Rose and Isabel


This is a pinup for my friend, (and constant source of inspiration) Ted Mathot, the creator of the splendid Rose and Isabel graphic novel. I have to confess that getting this picture done kicked my arse… I did a million thumbnails trying to decide on a composition, and the one I liked most I simply was unable to draw… Drawing “cool” or “bad ass” doesn’t play to my strengths (“Dumb ass” is more my line). I have seen some other lovely pinups of Ted’s characters done by the likes of Sam Hiti, Rod Guen, John Hoffman and Scott Morse, and of course Ted is an art-monster himself, so perhaps I was feeling the pressure a little… In any case, I am looking forward to seeing the finished book and glad that a pic of mine will be in there someplace.

Rose and Isabel is the story of two sisters who run off to join the Civil War in order to find their missing brothers. Book One was out last year, and Book Two featuring the conclusion of the story, will be on sale at Comic Con in San Diego this July. In addition to Doing 160 pages of Rose and Isabel, Ted also wrangled the production of, and did a short story for, Afterworks 2, the 360 page colour anthology of comics done by Pixar artists being released by Image comics later this year. Oh, and when he isn’t cranking out quantities of superb comics, Ted also excels at his very demanding day job as a story artist.

Afterworks 2 is fantastic by the way. I’ve seen the mock-up and it will absolutely be one of the “must buy” comic books of 2006. I didn’t have a chance to read any of the stories but I saw a great variety of cool art styles; it’s a visual feast. Contributors come from the Animation, Story and Art departments at Pixar. Some of them (Ted Mathot, Mark Andrews, Scott Morse) may be familiar to comics readers already, but there will also be a lot of new faces to the comics scene (Pete Sohn, Jennifer Chang, and Jeff Pidgeon for example). This book gives animation artists, who largely work invisibly behind the scenes, a chance to show what they can do as individuals. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It seems a few years ago “anthology” was a dirty word in comics, and yet lately some of the best books are anthologies…

7 thoughts on “Rose and Isabel”

  1. Mr. Baker, you are both crazy and blind. This piece is definitely “cool” and I’d even go as far as saying it’s “friggin awesome”…

    Reply
    • hah hah.. well thank you Roque… but I think it came out a little bit “stiff” which is mostly what happens when I try to draw something a little more realistic or dramatic. But at least we can both agree on the part about me being “crazy”.

      While wrestling with this pic I had a bad case of what I call IDEArrhea; which is where you are deluged with so many ideas that you become paralyzed with indecision. Ultimately it is just as fatal as having no ideas at all…

  2. Thanks for the kind words, Jamie!
    Your pinup rocks and I’m very happy to have it in the new book. Your thumbnails were great too — any one of those would have made a great piece. Thanks man!

    -T

    Reply
  3. Jamie this drawing is awesome, way beter than mine… I had the same happen to me, I was stumpt as well- and did way too many rough drawings that were thrown away…

    I like your dry brush pencil thing thats going on in this one…

    sam

    Reply
  4. Jamie, awesome!! I’ve never pegged you as one kind of an artist or another, just one that was good, really good. So it’s weird to hear you say you’re not good at “cool” drawings. And that recent post on Brian’s blog applies to you as well.
    I love IDEArrhea!! I was asked to do a made up batman cover for an editor at DC. Well after 4 pages filled with about a hundred or so different ideas then 2 pages filled with narrowed down comps, well let’s just say I didn’t get the gig. Too much. Sometimes parameters are great, sometimes they are awful!!

    Reply
  5. Once again, thank you for all the encouragement.
    Ted>> i am glad you like it, and I am so proud to be included in what is bound to become a classic book.

    Sam>> watchoo talkin’ ’bout Sam?! that pinup of yours was one of those that made my knees knock together!

    BKO>>maybe we could put our heads together and figure out the cure for IDEArrhea… Lot’s of fluids? Roughage?

    Reply
  6. hey jamee , that looks awesome.
    VERY COOL :) U rock !
    when I did mine for R & I, I kind a had a hard time making the pin up for R&I …not one of the thumbnails seemed to look good and ended up doing something totaly different wich wasn’t what I was hoping the nite before the deadline …I gotta improve my time management ..haha

    Reply

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