sprode through Facebook like a virus (sorry...) in April. I certainly did my own version based on friends' suggestions. The two characters next to the Witcher are from Bone, my all-time favourite comic book, which was very happy to see finally being translated to Hungarian this year (even though and alas it was not translated by me :D)

Next up,something kinda curious. It is not everyday that one draws Cupid dressed up as a nomadic Hungarian warrior shooting his arrow backwards, but when 5th graders are faced with such visual terror in their school textbook, then there is not much else left to do (click link at your own risk) https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10220236169392045&set=a.10203671740691680   

The last piece for this Part 1 is pretty intimate, and guess it's mildly mature content as well. Anyway, I had a long and a little unconventional relationship with a special lady, which ended suddenly and without warning last October. Perhaps naturally, it took me quite a while to process the ending. This thing below was part of that. Not sure if it's good at all, but it's puts the intimacy out there, which I thought was important at the time. Of course, a good and honest conversation works a lot better, and we finally succeeded in doing that not long ago. 
Anyway, the women in the background are hommages to my great illustrator friend Dou d'Ache, whose work my lady friend is also fond of.

Post-summer, quarter of an Inktober and so on

Today is literally the last chance to wrap up the blogging of my work for this year, so here we go...

I never really considered completing this year's Inktober, and managed to stay true to this intention :-) Kicked it off with a fanart instead of the daily prompt. Here's professor Von Dott, a character from Ernő Zórád, the great Hungarian painter and comics artist's adaptation of Karel Capek's novel, War With The Newts.

Did some prompts as well, first and foremost "mindless", drew after a nightmare of an evening. Nudge-nudge, say no more...

Then "ring", one of the most Corviny prompts possible.

Last prompt (so I did 3 out of 31), "bait". Pretty straightforward, I guess.

Onwards, here's a portrait of Tibi Kiss, the singer and guitarist of Quimby,my favourite Hungarian band. He's also a painter and poet, and an all-round damn cool guy :)

The last substitute for Inktober: a squire from the sketches section of Becky Cloonan's great comic book, By Chance Or Providence. True, the limbs are longer than the original's, but puberty sucks, ain't it? ;-)

And now for the rest... My impresssion of Turkish tyrant Erdogan's visit to fellow scumbag OV, which stopped Budapest in its tracks:

The obligatory Baby Yoda, made for a comics buddy:

Finally,  a Wonder Woman fanart after the the great Darwyn Cooke - possibly my farewell gift for the lady who inspired "mindless" above, and a few nicer themes over the years, in fairness :-)

Summery drawings and more

Trying to wrap up the year with some more posts before it is over, as usual...
Something I forgot to mention so far: in May Stan Sakai, one of the greatest comics authors had a Q&A session and signed books in Budapest at a small café of all places. I had a to get a signing of my drawing of his main character Usagi... 

and a photo with the great man :-)

Fanart from an Asterix story: the villain, Tullius Destructivus, who spreads disagreement everywhere. I dressed him in Caesar's robes, just for fun.

A portait of my Mum for her copy of my Corvin 2 book.

A little hommage of Napirajz by Dániel Merényi (probably the longest-running Hungarian strip series), based on a conversation I witnessed first hand in the pub we go after our weekly football match.

More fanarts: the former pirate Campbell from José-Luis Munuera's awesome comic book, The Campbells,

And Laureline taking care of business in Valerian and Laureline: Brooklyn Station, Terminus Cosmos. Birthday present for a dear friend of mine.

Some illustration work: The Little Book of Left-Right Equivalence

Wow, it's almost November... Think it's high time I took a note that a book illustrated by me was published in er... March. Without any further ado, let's check out the cover:

Sooo, Mr. Erik D'Amato - my former boss at the once fine now defunct news site politics.hu - wrote this pamphlet on how polarized and crazy American politics and public life has become, while plenty of similarities can be spotted in the the idiosyncracies of the two camps. Hence the drawings also came in pairs, to (literally) illustrate this point. Before sharing some of the fun ones, I would like to emphasize that it was a paid job, furthermore a very decently honoured one.

Now, the illustrations. First of all, a MAGA hat, as shown on the cover, only without colour.

Comrade Brezhnev, the head of the Soviet Union about forty years ago or so (yes, those sneaky Russian also get some mentions).

A triggered feminist lady. Disclaimer: yours truly is something of a feminist himself, but this portrait was actually a lot of fun to draw.

Next up, Mr. Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian Marxist philosopher, pictured as (a somewhat ageing) Jesus - the client's wish is my command (within reasonable limits ;-) )

Now, it's time for the Head Clown to make  his appearance. "Tremendous" caption also featured in the book for the sake of bipartisan balance.

I really cannot leave out one of our own homegrown jokers, Péter Szijjártó, who is embarrassing the hell out of Hungary for five years now basically every time he makes an appearance as foreign minister. Pictured here as the incel next door as he's got the features.

The back cover with two terrified ladies lest the gender balance should tip, like... (insert quote from In Bruges, if you please)

Last, but no way least the author himself. Yes, it's totally a possibility to have your own portrait drawn, should you commission me - I would like to point out that I'm perfectly available for similar (or different) projects. I swear I will not take so long to blog the next one.

Before I forget, make sure you get the book from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Left-Right-Equivalence-Hypocrisies/dp/1793881944/
Also, stay tuned, a couple more posts are most likely this year, as some other pretty good stuff have been made.

Hello 2019 - It's a new comic book!

Yup, back from the dead (it's a long story, which I'll spare ya). Without any further ado, the Corvin 2 book is completed, printed and self-published at this year's Budapest Comics Festival.

Behold the cover:

Some great Hungarian comics people helped me "dressing up" the book, just like the last time around. We are pictured below with cover colourist extraordinary, Mr. Gergely Madarász. I'm also totally grateful to Judit Anticia Kiss for the book's design and converting the pages into a printable format. Győző Dudás followed the progress of the book from the beginning, and gave some great advice on how to enhance it. 

The festival was great fun as always, Dürer Kert (myformer university campus) is an ideal venue, we can hopefully hold on to it for a few more years.

This is definitely the biggest news of late, but there is another pretty big one: I also illutsrated a book, which was published this spring. I'll tell you more about it in the next post, so stay tuned ;-)

Post-summer drawings

Traditionally posted over the last days of the year ;-)

First of all I managed to complete nearly half an Inktober this year, so behold the better results:

Roasted - and it totally is, isn't it?

Drooling - a classic Hungarian cartoon character lost in the opium bars of Bangkok.

Now, some doubleheaders: cruel & whale - fanart from Craig Thompson's Space Dumplings.

Precious & star - a little LOTR foolin' around.

Expensive & weak (I think)

Last, but totally not least, my Season's greetings for this year. Another fanart of the lovely Laureline, original paperwork  a Christmas present for a very dear friend.

That's all for now, I hope to give you a long due Corvin update before the new year.

Summery drawings...

... right before September ends. First of all, a spontaneous one. You doodle a head, then end up with a rooster-headed Napoleonic soldier. It happens -nothing out of the ordinary.

And now, for the fanarts. Firstly, another Valerian - the male protagonists of the classic French sci-fi comics you have already seen here, along with his female counterpart, Laureline.

Let's move on to another one of my favourite graphic novels, DC: The New Frontier by the late Darwyn Cooke. A heroic supporting character Captain Nathaniel Adam from the U.S. Air Force.

And then, our very own Wonder Woman, living it up on Paradise Island. This was a bigger undertaking, as you can see from both the inked, and the final, coloured version:

And now, Inktober is about to commence again, so stay tuned!