"Tales of the New West" by Hernandez/Jew

I've been slowly cleaning out my studio lately.  I've been going through lots of old work that I haven't seen in decades.  I came across this comics page I did in 1988.  I was just finishing up in art school and was soon to embark upon my film career at ILM when I did this. This page was one of a handful I did for "Tales of the New West", a project written by Mario Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame.  I was ( and still am ) a huge fan of all three Hernandez Bros, so I was extremely excited when Mario asked me to help him out on the project.  Unfortunately, with my fulltime school load among other things, I wasn't able to commit my full attention to the project at the time and it never got off the ground.  The story was a quirky, imaginative adventure story and I would have loved to see were it would've gone.

Happy Holidays!!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Relax and make merry!

See you in 2010!

-benton and deana

Belated links to some interviews I did...

In November, I had an interview posted on the website AARisings, a site about Asian-Americans in the entertainment industry. Here is a direct link to the interview.

Here, I appear briefly in a video interview conducted at San Diego Comic Con about the whole Last Airbender controversy. Go to the Racebending site to find out more.

A Pair of Giants

Over the past few days I've been lucky enough to be in the presence of two of my comic book heroes. 

Last Saturday, I went to a CAPS dinner honoring Gene Colan.  Although Gene's doctors wouldn't allow him to travel to California, we were able to link up with him at his home in Brooklyn via the computer on SKYPE.  Mark Evanier, Gerry Conway, and Marv Wolfman were among the guest speakers.  Wolfman had commented on how Colan had made him better writer because Gene's naturalistic figures made it impossible for him to get away with writing bad dialogue.  It was great that he and his wife Adrienne could share the moment with us despite being 3000 miles away.  I was lucky enough to get a few minutes of one on one time with Gene at the end of the event.

On Thursday night, I saw a rare appearance by Robert Crumb at UCLA's Royce Hall.  I felt lucky to get in because the reclusive Crumb rarely makes public appearances. The talk was moderated by Francoise Mouly ( The New Yorker, RAW ).  Crumb talked about his life growing up, his current life in France, and his most recent project "The Book of Genesis Illustrated". This project was four years in the making for Crumb.  He originally expected it to be a year and a half project, but 40 pages in he realized this was going to be a much bigger project.  The work is amazing and the Hammer Museum is displaying every original page from the book from Oct. 24-Feb. 7.  More info here.

Some Costume Work

Been putting up a lot of comic stuff lately, so I think I'm going to start posting a bit more of my film work.

Here are a few costume illustrations I did for G.I.Joe: Rise of The Cobra. It was a fun gig. I was originally only supposed to be on the show for a few days during an emergency push, but it expanded into a much longer gig. The show really employed a who's who of concept illustrators in town. Some really amazing work was done for both the art and costume departments. I've only had a couple of opportunities to do costume, and find it to be a lot of fun. I worked with the costume designer before and there always seemed to be great work coming out of her crew. The other costume illustrators, Ed Natividad and Christian Cordella, did some amazing work. I've posted a couple of sketches I did of Scarlet and a photoshop comp I did of a Cobra Trooper.

Has 30 years made any difference?

So as I mentioned in a previous posting, I was going to redo the Tarzan drawing I did when I was a teenager in 1979. I redid it under similar "battleground conditions" as I had done it in 1979. I had no pencil sharpener, no eraser, no rulers or templates, no computer or internet, no reference ( except a printout of the '79 drawing ), and only an hour to do it in ( I did the original drawing in a junior high school art class ). I kind of went into this thinking I would blow my old drawing away, but surprisingly, it wasn't that easy. I had a hard time drawing the tiger completely out of my head ( Yes, I know there are no tigers in Africa. Didn't know that back then!) How did I ever survive without Google Images! The main difference I see is that I work a little more methodically now. A little neater and less careless. It was an interesting experiment. I may try it again soon, only allowing myself the luxury of my pro equipment and reference etc. Otherwise, I'll try this again in 2039!

Striking Work!

For the past year or so, the film industry has been rocked by threatened writer and actor strikes. This has meant a slowdown in film production. The resulting down time has allowed me to explore some more comic-related work.

Thus came the title of my new 2009 sketchbook, STRIKING WORK! It's making it's debut at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con. It's perfect bound, with 40 black and white pages. Limited to 300 signed and numbered copies. Some of the work has been seen here on the blog, but I've also added some oldies but goodies that you probably haven't seen, as well as 20 brand new sketches ( made exclusively for the book! )

So if you're in San Diego, please come by my table at Artist Alley ( EE02 ) and pick up your copy. In addition to STRIKING WORK, I'll be selling the 20 original art pieces I did for the book. There will also be copies of SECRET IDENTITIES and ROB HANES ADVENTURES #12 for sale. There are also very limited quantities of my four 24-Hour Comics and BABES IN SPACE.

And while you're at it, check out my brother Anson's cool new aptly titled color artbook, SHOW ME THE BODY! It's got figure drawings, monsters & robots, drawing tips, and even an animated flipbook! His table is right next to mine at EE01.

I will also be at two panels at the convention:

SATURDAY
10:30-11:30 Film Illustrators— Films, graphic novels, and comic books: what does it take to work as an illustrator in this ever-changing, challenging world of imagination? Meet the professionals who work with the writers, directors, producers, and production designers in the dynamic craft of creating iconic images for films and comics from the words on a page. Panelists are Tim Burgard (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Trevor Goring (Waterloo Sunset graphic novel), Gabriel Hardman (Heathen Town graphic novel), Benton Jew (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), and Phil Saunders (Iron Man). Moderated by Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times. Room 10

SUNDAY
2:00-1:00 How-To Session: Benton Jew— Benton Jew is a storyboard/concept illustrator and comic book artist from Los Angeles. He began his career in film at George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic, where he provided artwork on The Mask, The Mummy, and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He has also done some comic book work and has recently contributed art to Secret Identities: The Asian-American Superhero Anthology, Rob Hanes Adventures and Marvel's Agents of Atlas and Hulk Family. Benton will present more information on the creative process from storyboarding on major motion pictures to independent publishing. Room 18

Below is a list of booths and tables you should visit. This list will grow, so if you want me to add you, drop me a line.

Anson Jew (Artist's Alley EE-01)
Benton Jew (Artist's Alley EE-02)
Sho Murase (Artist's Alley GG-01)
Wayne Lo (Artist's Alley LL-07)
Bosco Ng (Artist's Alley KK-04)
Steward Lee (Artist's Alley KK-10)
Vaughn Ross (Artist's Alley GG-02)
Dan Panosian (Artist's Alley II-15)
Gene Yang (Artist's Alley AA-04)
Gene Colan (Artist's Alley AA-16)
Russ Heath (Artist's Alley AA-14)
Tony DeZuniga (Artist's Alley BB-04)
Derek Thompson, Ted Mathot (#1215)
FLIGHT /Kazu Kibuishi, Sonny Liew(# 2329)
Pixar artists: Scott Morse, Jeff Pidgeon, Ronnie del Carmen, Enrico Casarosa (#4800)
Stephen Silver (#H6)
Sam Hiti (#1831)
Kevin Dart / Fleet Street Scandal(#1316)
Paul Briggs (#4039)
Martin Hsu (#G-02)
Secret Identities (#1735)
Randy Reynaldo (#S14)
Abismo/ Nerve Bomb ( #1329)
Dean Yeagle (#1037)
Christian Alzmann Studios (#4916)
Stan Sakai (#4906)
Steve Leialoha (#I06)
Sergio Aragonés (#I07)
Sean "Cheeks" Galloway (#2544)
Stuart Ng Books (#5012)
The Blvd./Trevor Goring, Bernard Chang etc (#1821)

More coming. And with links...