Hair.

And so I told myself: once I finish drawing the six-page script that Kim wrote, I will treat myself to something very special from all the hard work that I have been doing. (And this is why we have been neglecting our Posse Blog: we have both been working very hard, creatively and otherwise). I will buy myself manga books.

I thought about it some more.

Eff that noise. I want to splurge on a hair dye job. Something ridiculously girly, impractical and awesome. Besides, as an aspiring graphic novelist, I want those bio pics on the inside cover to look good.

...Maybe I'll still buy those manga books anyway.

--

Thanks to Kim's short script, I've taught myself how to draw dead naked girls, an O-face, and people doing the nasty. And that was just the first two pages! If this writer-artist collaboration ever fails, at least I'll be on my way towards becoming an amateur hentai artist.
Four more pages to go.

Alan Moore on his snake god worship.

Note to self and Kim: start growing a gnarly beard. NOW.

Kidding, kidding. Maybe.

--

Allusive updates:

We are doing baby steps.

I am in JAPAN.

Mission: find a scanner without getting killed.

P.S. Japan now gives me the extra psychological pressure of having to finish what I have started or else COMMITTING SEPPUKU.

Identity

Spiderman was inspired by a fly on a wall. The lasso of truth was conceived by the inventor of the polygraph. Anything can inspire a good story.

An indignant anecdote from our good friend J-Lo led to Asian Girl Posse ("-talking shit in front of me like I can't understand Canto- them and their Asian Girl Posse need to just step.") I actually stopped paying attention to the story because I couldn't get my mind off of the phrase Asian Girl Posse. The name conjured up so many images in my head- a Korean woman drinking tea while breaking a man's neck between her legs, a tiny Viet girl powersliding her souped up Integra into a wall of thugs, and lots of other vaguely ethnic looking girls doing vaguely cliched action movie things.

A story can come from a strange beginning, but a good story can grow and change beyond those first thoughts into something new and interesting. I'm hoping that AGP will do just that.

Character sketch!!!!!

While Kim is busy pounding out a shiny and new storyline, I have been working on character sketches.

One of the girls is a Cambodian-American chick who lives in an RV truck and has a dog named Banjo.

(I HATE the fact that I am without a scanner and have to resort to taking pictures of them on my digital camera--hence the fuzziness. I will be reunited with my scanner after this weekend, so hopefully more clear pictures will be posted shortly.)





Some little glimpses!!!

--



This one actually has nothing to do with Asian Girl Posse, but an individual project I've been working on. But like Asian Girl Posse, storyline has drastically changed so the setting and the characters in the above image no longer apply.

Change, change, change.

Love requires persistence, patience and strength.

Don't give up on us yet; we are still here.

After much consensual soul-searching, AGP is evolving into something more complex, nuanced and most importantly--more us.

TO BE CONTINUED....

In the last month, I have read The Watchmen, Fray, Making Comics (Scott McCloud), and Perspective! For Comic Book Artists (David Chelsea). In the meantime, my voice has gotten lower, I've grown man-boobs and my Evangelion anime figurine collection has exponentially grown.

Quick, someone resuscitate me with a Paris Hilton CD.

--

My solo side project, which is also in a graphic novel format, focuses on a relationship between two people. It also involves a big blob. The story is far more forgiving in the visual realism that it demands because it's less about creating a believable environment and more about conveying a certain feeling. It plays well in my favor because my undeveloped technical skills are less conspicuous.

I'm frustrated with making sketches for Asian Girl Posse because AGP obviously cannot propel itself on expressionistic interior-shots of people's talking faces. AGP is an action comic that will demand a lot of awesome, dramatic, three-point perspective shots and people getting punched. And machinery. And other bad-ass shit. And as of right now, I AM NOT GOOD AT DRAWING THOSE KINDS OF THINGS. I think my current biggest frustration is seeing internal glimpses of the visual world that the storyline of AGP demands (this usually happens while I'm running or walking alone), but not quite having the drawing skills necessary to render it in its physical, glorious manifestation.

This is why AGP is happening at a snail's pace. AGP is completely out of my visual element. AGP is pointing a gun at my head every minute of my life reminding me that I am not drawing enough and I am not good enough.

But I'm not giving up just yet. I am not giving up on those brief glimpses that I can see in my mind's eye.

I am temporarily without a scanner so I've been using my digital camera to take pictures of my drawings because I am ghetto fabulous.

They're super-rough--certainly intended more for private practice than for public viewing. Once I buy tracing paper, I just might make a cleaner version.



Drawing's hard when you've been doing large-scale abstract paintings for the last year.

Just keep doing it. Just keep doing it. They're just crappy test dummy drawings for now. But girlfriend's got to start somewhere, right?





--

Note to self:
Practice strip much better without dialogue. May make cleaned-up version over the weekend for more practice.

How to be a Ninja: Look it.

Inspiration

Since starting this project I've really tried to learn as much about Ninjas as I possibly can. My homework consists of watching a ton of movies, reading Wikipedia entries, and trying to turn invisible. I found this educational slideshow on the Pirate vs. Ninja debate and, although I do not agree with the conclusion reached, there are many great arguments made that are truly illuminating. Check it out!

More sketches.

Unfinished drawing.

Right now, I am doing a lot of experimentation. I have an idea of the kind of visual rhythm that I want AGP to have, but I think I still have a lot of exploration, practice and shooting darts in the dark to do before I finally achieve the style that I will be happy with.

Note to self: when the Higgins ink brand sells "super-white" ink, it really means "makes a goddamn transparent gray mess everywhere."

Off to my degrading day job. To the sushi restaurant!

Shhh...

Shhh…Shhh…Shhh…

Step 1: Evaluate your surroundings. Everything is black. It's very loud and uncomfortable. I am upside down and my brain feels like it's going to pop.

Shhh…shhh…shhh…

Step 2: Evaluate the extent of your danger. I am surprised to still be alive and am pretty sure I will die soon. Need to move fast.

Shhh…shhh…shhh…

Step 3: Evaluate your resources. Cotton pajamas, wood grain floor- blech, I forgot to vacuum today- my hairband. There's a warm body next to me. Probably dead now.

Shhh…shhh…shhh…

Knives are flying- mother is whispering to me. Comforting. I will die in- ten? Maybe twenty seconds.

Shhh…Shhh…

Gotta move. Go!

Shh-snikt.

Study, study, study, practice, practice, practice.

I had my laptop and sketchbook all ready for an intensive, three-hour session to work--both on AGP and a personal solo project-- at a wireless boba cafe that I frequent at way too much. But once I bought my Styrofoam cup of citron green tea and settled into my favorite table, I realized that I have forgotten my Snoopy pencil bag with all the respective drawing tools that I need. This made me very angry.

But all is not to waste. I have this book with me, which I bought from Borders a few days ago, which is a comic book instruction manual on how to draw perspectives. I love this book because it's both educational and fun, and not only that, teaches from a comic book artist perspective.

My basic drawing skills need a serious kick in the ass. The post-modern UCLA education hasn't exactly helped with the fact that I never received any formal drawing training in the classical sense of the word. I think I'm just going to have to do that a LOT from this point onward--play the piano scales, in the drawing sense, over and over and over, until I can move onto bigger and better things. Like samurai houses. And knife fights on a freeway overpass.

I also finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of The Watchmen. I look forward to immersing myself into it sometime this week.

--

If I don't have more drawing updates by the end of tomorrow, I owe someone a firstborn (not necessarily guaranteed to be my own.)

The first drawing ever.

This very, very rough scrawl may have been done on jittery nerves due to two cups of coffee and one small pot of Moroccan mint tea. I promise you, dear reader, that there will be many more to come.

Earlier tonight, I had a lot of brilliant things to say about the state of the graphic novel, the sad lack of female graphic novelists and the marginalization of comic book culture in this day and age. Maybe that will come in a future post when I am more awake.

But for the time being, I will say that once upon a time, when I was an art student at UCLA who would have sporadic crises on how I wanted to contribute creatively to society at large, I asked myself if I would rather be a world-famous gallery artist or a world-famous comic book artist.

Somehow, it wasn't too hard for me to choose the latter over the former. It is funny how the most important self-epiphanies tend to be, in hindsight, the most obvious.

Kim and I have the creative equivalent of the Ironman Triathlon ahead of us. To paraphrase a Ray Bradbury quotation, we are throwing ourselves off a cliff and hoping that we will find a way to build our wings on the way down.

It will be grueling. It will be epic.

Most importantly, if all goes as plans, it will get us Hot Nerd Ass.



This blog will never be lacking in gratuitous photographs of the two creators.

Road trip.

The Yumi and I had been throwing around the idea of doing a comic for awhile now, but in the same way that I had been throwing around the idea of getting a gym membership every January 1st. Nothing really started moving and shaking until we went on a weekend road trip up the coast. Starved for conversation to fill the 12 plus hours spent stuck in a car, we came back to this comic book idea. Maybe it was the awesome view, maybe it was the awesome company, maybe it was the free wine pours we got at Casa de Fruta- throwing around an idea became brainstorming and character developing and story planning. One of the ideas we had was to chronicle this creative experiment through a blog, and thus Posse Power was born. Updates will come at least three times a week, maybe more.

Expect more stories about our creative process, as well as character sketches and diary entries from the character. Ooooh as Kimmie learns how to do comic dialogue! Aaaah as Yumi learns to draw buildings and background! Come one, come all, and see Asian American girls stomp their stereotype as passive manga subjects to dust.

The Chronicles of a Comic Foretold

Princess Mononoke and Sailor Venus have joined forces to write a comic book about Asian Girls who kick ass.

Stay tuned.