Extra! Read all about it.

While I had the 2001 files out yesterday, I saw this piece of art in passing, and remembered the circumstances of its making. The FACE magazine commissioned a drawing of Johnny Depp 'in the FROM HELL style'. I had already drawn him once before, for a tv camera in Paris (The French like a performing element in their cartooning). But this second one, I never should have agreed to it since I couldn't see a better way than just turning a movie still into a From hell panel. Here's was what I came up with. The magazine ran it too small, even smaller than the size you're seeing here. One might ask whether they were having second thoughts on the grounds of good taste except that they and stuck a label over it that read 'A ripping yarn', which clearly marks them as clods. (How many of those scores of papers that used 'ripping yarns' as a header thought they were being cute?)


This isn't bad for what it is; I got a relaxed figure after much effort, but I wish I'd stopped scraping the background hatching much sooner. It was my second attempt at the drawing. The original for the first attempt is in the possession of my pal Christopher Moonlight, who showed it on his blog recently. I abandoned this at the pencil stage and later threw some watercolour over it and put it in my convention portfolio. I'm sure Christopher has done some photoshop tweaking on it into the bargain.


I suspect I drew the next one for free, or didn't bother billing the French magazine Ciné Live, since it is such a carefree drawing, on rough paper with a 6b pencil. What a cluttered mess of a layout though. What were they thinking when they stuck that From Hell page in front the standing Ripper, but tucked under his mitt as though he's selling the late edition?



Ripping yarns! come an' get yer ripping yarns!