Seven Devils

This is some digital fanart I did for the show "American Horror Story" I'm not a big fan of Tate but I do really like Violet and am upset with how that whole situation turned out. The red glow around her might be a bit of spoiler for those who haven't seen it.

Strawberry Pig

Strawberry pig. It's just cuteness. That's all it is.

You're Not Alone, Ladydrawers

This is my comic about Katherine Collins, formerly known as Arn Saba before she transitioned. This was featured in the Ladydrawers anthology "UnLadylike." Ladydrawers is something I've done a lot of work for and in and I shall explain further what it is in another post.

Pinups

I made these pinups last year because I could. No seriously that was the inspiration. I'm in to ladies and the loveliness of the female form and that is all the deeper these portraits go. Amen.

Line Work Masochism

I enjoy tedious amounts of ink and line work. As is evidenced by all these tiny lines. The top is Fred and was a standalone comic about how a dude with a tiny mouth is out of place in a family of big mouth eaters. And the second is my character Dr. Halifax who is a mad scientist of sorts trying to bring his dead fiance Cecilia back to life. Good times. These are from several years ago but they're still nice and I'm trying to use this blog as an archive of my work since I gave up on deviantart.

WHAT THE HELL IS LADYDRAWERS RACHEL

Okay so here is the explanation of a very large part of my current practice, aka WHAT THE HELL IS LADYDRAWERS RACHEL? Ladydrawers is a class offered at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago taught by Anne Elizabeth Moore who is awesome. The classes I took were two semesters ago and one at the off school campus at Ox-Bow over last summer. The first one focused on gathering data we looked at 12 of Comics top publishers and ran statistics on them covering their newest 30 titles as of April 2011. Things like how many books by women they were publishing, prices, and certain stats related to content. Like how many instances of violence, assault, and rape, or nudity both male and female, and how many female characters with NAMES and speaking parts there were in each comics. Needless to say our results were depressing. We decided to take these stats and make them in to postcards and send them out to all the major companies we reviewed as well as industry professionals and fellow comics artists.
This is my postcard that I sent out with a stat on female nudity in the comics we looked at. Also here's a comics beat article on us and the commments are truly a spectacular feat of ignorance and hate to behold. Read at your own risk.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/06/14/mystery-postcards-highlighting-comics-gender-issues-hit-mailboxes/

Then Anne took our stats and used them to make a series of comics with comic artists. Here are all of them in chronological order on TruthOut.org

http://www.truth-out.org/lady-drawers/1308413043
http://www.truth-out.org/comics-world-women-are-invisible-except-when-theyre-naked/1309876116
http://www.truth-out.org/no-great-women-comics-artists/1311001778
http://www.truth-out.org/why-have-there-been-no-great-woman-comics-artists-part-2/1312292657
http://www.truth-out.org/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-comics-artists/1313420504
http://www.truth-out.org/comics-publishers-who-are-they/1314629970
http://www.truth-out.org/graphic-evidence-inequality/1315924156
http://www.truth-out.org/manufacturer-suggested-retail-prices-suggest-comics-companies-think-womens-work-worth-less/131712851

All of the Ladydrawers work is available on Truth Out on the feed here.

http://www.truth-out.org/ladydrawers/1312312269

Another Ladydrawer and I named Abe did a Vocalo interview for ladydrawers found here,

http://www.truth-out.org/vocalo-feature-ladydrawers-feminist-comic-series-radio-segment/1312314155

The second class was at Ox Bow and we spent two weeks making comics about our stats in the woods culminating in the show "No Sleep Till Comics" and the published anthology "UnLadylike." But that wasn't the end of my work with Ladydrawers as Anne asked Nicole and I to look in to DC's New 52 and run Laydrawers stats on them which were very detailed and extensive. But some of which Anne used to make this comic,

http://www.truth-out.org/how-draw-comics-new-52-way-more-women-fridges/1323181363

Another thing Ladydrawers is excited to be holding the Adventure School for Ladies which will be going on this summer and will be using that class to make comics for C.A.K.E. in June.

http://adventureshoolforladies.wordpress.com/

And you can download "Unladylike" the graphic novel we made at Ox-Bow here. It's limited in actual print number but digitally you are more than welcome to download it.

http://www.scribd.com/Ladydrawers/d/85414532-Unladylike

This is just the bare bones of the project and what the group is trying to do, which is basically document and bring awareness to all the gender inequalities and job discrimination that goes on in comics whether it's accidental or on purpose. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a line or to email Anne.

Batwoman

Some lovely Batwoman fanart because Kate Kane is my favorite. Also one of DC's only openly and  unapologetic lesbian characters. "Batwoman: Elegy" is beautiful and a very good read. Not so much the new 52 but that's an entirely different mess I could get in to. I won't. I'll save that rant for another day.