Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)

In this post, I'll finally show you the illustrations I was talking about earlier. Here they are in their rough, pre-Photoshopped form, completely out of context!




Some backstory, as well as the cleaned-up versions of these images the way they'll appear in The Salt Hill Journal, are available under the cut.

Looking for places to promote my comics and artwork around Syracuse, I came across the Website for The Salt Hill Journal, a biannual poetry/short story publication put out by SU's Creative Writing and English departments. On the Website, a need for black and white artwork was expressed. Perfect!

As per the submission guidelines, I sent the links for "Tales From the Stix" and that comic I wrote about my friend "Charles" in China to the Journal's art editor. She thought my style would be a good fit for Julian Zadorozny's short story "Upper Volta," which was already set to appear in an upcoming issue, and asked me to do some illustrations for it.

So keep your eyes out for Salt Hill #25, available at finer coffee shops/bookstores around the country. 

Anyway, here are the cleaned up versions of the illustrations -- I just adjusted the curves, contrast, and brightness to make them more pure black-and-white rather than greyscale. Though consistent with my recurring themes of violence and nature, these are scenes from "Upper Volta." It was a good match, I think.