Been itching to get these for quite some time... and finally I managed to find some good use for those dang Border's vouchers which we were kinda 'forced' to purchase if you wanna max our company benefits. Elated as I managed to score 2 tasty finds at QBM. Sad and pissed when I found out the Trade Paperback for Volume 4 was torn in 2 pages when I opened up the shrink wrap. But that doesn't really matter. The main reason I bought these two, are to drool over Stjepan Šejić's amazing art (which unfortunately weren't many in these 2 issues). Also, they make excellent 'artistic references' as well... LOL...

Season 3 on Astro di... woot!

...tapi season 2 pun I tak tengok lagi...  :P

I think the last comic I bought was about 11 years ago. And I haven't touched any since. I have to admit I'm not exactly a comic collector who buy these graphic novels for the storyline; I'm more into it because of the art. And I usually quickly lose interest once the penciler whose art I greatly admire leaves a title. Examples; when the late Michael Turner stopped drawing for Witchblade. When Travis Charest left the penciling duties for Vol. 2 of WildCATS. When Marc Silvestri pulled out from illustrating The Darkness.

So you could say I'm kinda lost when it comes to the recent crop of comics. However, while surfing the net lately, I've been coming across some artwork which really caught my eye. The style is very different from what I've seen so far; a combination of hand painted panels and accented with some computer post processing. The results are stunningly beautiful.

Some additional googling gave me the answer. The artist responsible for this style is Stjepan Sejic. A Croatian comic book artist currently working as an illustrator for Top Cow Productions.

Hot damn.

And the best part about it? He's the current uber penciler for the revamped Witchblade series (after a long list of sub-par pencilers who're unable to live up to Michael Turner's work).

Woot!

I'm seriously thinking about collecting comics again...  ;)

I was a huge fan of Michael Turner during my comicbook collecting years (and tat was eons ago). I wasn't really fond of the materials churned out by the Big Two (DC and Marvel) during that time, so I found myself reading mostly the darker titles by Image and Top Cow. Among the pencilers who I totally adore are, J. Scott Campbell, Travis Charest, Greg Capullo and Michael. And when I picked up Witchblade for the first time, Turner's pencil work totally bowled me over.

After Turner left Top Cow, I kinda lost interest and my comic book collecting hobby gradually tappered off. About a few years ago, I stumbled upon some info that he was battling chondrosarcoma, a form of cancer, in the right pelvis. He was treated at UCLA Medical Center with surgery in which he lost a hip, 40% of his pelvis, and three pounds of bone. Which kinda dumbfarked me since he was only in his early 30s.

But he recovered and went on to create his own comic book publishing company, Aspen MLT Inc; which published new titles like Fathom, Soulfire and Ekos (which unfortunately were not to my liking even though his penciling were still amazing).

Anways, I was very shocked when I wiki-ed his name and learnt that Turner died on June 27, 2008 at the Santa Monica Hospital in California, due to complications from the bone cancer he was fighting. He was 37.

The comicbook industry really lost one of the more amazing talents around.

You rawk Michael Turner... and your artwork still inspires me.

May your soul rest in peace.

Real crappy day. Overslept, screwed up elevator (which meant I had to walk down from close to 20th floor), late for work, bucket loads of issues. Was on the fookin phone more than doing any actual work; trying to iron out the damn problems. Everything which could go wrong, went wrong.

I space out when doodling. Which meant an hour or two of worry-free ignorant bliss. I don't really care about accuracy. Most of the time, the end result usually differs vastly from the reference material. So... no... I have no idea who the heck the sketch is supposed to be. It's just some random photo I nicked off the net. Your guess is as good as mine.

Managed to catch quite a few good movies of late. Protege was one fantastic Hongkie flick. Apocalypto wasn't too shabby either. The first 20 minutes of Babel looks promising. You gotta thank Uncle Lim for supplying affordable entertainment to the masses.

But there's one movie I'm itching to watch at the cinema. Since the first time I caught a glimpse of the trailer on YouTube last year, I was bowled over by the sublime polished look of the movie. High contrasty visuals which made fantastic use of light and shadow gave the whole thing a surreal look. The testosterone overload make me wanna go out, thump my chest and go slaughter someone.

I don't care if the critics panned the movie kaw kaw. I'm prepared to face the fact that this could well be a turkey. But it doesn't matter... I still wanna watch it in it's full glory at the cinema.

"Our arrows will blot out the sun..."

It would be so cool if I could say this to my boss...

*Update : Finally caught it... dammit... 300 rawks!!! And many thanks to the M'sian Censorship board for sleeping on the job... woooohahahaaaaa!!!

I think I negleted the 'Sketches' column for a while liao... sampai collect habuk 2 inci. Guess it's time to add a new entry.

Almost threw this one away together with some old newspaper while packing my stuff to prepare go home. Sketched during the night after catching Maggie Q strut her stuff in Mission Impossible 3 about 2 months ago. Takde scanner kat sini... so pakai digicam je. If the rupa tak sama... juz tutup satu mata k?

Bigass food review coming up... tunggu...

DOTA... DOTA... DOOOOTTAAAAA... DOTA DOTA DOTA... DOOOOOOTAAAAATATATAAA... DOTA...!!!

Aku gila DOTA... blek... :P