Teaser illustration – Gogu

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

So I have been doing a lot of work this week, but I can’t really show much of it because it was getting stuff together for the pitch to :01. I sent it out on Tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed. They’re busy folk, so I don’t expect to hear from them for awhile, but lets hope they’re interested.

I still plan on working on a lot of the development stuff like character designs and what not, and I thought it wouldn’t be too big a deal if I shared some of what I was working on. So here’s a finished ink drawing of one of the minor characters:

Have a good weekend!

Americus Covers

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

Wow! I’m on a blogging roll. This is the third post this week!

So it’s safe for me to post the Americus covers now, and I posted them last week at Save Apathea, but thought it would be a good idea for post them here, too for anyone that doesn’t read that site. Note that these are pretty close to done, but aren’t 100% yet. I posted some thumbnails and process stuff over at Save Apathea this week, but I will re-post it here, too.

Here’s the front:

And the back [sans copy]:

Later!

A few notes on storytelling from Ted Stearn

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

Since I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, I thought I would share some notes that my old comics professor & mentor, the great Ted Stearn [of Fantagraphics’ Fuzz & Pluck] gave out during Advanced Storyboarding. It’s pretty straightforward stuff, but they’ve been really helpful to have in front of me and keep in mind.

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A few notes on storytelling:

Give each character motivation. What do they want? How will they get it?

Many stories revolve around conflict, whether internal or external, that must somehow get resolved.

Generally, a good story balances keeping it clear enough that they understand what is happening, but not revealing it all, so the viewer wants to find out more.

When concluding your story, don’t be obvious. If I can guess what’s going to happen next, I will lose interest. Beware of cliches that can become predictable and thus, boring.

Every scene, every shot, every pose, every scene transitions, and all the dialogue should either advance the plot or reveal something about the character that is important to the theme of the story. If they don’t, they are probably expendable.

Make sure your story has an internal logic. That is, everything that happens is believable in the context it is presented. I don’t mean realistic, I mean believable. For example, a character should not react in a way that would directly contradict that I understand about his/her personality.

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WSD workshop was a hit!

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

Happy VD! To celebrate, I wanted to share all the love I got when I did my workshop at the Washington School for the Deaf last Friday. Everyone was really great and I hope they had as much fun as I did.

More pictures behind the cut!

Continue reading →

Starting somewhere.

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

January was a little slower than I wanted it to be, but most of that was due to reasons out of my control. A new month is a week in [and a new lunar year too, if you want to look at it like that], and things have been picking up.

I started the actual writing of my next book last week. I guess will technically be my first book that I will have written & drawn, since I was only the artist on Americus. Also, I don’t know what to call it when referring to it. I have a tentative title of The Searchers, because I was sick of calling it ‘my next project’, but it doesn’t really feel right. I’m not incredibly worried about having a title right now, and I’m sure that will all come as part of the process, but still – it’s kind of annoying to not know what to call it besides ‘my next project’ or ‘my next book’. Any suggestions?

Anyhow, I thought I’d write about the process of actually getting started, which was a little trickier than I actually thought it would be.

Continue reading →

Call for Donations!

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

So I’m going to be speaking at the Washington School for the Deaf next Friday about comics & storytelling! I’m also going to be running an online auction for them in April to help raise some money for the school to buy some graphic novels.

If you’re wondering why this school, and why graphic novels in particular, here’s a quick answer: Between TV, the internet & million other distractions, it is hard to get kids interested in reading. Turns out because of the language barrier, it’s even harder to get deaf children interested in reading. As someone working at the school pointed out, comics really help create that interest for them because there is a visual element alongside the text.

If you’re an artist, designer, photographer or other creative type and would like to donate some artwork, it would be really appreciated. I won’t be having the auction until April, but I figured that I should get a head start on the soliciting artwork. You can donate original art, prints, posters – anything really. Even if you had old graphic novels that you wanted to donate to their library that would be great.

Even if you can’t donate art, it would really go a long way if you helped me spread the word. If you could pass the link to this post or the image that I’ve created above to all the artist friends you have, that would be awesome.

If you have an questions, please e-mail me at: jonathan [at] oneofthejohns.com

You can mail donations to me at:

1717 Southwest Market St.
Portland, OR 97201-6013

Donations need to be received by March 28, 2011. I’ll have more information about the auction as it gets closer to the date.

Chinese Zodiac Illustrations

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

Here’s some quick illustrations I did for the Asian Reporter’s Lunar New Year issue.

They will be black & white in print, but I thought I would pretty them up for the internet. It also makes me think that since New Year’s is on February 3rd, if I want to make a postcard to send out, I had better get on it.

A Date in Time & Space

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

So last Friday, Jen and I celebrated our one year anniversary! To commemorate the occasion of us meeting, I have been working on a short comic. This was also my first post-Americus comic, so that’s another reason to celebrate!

Anyhow, she said I could share it with everyone, so here it is. I do warn you: if you have a weak stomach for couples being cute, you might not want to read it. You might barf your brains out.

And now I’m free from major obligations to start working on other things, mainly my next graphic novel as well as fooling around with a bunch of stuff that I’ve been meaning to the last three or so years. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: If you are interested in reading the comic, you can find it here on my portfolio page.

Pacific Northwest Inlander Cover

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Jonathan Hill

Sorry it’s been quiet here. With the holidays and some artstuff, I’ve been pretty busy. One of those jobs was the cover for this week’s issue of the Pacific Northwest Inlander.

I also finished up the comics project that I’ve been working on, but I’m going to wait a bit to share it. Now I get to start working on my next book!

Hope 2011 is treating you well!

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Jonathan Hill

Obligatory Breeders song:

Hope you’re all excited for the New Year as I am. One way I decided to celebrate is to rearrange my office for the first time in like 4 years. The layout has been carefully planned to maximize productivity. Also, I am a little obsessed with making these mash-up panoramic pictures, even though I’m not very good at it.

Notice the awesome flat-drawer cabinet that I got for Christmas by my lovely girlfriend to help organize original art, and also how far the computer is away from my drawing table to eliminate distraction.We’ll see how it goes…