Image Comics press release for Liquid City Vol.2 has gone out, the cover and some sample pages can be seen at fanboy.com.
Also out later this year is the Italian edition of the Malinky Robot collection from Lavieri Edizioni. "Le atmosfere rese in questi brevi episodi narrano le avventure minimaliste di due amici che si dividono tra il centro futuristico e la periferia rurale della metropoli asiatica. Spettacolari le tavole, le colorazioni e lo stile fluido e dettagliato di Sonny Liew" apparently :p
Dug up these old pics of the painting in progress; one of two images to be included in this year's Spectrum annual. The painting itself can be found at the Museum of Contemporary Chinese Art.
First stop though was Paris, where me and dad visited the Eiffel Tower, which is where zombies like to come after they destroy the UK.
Have to admit I'd not heard of Utopiales before, but its apparently the largest SF con in Europe. Anyway this year's special guest was James Gurney, so he did the illustration for their poster and there was lots of original art by him on display.
The event itself is a lot more low key than SDCC, which would mean more opportunities for interacting with the writers and artists there, if only I knew any french :p I did get a chance to talk to writer Stephen Baxter though, who happens to be from Liverpool so we commiserated a little on the sale of Alonso and liverpuddle's woes this season.
I'd hoped to meet Philippe Druillet, whose Loan Sloane I'd picked up at a flea market in Cambridge years and years ago, but he had unfortunately taken ill and was unable to attend. Enki Bilal was there though, that's him in the background having breakfast at the hotel we were staying. Best described as... aloof :p
There were orginal comic book art on display at the event, and I particularly liked Yoann's lively, brushy drawings.
Some of the other nominees included Fergus and Ikigami (which picked up the Special Jury Prize).
I had very little idea what anyone was saying during the awards event but it was still kinda fun :p
Back in Paris a couple of days later I had a chance to see a small exhibit of old video game consoles, including a 1977 Atari Pong Machine and the Odyssey.
There was also a Galaga arcade machine (me and Rich Nehmad used to play the one at RISD after lunch every day) and a handheld Galaxy II unit in which i kept getting destroyed by aliens :p
Finally a vid put up by Manga News of a robot sketch. Plus an interview of some sort here. Or click on the image below....
Ikigami, Préavis de mort de Motoro Masse, Asuka, 2009
The Twelve de W.Chris, J-M.Straczynski, Panini Comics, 2009
Fergus d’Agrimbau et Pietro, Atalante 2009
Malinky robot de S. Liew, Paquet 2009
Les épées de verre de S.Corgiat, L.Zuccheri, Les Humanoïdes Associés 2009
Doubt d’Yoshiki Tonogai, KI-OON 2009
Also this month is the Singapore Writer's Festival, which has quite a few comics panels, with guests including Lat, Neil Gaiman and Mark Waid. I'll be muddling my way through a couple of panels:
24 Oct 2009, 3:00 pm
" Comics – A Timeless Narrative Price: Free Venue : Chamber Featuring: Lat, Mark Waid, Sonny Liew Moderator: Terence Chua
From young to old, everybody loves a good comic! Join American comic writer Mark Waid (whose notable works include The Flash, Captain America and Superman), Malaysian-born Singapore-based comic artist Sonny Liew and beloved Malaysian comic artist Lat in a panel that reflects on the challenges of drafting a good narrative and on writing comics from an American or Asian angle."
Another panel with Troy Chin is being moved to an earlier date (the 25th I think) .
Some paintings up at the Arts House too for the Writer's Fest :p
Over at Wartmag, its been listed as a top 5 scifi comic for the first half of 2009 (http://www.wartmag.com), i think its been shortlisted for the sci-fi comic award (not sure if its the final shortlist) at the Nantes Science Fiction Festival, and there was a rather odd interview from Un Monde de Bulles... odd cos the interviewer and translator were talking simultaneously and you had to listen to the translator whilst making eye contact with the interviewer :p
The Wonderland trade is out, Amazon link here... there was a nice review in Publisher's Weekly... The colours... well didn't turn out the same way they did in the original series, but I guess that's an issue for another time... it does have a great feel to it though, what with the hardcover and all :)
Back in Singaporeland after a 2 and half week trip to France and Belgium to promote the new french edition of Malinky Robot published by Bao.
Our first stop was the BD Fugue comics store/cafe in Annecy...
Met up with fellow Flight artist Nicolas Bannister there (he happens to live in Annecy), and BD Fugue itself was a really cool store which kinda gave a sense of how differently the comics medium is treated in France. Here in Singapore big stores like Kinokuniya aside you just don't see comic stores like this, with a good balance of all sorts of comics - mostly they're just stocked full of mainstream superhero stuff, and the only one that kinda bucked the trend (Atomix Comix at Orchard MRT ) shut down bout a year ago.
Anyhow it was exciting to see that Matt Groening and Gilbert Shelton has been there too! :p
My dad was with me on the trip, partly to see Geneva, but mostly to make sure I didn't fall over too much given my dodgy achilles tendon. The cold weather and Too Much Comics seemed to take a toll though, with increasing frazzledness as the week went on, but it was good to see him chipper again when he headed home after a week :)
Before that though we went to Albertville to see lots of mountains and snow. In the pics above there's Bao editor Jean-Paul Moulin, plus two very excellent artists also on the book promo shindig, Chaiko from Shanghai and Tony Sandoval from Mexico...
I lugged back home lots of comics (wait 'bandes dessinees' i mean) i couldn't read back home, and i think my favourite French creators remain Nicolas DeCrecy and Manu Larcenet, whose "Ordinary Victories" was very good indeed...
Other places we did signings at was the Apoklyps in Paris, the Brusels Libairie Galerie in Brussels and the Salon De Livre, where i ran into Obelix and Dogmatix! :p
The above photo is from scannaruto.com, thats Chinese artist Ji Di on the left.
All that book signing left everyone kinda tired by the end of the Salon de Livre, but one highlight of the trip was a chance to go visit Borges' grave in Geneva...
A Bunch of Dedicacees above, and some sketches below...
A French edition of the collected Malinky Robot stories will be release in March... the publishers (Bao imprint from Paquet books) have also been kind enough to arrange for a trip to promote the book, which should cover several cities, including the "le salon du livre" from March 13-18 abd another conventionin Grenoble ... more details soon, maybe :p Some stuff in french here...
Meanwhile also out in March is the Secret Identities anthology, featuring(mostly) Asian American creators, exploring Asian American identity via superhero stories. I did a story with Gene Yang ( "American Born Chinese" ), also featured is Dustin Nguyen and many more....
Some queries from various sources recently about the colouring done on Wonderland and Malinky Robot, so here's a quick walkthrough :p
Programme: Photoshop
First thing is scanning in the pencils at 300dpi, after which i adjust hue/saturation, brightness/contrast until it looks ready...
Image layer is now changed to 'Multiply' so you can see the layer of colour underneath it. Then its the mechanical process of blocking out the major areas in flat colours, which ends up looking like this:
Next a duplicate layer is made of colours and highlights, tones, shadows etc are worked on in the new colour layer. The layer box looks something like this:
The reason for keeping the old colour layer is so that its easy to select a large area on it using the Magic Wand tool; then you can go back to the new colour layer, and adjust the hue/saturation - its a quick way of making changes to the palette...
So eventually you end up with something like this (still a work in progress i think! :p)
Sonny Liew is a Eisner-nominated comic artist and illustrator whose work include titles for DC Vertigo, Marvel, SLG and Disney, along with the Xeric-awarded Malinky Robot. He currently resides in Singapore, where he sleeps with the fishes.
