Thanks for stopping by to have a look.

Hit PREVIOUS to see other works from this project. The art is © J Michael Straczynski and used with permission.

Come back soon for a look at my pencil art from Wonder Woman projects.

The Tarot images in the bottom panels are paste ons. The art is drawn by hand.

Hit PREVIOUS to see other works from this project. The art is © J Michael Straczynski and used with permission.

Totally loved the dude in panel one, who was based on painter Sandro Kopp. I got a real kick out of the use of the tarot in this story.

Used with permission and © J Michael Straczynski.

The villains in this storyline were fun to draw and very creepy.

Used with permission and © J Michael Straczynski.

Was DYING to do more of this storyline with the Tarot Cards. I had briefly discussed doing a BoLS set. Oh, well, can’t win ‘em all.

Speaking of can’t win ‘em all, I accidentally saved another file under the original file name for this page. So, my archive copy of this art is no longer in my system. This jpg still shows pencil lines and other marks. Oops.

Used with permission and © J Michael Straczynski.

For more information about this series, hit the previous button. Click the thumbnails at the bottom of this post for Lost Souls art in the COMICS gallery.

I’ve also updated the Photo gallery. Click ABOUT and scroll down the menu to access.

The Book of Lost Souls is © J Michael Straczynski and presented with permission.

The spatter effect is an old trick: toothbrush dipped in ink. Flick across the brush with your thumb. Quite messy, but looks great. You’ll spend a month trying to get the goop out of your fingernail.

And no, I did not use computer graphics, nor did I use pose files or any other such aids for these drawings.

Go back to see more of this project.

© J Michael Straczynski. Presented here with permission.

JMS didn’t like the way the coat flared in this shot. I ended up redrawing the entire page from scratch (which was completely unnecessary. I don’t know what I was thinking). The website gallery feature will pop up the final version of this page below. Click the thumbnail to view and
go back one page for more info about this project.

Some artists are dead set against auditioning for projects. I don’t mind if the client pays a fee. Some do, some don’t. JMS doesn’t like having people work for him on spec, so I was assured that if I didn’t get the gig I would be paid for the audition.

A writer I once knew would fly into a rage if anyone asked them to audition. I think it’s one of the reasons I never see work from this writer anymore. I don’t believe they’ve had any major work in fifteen years. They believed they were too important to show clients samples. Maybe that’s true if you are Neil Gaiman. Not so much if you are a journeyman writer.

Clients invest a lot of money in major projects and have to know what they are getting. There are some clients I won’t audition for, and others I will. But I never say never. There is always a special project out there you will never get if you can’t prove you are the right person for the gig. I loved The Book of Lost Souls and never would have gotten it without an audition.

Bette Davis had to audition for the lead in the film All About Eve. If auditions are OK for Bette, they are OK for me.

Art © J Michael Straczynski

Pen and ink, of course. My friend, artist Sandro Kopp, modeled for the character in the middle.

I don’t think we will continue this series. Author J Michael Straczynski went on to do some very high profile projects elsewhere, including the BAFTA nominated screenplay for the film The Changeling, as well as a very popular new Thor series, also for Marvel.

The Book of Lost Souls was one of my all-time favorite projects, and I was so disappointed not to be able to continue. Since I’m also working on other important gigs, I shouldn’t complain too much! Four graphic novels in one year is enough work for anybody.

I don’t think you can display more of a stylistic range than I have shown over the last few posts! The drawback of this range is that a variety of styles can confuse clients: they don’t know what to expect from you. I try to limit what I show to my clients to what I think they want for a particular job. Then again, if a client sees your work on a particular job – those manga pages I posted last week, for instance – they tend to think that’s all you can do. Targeting your portfolio to the right client is tricky business.

I’ll be running other unpublished pages from this issue. JMS gave me permission to do so on my old (now deleted) blog, and I am happy to repost here. The work is © J Michael Straczynski.