Oh man. I watched The Bourne Supremacy last week, and it’s still on my mind. Man, it was good, way WAY better than I expected. I remember liking the first movie alright, but I read and reread the book throughout middle and high school and beyond, and knew the story well enough that I was distracted from the movie by the adaptation, does that make sense? Robert Ludlum did write Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum books before he died, but if I’ve ever read Supremacy I can’t really remember doing so, and I know I never made it to Ultimatum. So going into the movie, I figured it was just the mediocre second chapter in a franchise, and I was looking to watch a loud action movie basically.

Which it was, definitely. But what was shocking about Bourne Supremacy the movie was how well it was told–literally, I was shocked. I’m not the most, or even the much, sophisticated movie-watcher in the world, and I kind of like it that way. I like not knowing enough about movies, so as to be genuinely transported by them, which I was during Bourne Supremacy. The story was, well, whatever–there wasn’t that much story really, just a continuation of the original superspy-killing-machine-with-amnesia plot.

But the telling! The entire story takes place on the hoof, with someone (usually Bourne) speeding or running or limping somewhere, being chased by the governments of a few nations and worse. But more than that, it’s how the director chose to show the story that made the movie so enjoyable. He moves the camera around at such a blistering speed, that you never have an opportunity to feel “placed” as an observer–it has the effect of keeping you as semi-confused and off-balance as the film’s protagonist. How easy is it for a schlub sitting on his sofa in Charlotte with Oreo crumbs on his chest to identify with an amnesiac master assassin in Berlin? I’m not really interested in violence or spies or all that, but there I was in the middle of the day with my heart in my throat. I love it!

I don’t know or understand much about cinematography, but I’ve been struggling lately in my comics with how to stage panels, how much to show, how to make the panels more interesting, change camera angles and perspectives, bring a reader into things instead of just merely reading. Watching the last big scene of the movie, the big car chase in Moscow, I was on the edge of my seat, and only afterwards realized that the reason was that I was in all the shots, I was being moved and jerked around just like the subjects of the shots. Whoever edited this scene below must have biceps in their eyeballs; I cannot imagine how long it must have taken to edit this movie.  BUT: pretty sure this scene is spoilery–it is after all the big climax. So don’t watch it if you haven’t seen the movie, or if you ever intend to.

Oh! I almost forgot, I put these three sketchbook spreads up in my Flickr set devoted to that sort of thing–I think I’m about 2/3 of the way to having that whole sketchbook up online, which is cool (maybe). I think so, anyway. Shutup.

New strip is up, yo! Still working kinks out of this style, changing some stuff here and there. Sweetest change that worked out is that this original is on cream card-stock I bought at Kinko’s, and it’s all in dip pen. Makes it both harder and easier, but I love how chunky it makes the lines. So hope you dig that.

But in this case, super time consuming, so that’s all I have to say for now. Lots to do today, let’s get to work! Okay everybody let’s do it!

This week’s strip is going to be a day late, as I’m, well, still working on it. I’m also struggling to finish my piece for the Covered art show going on in LA in March. So wish me luck on that badboy, I’ll be chained to my drawing board all day inking and coloring and likely ruining the very nice pencils I did for it. Oh and my strip too, it’s looking sweet as well–could be a good week for Dharbin comics!

Or an abject failure. TIME WILL TELL! In the meantime, here are some more diary comics, the entire set of which you can read in order at Flickr.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Coleman Hawkins lately. When I first got into jazz in high school, it was Duke Ellington, there was just something about him. While he’s easily most known as a “swing” or “big band” composer and bandleader, there’s something so SMOOTH about Duke Ellington. So smooth, in fact, that even a 16-year old kid could “get” it, not to mention the same kid almost 20 years later. Lots of range in there, you know what I mean? I think it’s part of what made him so successful in his day, there was enough range in his music for the dummies and the snobs alike.

But I wasn’t really into “swing” music that much, especially when that weird fad hit in the 90’s and people were actually wearing zoot suits and taking swing dance lessons? Remember that? Yes you do. You probably bought that Brian Setzer Orchestra album didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU? Anyway, by then I was living with The Piemaker and had been exposed to what I still think of as the apogee of American jazz, the period between 1950 and 1970, including the best of Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, etc. To a 20-something, swing music lacked the sort of raw spirituality, the passion, the searching quality of more “out” jazz.

But man–there’s something to be said for smoothness, even so. John Coltrane was an extraordinary musician, moreso an extraordinary composer and soloist. But the early guys, new as their artform was, had an impossibly perfect technique; they were the Bachs and Beethovens of the early 20th century–and remember that in a very real sense they just made jazz up. Bach and Beethoven had hundreds of years of development preceding them to take advantage of; Fats Waller and Art Tatum and Duke Ellington likely had living relatives who had been slaves.

Slaves! Crazy.

Anyway, check out my man Coleman “Bean” Hawkins, playing the standard “Body and Soul.” If you’re not into jazz necessarily, just pay attention to his breathing, how much air he puts into each note. Pretty amazing.

Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention, I put some more sketchook pages up in my Flickr set collecting my entire last sketchbook.

Beginning this week, a new story which will be 10 pages I think, or at least that’s how many in the strip. I might drag it out an extra page depending on how the panels shake out.

I’m more excited about this story than usual, because for the first time I’m starting to get closer to the kind of simple, clean, open style I want, without all the gobbledygook and crosshatching and stuff I normally throw in there to cover for bad composition. The extra plus is that it’s much faster to do pages when you fill big spaces with white or black instead of a million useless details. Progress feels good! I hope you guys like it.

More diary comics! You can view the whole set to date (since January 01, 2010) here on my Flickr. Warning: excessively mundane. If you’re into the banal, then that should read: ADDED VALUE: excessively mundane!

If you’ve ever seen Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje on OZ, then you know what I mean.

I’ll tell you what it means Dharbin–not much. Yet. But soon it will mean something, I feel sure. I FEEL SURE.

Oh man well it looks like all this snow has cancelled my comics class. Or rather, I’ve heard from 75% of the class that they can’t make it. Looks like we’ll be NIGHT-SCHOOLIN it before too long. So instead of using the fact that I’m nearly awake to actually work on some comics, I’m just posting stuff. Ha! Take that, comics! Here’s a funny picture from last night:

That look is as close as I can get to approximating the utter desolation of adulthood. KIDS TAKE NOTE: enjoy your simple times while you have them, the freedom you think lies ahead does not exist! Look on my face and take heed!

Okay enough of that, let’s look at some harpies with gun-boobies instead. NOW THAT’S ADULTHOOD!

My friend Richard Wright has tried again and again to get me hired by his various movie and commercial projects over the years, and I love him for his tireless efforts, which have been universally rebuffed. The spread above is for GENTLEMAN BRONCOS, the recent Jared/Jerusha Hess movie starring Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ronald Chevalier. Richard, who was art director on the movie, asked me to do some sketches for these gun-harpies, which are part of a montage where you see Dr. Chevalier’s own weird drawings and paintings. It is pretty hard to try and draw beneath your level–i.e., make it look more stilted/childish than it already does. So much of drawing for me is trying to avoid that stuff, it’s hard to shift your muscles in the other direction. I suspect that a better cartoonist could do it better, or maybe one with a less rigid approach than my own.

I used to try and draw pretty much-on full-on sketches for comics in my sketchbook, but then I realized that most of the time I used up my interest in drawing it by doing it the first time. Weird, huh? But my current practice of super-tiny thumbnails isn’t the best either, so maybe I’ll end up with some hybrid version one day.

I need to take some sort of master class in drawing women, I’m the worst at it. They are showing up more and more in my diary comics too, not to mention my upcoming memoir comics. Hmm.

Alright! I, with the kind assistance of random.org, have selected a winner to my little self-promotion contest. Hats off to Mr “@EthanEde“, who was the 13th to retweet and/or post a link to my original contest posting. For his troubles, Mr @ede will receive the original concept drawing for my Under-Achiever strip–not technically the art for the strip itself, which was pieced together from a lot of drawings, but a nice pinup nonetheless, and far larger than what I ended up doing anyway.

Additional kudos to Mr Henry Eudy, who also travels the Twitterways as @OhTheHumanatee, and who was the very first person to enter; as well as someone who bought a page of art from me last week, and who has patiently endured my continued forgetfulness in actually transmitting said art to him. Henry is a cartoonist of no small talent himself, so it’s a double pleasure to get his money. Which is not to say I don’t want your money, just to be clear. Because I do. I want it. I need it.

Okay, so thanks to everyone very much, not only to those who participated, but also to those who endured it. I’m a little embarassed about doing something like this, as it’s precisely the sort of thing I hate myself. But what can you do, we’re all our best employees in this hardscrabble world, you’ve got to get out there and beat those streets!

This week’s strip is due completely to the kind intervention of Chris Butcher, who pointed out (rightly) that it was probably a bad idea to take a week off my strip while in the middle of trying to build my audience with a goofy promotion. I couldn’t think of anything to make a strip ABOUT though, and was in the middle of trying to get ready for Jim Rugg and Chris Pitzer to stay in my house. So I wrote Chris into things, and in the absence of an actual story idea it was easier to just make him lose his temper.

Really Chris, just calm down, come on now. I didn’t really do him justice, although I feel like the last panel actually looks like him, which was frustrating–since that was the last one I drew of course. What can you do?

Here is the short version: I want to expand my audience and I’d like you to help. I will give this piece of original art away next week to SOMEone who does SOMEthing, which I will reveal to you in just a few column inches.

To anyone who links to this blog post, or retweets my tweet linking to this post, I will stick your name in a hat and draw a name out next Tuesday, February 9. Let’s say at noon. That’s pretty much it. Most of the time my blog will sense links to it and list them as “trackbacks;” but it’s probably better to let me know, either in the comments section below, or by email at dusty[at]dharbin[dot]com.

One entry per person; I won’t be upset if you retweet every once in a while, but it won’t earn you additional “chances.” It might earn you the opprobrium of your various Twitter audiences, so be careful with that. Let’s not spam anyone, especially with MY GOOD NAME!

The art itself is from a couple of years ago; it’s the original drawing I did while planning the–apparently difficult to understand–strip I posted this week. I will say that, while I obviously like the new version better, this one still looks pretty good, much less mortifying to me than I thought it would be. It’s about 12.5″ x 7, ink on bristol, and looks sharp.

Okay get on out there and make me famous! And thank you in advance for your kind help!

UPDATE! Lots of response to this; I’ve decided to extend the cut-off to Wednesday February 10 at 4pm EST, AND, if my follower count hits 750 on Twitter by then, I’ll give away THREE pieces of art instead of one. So get out there and pimp me suckaz!