GRIDLORDS 14?
Come to a special Gridlords where you will learn some drawing games, collaborate with friends, drink beverages, and dance in your seats as you make something beautiful with your evening!
@5 hours ago with 8 notesSera Stanton’s presentation at Gridlords Video recorded by Matthew Seely!
@3 weeks ago with 11 notesSera Stanton, a heroine’s jouney: Q&A by Cameron Hawkey!
Q-Your work delves deeply into what at first seems to be contradictory sources- Western and Eastern aesthetics. Druidic references bubble up with oak leaves and snakes, the Greek god Artemis, and even reverence for the deep spirituality of Byzantine Christianity. Within and alongside them emerge Japanese dragons, mecha, cherry blossoms, and animal characters looking at stars with their big luminous eyes, welling up with tears. Do you ever have difficulty putting both styles together in your work, or are they more similar than I realize?
A-I struggle to create a style that combines all things that I love - I’m still learning to do it! But it’s easy to combine any kind of symbology with an art style that derives from a different source or way of thinking. We are often exposed to repetitive imagery that is common in mythology or history - take for example, the image of a two-headed Janus. Originally derived in Rome, the double-headed Janus sees in all directions and is a god of movement and beginnings. I could imply the image of Janus with any two-headed character looking two directions in profile. It’s not always necessary for things to be obvious to my viewers or readers, I do it mostly for my own kicks! Since there are so many different meanings and interpretations from all over the world to just about any symbol, it’s easy for me to filter the information I have through my own vernacular.
TVD the one and only Tom Van Deusen interviewed by the one true Max Clotfelter
-Tom is it true you’ve only been making comics for three years? How old were you and what made you decide to devote the majority of your creative output into drawing comics?
Aside from a strip I briefly did for my college newspaper and a few other odds and sods, that’s true. My first real stab at writing a comic book was A Matter of Life and Death, but that wasn’t originally going to be a comic book. I hadn’t found a lot of work in the medium that really spoke to me at that point, and I was doing these Powerpoint presentations where I read a story along with projected images.
For AMOLAD I decided to draw all the images, but everyone who saw it as I was working on it called it a comic book, which honestly pissed me off. I was a true artisté, not some man-child playing out their male power fantasies. But my girlfriend at the time introduced me to a few contemporary comics I didn’t hate, and from there I discovered Ivan Brunetti, Gabrielle Belle, John Porcellino, Peter Bagge, Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Chester Brown and scores of others all at once. I just inhaled it. That got me serious about printing it as a comic book, and when I brought it to the Olympia Comics Fest it was well-received. Everyone was just so nice to me.
@1 month ago with 14 notesFor AMOLAD I decided to draw all the images, but everyone who saw it as I was working on it called it a comic book, which honestly pissed me off. I was a true artisté, not some man-child playing out their male power fantasies. But my girlfriend at the time introduced me to a few contemporary comics I didn’t hate, and from there I discovered Ivan Brunetti, Gabrielle Belle, John Porcellino, Peter Bagge, Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Chester Brown and scores of others all at once. I just inhaled it. That got me serious about printing it as a comic book, and when I brought it to the Olympia Comics Fest it was well-received. Everyone was just so nice to me.
