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Why yes, that IS Sonic the Hedgehog's pal Tails menacing a Warhammer 40K Space Marine with a "chainsaw sword" while Frank Zappa saunters by in the background with a disapproving look on his face. What of it?
 
Bunches more, including one (1) image of two (2) David Byrnes, in the COMMISSIONS GALLERY. That place is getting to be the coolest gallery on my site, actually... If only my whole professional life could be nothing but Serenity Rose and peculiar commissions.
If you'd like to request your OWN rendering of Frank Zappa (or anything else) send your angry demands to SERENITY@HEARTSHAPEDSKULL.COM. The base price is $50, and $30 for each additional character on the same page. Shipping is all kinds of free within the U.S., and a mere $3 to parts beyond.
I probably won't be able to dig into any new commissions until around December 1st, so this is pretty much THE call for CHRISTMAS REQUESTS right here... And I already have a few folks in the queue, so if you were hoping for a sketch of mine to wad up in somebody's stocking this year, NOW IS YOUR TIME!
HERE ARE SUPERHEROES:
 
One of these guys is called "Wiccan." Not to be confused with Brendan "BAD ASS" Li's immortal character of the same name. (COMIX: Not just for kids anymore!) |
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PLEASE, SHIELD YOUR EYES AND PRESERVE YOUR SANITY!
Some years ago, on a suffocating August night here in Ol' Virginny, my good friend Jhonen V. and I, having recently eaten our fill of filthy meat and raw terbacky, retired to the porch of my crumbling Antebellum mansion to watch mosquitoes drain our blood and reminisce about the old times. Between puffs on our corn-cob pipes we spoke of many things, but, as was our custom, the conversation soon turned to our mutual friend Rikki S., and his terrible ways with Ham.
HERE IS THAT CONVERSATION IN FULL.
Soon after that fateful night, Jhonen began to fill a FLICKR SET with etchings of the Unspeakable Thing, as if by forcing strangers to render the hateful image again and again he could somehow exorcize it from his agonized mind. (As to his ultimate success or failure I cannot say, as the coroner's document remains painfully elusive on all matters immaterial.) I, for my part, returned to the darkest corner of my decaying ancestral home and crouched there in the stultifying shadows, swaying and staring, staring, EVER STARING, and thinking only of the Hams and the Furnace and the hateful Thing that would one day bring both of them to me.
I crouched there for 2 years, 10 months, 3 days and 13 hours... then someone commissioned me to do this drawing for fifty bucks.
"WHATEVER," I said.
And then Rikki colored it, it being HIS Ham Chamber and all. I think we can all agree it's pretty hideous and disturbing and you wouldn't want to be stuck sitting next to it on a bus or anything, but man... Not sure it was worth dying in a madhouse over or anything. But ha! I guess that's just how it goes sometimes.
Crazy stuff, man!
Get your own HAM DEMON PRINT, signed by me and the Mr. Ham Demon himself, Rikki Simons, right about here:
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FIRST OF ALL...
BIG THANK YOU to everyone who's been following GOODBYE CRESTFALLEN week after week for the past 600 years. (It's been 600 years, right? Seems like 600.) I really do appreciate you guys coming here week after week, month after month, decade after decade, supporting the comic and making me feel like I'm not just screaming, feebly, into a hideously empty void. You have rendered me VOID-LESS, and I am enjoying it quite a lot indeed!
I especially appreciate all you comment-leaving types out there (and not just for the free spell-checking you provide). All the guessing and theorizing and whatnot is just BRILLIANT... I think some of you (Alphatroll) have given more thought to how the witching world works than *I* have. (Was that MATH in there??)
(You are strongly encouraged to continue speculating wildly in the official-type Serenity Rose forum, Bubblegum Noir.)
SO.
I guess the question is...
WHEN IS VOLUME 3?
SOON.
Well... hopefully soon, anyway. My policy is that I won't start Serenity's next story until I'm ABSOLUTELY 100% NO-SCREWING-AROUND-HERE POSITIVE I can tear through all 120-some-odd pages, two per week, until it's done. It takes a long, long, veryvery long time to render out these Serenity Rose pages, unfortunately, and it's very hard to balance that time with the time spent, y'know, "making a living."
The demon Botched Deadline claws hungrily at my mindmeats, and his hateful little imp, Irregular Update, taunts me every night in my dreams.
A Serenity Rose book costs roundabout $8000 to make, believe it or not, so if I'm going to make another one, I need to pile up some money for a while... There are a couple of long(ish)-term freelance projects hovering over my head right now maybe possibly, so that's good, but YOU TOO can help support the Serenity Rose Vol. 3 Completion Fund...
HERE IS HOW:
1) Pre-Order THE BOOK! And help spread the words!
2) Pick out some ORIGINAL ART!
3) Grab a PRINT!
4) Request a SKETCH COMMISSION!
5) DIRECT DONATIONS! I'm just like NPR.
With luck I'll have the proper SR funds raised and a nice clear desk within a year. But... of course, if any of you happen to have $8000 lying around RIGHT NOW, I could get Volume 3 rolling by January 1st. Check your sock drawers, folks!
(NOTE: Heartshapedskull.com will NOT (repeat: NOT) be lying fallow during these dark, lonely days of money-grubbing Seralessness. Nope, I definitely have some thinks in mind, and maybe if you come back in a week or two, you'll see what I mean.)
And thank you again for reading and supporting Serenity's little story over the years. I am literally bursting my guts to show you what happens next.
BOOK 3 (and 4) AWAIT.
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PRINT EDITION...
DECEMBER, 2009...
IN COLOR...
GYAARRGHH!
(See how I didn't bury all that good information in some long-winded paragraph with a million silly parentheticals like a usually do? Right up top and totally unambiguous this time. Nice job with the marketing, man!)
PRESS RELEASE:
"When you're a witch with night terrors, you might just start conjuring unspeakable monsters in your sleep. That's what's happening to Serenity Rose, noted witch, artist, and social-phobic, in the much-anticipated second volume of Serenity Rose by Aaron Alexovich (Kimmie66, Confessions of a Blabbermouth).
In Serenity Rose Volume Two: Goodbye, Crestfallen, due out from SLG Publishing in December 2009, Serenity is doing her best to stay awake, but if that's not enough to make her crack, the government goons hassling her, the freaked-out tourists ogling her, and the sadistic blond witch that's been following her will! Add into that some heavy friendship drama and the past coming back to haunt her, and it's no wonder the stress is just about killing Sera. Can she get her head on straight before she brings the whole town down with her?
'I wanted to seriously push myself art-wise, and tell a tight, focused, very personal story with a lot of heavy horror atmosphere and some intense, bizarre action scenes,' said Alexovich. 'I think people who liked the first book will be really surprised by this one. It's the best stuff I've ever done, and I'm beyond excited that SLG decided to let everyone see it in full, bloody, ectoplasmicky color. I promise not to make them wait 78 years for the next one.'
Serenity Rose Volume Two: Goodbye, Crestfallen is a 144-page, full-color graphic novel full of horror, turmoil -- and monsters as only Alexovich can draw them. Its ISBN is 978-1-59362-181-0 and it can be PRE-ORDERED AT COMIC BOOK STORES NOW with the DIAMOND CODE OCT090665.
Established in 1986, SLG Publishing is a San Jose, California based publisher of comic books, graphic novels and related merchandise. Some of SLG's more notable comics and creators have included Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez, Milk and Cheese by Evan Dorkin and Zombies Calling by Faith Erin Hicks. For more information, visit the SLG Publishing website, WWW.SLGCOMIC.COM."
SCREAM IT TO THE HEAVENS, PLEASE.
Because I would really appreciate it.
If you're into that sort of thing.
Thank you! |
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Huh. I seem to have a finished book here. 2 years of my life and 122 painfully pencil-rendered pages, all formatted, zipped-up and delivered to SLG Publishing. Should be some news about that before too long.
I feel like I should be more... jubilant right now, but honestly I just feel sort of... deflated. I'm really happy with how the book turned out - or, well, the book feels like ME at least, it feels RIGHT, which all I can really ask for - and I'm beyond excited to see it all printed up and proper... I just don't have that "VICTORIOUS CONQUERING HERO" feeling I thought I'd have.
Postpartum depression, probably.
But HEY, nothing cures the old "nothin' to do stomach churns" more than having stuff to do, right? I'm currently hovering over a couple of large-ish professional-type projects right now, among other things (planning Vol. 3), but I should have some time to reopen the art commissions queue for a while. I know a couple of you guys have been waiting a while... sorry about that. Your time has come!
COMMISSIONS! are $50 ($30 for each additional character on the page) for a pencil sketch on 9x12 Bristol. I'll draw pretty much anything you'd like, from my characters to other people's characters to your characters to YOU to your friends to your mom to your garbage man to your garbage man's secret lover to your garbage man's secret lover's vengeful spouse in the act of walling them both up forever in the basement and cackling like a madwoman to what-have-you. Stuff like this:
More details (and examples) on the COMMISSIONS PAGE. Hey, pretty snazzy!
Please, won't you help defeat the Ennui of Completion? Thank you kindly!
(I should probably also work up some new prints of some kind.... Any suggestions?) |
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essrose's journal
