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…I might not be off to such a great start with that whole “be a better person” New Years resolution.
…writer extraordinaire behind Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Fell, Nextwave, and Crooked Little Vein — posted a new blog today and, in it, mentioned my good friend Thomas McKenzie’s debut novel, KnoWare Man!
How did this come to be, you ask?
(OK, maybe you didn’t ask or weren’t even wondering it at all but, for the sake of this blog post, I’m totally gonna pretend that you did.)
How did this come to be, you ask?
Well, it’s a very long story and I really don’t feel like getting into it right now.
Oh, what the hell. Here goes.
About a week ago, Warren Ellis put that call out on his Twitter account that he wanted any of the sci-fi/fantasy writers who follow him to pimp out their work on his Whitechapel forum; to “show themselves, tell him what you do, provide links to work and information and purchasing where possible.”
So I gave that Scottish bah-stard Thomas McKenzie a call and said, “Hey, McKenzie, ye Scottish bah-stard! You wrote a book! A sci-fi book! And a damned good sci-fi book at that! Go forth and pimp thyself!”
He did. And it was good.
Then, on this very night, Warren Ellis posted a blog on his website, a blog filled of seemingly random topics; webcomics, art, a DVD documentary, photographs, a couple of books.
As it turns out, one of those books mentioned was Thomas McKenzie’s KnoWare Man, complete with a shot of the book cover, designed by yours truly. You can check it out here.
I, of course, giggled hysterically like little girl for several minutes and then immediately called Tom to informed him of the aforementioned blog and then the two of us giggled hysterically like little girls for several hours.
Thanks to my good friend Judah Thor for passing the link on to me. For, without him, I would never have seen the blog nor would I have the total sense of entitlement and arrogance that I feel right now!
And, just a reminder, you can buy Thomas McKenzie’s KnoWare Man here for $13.00 or download the digital version for $6.66. \m/
So, yeah, Warren Ellis posted a book cover that I designed on his blog. What did you do today?
…is debuting her brand new webcomic today, called Oxford Road, which follows the lives of people in a town where your best friend rides a Victorian bicycle and your co-workers worked on the pyramids.
I’ve seen some of Lauren’s work. You guys are in for some good stuff.
Once you’ve read Oxford Road, make sure you check out Lauren’s website, follow her on Twitter and DeviantArt, and become a fan of hers on Facebook!
Whew!
Hey, speaking of webcomics, check back here in a few days — hopefully only a few days — for some very exciting news regarding Punch-Up.net… which was supposed to debut *coughcough* twoweeksago *coughcoughgrumblecough*
To paraphrase Thomas Fuller, “If it were not for comics, the heart would break..”
…I moved into my first apartment that was just my own. No roommates; no one to fuck up my shit, but also no one to fall back on. Just me.
That same week, I decided I needed a new pair of shoes and, thanks to a “Buy One, Get One Half Of” sale, I actually bought two pairs for pretty cheap.
Not that I needed two pairs of shoes, mind you. I, at just about any given time, own maybe three pairs of shoes. Total. One pair of fancy goin’ out shoes, a pair of my every day sneaks, and a pair of old, beaten up shoes — that used to be my pair of every day sneaks — that I wear if I know I’ll be trudging through dirt or mud and whatnot. I wear shoes until they wear out.
So, yeah, I didn’t really need two new pairs of shoes. BUT they were cheap, so I bought them. I have worn the first pair, and then other pair has sat — in their original box — on my closet floor, for the last three years.
Jump to three years later. Today, actually.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken several trips from Columbus, OH up to Cleveland, carrying a dozen boxes or so of personal belongings into my new house. Saturday, my good friend Troy Stith helped me load up a U-Haul truck and move all of my furniture. I spent most of today cleaning up the apartment so I could turn over my keys to the landlord tomorrow. And, this evening, I met up with some friends once last time and went bowling.
As I turned in my rental shoes and started to put my sneaks back on, I noticed that — after three years, almost to the day — I had finally worn out the pair of shoes I bought when I first moved into my apartment; a giant slit running the length of the shoe, just above the sole.
Since I’m giving up my first apartment all my own along with the shoes I bought with I first moved into it, it seems kind of fitting that — when I leave Columbus to restart my life in Cleveland — I’ll be wearing the other new pair of shoes I bought. Three years ago.
A whole blog post about shoes and not one tongue joke. Seems kinda wasteful.
Hey kids,
Earlier in the week, I toldja about my friend Tom McKenzie and the release of his first novel, KnoWare Man. (You did buy a copy, right?)
One thing I did forget to mention in the last post was, aside from from being a truly amazing book, it also has a great foreword written by our mutual friend, Justin “Wayne Chinsang” Shady.
Anyway, today I wanted to share with you my process for designing the KnoWare Man book cover.
When Tom first came to me, he told me that he wanted the cover design to feel aged, like it could have been some generic dusty old sci-fi paperback from the ’70s that you might have found for a quarter in a garage sale or thrift store. We also discussed incorporating a stylized circuit board motif and keeping the color scheme simple: black, white, and red.
Yeeeeeah, so that didn’t exactly stick…
My first designs were pretty close to what we had discussed, simple circuit board and color scheme…
…which we both liked but, when we discussed the idea of a wraparound cover, found it hard to make the design interesting enough to carry over to the back cover and integrate a large block of text.
So back to the drawing board.
I started thinking about how to tie other elements of the book into the cover.
The story is set in the future, sure, but it also takes place in a small neighborhood cul de sac. Driving home from work, one day, I made a point of going through some small suburban neighborhoods, pausing briefly around areas with cul de sacs. Then, I got an idea.
Seen from above – or on Google maps – I’ve always like how the streets of a city, driveways, houses could easily resemble – and be blended into – a simple circuit board. I raced home to do a few sketches.
To present the idea to Tom, I snagged some images off of Google Earth and photoshopped several mockups of how we could get – not only the circuit board pattern – but also include the neighborhood theme…
…and don’t you think that, from above, a cul de sac looks a little like an Omega sign? Easily plays in with the dark humor and threats of destruction in the book.
I told Tom that we could go with a photo cover, like in the sketches seen above, or a simple line drawing of the image.
Unfortunately, Tom thought – and I soon agreed – that the map cover had lost a lot of the edge we had in the earlier designs.
So back to the drawing board.
At some point, I played around with the idea of getting rid of the wraparound cover all together and running with the generic pocket-size paperback idea. So I filled the cover with a large sci-fi font, gutting the interiors of the letters so circuit board would be seen inside.
I really dug this design but abandoned it before whipping up the spine and back cover, because it bordered on the edge of too generic.
So I went back to the drawing board but, by this time, I was a little burned out on circuit boards and city streets. Tom and I had many late night phone calls and, eventually, we decided to throw out the circuit board idea and think about the other story elements in the book: cryogenics, the future, Japanese culture, blackmail, threats, neighborhoods, fighting, computers, bombs in the neck, and… cigarettes…
As soon as Tom said cigarettes, it was like fireworks exploding in my head. I knew exactly how to design Tom’s book cover.
I asked Tom what brand of cigarettes he smoked, back when he smoked, and he said “Djarum Blacks, hand-rolled by the hipster devil himself.”
Having never heard of Djarum Blacks — obviously because I’m just not cool enough, also, because they’ve been banned in the US for several years now — I did a little walking around through Google Images. This is what came out of that stroll…
It was pretty basic, but it worked. Or, at least, it could have worked. The black cover would have even played nicely with the idea of the ARAHNA device in the book.
The only downside was that since there was not a lot of reference for the Djarums, I would have had to make up a lot for the spine and back cover and I wasn’t sure anyone would get the reference, since they weren’t a well-know brand of smokes.
So I chose a more well-know brand of smokes.
And, almost immediately, the design sprung fully formed from my forehead and onto my dirty computer screen.
I swapped out the “Filtered Cigarettes” at the top of the original Marlboro package design for “Fa®si Cigarettes,” the futuristic cigarettes in the book that allow the smoker to speak any language, depending on which pack he was smoking. I also replaced “20 cigarettes” with “20 Japanese Smartsmokes,” since most of the people in the book speak Japanese, and even added a little Japanese rising sun flag design where the Marlboro logo would have been. I used the same font from the Marlboro logo for the title and “Ultra Smooth Thomas McKenzie Flavor” was a little inside joke that I through in there that Tom actually liked, so it stayed for the final draft.
Aside from some size alterations, there were only very few and very small changes made from the original sketch to the finished product.
The spine and the back cover I completely made up. Tom and I had the idea of making the back copy look like a Surgeon General’s Warning. Aren’t we clever? And, after one particularly long late-night phone call got the wording just right.
And here is the entire wraparound cover, completely finished.
It was kind of a bitch and, after every cover idea was rejected, I felt like a complete failure as a graphic designer. But, once we opened up to new ideas, I think we fell into a cover that we can both be extremely proud of.
Hope you guys enjoyed the process. Or thought it was vaguely interesting. Or, at least, wasn’t completely bored out of your skull while I kept on yammering.
And, if you haven’t already, go order your own copy of Thomas McKenzie’s KnoWare Man. It’s a hell of a ride.
Sitting in his KnoWare Land,
Hey kids,
I got some exciting news to share with you today!
My good friend, Tom McKenzie – also known as @TWM71 – wrote an amazing futuristic sci-fi novel, called KnoWare Man.
“KnoWare Man is the story of Walton Leese, who lives a life of bored luxury (“tits and speedboats,”) until the moment he pays the price for breaking the cardinal rule: You Can’t Take It With You.
He awakens from a century and a half of frozen horror to a world he no longer recognizes, and no longer recognizes himself. Employed by an organization who wishes to remain nameless, he’s forced by threat of violent death to chip quietly away the thin veneer of civility that keeps his fellow man from behaving like animals until finally he can take it no more…
Unfortunately, he’s just getting started.”
I’m very happy to say that, after ten years of writing, six computers, five drafts, four states, and two operating systems, Tom has finally published KnoWare Man through Lulu.com!
I’m pretty proud that KnoWare Man is finally being release. As Tom’s unofficial editor, I’ve read the book at least a dozen times, each pass better than the last. Not only that, but Tom also – somewhat foolishly – asked me to design the wraparound book cover. Yikes! It took a lot of time and a lot of drafts, but I think we came up with a great design. (Check back here in a few days and I’ll share my process to designing the cover.)
More than that, though, I’m proud to say that one of my best friends has met one of his lifelong dreams and published his first novel. Good on ya, Tom.
So go ahead and pick up your copy of KnoWare Man at Lulu.com and, when you’re done reading it, head on over to Tom’s blog or hit him up on Twitter and let him know how much you liked it.
Can’t wait to pick up my copy,
…is one of my favorite artists. Seriously, this kid can do no wrong.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I purchased some painted vinyl from him. It finally arrived in the mail on Tuesday and I immediately hung it up on my wall! Check it out:
The awesome thing about dwell, is that he can’t keep his hands off the crayons. So, when you buy something from him, even the packaging he mails your stuff in becomes art itself. Like so:
And, in since dwell and I are pretty good friends — we’ve known each other for, Christ!, almost ten years now — he always throws in a little something extra for me, like a little mini painting or some sketches. This time, he sent me his latest mixed CD.
I love new dwellephant art. I have more of his work hanging on my walls than any other artist. If you’d like to pick up your own dwellephant art work, you can find him on his website, his blog, his Etsy shop, become a fan of his on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter.
Huh. As it turns out, pimpin’ is actually pretty easy,
-Frankie
…makes these awesome little custom sculptures out of resin toys. He does more that just painting them and attaching them to wooden bases. He incorporates a whole feel for the world they live in. Whether it’s for trees or for monolithic creatures. Each one has a special place to live, so when you look at the piece, it’s apart of a world rather than next to another toy on a shelf. Each piece feels full and complete.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I purchased my first sculpture from Troy. It’s called Raffia and it is amazing. Check it out:
Pretty sweet, huh?
If you would like to purchase your own awesome resin toy sculpture — or commission Troy to make one specifically for you — you can find him on his website, BigCartel, deviantART, become a fan on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter.
Pimpin’ ain’t easy,
-Frankie
…of Geekshow Entertainment, called Punch-Up and Skottie Rocket, Gay Space Pirate the “most fun I’ve gotten from $5 in a long time! Awesomesauce!“
Awesomesauce indeed, Scott. Thanks for reading!
-Frankie
