Ralph Bakshi: Meeting my Cartoon Hero!

Ralph Bakshi, Q+A'ing after a screening of his film Wizards. Drawn by me, signed by Ralph!
Wondercon, 03/17/2012

“When it comes to art, if you question yourself, it could go either way. So don’t question yourself, I’m a great believer in that. All the second-guessing’ll kill you. When you start wondering about what it is that they want to hear, that’ll kill you. As for the vulgarity in Coonskin—the art of cartooning is vulgarity. The only reason for cartooning to exist is to be on the edge. If you only take apart of what they allow to take apart, you’re Disney, you’re doing illustrations, or children’s books.”- Ralph Bakshi, from an interview w/ Metroactive.

There's a saying that goes, "Never meet your heroes". All too often, if you are lucky enough to meet 'em, you'll just be bound for Disappointment Hotel: reservation for one. Sure it's happened to me a few times...

But not in the case of Ralph Bakshi.

I can go on and on about Ralph, his films, how much of an influence he/they have had on me and my own cartooning... but I don't want to bore you. Rather, why don't you check out my various Bakshi inspired blog postings, or read my CNN interview about Ralph? You'll find out how much of a deep and profound impact and inspiration this man, his films, cartoons, paintings, and art has and continues to hold on me for 30 years! I am NOT Kidding.

My beautiful girlfriend, Ava, has a great write up on her blog about our Wondercon 2012 encounter w/ Ralph. You can check that out at her blog.

Ralph was gracious, gentle, hilarious, witty, charming, and well... Ralph!

I felt like I was meeting a no-holds barred Santa Claus. And on my birthday, no less!

Best birthday ever!

It's no secret that one of my ultimate dream goals in life to work & collab w/, or to be mentored by Ralph someday. He's one of the last, true, DIY originals, and it would be an honor!
Hell, I'd even settle for an art studio visit!

Ralph- I'm ready when you are. ;)

Thank you Ralph!
-Jeaux Janovsky

What do you give to a Superhero Couple?

Before Art by Jack "The King" Kirby

After Art by Jeaux "How do you say that?" Janovsky

I've been itching to share this w/ you guys for awhile now, and now I can!

This is a wedding present I made for my friends, Daniel Levitch & Amber Levitch, who recently tied the superheroic knot. This is what you give to a super couple.

I doctored an old Fantastic Four comic and illustrated Daniel & Amber as their superhero alter egos: Multiple Lass & Squid Fingered Dude! (Please note the wedding band on one of Daniel's Squid fingers.) Also, they are battling, I mean WALKING, their new pup: DASH el Gigante!

Here you can see the Before & After!

I had an epic time Daniel & Amber, Thanks, Congrats, and here is to many, many years together for the 2 of you!

The happy couple at Comic Con!
-Jeaux Janovsky

Swine Time!

Recently, I had the pleasure of doing some freelance for my pal Daniel Levitch's film company, Well-Oiled Machine and their property: the Swine trilogy.

Daniel thought I'd be a good fit for creating the illustrations for the DVD covers to each trilogy installment, I think he was right!

Daniel & I both love the B/W work of Tim Bradstreet, and used his style as an inspirational springboard for the design sensibility of the cover illos.

My process was easily complicated.

• Daniel gave me a few pics to use of his actors.
• Once I found my choices, I brought the pics into photoshop and manipulated them into something that sort of resembled a B/W photocopy machine look.
• I toyed around w/ laying out and arranging the pics and shared the mockups w/ Daniel.
  
• Once Daniel okayed the mockups, I printed out the B/W characters on separate pages and prepared them for the hand drawn inking process.
• I taped the images to my lightbox and went to work w/ my sharpies and ink pens.
  
• I rescanned the inked characters and brought them back into photoshop and placed them in their proper areas, the same areas as when I layed them out for mockups.
  
• I sent Daniel & his friend Koren the PSD files and they created the final DVD covers.
  
  

I haven't had a chance to check out the final look, but I'm sure they did an awesome job. Pretty excited because Daniel & the rest of Well-Oiled Machine will be debuting Swine at Comic-Con this year!

Åsa Wallander as Wallace

Kelley Gallagher as Cahill


Kellsy MacKilligan as Mercedes

Jackie Becker as Amelia

Alanna Brown as Renn

Emily Chetner as Beck

Chris Wiley as Nixon

Gregory Lee Kenyon as Erickson
Thanks for letting me be a part of Swine, Daniel! I'm sure it'll kick loads of ass, bud.

To check out Swine, head over to the film's site: swinefilm.com, watch the trailer, here, friend & like 'em over at the official Swine Facebook page!
-Jeaux