ZAD PROJECTS: 2011

The Belly of the Beast

Another surreal scroll. This is an early work that ended up becoming the main section of The Kid Next Door. I'm think I will start making a scroll soon that I can add onto weekly or more than likely monthly. So far I have kept them black and white but I think color is coming soon.

The Belly of the Beast

click here to view

Feral

Drip

Follow this link for the photo scroll - Drip

Drip is an early experiment in using the scroll format. I am interested in using Scott McCloud's infinite canvas theory to present photographs, for examples of infinite canvas in comics see Ken Dahl's "Sick" and Dash Shaw's Body World. I think it could lead to some interesting photographic work. I want to make a work that I can keep adding pieces to weekly or monthly in the same way that Dash did with Body World. So far the challenge for me has been creating something that tells a story. Right now my scroll works have all been surreal and in the stream of consciousness mode of working, following no direct linear arc.

The Wizard

Mostly At Night

I made this book a few years ago and printed it through Blurb. It seems Blurb has made vast improvements in the past couple of years, they will now convert your book into an ebook for ipad.

THEY MOSTLY COME OUT AT NIGHT

I kept hearing people complain about the image quality from point and shoot cameras using a high ISO, so I decided to shoot a series with the ISO cranked to maximum and see if I could achieve interesting results. I started to shoot in very low light situations and with the particular camera I had at the time the focus was not so good. What I ended up getting were these out focus images with a lot of digital noise. The images reminded me of trying to remember a dream that you had a few days before but can only vaguely recall. The title comes from a line in one of my favorite movies, hopefully you know what it is.

click the image above for full book

Here is a link to the blurb book

Fumetti?

Just listened to an interesting interview with artist Dave Mckean over at Inkstuds. During the interview he ask why aren't there more comics created utilizing photography. This something I've been thinking about for a while now. Of course there is Duane Michals and Mckean himself, other than that I can't really think of any interesting uses of photography in the comics medium. I do think that there are a few photobooks that could arguably fit within the definition of sequential art, I would say that Ed Templeton's Deformer fits into that category. Anyone have any thoughts on this matter?

Some more new work

More Randomness and New Scroll

Here are a few page layouts for another mini photobook in progress.

Moving forward with more scrolls the one below is about 90% done, I think I need to add something to the top. I am hoping to print them in the near future.

New work and T.YOKOO

As well as continuing the scrolls, I am working on a few side projects that I intend to make into some mini photobooks. One will be related to The Kid Next Door and another will be an entirely new work. My idea is to put out a small run of mini photobook narratives similar to the way aspiring comic artist self published mini-comics. Photobook might be misleading it will be more like a paper movie with a mixture of styles not entirely photography.

Here are some samples:

I will have more fleshed out previews in the near future.

And now for something completely different.....

Tadanori Yokoo is an awesome Japanese artist that I think deserves more attention here in the states his posters from the 60s are amazing.

I don't know a whole lot about him since most of the the info I find about him is mostly in Japanese. But I love his use of pure intense color and the way he uses photo reference. I picked up a few books during my Overseas Study adventure in Osaka and was inspired to make my own homage self portrait T. Yokoo style.

Emaki

Some work in progress on the Firmament Scroll series.

These are just segments of final images that are 11" x 105".

Random EXP

I just wanted to post a few experiments. I am starting to work on more fleshed out photo narratives or paper movies or I like to think of them as what happens if photography, comics, and cinema had a baby.

I'll post more as things start to come together.

New site and things to come

I am currently working on a new redesigned website that I plan on launching this week which you can point your eyes at here: www.zadprojects.com. So far my post on this blog have been very laconic, a lot of that is due to the work load had the past year, but from now on I am going to make this blog more active. I will start posting my experiments, works in progress and various b-sides, as well as making it a place to post news about my various adventures. So keep checking in.