ILM

Fruit platter

2012-01-24T15:41:00.000-08:00

Animals

2012-01-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

The Norwegian Rat actually comes from China.

Shot cop

2011-12-21T12:52:00.000-08:00

Art Exhibition/Holiday Fair

2011-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

My art will be on display and available for purchase at A Couple of Artists Art Fair at the Rabbit Hole gallery, at 33 Washington Street in Dumbo. Their press release is here. I'll be there during the opening, stop by and say hi.

Color experiment

2011-12-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Image from the same story, sort of.

The mirror.

2011-12-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

Shoes

2011-10-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Drawings of shoes like fuckin art school freshman year yeah i know right?

Flotsam

2011-10-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

*Oh hey cool thesideeffectsofthecocaine was shit comixed I love that tumblr. Also, 'effects' was spelled wrong for like two years.

*Character designs/sketches.

My map of Africa is in America, like Bismark sez.

2011-10-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Unused art.

My new career

2011-10-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Preamble: I wasn't liking where this comic was going so I rewrote the script in prose form, getting rid of...pretty much everything except for the main character and butterflies in the process. Going in and doing thumbnails from the script I decided it worked much better in pure prose, since so much of it is internal. So here it is.

My New Career

Lately I’ve been thinking about choosing private investigator as my long term career so I’ve been talking about it, bringing it up in conversations as often as I can. I’ve talked about making detective (like the police say in those movies) enough that it became one of my defining features at my present job. Coworkers started giving me advice, like ‘first become a cop or ‘take night classes at an institute’ or ‘do something else like be a process server, and have you considered nursing?’ My supervisors heard about my ambition, and although honestly it’s not a very interesting trait word somehow spread to other departments and so at the end of one day as I was walking out a woman I never talked to but had seen around stopped me and asked me to spy on her boyfriend.

“I heard you want to make detective.”

“I…guess.” I didn’t have a snappy response. I thought she was being mean. I remembered hating high school.

“It’s that…I heard about you and I think my boyfriend is cheating on me and so maybe I could just pay someone to find out without going to some agency or sneaking around myself? I don’t have time for that.”

“Oh sure that sounds great.”

***

Sitting in a Dunkin’ Donuts later waiting for the boyfriend (Dennis) to leave her (Chantal) apartment I wished I had been cleverer. She was nice looking and could be single soon. I sat there for an hour before she called me to say that Dennis was going to spend the night with her.

At lunch the next day Chantal suggested another time and date and told me to take pictures of whoever he hung out with. This was annoying. I wanted to be asking her questions, catching her in evasions and untruths and revealing a web of lies concealing something terrible, not just stalking her boyfriend. But she was paying me $200 a day so what I said was “Sounds good, thanks.”

After work I followed him. I followed him from East Williamsburg onto the M and into Manhattan. He made his transfers, and so did I and after getting off at Grand Central we walked a few blocks to an expensive looking fake-Mexican place I would never think to go into by myself but figuring my client would foot the bill I took a seat at the bar, ordered a $12 drink and tried to look at him in the reflection in the window near the bar as he sat with his friends. I couldn’t manage it and feeling conspicuous I called a friend and offered him $50 if he would help me blend in. I convinced him but then they all left together and took a cab somewhere.

My friend came, I told him to get the $12 drink with the odd name, we thought that was good fun so we tried out other weirdly named drinks like ‘Sombrero Punch’, ‘Puebla Sunset’ and ‘Honduras Death Squad.’ (It was light and sweet)

***

At lunch the next day Chantal was less amused than someone should be by a Honduras Death Squad.

“Steal his laptop. I don’t want to waste money having you watch him drink with his friends. Get me proof.”

I just looked at her, wondering if refusing would put an end to the job and her money, because I’m not getting charged with theft and furthermore I don’t have a good background in that sort of skill set. It was as if my day-job employer asked me to do something technical in Quickbooks and if I failed I would spend time in prison.

“I would…I would pay a $1000 dollars for it. And if you got caught, just say I told you to, he wouldn’t charge me, he would drop charges, he wouldn’t dare.”

“Still, I don’t think this is… like, it’s as if you asked me to do something technical in Quickbooks which I’m not familiar with and-"

“It’s his work laptop and he never lets me see it. It’s strange. I know he has something incriminating there, saved pictures, something.”

“Let me just…try and get you pictures myself, of, y’know if I see him kissing another girl, pay me like a bonus, but until then reduce my rate or something…”

“Fine. I think if I had the laptop it…but fine.”

She looked unhappy with my compromise and I was suddenly a lot less annoyed with this case. ‘She wanted the laptop all along and something else is going on!’ Ah-hah!, yes, yes.

***

They had plans to go out together, or stay in together or something, because the next night there was no Manhattan-Brooklyn-Manhattan boomerang stalking, today was Google search day. The finds were disappointing; neither looked the type to be travelling the dark edges of the corridors of power. No news articles, names in shady think tanks, nothing. They were on Facebook, and Chantal hadn’t set her privacy very high. Her profile was normal, it declared she was in a relationship with one Dennis D., whose profile was private. Nothing juicy about that, and the full-body shot of him in cargo pants on a hiking trail didn’t tell me anything.

I called Connor over but he had nothing to add. Before letting him vent about his girl troubles we went over what I knew, and decided my unofficial entry in the private-eye world was pretty ignominious. I had watch Dennis drink with his male friends, I had no idea if there was another woman, and if Chantal was using me in some double game to steal a laptop this seemed a counter-intuitive way to do it.

***

“He’s going to Rochester this weekend. He says it’s a conference but if there’s any place he could see her without me knowing that would be it.”

“Oh…that’s annoying. I’m sorry.”

“I can pay for bus tickets and a hotel room. Do you have a driver’s license? Because now would be a great time to get those photos.”

I thought it strange she was throwing money around like this. I don’t even have a cubicle at my job; I have a space at a desk, a flow of documents to scan, data to enter, and packages to send. Something as simple as buying a new $169 flatscreen TV with HD that worked with my Xbox was something that required thought and planning, even with Chantal splurging on me. That a worker in another department (not even a boss) could drop a few thousand on a hunch about a boyfriend, not even a husband, was humiliating on top of the strangeness.

“Have you thought about just, uh, being sort of upfront? Ask him to be honest?”

“Hah, uh, yeah? I can tell you have never been cheated on because they always tell you this is something they’re above, don’t worry, I would never hurt you. Then they hug and kiss. No, I’m not going to ask this time. This time I’m going to get him.”

I borrowed Connor’s car, sort of, he decided to come along for the adventure which I think he did so he could talk more about his girl problems. I dealt with that by blasting Lil Wayne, then blasting cock-rock, nodding to both the music and whatever he was saying about Jill, how she was unfair, he was so nice, but yet, and she said this but that contracted her ideals on this, when you think about it, and…

***

Dennis wasn’t lying to Chantal about a conference in Rochester, anyway. He went from one hotel to the meeting room of another, and I followed if only so I could get look at what he worked for. It seemed to be a butterfly conservation conference, which was surprising. My expectations keep getting dashed, there is no way this a secretive meeting of international weapons-manufacturing firms, or lobbyists planning to derail regulations. Connor pointed out that if I only asked Chantal what exactly Dennis did I wouldn’t get so let down. It was a good point. Why didn’t I think to ask her that?

***

I was taking pictures on my phone and talking with Connor as Dennis ate a sandwich at a deli with mixed gender company when Dennis unhurriedly crossed the street as if walking to an ATM, came up to us and grabbed my phone. “Um hey!” I said as he flicked through the history of photos, from reflections in that Mexican bar, the back of his head at a conference and him at the deli. He handed it back to me gently.

“You don’t scare me. Who are you? What are you doing?”

“We shouldn’t scare you.”

“Who are you guys?”

“Uh…Who are you?”

“Who am I? Who are you, following me around all week?”

“Maybe just tell him?” Connor interjected. I hoped Dennis would ask if some third party I didn’t know had sent us, someone trying to disrupt butterfly conservation in New York State and was stonewalling for this unintended confession.

“I think he knows. I think he knows exactly who we are.”

“No. I have no idea. I see you near my house, I see you at a bar, I see you taking of pictures of me just now and I have no, absolutely no idea, what anyone would stalk me for. What. What the fuck?”

I didn’t have any names or organizations to say I was a part of, and I didn’t want to expose Chantal.

“Exactly, Mr. Davis. What the fuck?” And with that Connor and I tried to walk away as coolly as possible, Connor ruining the effect by looking confused, and headed into a parking garage. I hoped Dennis would stand there dazed and angry, but he started following us. His friends left the deli and were coming to see what was going on. There were five of them, two women, and the two other men looked suddenly looked more threatening. Tanned, outdoorsy biker conservation dudes. More healthy and rugged than hard-edged and dangerous, but Connor and I were pasty and slight office workers.

I was trying not to seem panicked but I didn’t want them to follow us and see what car we used. I swiveled around to give them a look, and I saw it.

One of the women was asking Dennis what was going on, or something. Her eyes were tender. She was touching a shoulder and a bicep and I could see she was letting part of her breast press into the back of his arm. Was this normal feminine tenderness? The other woman wasn’t getting this close, although she was visibly curious.

“AH HAH, MR. DAVIS!” I yelled as loud as I could. Startled, she squeezed onto him like I hoped and I snapped a picture, swiveled back around and broke into a run. I ran to a pillar, ducked behind a car and sent it to Chantal. Getting up to run again I felt a force on my back and a car window rush up and crack itself on the side of my head.

“Chantal was right, huh?”

Then the wind decided to exit my body and he took his fist out of my gut and around my phone. He lost his previous respect for private property, smashed it against an elbow thrown up to protect my head and then threw it at Connor.

I felt wonderful. Chantal wasn’t manipulating me to devious deeds on the behest of some knockoff Bildenburg Group and my prospective investigative career was off to a relatively good start. The Other Woman had herself draped comfortingly around a shaken Dennis Davis. I sat down on the pavement, rested my head against the car and imagined comforting Chantal in my manly, bruised state. I win, I said.

Fascist

2011-08-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

Film festival poster line art

2011-08-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

2011-07-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

Scum II

2011-07-09T14:44:00.001-07:00

Toys.

2011-07-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Just ate a butterfly

2011-06-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Panel 1

2011-04-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Panel 1. Posting is going to be even lighter as I take my laptop to the shop before it dies. I have other panels done, but what I think I'll do is start putting them up on my website in chunks monthly, starting in June. Probably.

Safe City I (Suicidal Thinking Thoughts)

2011-04-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn

2011-04-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Academic.

2011-03-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

Tag team

2011-03-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

Fanart/ Born this Way

2011-03-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

Congrats to the family Collins.

Halal cart.

2011-03-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

Walk through it.

2011-02-28T17:31:00.000-08:00

Aborted

2011-02-12T10:53:00.001-08:00

Willy Witty.

2011-02-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Cover for Willy Witty's mixtape, Caracas York, a Venezuelan American Spanish language rapper. Find him on Facebook, listen to him here.

Queens at Night

2011-01-23T09:47:00.000-08:00

(4 panel comic; that's it. Might replace Misc Comics on my portfolio site.)

Heel Turn

2011-01-13T15:55:00.000-08:00

Bif Bam Pow

2011-01-05T17:18:00.000-08:00

Bringing in the new year and my sisters 20th birthday (today, the 5th) with a Bif! at repaneled here. Incidentally Sulk #2 is one of the best fight comics ever.

Gift Post

2010-12-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

A Christmas gift for my girlfriend who likes all these things. Even pinups. (also yeah she saw it already.)

Safe City 2

2010-11-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

OK, absence over.

Safe City

2010-10-31T09:49:00.001-07:00

I remember when the monsters started coming for the cars.

2010-10-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

A comic made with Sean T. Collins is now up on my website, check it out.

Creep.

2010-10-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

Jamaica, Queens from the train

2010-10-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

Birth control! Haha I mean earth patrol! Teehee! That Royce Roll!

2010-09-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have like 3 songs that I vary the volume with at times.

2010-09-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm so busy! Busy with my business! Don't have time to do once a week as much as I would like! Here's a sketch.

That's Been Done.

2010-09-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

Drew a corny, nerdy pinup for the pitch perfect 'Superheroes with Jackets' tumblr site, check it out here. And the rest of the site here.

BOOOM and there's a MASSIVE FIREBALL

2010-08-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

Booosh! Kchhhhkhh! Ffffchhhh! RRRR!EEEEE! Je ne suis pas Francais et mon linge ce n'est pas claire.

Harlem

2010-08-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

Harlem, as seen from the Bronx.

Unintelligible Scraps

2010-08-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

Monster

2010-08-05T17:17:00.001-07:00

Poop it's been a while since I posted...busy. More! More to come.

And now, combined.

2010-07-20T18:49:00.001-07:00

Look ma, no nib!

2010-07-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

Brush only.

Practice

2010-07-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

I think your religion is really so great. So much culture!

2010-07-15T16:16:00.000-07:00

Copies (kinda) of renaissance paintings. Saint Peter and Susanna, Guido Reni, Artemisia Gentileschi.

RIP Pekar

2010-07-12T20:48:00.001-07:00

RIP Harvey Pekar. Above was drawn by Chester Brown, it's my favorite version of Harvey. (From 'The New American Splendor Anthology' copyright Harvey Pekar, Chester Brown, I think, Four Windows Eight Walls publishing.)

Surface, technique.

2010-07-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

*New blog title; ILM, Isaac Leo Moylan. Simpler.

*Testing out my stippling technique, on the heads of the main characters from this comic. Go back, do it without so much flat blacks.

Page 15

2010-07-11T10:58:00.001-07:00

After a 3 month hiatus, this story. Page 15.

WW Covered

2010-07-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Did a cover of the above for Covered, it's up now, check it out. Didn't know WW was getting a costume design when I drew it a few weeks ago. Nothing against it, pants are cool.

Man

2010-06-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

[Drawings] tighter than a dick in the but.

2010-06-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

Cold Fire, You've Got Everything But Cold Fire

2010-06-20T13:27:00.001-07:00

Doing a thing for a thing, but I was like, why am I doing this thing? Too much time, and that roof is way too steep and it looks like that tree is witchblading from her back. Wouldn't put it in a portfolio or nothing had this been perfect anyway so this is it's best state. Do not worry finished things I am positive about forthcoming.

Some Guy, I Dunno.

2010-06-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Sketch of MF Doom and a study of a woman kicking something for that comic I stopped putting pages up of. I have pages I'll get back to it! maybe. Went through a phase where I thought, like, I'll draw lots of musicians?

You're still an asshole

2010-06-10T17:53:00.001-07:00

Just a sketch of a punch.

I will be there when you turn out the light.

2010-06-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

Pages 9 and 10 of that thing I posted 8 other pages of earlier.

No one gets what I've done, everyone else seems to look through.

2010-05-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

*Pages 7 and 8 of that thing I posted 6 pages of.

*Side Effects of the Cocaine Dept: Short, nice review of Side Effects here, by Jee Leong Koh, a poet. Peripheral: comics come up in one of his poems here, although that one is mostly about genocide and sex.

The colored version.

2010-05-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

I think I should make them even flatter.

2010-05-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

Right. This isn't exactly new subject matter here from me, but I'll get tired of inky swamps and forests with lone, or few, figures when never.

Page 6

2010-05-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

Page 6 of that thing that I put 5 pages up of.

Pay homage respect.

2010-05-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

The characters from the comics pages 2 posts below star in this Raymond Pettibon homage. The caption is the title. In whatever form the comic ever appears this will be in front of the table of contents or something, just to show, like, this is the 70s the comic is set in, not, I dunno, 'bronze age' vision of the decade's 70s. Maybe, I dunno.

Her crisis is financial

2010-05-02T10:51:00.001-07:00

It doesn't say I shouldn't but I don't know.

2010-04-29T11:56:00.001-07:00

Pages from a project I'm putting together. Between working on this and my new job, posting should be getting lighter for a while.

This is where he fucks up at, peep his movements.

2010-04-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

Page 13.

Page 12

2010-04-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Page 12.

Draw like you have issues.

2010-04-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

*Was thinking of sending something to Covered, but this didn't really work out. I'll have to cover another comic cover for covered.

*Short reaction to The Side Effects of The Cocaine here.

Resume Normalcy

2010-04-11T16:49:00.000-07:00

Side Effects of the Cocaine/MoCCA

2010-04-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

The final cover. Available at MoCCA this weekend at the Partyka table, number C18.

Side effects of the comic 3

2010-04-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Better? Also, I'll be at MoCCA, be there.

Side effects of the comic 2.

2010-04-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

More drawings that don't make it to the final product.

Some Kind of metal, made out of glue

2010-03-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

Concept: there are a lot of guest stars on the 3rd Gorillaz album.

New York, hell of a finer town, from the Bogey down to Chinatown.

2010-03-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

*This is page one, all other pages posted before this are now plus 1.

*You see rats a lot but New York subways are the best in the world. Really.

Old Sketch

2010-03-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

Did this a little after seeing Green Zone. Yeah, I know his torso is way too long.

Logistically I know this would never work.

2010-03-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Page 10.

And so on.

2010-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Page 9.

Thys Fokars

2010-03-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

This blog has been pretty black and white, it needs a bit of color.

Pf..I don't know. At some point?

2010-03-10T19:47:00.001-08:00

Page 8.

1 iced coffee, 2 regular coffees, all with milk, all small.

2010-03-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

Page 7.

Daps Department: If you like my work, you might like something that is the opposite of my work. Kristin Leavitt, delicate where I am rough, soft where I am pulpy. Check out her David Bowie to see what I mean.

Sticky knuckles. (from blood)

2010-03-04T22:40:00.000-08:00

I should probably put these in order. And put the posts in a label of sorts.

You wasn't never shit/ Your mother should have swallowed you

2010-02-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

Side Effects of the Cocaine/New Site.

2010-02-22T17:17:00.000-08:00

Check them both out here.

And now, dialog.

2010-02-17T00:43:00.001-08:00

Pop!

2010-02-07T22:07:00.001-08:00

Continuing.

2010-02-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

*Page 3.

*I can't ever seem decide on a good standard size for these.

*This blog is four years old last month. Hm.

Write the check before the baby comes, who the fuck cares.

2010-01-28T20:07:00.001-08:00

*Page 2 of dicking around fight scene.

*Oh by the way this comic is set in Boston, where I spent the first 4 years of my life. The Departed has made Boston America's real second city. Think about it! but not too hard.

*Kudos dept: Fellow SVA '09 alumni Nicole Virella is now kind of a big deal.

A, B, A, C, D.

2010-01-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

Cringe

2010-01-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

Side effects of the comic

2010-01-03T14:30:00.001-08:00

Face sketches, unfinished and replaced panel.

More Pointlessness

2010-01-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

According to Google this is my most popular post fuck that this is an art blog wtf am I talking about...deleted it lets keep it art. Or at least not call people retards.

English and Americans and David Bowie

2009-12-11T01:16:00.000-08:00

First, check it out. That MYSTERY! comic I was talking about is about David Bowie, this is the first panel of the second page. It took me a while to draw but I think it was worth it.

Also, looking back it seems almost all of the comics I've done that aren't about women beating up monsters are about the English. (caution on the links, some of it is old and I'm not really proud of much of it) I'm not really an Anglophile at all, I should point out. And I was pretty unhappy with that comic about the Krays as I was making it, actually; at the time I was also reading Camorra and about some of the American gangsters of the same time, which really put the lie to the bullshit around the Krays and the stuff that supports their legend, like The Long Good Friday. The Krays and many of the other gangsters of the time were just celebrities, all the glamor of mobsters with only a hint of the real violence used by the Camorra in Naples or even the American mob, for that matter. A frightened American telling Bob Hoskins that he's scared of all this violence in England before Bob Hoskins gets killed by the IRA is all just so much nationalist bullshit.

Which really has nothing to do with this current biographical comic about this English man. David Bowie build his stardom over actual musical talent and to a lesser extent, the ability to wear anything and look good in it. I have nothing against him, he's great.

Boston

2009-12-05T14:43:00.001-08:00

More unfinished. This would have been the background for a figure.

Witty Unpredictable Talented And Natural Game

2009-12-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

Drawing, never finished.

And, ain't there a woman I can sock on the jaw?

2009-11-27T17:41:00.001-08:00

The character I draw these pin-ups of, over and over again. I mentioned before that I was working on a comic with her in it, but at this point I wonder if the whole mythology and ideas in my head are too convoluted for anyone but me to make sense of.

All In the 'gether now, swordsmen forever now

2009-11-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

I guess I can say this now, doing a comic with Sean (T) Collins, notable comics blogger and writer for a number of fine publications. Read some of his comics here. It's an honor.

This drawing has nothing to do with it, can't say what the comic is about yet IT'S A SECRET OK.!

This sort of thing never gets old

2009-11-09T13:46:00.001-08:00

Piano Wire up the Abdomen

2009-11-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

Did this comic while I was still in SVA, only posting it now that I'm busy with something else.

Halloween post, sort of.

2009-10-30T15:50:00.001-07:00

Sort of a Halloween post. Especially if you like to dress up like someone from the early 20th century or are scared of women or black people.

A kiss.

2009-10-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

From a work in progress.

Every day

2009-10-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

All Day

2009-10-19T16:17:00.001-07:00

ILM