More Biker Dwarfs
Some more biker dwarf illustrations! YES! Very goofy but very, very fun! Colour versions of two of these (in different styles, too) can be found here.
CBC Arts Profile on Von Allan
This is a short (approximately 4 minute) CBC Arts profile on yours truly. In it, I discuss art and comics, growing up with a parent that's mentally ill, and also my process of making art. I should add that this short is actually part of a larger documentary, titled I AM STILL YOUR CHILD, that is available to stream anywhere in Canada right now. Information on viewing it in other parts of the world should be known soon. The documentary's official website is a good way to keep on top of this.
As noted in the accompanying CBC article, the documentary I AM STILL YOUR CHILD gave me an opportunity to revisit the artwork from my graphic novel the road to god knows.... This is mainly because the original graphic novel was published in 2009 and the film premiered in 2017. That's a long time and my art has grown and developed between those two dates. For those who'd like to learn a little more about this, I did a short essay discussing the changes (including direct comparisons with the art).
If the player doesn't work, you should be able to find the video here.
On Getting Stronger
That said, the graphic novel was self-published and, art-wise, it's rough. I think there was a lot of heart to it, but my visual art was pretty weak. Figure-drawing problems, perspective problems, composition problems, value problems...you name a problem and road had it. In spades. I came to art very late and learning to draw is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Comics require a great deal of knowledge to do well. Those problems I mentioned? Well, you need everything to work together extremely well to create a comic. If that harmony isn't there...well, you get a pretty rough comic. And that certainly was an issue with road. But we learn by doing and I'm still proud, to this day, that I managed to do it. Rough spots and all.
So I published it and it did as well as could be expected, especially given my art skills at the time. And though it still sold a bit every year, I stopped thinking about it. I moved on with my life, continued to make art and comics, continued to get stronger, but putting that rough first graphic novel behind me.
Flash forward to April 2015 and I received an email out of the blue from a writer/director named Megan Durnford. She's working on a documentary film about the impact of parental mental illness and wanted to talk with me about road. To make a long story short, the film (titled I Am Still Your Child) was made (amazing!) and I was a part of it (shocking!). And it was made with empathy and sensitivity and deals with an issue that really isn't discussed much in public at all. I was (and am) very pleased to be included in the film.
The making of the documentary led to an interesting situation. Megan wanted to use artwork from the road to god knows... in the documentary. And...that was not good. I hadn't looked at the art in a number of years and, when I revisited it, I was dismayed (maybe horrified would be a better word). The art was rough. Really, really rough. And it put me in a bind; I didn't want to have road represent where I am now. That may sound weird; I think it did with the folks involved in the film, but because the graphic novel was such a personal project for me and because my art had certainly improved quite a bit from back then, the idea of seeing that art in a documentary left me cold.
So we worked out an interesting solution. I would revisit road and redraw selected pages and panels from the graphic novel that Megan wanted to include in the film. As it turns out, that was one helluva big job.
Some of the work was emotional; I was revisiting themes that in some ways I didn't want to revisit. For example, I was revisiting the death of my mom; the graphic novel is pretty autobiographical and while my mom died long before it was ever published, her presence is a big part of of the story for me.
Some of the work was practical; in order to keep the pages similar, I had to stay pretty close to how I did things almost a decade ago, even though I would not necessarily write or draw the same way now. That wasn't easy; how I approach composition is different now. My thoughts on how a comic book page is put together is different now. How I write is different now. And on and on. Plus there was that pesky fact that the original art was pretty rough. I could use it as a guideline, really a very loose thumbnail, but that's it. I would have to draw most of it from scratch, as if it was a brand new story.
The actual redrawn art presented another problem. By redrawing the art, I could accidentally give the impression that the new art is what the graphic novel actually looks like. I felt a little sick when that dawned on me, so the solution was to avoid it completely by making the graphic novel out of print. I realize that there still a few copies “out there,” but it's fortunately not so easy to find and hopefully anyone who sees the documentary (along with the caveat about the art in the film credits) will understand. It's one of those weird situations that is almost counter-intuitive; in a way, the documentary will bring more attention to the road to god knows... then it ever had before. But to redraw the entire graphic novel (to “fix it” if you will) would be a monumental undertaking. Even with the redraws I did for the documentary, I only wound up touching something like 10% of the book. To redraw the rest would require...well, certainly a very keen and excited publisher. For me to do that other 90%? Nope. Tempting, but nope. I would rather move forward then go backward.
Given all that, the redraws represent an interesting and fairly poignant “what if.” What if I hadn't published the graphic novel when I did? What if the entire graphic novel looked the way the redraws do? Would it have found a broader audience? Would it have found a publisher? What if?
Ultimately, who knows? We learning by doing. I did the best work I could on the road to god knows... back in 2005-2009. That the work wasn't the best is unfortunate, but that's life. If I hadn't done it, would I have given up on art by now? Who knows? Do I regret doing it? No, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wish the art in the original version was stronger. It was hard to revisit on that point alone.
You may note, by the by, that I don't say that I've gotten better. Better, in art and in life, is a judgment call that's difficult to make. Who's to say? What is better? But I know that I have gotten stronger. And that's enough.
It is pretty amazing to find that road still touches people, enough to be included in a documentary almost eight years after it was published. Enough that the book is still talked about today. I occasionally get emails, like the one I received from Megan back in the spring of 2015. And, despite my misgivings, I'm happy the book keeps touching people, even in its rough form.
And road, despite its flaws, taught me one thing. I love to draw. I wish I had found that out earlier, but I know it now. And that's not nothing.
The Redraws
What follows are a series of images from the original published version of the road to god knows... and the re-draw versions. These are presented side by side, without further comment from me.
Bill the Wizard head sketches
I believe these were the first sketches I ever did of Bill the Wizard from my Bill and Butch stories. He's not "on model" here, but that's mainly because I was playing around with ideas. I had the general concept down, but I wasn't completely sure about his final facial appearance. So you can see me trying to find him in these inked sketches.
The image below, on the other hand, is an example of a head turnaround of Bill with his design finalized. I usually don't ink concept work like this, but I love Bill and he's fun to ink!
Dungeon Crawling Robots and Some Monsters
I love fusing fantasy and sci-fi. I know some people have trouble with that, but I love it. The idea of robots, armed with swords and carrying backpacks, looking for treasure in an old school dungeon is awesome...at least to me! In fact, when I play LABYRINTH LORD, I've added the robot class from James Spahn's WHITE STAR game into the mix.
In fact, that theme is fused in my Bill and Butch comic book stories. Wizards and Robots! Yeah!
These monsters were done mainly as a warm-up, but I got a kick out of them. I have to admit that when it comes to monsters, I much prefer original creations versus the old standbys. I understand why it's fun to play around with ogres, goblins, and orcs, and whatnot, but there's something arcane and unknowable about a brand new monster that creates doubt and excitement. "What is it?" "What can it do?" "Our arrows bounced off!" "Our swords broke!" "Oh, shit, run!"
Awesome!
The Mary Marvel Fan Club!
I have a soft spot for Mary Marvel and the rest of the entire Marvel Family. Plus that wonderful ol’ wizard Shazam! This illustration features two kids inspired by Mary Marvel and was loosely inspired by a story in the old 1970’s SHAZAM! series, specifically “The Haunted Clubhouse” in issue 13 by E. Nelson Bridwell and Bob Oksner.
For a bit more of my art featuring Mary, please visit https://www.vonallan.com/2022/09/mary-marvel-fanart.html.
That 1970’s series is an odd-duck. DC Comics had successfully purchased the old Fawcett Comics intellectual properties and attempted to relaunch Captain Marvel for a new era. It didn’t quite work and I’m not sure why. Legendary Captain Marvel artist C.C. Beck had been brought back to draw Cap’s new adventures, but left after ten issues over (as Wikipedia notes), “due to ‘creative differences’ regarding plotlines.” Writer Otto Binder would later remark in an issue of the FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA fanzine (later republished in the FAWCETT COMPANION: THE BEST OF FCA) that he understood Beck’s point of view, noting “My opinion would be that the new stories are a little too whimsical, and downright silly at times. In the old days we treated Captain Marvel lightly with humor and satirical plots; but nevertheless we were quite serious about putting across Captain Marvel’s character, with Billy Batson as the actual main character. We took a great deal of care to keep them both in character, but that took endless discussions, while being immersed with the atmosphere of the times, all of which the new writers are missing I’m afraid. Hence, their attitude toward the Captain Marvel character is well out of character!”
Having read a number of these issues and compared them to the public domain Fawcett issues that “out there” on the internet, I think I can see what both Beck and Binder were alluding to. That said, I’m not sure what the two would have thought of Mary’s adventures. She wasn’t in that many issues of the 1970’s revival series and only featured a handful of times, but I did like the stories that she was in. They could have used more magic realism, though, something that I’d argue was a hallmark of Binder’s stories with Mary, at least in the pages of WOW COMICS.
All that said, I still really love Mary Marvel. She was (and is) a wonderful character, full of compassion, strength, joy, love, and courage. What more could anyone ask for in a hero?
Head Turnarounds for the short story "I Was Afraid For My Life"
For my short story I Was Afraid For My Life, I did a number of turnarounds to finalize the growth and age changes that the main character (the nameless boy) goes through. The story is somewhat abstract, with each page of the story featuring a different point in the boy's life, so I wanted to make sure I was "on model" as I worked on it. It's a fair amount of work for such a short story, but I thought it was a good idea to do it. And I still do!
Character sketches in pencil
These are pretty loose pencils, but I since I ink my own work I generally find loose pencils are a much better and quicker way for me to approach my art. My pencils kind of evolve as I ink anyway; it's not unusual for me to ink for a bit, then switch back to pencils to tighten or correct something, then move right back into inking. I can also do a bit of a weird fusion; while I tend to pencil "traditionally" (i.e.: with an actual pencil on actual paper), I usually do some digital pencilling, too. Partially that's because I often "flip" my pencils so that I can see them in reverse, which is easy enough to when working digitally as I do. And partially because corrections are much faster with digital pencils, at least in my experience.
Whatever gets you to the final image, eh?
Trailer for I AM STILL YOUR CHILD documentary
I've been fortunate enough to be involved in a documentary project focusing on the children of parents with mental illness (COPMI). It's a pretty amazing project and I've been thrilled to be involved. Megan Durnford, the writer and director, Katarina Soukup, the producer from Catbird Productions, Stéphanie Couillard, Alex Margineanu (cinematographer), Stéphane Barsalou (sound recorder), and the rest of the crew have brought an empathy to the film that is quite remarkable. There are still a lot of societal taboos regarding mental illness and I think this film might help challenge that.
So why did they get in touch with me? Well, my mom was diagnosed schizophrenic when I was quite young. I actually wrote and drew a graphic novel titled the road to god knows... that is an account (albeit fictionalized) of my experiences with my mom's mental illness and my growing awareness that she was not "okay." I didn't go the full autobiographical route for a number of reasons, but one of the main one's is that my mom died before I even started the comic and I wanted some emotional distance from the work and my own life.
The documentary uses quite a bit of my art through it, but I should note that I actually re-drew a number of pages specifically for the film (I'm going to do a follow-up post specifically on this subject in the near future).
The film will be airing on CBC Montreal through the documentary series Absolutely Quebec on Saturday, September 16th. It will have a wider release shortly after that. I'll update the website as I know more.
In the meantime, the trailer linked above really captures the tone of it very well. I think it's beautiful. For more on the film, keep an eye on the Facebook page and the official website.
Boy and dog pinup from I Was Afraid For My Life
This is a larger version of one panel from my short story I Was Afraid For My Life. This is the reverse of a typical character design; I did this one after the short story was completed, just to see how it would turn out. Even though this is from a couple of years ago, the characters and the story still resonate with me.
Illustration of a punky young woman
This was a fun piece to do. Trying to capture a bit of character and movement in a very quick illustration. Sometimes I'll really do a lot of breakdowns and design as I try to capture a main character (turnarounds, head shots, you name it). In a piece like this, there's none of that. Just develop who she is as you go!
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