Petr Ginz + AJFF

 

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (@atljewishfilm) screened The Last Flight of Petr Ginz as the finale of the festival on Wednesday night.

I love (and wholeheartedly agree with) their review.

The imagination of a Czech child prodigy who perished at Auschwitz is celebrated in this inspiring testament to a boy’s wonder. Precocious and filled with intellectual curiosity, Petr Ginz was a gifted writer and artist who captured the inhumanities of war with surprising maturity, objectivity and even humor. By the time of his death at age 16, he had penned five novels, a diary and an underground newspaper in Terezín, and had produced hundreds of drawings and paintings. His story was largely unknown until the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia carried the boy’s artwork. Filmmakers Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts skillfully combine interviews and archival materials with exquisite animation of Petr’s designs. Poignantly narrated by sister Chava Pressburger and beautifully scored by composer John Califra, THE LAST FLIGHT OF PETR GINZ is a joint production of Wake Forest University and University of Florida.

We sneaked a picture of the slides playing before the screening.

The post-screening Q&A with Sandy, Cindy, and me.

* * *

Here is the trailer for the documentary.

And here is a trailer specifically for the animated portion.

Tiger, tiger.

A look at another of one the study drawings for my 2012 sketchbook, MENAGERIE.

Tree house

When we bought our house 4 or 5 years ago it had one particularly cool feature: a tree house. Or club house. Or a room on stilts. Whatever you'd like to call it. Standing in the backyard by a tree, this fully wired (yes, it has power) one room fort with a porch is the envy of the neighborhood. (I think?)

I've recently become re-obsessed with it. I'll go in cycles of forgetting about it and suddenly noticing it again and thinking,"Oh man, if I knew someone who had one of these I'd be like, 'Why are you not in it all the time!'"

 In fact, as you can see, I did some of The Hidden People out there last summer.

As the weather has improved over the few last weeks, I've been working on drawings and due to my new MacBook Pro, I've been working some out there and handling emails.

I even did a little video tour of it the other night. I'll do a better one in the day light sometime.

Sorry, can't embed the video. You got to click to see it.

* * * 

And I set a fire bowl up on the porch. For hilarious.

So. The time has come to really do it right. A little studio away from studio. With the help of a friend we'll be making this a for real working space. I can't wait.

Excited? Excited.

MENAGERIE: sketchbook 2012

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you might have noticed I've been posting a few peeks at my new 2012 sketchbook, MENAGERIE.

I would describe my last sketchbook, The Hidden People as "natural world creature fantasy." This new book is a whole menagerie of animals and dragons in operatic situations. I think you'll enjoy it.

Here's a look at some of those new drawings:

RENAISSANCE BAIRE ... DO YOU GET IT?

This is not King Richard, sorry.

Tigers are surely the most beautiful animal.

These are all studies in preparation for one of the main drawings for the book. Here's a peek at another one of the roughs. Without a doubt, this is my favorite little drawing I've ever done, heretofore.

* * *

My goal of creating a yearly sketchbook remains on track.

2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.

More NYC / UN

Here's a few more pictures about our time in NYC and UN visit.

Dinosaurs.

I find my own dinosaur. As a kid I always wished it was a cooler looking one.

At the Nintendo World Store. My favorite place in all of New York.

Stature of Liberty. My mom came to the party.

Leo Lowry. A childhood friend of Petr Ginz.

Outside the UN.

The reason for the trip of course was to attend the UN screening of The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. The show and the panel afterwards went very well. I'm grateful for the chance I got to contribute to the film and that Petr Ginz's life's work is being recognized.

We're now looking forward to the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival! I'm thrilled to hear they have reviewed the film and specifically called the animated portions "exquisite."

UN

Last week I was invited by the United Nations Holocaust Outreach Programme to speak at the UN about my work on the animated portions of the upcoming documentary film The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. It's an amazing story of a young, brilliant Holocaust victim.

I'll be posting more about our trip on my regular M/W/F schedule.

* * *

Here is a new trailer for the documentary.

And here is a trailer specifically for the animated portion.

Through out the feature length documentary three different kinds of animation are interspersed. One, original animation (most notably the outer space sequences.) Two, Petr's painting and drawings. And finally, different moments in Petr's life.

For this project I took the script and story-boarded the animation sequences. I oversaw the art direction of this portion of the film as well as created all of the art for animation and prepared many of Petr Ginz's original works to be animated. Danny McNight then took the work and animated it with Adobe After Effects.


About the Film:

By 14 Petr Ginz had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

Spectrum

Entries for Spectrum are due today! Did you get yours out in time?

Here's a look at what I entered.

The Hidden People.

Series entry. Unpublished. The five colored pieces from The Hidden People.

Prints available from my shop.

The UN Holocaust Outreach Programme

This evening is the special screening of The Last Flight of Petr Ginz at the United Nations.

 The UN's Holocaust Programme will screen a new animated documentary film on the life and artwork of Petr Ginz, a Jewish boy from Prague who perished in the Holocaust at the age of 16, after spending two years in Terezin.  He was a brilliant child who wrote a diary, four novels and created 200 illustrations and paintings during his short life.

The screening will be held in partnership with the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest University and the Documentary Institute at the University of Florida. A panel discussion with the filmmakers and Mr. Leo Lowy, a Holocaust survivor, will follow.

Film Screening and Panel Discussion of “The Last Flight of Petr Ginz”  
Venue: Conference Room 1, Temporary North Lawn Building (UNHQ)
Time: 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Contact: Holocaustremembrance@un.org or online registration

* * *  

... ...

Bleeding Cool: Labyrinth pages

Well! It looks as if @Archaia has released a couple pages from my upcoming Free Comic Book Day Labyrinth story "Hoggle and the Worm" (written by Ted Naifeh & Adrianne Ambrose) through cool website Bleeding Cool.

 

Presented here for your enjoyment are those couple pages. I'm really pleased to finally be able to point you guys to something solid about the project. And you can get a little look at how I handled Hoggle. I love that poor guy.

__________________________________________

Also to note, I'm booked for a couple of local comic shops signings on May 5th (Free Comic Book Day). 

I'll be splitting my time between Borderlands and Richard's Comics and Collectables.

More on those appearances when the time comes.

Jamie's Journey

I had the pleasure of illustrating a picture book called Jamie's Journey. 

I absolutely loved every part of this project. From talking with the author about her ideas, to laying out my rough thumbnails, to painting it, this book was a perfect gem.

The lyrical writing is lovely. And fans of my watercolor work will enjoy several spreads of star-strewn skies and storms over the Atlantic.

You can preview the first few pages of the book over at Rowe Publishing.

Enjoy!

Tumblr

Behold! I have wrought for myself a Tumblr. 

 Another blog? Well, not quite. It's different and here's my reasoning. Basically a third of my traffic comes from random folks posting my work on Tumblr. Thankfully, it's most always credited back to me otherwise I'd have no idea. I wanted to give the good people of Tumblr a legitimate source for my work to re-blog, re-tumbl, or whatever it is that goes on in that wild, untamed land of .gifs and memes.

What will I use it for? Mostly I see it as bringing my work to a new audience. I'll be rolling through several of my personal projects over there and revisiting some of my favorite posts from here.

So, all that to say my main blog is going holding fast and you can now follow me on Tumblr to revisit past projects!

Enjoy.

The Hidden People: back in stock!

Just about every six months I begin a new personal project. There's nothing at all like making up something for yourself and seeing it through to completion. You have to juggle your paying client jobs and make the time to fit in these personal projects but the payoff for doing so is invaluable.

My most recent personal project is comprised of several stages. (And going by my 6 month timetable I'm nearly ready to commence THP part II.) The first part of this multi-tier-ed project has been The Hidden People, my 40 page sketchbook of what I guess would describe like "natural world creature fantasy." I've done two modest print runs and have had the good fortune to sell out of both. I've now done a third and I'm pleased to say that The Hidden People is now back in stock!

 

 

 

 

Follow the link to my shop to purchase!

Thank you for supporting my work! By picking up The Hidden People you help to fund this and other personal projects like it. I can't thank you enough for that.

You can preview the entire book in the video below:

Petr Ginz + UN

“The seed of a creative idea does not die in mud
and scum. Even there it will germinate and spread
its blossom like a star shining in darkness.”  

- Petr Ginz 

 We've been invited to the UN for a special screening of a documentary film I had the opportunity work on called The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. It's an amazing story of a young, brilliant Holocaust victim.

The UN Holocaust Outreach Programme is showing the film later this month. Afterwards I'll be joining a panel with the other filmmakers to talk about it.

* * *

Here is a new, incredible trailer for the documentary.

And here is a trailer I put together specifically for the animated portion.

Through out the feature length documentary three different kinds of animation are interspersed. One, original animation (most notably the outer space sequences.) Two, Petr's painting and drawings. And finally, different moments in Petr's life.

For this project I took the script and story-boarded the animation sequences. I oversaw the art direction of this portion of the film as well as created all of the art for animation and prepared many of Petr Ginz's original works to be animated. Danny McNight then took the work and animated it with Adobe After Effects.


About the Film:

By 14 Petr Ginz had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

Eagle

The other day I found out that I've been nominated for an Eagle Award! 

Introduced in 1976, the Eagles are the comics industry's longest established awards. Acknowledged as the pre-eminent international prizes, they have been featured on the covers of leading US and UK titles across the last 30 years. Unique in that they reflect the people's choices.

I've been nominated in "Favourite Artist: Fully-Painted Artwork."

Well I'm flattered and excited! I don't know for sure but I'm going to guess that it was for the Fraggle Rock work.

Here are some of the pages:

If you liked the Fraggle stuff you can head over to the site and vote!

New year

It has been a wild last few months.

Between getting to work on Labyrinth and recently being invited to the UN, and getting to do a cover (about) one of my all time favorite books, 2012 is off to pretty great start. I'll cover more about those in upcoming posts but my goal here is to resume the M/W/F blog schedule. It's not easy, particularly when there's so much going on but still. I've abandoned my poor blog long enough.

* * *

I always enjoy doing book covers. I don't get to do them often enough for my liking. I love getting to do a one-off piece form time to time. This is a look at a cover for an upcoming book about The Hobbit. You'll have to wait to see the full cover when it's release but here's a peek:

FCBD / Labyrinth

 

Here is a terribly exciting (and massive) announcement. Friends, I get to do Labyrinth. Indeed, Henson's Labyrinth.

I'll be talking more about it in the coming months but suffice it to say I get to work once again with the extraordinary publisher Archaia (you may remember my Fraggle Rock work for them a year or so back).

You can read the entire press release about the Free Comic Book Day.

For your convenience I took the liberty of highlighting this one part I really liked:

 

Ok! Well, I'm still floored by the news, glad I can finally mention it!

Can't wait.