granov

Just before the all new suit debuts, one last hero shot of the old one.

Had a breakthrough with my art. Hard to look at past pages without seeing mistakes I never saw before. The interesting thing is that most people who have seen the difference don't know what I am going on about. But, not so surprisingly, Tamsin and a couple of my editors noticed and complimented on it right away.

I have limited the digital effect on my artwork to a minimum, so much so that I am utilizing about 5% of Photoshop's potential, which is what I like. I hate the thought of using something just because it creates an interesting effect but without understanding it or knowing how to recreate it. Having trained my whole life with traditional means I have struggled with the hierarchy of the digital process for years. It allows you to do things out of order and jump back and forth between steps, which sounds quite appealing, but it makes you very lazy; "I can't be bothered to draw that in now, I'll paint this first and get back to that later" kinda thing. It's sloppy and artificial. That is something that plagued me throughout my work for Humanoids and Dreamwave because I was on this trip that it's the way of the future. But when I started for Marvel I promised myself there would be no shortcuts, no easy ways out, not because I care what others will say, but because it degrades me as a craftsman and decays my integrity in my own eyes. So I have not taken any easy ways out on any of the stuff since, especially not Iron Man.

If I didn't think it would a complete professional suicide I would even go back to doing some acrylics and gouche. But then Iron Man would come out once a year... hehe.

Alright, so I went to see Episode 3 today. Tamsin refused to see it so I braved on my own. She is smarter than I. What a great, great waste this movie was. Not the least because it was so poorly acted by the two major protagonists, the Emperor and Anakin. Horrible overacting by the first and incredible deadpan, emotionless rubbish by the other. But the script was so horrid that even the otherwise good actors, such as Ewan and Jimmy Smiths, sounded like tools. And the line "You're breaking my heart..." was not worthy even of daytime TV. Unbelievable.

I loved some of the ships and vehicles, they were awesome. I also really liked the aliens from the sinkhole planet, real nice. I quite enjoyed Darth Vader being put together by the droids, unfortunatelly that whole sequnce was ruined by the birth cheese-fest, naming of the twins melodrama. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed Yoda this time round, he was laughable in the previous movie.

Anyhow. I didn't expect much at all, but somehow I got even less. It's such a wonderful potential with the scale of the SW universe and the creative freedom Lucas has, but he had no greater vision to let actual qualified people develop the movies into something other than a special effects soap opera.

All of this being brought sharply into focus recently by Battlestar Galactica, which somehow created a much stronger, smarter, greater sci-fi epic on a fraction of a budget that Lucas has.

In England a whole week now. Feels really good. The weather is pretty nuts, showering one minute and sunny the next. It's so beautiful here though, just amazingly green and pretty. Taking my hard urban edge away...

New Meshuggah album Catch 33 is amazing. Incredible rather. So very complex it's mind bogling, and if you're familiar with Meshuggah that's really saying something. And so so heavy. GRRRAAAAHHHH!

I am so addicted to Battlestar Galactica it's not even funny. Bought both the pilot and the first season on DVD. About 12 hours of great. Plus 45 min of deleted scenes, which I haven't seen yet. But Tamsin and I have been going through the episodes and even second or third time viewing doesn't make them any less special (I've seen some a couple of times on reruns on tv). I really hope season two keeps it up, which I have faith in. Plus it's been confirmed that it's 20 episodes which is a proper season now :) Starts in July.

To all over-excited Star Wars fans. Please, pretty please with a cherry on top, stop proclaiming the Episode 3 to be the second coming before you actually see the movie. It's starting to be really fucking annoying and I can't go an hour without hearing or reading something about it. Look, episodes 1 and 2 weren't exactly very good, and some would say, they were rather awful. So the track record is not exactly warranting all this excitment. And other than the childhood memories of wonder and awe of the original movies there is really not much else to go on. For all I know this movie could be the best movie ever created but we don't know that until we see it do we? So please just shut the fuck up already, I think I and just about everybody else knows that you are excited, no need to shove it down our throats anymore.

Thanks!

(prompted by the people who look at me in disbelief whan I say I am not interested to go see it the first day it comes out)

The awesomest Brian Michael Bendis set up a new message board for me on his Jinxworld website/board. http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/index.php

It's a general interests kinda board full of the usual nonsense but maybe a bit more comic book centered. I am very excited to have a board of my own on Jinxworld as the company I keep is quite awesome, including Brian himself, David Mack who I adore on both professional and personal level, as well as Alex Maleev who's art makes me cry with joy.

Listening to the new NIN album. So far I really like it which is both good and bad. Usually if I find something this easy to swallow right away it proves too weak to stand the time. But we'll see...

I kept hearing how it's much more like Pretty Hate Machine and retro, etc... But, in my opinion, is nothing of such. It sounds like a more pop orientated The Fragile. Same bass/guitar/piano interplay but in a more upbeat arrangement. In fact, I bet that a lot of the parts would be indistinguishable from the Fragile if you slowed them down.

So, on that front nothing exactly new, pretty familiar territory. But as I said, so far I like it quite a bit.

Due to a slight miscalculation I had an evening to myself the other day. So, since I have nothing better to do, I drew this:



No sense or reason to it really. I just wanted to draw something non mechanical, something soft, and something graceful. There is some smudging that showed up in the scan but can't really be seen on the original, particularly on her breast. :(

In other news. Front242's new DVD "Catch the Men" Is quite awesome. The production is great and the selection of tracks is very good. Great purchase. Although it's only available in Europe, but the shipping from Brussels to Chicago was very resonable.

Other than that, I am kinda starved for new and exciting music.

About a month left til my move to England...

I met Geoff Darrow today and we talked for a while. He drew me a dinosaur and seemed very impressed with Iron Man. He said that he's a huge IM fan and that Big Guy is the Iron Man story Marvel wouldn't let him do. Interesting. Very, very nice guy. Althought I technically met him years ago at a con back then I was part of the faceless crowd and this time he was as interested in me as I was in him. It's a great life that I live where I can walk up to my heroes and be treated as an equal. He actually stated he will be buying Iron Man from now on and seemed very impressed (and puzzled) that we did a whole issue without Iron Man ever showing up.

And here's something that has so much novelty value I will be laughing about it for years.
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/601-8845168-1003356?%5Fencoding=UTF8&frombrowse=&asin=B0007WJ4MG

Dieselboy's latest mix album is incredible. The Dungeonmaster's Guide. I've never been a huge fan of Drum'n Bass but this whole disc is pretty amazing. I have no idea how altered any of the tracks are from their original versions (it's a continuous mix album) but they are mixed to perfection and all sound as if composed by the same people.

Registered adigranov.net and got 3gb of web space. I have no idea what to do with that much space since my entire website is 17mb, but that was their "basic" plan... So I'll have to find something usefull to do with it.

The Art Institute of Chicago (not to be confused with the AI schools) want me to do somekinda presentation thing for them about my work and such. My sister teaches there so when the word got out that I was her brother they got excited. I like doing that kinda stuff and an extra couple of hundred bucks never hurt anyone. Plus I get to go for some free life drawing there which is nice.

Warren Ellis and I are both special guests at the Toronto Comicon, or so does their website say. Hi Warren!

Never been to Toronto. I'm very interested to see what it's like. I've been to Canada a bunch of times but never on this side, Vancouver mostly.

I haven't left my desk for 14 hours straight. I think it's time for bed.

Back in the States, a few days now. It's nice in Chicago, good weather, cold but sunny. Great walking around listening to music weather. Too bad I have no time to do that... Ah well.

I made time to go buy an MP3 player. Since I dislike the whole iPod craze, and I think the things are quite ugly, in the electric toothbrush kinda way, I decided to get something different. After reading a bunch of reviews I settled on Creative's Nomad Zen Xtra 40gb. I figure if I can't fit all my music on 40 gigs then I probably have too much of it anyhow. So I've been going and ripping my CDs in order of preference and realized that I had forgotten a bunch of these CDs I have that I really need to listen to again. I remember when I was 13 it was either G'n'R Appetite for Destruction or G'n'R Lies, nothing else existed.

I bought a few of cEvin Key's CDs, a few of his Download albums and one of his solo things too. I will have to get all of it now as I really like it. More so than I like Skinny Puppy since Ogre's voice often gets irritating.

Oh, I am also addicted to Meshuggah's I. Damn rifftastic. It's my personal soundtrack to Iron Man getting his ass kicked by a badass firebreathing motherfucker.

Did a signing in Leeds yesterday. It was supposed to last 2 hours, went on for more than 3. I was early and 20 min before it was supposed to start there was a big line of people waiting patiently. I was impressed. My first signing in the UK and the comic fans here are incredibly nice and patient.

Much thanks to the Traveling Man crew, they made our day excellent!

For the artists that might be reading this. I organized and am sponsoring this contest with some cool prizes and even better judges.

http://www.eatpoo.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32854

I can't find the picture on line anywhere but the latest Wizard has an add for the new She-Hulk action figure based on my cover for SH #2. It's really weird they decided to base it on that particular cover. Looks just like the illustration except they changed the car she is holding up, which is too bad as I drew the prototype of the new mustang.

There is also a bust of She-Hulk coming out which is based on the way I draw her (which is frankly too bad since I like the way Bobilo draws her on the interiors more) but it's just a regular pinup pose kinda thing.

I just saw ISIS live. I am actually speechless. I talk so much about their music but their live show has destroyed any doubt whatsoever that they are one of the greatest bands in existence. It didn't feel as much like we were listening to the music but rather surfing on the sonic appocalypse. Amazing.

In other news, I need to find a good, or better yet, excellent web designer to design me a new site.

And in more news, only three and a half weeks left till I am in England for Christmas!

Got the new Massive Attack soundtrack to Danny the Dog movie. It's really good. I like it far more than I liked their last real album. It reminds me in a way of the Dust Brother's Fight Club soundtrack, in concept more so than execution. It's not a score but it is all original, all new, collection of instrumental "songs". Great stuff.

Frank Quitely is so great. I just think these We3 covers are so good.

I became a Citizen of the USA today.

It's been 4 years overdue since I've been here some 9 years now. Think of it what you will but I am really damn happy. It's easy to complain about the US but for those of us from those forsaken shitholes around the globe America is still the pinnacle of freedom. Western Europeans talk shit about the US all the time but when my family and I were refugees living in a refugee camp in a country which didn't want us on the brink of starvation and in absolute poverty, none of these "liberal" democratic nations wanted to have anything to do with us. And trust me, we tried. Denmark, Sweden, UK, Germany, Norway, France, we pleaded with them all, for years. The US took us with open arms, gave us shelter and the opportunity to work and provide for ourselves. And somehow this is the country considered the oppressor. Take Denmark for instance, they took in some thousands of Bosnian refugees, put them in old factory housing projects, gave them welfare, forbid them from working, forbid them from going to regular schools and kicked them out as soon as the "peace" was signed. Fuck you Denmark!

As soon as I set foot in the US I was given the opportunity to go to any schools, colleges and universities, I was given the opportunity to work and do whatever the hell I wanted. I am drawing comics for Marvel for fuck's sake. And for all its faults this is the only country which never discriminated against us in any way (and if you consider where I am from there could be a whole lot one could discriminate against).

So yes, I am proud and proud of it. The Swedish or the French might hate me, but now they hate me because my country can blow their's up, before they hated me because I was a dirty, stinking refugee. So fuck you Sweden, you can kiss my American ass!