Season of MISTS

When word spread about this whole "Comics Destroyer" gig, many friends and colleagues suggested (and in some cases flat out D E M A N D E D ) that I take a stab at Neil Gaiman's much beloved The Sandman. 

What can I say?  I'm all about succumbing to the perils of peer pressure...

DC/Vertigo The Sandman: Season of Mists (1992) trade paperback,

random comic books, gloss medium and enamel on canvas.  24 x 48 inches.

The Sandman is hands-down an extremely well-crafted, epic piece of dramatic and intellectual literature that deserves every bit of praise and award it has garnered since it debuted in 1989 and ended in 1996.  

Much of it also absolutely DREADFUL to look at* as well, making it personally a tad bit difficult to get through, no matter how beautifully written it may be.

Interestingly enough, I of course chose to destroy the collection that I absolutely ADORE the most, and the one I usually recommend people read FIRST when giving The Sandman a try.

Although I do also own a very nice hardcover-edition of this book, the actual trade paperback I tore up for this piece was the very first Sandman I had ever bought, purchased at a comic book store I stumbled into when I was sixteen-years-old and vacationing in San Francisco with my parents.

Somewhere down the line I'm probably going to be very upset with myself for destroying my original copy, but a third of the pages were already falling from the spine and were SO brittle that it was basically destroyed anyway.

I just sped up the inevitable.

*To be fair, there are portions which are beyond the realm of gorgeousness.

Young < L I A R >

My apologies for taking so long to get this up, but that there is the finalized version of the "Young Liar" piece that I've been posting occasional progress reports on both here and on my Facebook account since the middle of March .  

Other than a couple of random comic books I don't remember using, this piece was made primarily out of issues 2-8 and 10-16 of DC Comics/Vertigo's Young Liars, matte medium, gloss medium, and enamel on stretched canvas measuring 36 x 48 inches.

The honest to God truth as to why I used Young Liars for this particular Destruction was because I found a boat load of them sitting inside a cheap quarter-bin while shopping inside a south suburban comic book shop earlier this year.  No more.  No less.

It should be noted though that as a comic book enthusiast, I did give Young Liars a try back when the first trade paperback collection came out in late 2008 because I'm a HUGE fan of creator David Lapham's work.

But at the time, it just wasn't for me.

I did, however, thoroughly enjoy re-reading them this second time through, so much so that the experience is now forever immortalized on canvas while the flies try to break our balls.*

Yes, that's a David Bowie reference.  There's LOTS of David Bowie references throughout Young Liars.

AND I DESTROYED THEM ALL.

The tablature on the right is a guitar riff or two that I started messing around with a couple of weeks ago that I've long since forgotten how to play... Although I guess that would be the point of me writing it down, eh?

And to the left we have ass cheeks.

It was scribbled entirely in pencil, pen, conte crayon and ink on a disposable sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch computer paper.  I was even inclined to torch the lower right-hand corner with a lighter, because that obviously was the key to tying the whole composition together.

 Hurm.

P I S S I N G_ the FLOOR_

An accurate illustration of what happens when you blend simple photo-editing with an excitable dachshund and a clever Andy Marfia.

MEETING NEIL IS EASY tends bar at your local DECAF PLANET every Tuesday and Thursday.

Head down.  Drink up.

 Thank you, Andy.

"The Battle in Me"

Pencil, pen, conte crayon, color pencil and ink on Bristol Board.  8.5 x 11 inches.

F O R E S H A D O W I N G ?

MEETING NEIL IS EASY tends bar at your local DECAF PLANET every Tuesday and Thursday.

Head down.  Drink up.