Lance Tooks' Journal

African-American Classics is coming! First reviews are in... order now!

2011-11-16T04:59:00.000-08:00

From their website, Library Journal highly recommends AAC.

And this one's from comics historian Paul Gravett, from his site.

Thanks for reading, folks! Here's a recent piece about my contribution to last year's Graphic Novel adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working, from the Stanford Graphic Nonfiction site.

And here's another.

The story of waitress Dolores Dante was one of my favorite pieces to work on... in fact, I had to fight to get her... my editor thought all the women's interviews should be interpreted by women. (Didn't bother me at all that the lone adapted Black interview was interpreted by a White cartoonist.) Thankfully, I was trusted to do Dolores justice... and I hope I did. More on the other interviews at this link to the Stanford site.

Best, Lance Tooks

African-American Classics is coming your way in December, and then...

2011-10-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

African-American Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 22 will present great stories and poems from America’s earliest Black writers, illustrated by contemporary African-American artists. Featured are “Two Americans” by Florence Lewis Bentley, “The Goophered Grapevine” by Charles W. Chesnutt, “Becky” by Jean Toomer, two short plays by Zora Neale Hurston, and six more tales of humor and tragedy. Also eleven poems, including Langston Hughes’ “Danse Africaine” and “The Negro”, plus Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” (‘I know why the caged bird sings…’) The book is edited by Graphic Classics publisher Tom Pomplun, and co-edited by longtime GC contributor Lance Tooks, with story adaptations by Alex Simmons, Christopher Priest and Mat Johnson. Art is by some of today’s best artists in the comics and illustration fields, including Kyle Baker, Afua Richardson, Trevor Von Eeden, Jeremy Love, Randy DuBurke, Stan Shaw, Milton Knight, Arie Monroe, Jim Webb, Shepherd Hendrix, Kevin J. Taylor, Leilani Hickerson, Kenjji Marshall, Keith Mallett, Larry Poncho Brown, John Jennings, Glenn Brewer, Masheka Wood, Titus V. Thomas, Mac McGill, Jimmie Robinson and Lance Tooks. FULL COLOR. Look for it December 2011. Click HERE for an all new preview on the Graphic Classics website, as well as links to the contributors' own personal sites!

This month I'm proud to share with the readers of "Lance Tooks' Journal," a small sampling of works in progress by the many wonderful creators who made the African-American Classics anthology possible. Click each image to enlarge. First up is Afua Richardson's evocative cover. When you look at her period illustration of literary giants waiting for their respective trains, you can practically hear Duke Ellington swinging in the background as the conductor shouts, "All Aboooaard!"

Next we have an image from scripter Alex Simmons' adaptation of Florence Lewis Bentley's moving tale of "Two Americans," which features knockout art from comics veteran Trevor Von Eeden with colors by Adrian Johnson.

The brilliant Randy DuBurke illustrated Jean Toomer's haunting "Becky" from a script by Mat Johnson.

The delicate "Buyers of Dreams" by Ethel Caution has been brought to life by artist Leilani Hickerson from a script by editor Tom Pomplun.

Pomplun's script for Leila Amos Pendleton's raucous "Sanctum 777 N.S.D.C.O.U. meets Cleopatra" has been interpreted here by Kevin J. Taylor.

Masheka Wood provided the playful visuals for James Edwin Campbell's "De Cunjah Man."

Zora Neale Hurston's playlet, "Filling Station" receives the full service treatment from Graphics Classics regular, Milton Knight.

And illustrator Shepherd Hendrix has given us the strange brew of "The Goophered Grapevine" by Charles W. Chesnutt from another script by Simmons.

These are just the tip of the iceberg... there's more great preview art at the Graphic Classics link above, as well as on African-American Classics' regularly updated Facebook page, which can be reached by clicking HERE.

I also highly recommend that you check out this brief interview with African-American Classics' Publisher-Editor Tom Pomplun (please forgive our typo there) at Alex Simmons' fine YouTube page.

In addition to these fine works, I'm privileged to have been a part of Seven Stories Press' upcoming anthology, "The Graphic Canon." Arriving in 2012, my comics adaptations of Mary Shelley's "The Mortal Immortal" and Somerset Maugham's "Rain" are featured in the second and third volumes of the graphic trilogy.

For more information about that amazing collection of stories and artists, edited by Russ Kick, have a look at THIS, the Seven Stories Press website.

Thanks for reading, folks! I'm proud to have been a collaborator in such illustrious company... and I can't wait to tell you what's coming up after all that! 2012 is going to be an incredible year.
Lance Tooks

African-American Classics...

2011-06-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

African-American Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 22 will present great stories and poems from America’s earliest Black writers, illustrated by contemporary African-American artists. Featured are “Two Americans” by Florence Lewis Bentley, “The Goophered Grapevine” by Charles W. Chesnutt, “Becky” by Jean Toomer, two short plays by Zora Neale Hurston, and six more tales of humor and tragedy. Also eleven poems, including Langston Hughes’ “Danse Africaine” and “The Negro”, plus Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” (‘I know why the caged bird sings…’) The book is co-edited by longtime GC contributor Lance Tooks, with story adaptations by Alex Simmons, Christopher Priest and Mat Johnson. Art is by some of today’s best artists in the comics and illustration fields, including Kyle Baker, Afua Richardson, Trevor Von Eeden, Jeremy Love, Randy DuBurke, Stan Shaw, Milton Knight, Arie Monroe, Jim Webb, Shepherd Hendrix, Kevin Taylor, Leilani Hickerson, Kenjji Marshall, Keith Mallett, Larry Poncho Brown, John Jennings, Glenn Brewer, Masheka Wood, Titus V. Thomas, Mac McGill, Jimmie Robinson and Lance Tooks. FULL COLOR. Look for it December 2011. Click HERE for a look at Afua Richardson's evocative cover on the Graphic Classics website!

I'm honored to have been a contributor to the Graphic Classics comics series for several years now. Editor and Publisher Tom Pomplun has from his series' inception taken the greatest writers in the world, from Poe to Twain, Wilde to Lovecraft, and placed them in the hands of some of the most unique contemporary cartoonists. Their approaches range from faithful to irreverent, but none of his contributors has ever been indifferent to their source works, adapting them with personal flavor and verve. (Imitation volumes are springing up everywhere as we speak, not necessarily a bad thing!) So when Tom and I discussed the possibility of a volume adapting never-before-seen-in-comics authors like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and W.E.B. DuBois into the Graphic Classics format, I was thrilled at the prospect that readers of all ages might be exposed to such a brilliant group of writers for the first time. He asked me to share the responsibility of editing the project with him, a privilege I truly couldn't refuse. In choosing both our classic authors and modern artists we each created a pool of names from which we selected a veritable "dream team" of contributors. These artists, all of whom are African-American, have long dreamed of being a part of such a project, and have rendered each tale with great care and respect. Helping to create this book has been a blast for me, and I can't wait for you to see it!

I'd like to share a little about how my own short pieces in AFRICAN-AMERICAN CLASSICS came to be.
Alice Dunbar Nelson was the wife of better known poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, and a respected author in her own right. A dream project of mine would be to create a biographical comic about the pair, a classic turn of the century literary couple with a difference... and dispersed throughout would be bits of their unique poetry and short stories, to complement the pair's various hardships and victories. So I suggested Dunbar Nelson early on as a favorite candidate of mine. Her short horror tale, A CARNIVAL JANGLE would be one of two pieces I would adapt for the book.
My first step when adapting an author's prose work is often to create a rough worksheet in two parts, onto which I sprawl on one side, a series of notes and ideas about my approach to the tale and on the other, a grid noting the key visual event taking place on each page. I markup my printout of the original story as well, editing the text down to a workable first draft. (I later edit it more on the actual art files, and my editor usually does an even cleaner job of it when I turn in the finished work.)

I then choose my cast, which usually involves drawing versions of the character until I feel I've got the look I want... but in the case of JANGLE, I knew I needed to find a particular innocence in the eyes of Flo, my doomed protagonist. So I flipped through one of my old hard-covered "graffiti" sketchbooks until I stopped upon a sixteen year old illustration that I had done of a doe-eyed woman. For my Mephisto character, the story's antagonist, I went even farther back, summoning forth a skull-faced malefactor from twenty years past. (In my LUCIFER'S GARDEN series of graphic novels for NBM, it was a regular occurrence to mix the old art with the new... it's ALL new to 99 percent of the world anyway, and I see no reason to waste a drawing if it still has value to me.)

Then, because I don't have a traditional art studio, I take to the streets. I used to lament the fact that my place was too small to work in and too busy to concentrate in... but I had a change of heart the day I decided that all of Madrid was going to be my art studio. Now, armed with pencils and pens to draw with and sketchbooks and card stock to draw on, I wander into my favorite bars in Huertas or Lavapies, turn up my Ipod and pick these stories apart visually. I create finished art on the spot, which upon returning home, I scan into my Mac and assemble into viable layouts in Photoshop. (Many of these "bar sketches" have turned up on this blog from time to time, inspired by the energy of young Spanish people... and a wee bit of whiskey, perhaps.)
Here's a preview of the completed A CARNIVAL JANGLE...

I was unfamiliar with author Frances E.W. Harper before Tom introduced me to her story SHALMANEZER, PRINCE OF COSMAN, an old Arabian Nights style passion play about a young prince who comes face to face with entities representing Fame, Wealth and Pleasure. I had adapted a similar piece by Ambrose Bierce for my very first Graphic Classics contribution way back in 2003, and my father and uncle once turned the medieval morality play EVERYMAN into a lively musical, so this was not uncharted territory for me. SHALMANEZER was at 12 pages, twice the length of JANGLE, and thus required a larger worksheet. (Here in two parts.)

I drew the characters the same way I did NARCISSA, which required creating my trademark silhouette people with double lines suggesting white interior highlights and filling in jet black skin using Photoshop's trusty paintbucket. The only significant change I made to Harper's text was a change of gender for some of the abstract cast members. I felt that if all of Shalmanezer's "evil" temptresses were women, the "good" ones representing Peace and Self Denial should be female as well. I chose a more limited color palette because the chiaroscuro figures would be overwhelmed if I added too much color. Here's an uncorrected preview of the completed SHALMANEZER...

And so, after 30 years as a freelance artist, I finally get to make a color comic book! There will be plenty more preview art by a whole posse of talented illustrators up very soon at the GRAPHIC CLASSICS website. Thanks to Tom Pomplun for making it possible, the many legendary authors for paving the way for us against all odds, and two dozen brilliant contributors to AFRICAN-AMERICAN CLASSICS for creating such a wonderful book! So, what are you waiting for? Go get yourself a copy!
best, Lance Tooks

Special Bonus Link... read the Original Short story A CARNIVAL JANGLE by Alice Dunbar Nelson online by clicking here!

Plagued by Paparazzi...

2011-05-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

My secret ambition to become the most photographed celebrity since Marlin Perkins continues with this latest Madrid sighting… have a look at Jose Luis’ Flickr page by clicking here!

Taken @ the Taberna Encantada, home of the best dish on the planet, "Los Huevos PakaRotos"! (Pictured below, along with a couple more sketches done there last week.)

Don't hate me 'cuz I'm beautiful!
Lance Tooks

PS.. Extra Special BONUS link HERE! “You know you’re unchained when…”

Heroes at large...

2011-05-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

One of the funnier byproducts of last Thanksgiving's Alabama visit, was a message sent to me by my 13 year old self, which arrived in the form of a timeworn stack of my earliest homemade comics. Above, you'll notice my recent reply to him... below, some bits of the books themselves. (as always, click to enlarge if you care to.)

Back in the mid 70's, superheroes ruled the American comic book roost, and there were few real "Graphic Novels" to speak of. I taught myself to tell these visual tales one shaky image at a time, and enjoyed every minute of it! I loved animals, so pretty much every superhero I'd ever created for myself was inspired by my favorite ones. "Write what you know," as they say.

"He was Desmond E. Andrews... Scientist, Animal Phsycologist (sic... I always had trouble spelling that one), Expert on Mutations. Until a freak experiment turned him into a 'missing link!' A cross between a man and the animal he worked on... A Living MONGOOSE!" (sic) I guess that explains why most Psychologists don't "Work on" Mongooses... it's liable to turn one savage, causing a hairy four foot tail to sprout from one's buttocks. The question posed on the cover was a purely rhetorical one... "Is he hero?! (sic) Or is he the most spellbinding villain of all?!" Lucky for us, he was hero.

Our friend the noble Mongoose was plagued by unfortunate lapses into feral dementia... which, while enabling him to kick heaps of villainous behind with impunity, had the most embarrassing tendency to leave his expensive custom made fighting leotard in shreds. Not that you'd notice the raggedy vines while staring at the hairy four foot tail sprouting from his buttocks.

By 1977, the Mongoose was too 1975... so a new year demanded a new breed of hero... The JAGUAR!!! (insert roar) Dr. Kevin Kelly was dying of an inoperable brain tumor, (paging Narcissa) and through a series of hoary coincidences, found his DNA fused with that of the mighty Jaguar! (insert roar) He reacted to his newfound agility and vigor by knitting himself a hot form-fitting leotard (complete with fancy leopard skin speedo)... then hitting the streets in a nocturnal adrenaline pursuit, which enabled him, of course, to kick heaps of villainous behind with impunity. And other metaphors for sex.

As any politician could tell you, "real artists steal," so I helped myself to the above image, which likely appeared in a 70's Marvel comic... I couldn't tell you who the artist that I stole it from stole it from, but that is how we artists learn to draw. And to steal.
So, three and a half decades have passed and I find myself in conference with my younger self. What I learned from him was the importance of doing what you love to do (as long as it doesn't hurt anybody) for as long as you love doing it. And that boasting on the cover of your comic book that it's "destined to become a classic" isn't really such an egotistical thing to have done when you were fifteen years old... actually I kinda admire my optimism (which probably IS a bit egotistical at 48). And if I were to stage a comeback for THE MONGOOSE AND THE JAGUAR in 2012, I'd definitely pair them up in a snazzy downtown condo, from where they might cruise the streets together in a nocturnal adrenaline pursuit, which would enable them, of course, to kick heaps of villainous behind with impunity. And other metaphors for sex.
Happy Hunting, Lance Tooks

(PS... Below, here's a preview image from my next original Graphic Novel, about which I'll tell you later. Trust me, it's destined to become a classic!)

The adventure continues...

2011-05-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

Have a look at some recent unrelated bar sketches and drawings for my current project, an Arabian Nights inspired short story for Graphic Classics. I'll tell you more about it in a bit... I hope the weather's great wherever you are, and that your summer's even better!

And here's a drawing I did for Madrid's Expomanga in Solidarity with Japan.

All my best, Lance Tooks

Sketches of Spring...

2011-04-23T07:37:00.001-07:00

Drawings from last week @ La Taberna Encantada in Lavapies...

Happy World Book and Copyright Day! More here:

Have a great and productive spring!
Lance Tooks

Due in May...

2011-04-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

Just assembled a 40 page minibook for a Spain based publisher... here's an image preview. Much has seen print before, but there are plenty of new sketches mixed in... Sketches from Spain, of course (not to be confused with Miles Davis' great Sketches OF Spain, as very few drawings are actually of my adopted country.) For example...

Thanks for stopping by...
Lance Tooks

Random Acts of Dark Cartoonery…

2011-03-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Here are a few glimpses at my current drawing board, as always, I’ll let the images do the talking.

These will ALL see print (in various context) during 2011 and 2012, I’m glad to be so busy, friends… truly having a ball!

Lance Tooks

PS…
FYI… here are a couple of links that I find pretty addictive… check 'em out if you like.

Google Image Ripper

is a way to view images in a Google search instantly at their actual scale. Forgive the Narcissistic choice of search topic, but it gives an example of the value of seeing pictures at their intended size. Invaluable to reference junkies like myself.

The latest 50 images posted to Live Journal

site is a real hoot, giving you just that, at random. What you get depends on where you live, so most of the images that I get to see come from European Live Journal pages, especially from Russia.

Happy Hunting! (...and Happy Birthday, Sean!)
LT

You're history...

2011-02-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the close of Black History Month, I stumbled across an old online bio of yours truly, from the 2008 edition of Contemporary Black Biography. I've illustrated it with a few recent bar sketches and links to other biographies follow.

Lance Tooks
1962—
Graphic novelist, cartoonist
Lance Tooks was born into a family where art was as essential as brushing your teeth before bed. "[My father] saw all the arts as being completely interconnected," Tooks recalled in an interview with Denise Sudell for the on-line comics magazine Sequential Tart. From almost the time he could speak, Tooks was given creative assignments to complete—plays, paintings, poetry. It gave him a wide range of artistic talent, but one driving desire. "I always knew I wanted to be a storyteller," Tooks revealed to Contemporary Black Biography (CBB). To do that he chose a single art form—comics—since the age of 16, he has worked diligently on his craft, filling hundreds of sketchbooks with his ideas, self-publishing critically acclaimed comics, and making a name for himself in the emerging genre of graphic novels with his award-winning Narcissa. By 2007, with half a dozen projects on the horizon, Tooks was poised to reach success as a major talent in comics. However, committed to further pushing his own creative boundaries, he told CBB, "I'm proud of the work I've done but humbled by how much I've still ahead of me to learn."

Groomed to be an Artist from Childhood
Lance Tooks was born on September 15, 1962, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised, along with siblings Eric and Kim, in a home simmering with creativity. "My father, Ed Tooks was a painter, photographer, musician, singer, playwright, and theater producer," Tooks told CBB. "He would give my sister, brother, and I weekly creative assignments. We loved him for it and never imagined that other kids might be raised in a different fashion." While his mother Hazel held down the practical side of the household—Tooks told Sequential Tart, "She was the civilian, so basically she kept reminding my father that the bills had to be paid"—his father employed the children as back up singers in his basement recording studio, taught them to write plays and stories, and encouraged them to explore creativity in all its forms. "I learned from my father that all of the arts are one," Tooks told CBB. "Storytelling is the basis from which they all spring, and the differences between media are superficial at best. An artist can tell the same story of a love affair through song, a painting, a photo, or a movie."
His father had taught him to read before he was two, and Tooks developed an enormous appetite for books at a very young age. However, he happened onto comic books almost by chance. "I think the first ones I saw were in a recording studio where my father was doing a session," he told Sequential Tart. "And I think just the fact that they were stories that were told with pictures was something that interested me." By the time he entered New York's High School of Art and Design, he had decided to focus his talent on comics, partly in reaction to his father's refusal to stick with just one art form. He explained to Sequential Tart that his father's interest in so many mediums was both a strength and a liability. "You know, he would be interested in photography for many years, and then painting would take his attention away from that, and so I figured I wanted to choose the one that I felt the most connection to. Which turned out to be comics—I thought that all the interests that I had, I could funnel through comics."
At the age of 16, Tooks landed an internship at Marvel Comics. Two years later, after graduating from high school, Marvel hired him as an assistant editor. Tooks has since referred to his time there as Marvel University. Though he never worked as an artist for Marvel, he told Sequential Tart, "I was drawing all the time. And by far, the best thing about being there was having access to the brilliant artists who worked there, who had been doing it for years, and who I could show my art work [to], and they would tell me to work on my anatomy, or tell me why something works better in a panel, design-wise." One of the best pieces of advice he received while working there was to draw every day. Tooks committed himself to doing just that and since 1982 he has filled two hard-bound sketch books per year with drawings, sketches, and ideas.

Found Success in Graphic Novels
At the age of 21, Tooks was fired from Marvel and for a few years toyed with the idea of getting into film. "I thought a good way to get into filmmaking would be to—well, first, watch a lot of movies," he told Sequential Tart. He did this by working a series of jobs in video rental stores and movie theaters and building up a personal video library that he has estimated at over 10,000 films. However, after a disappointing run at the Director's Guild Trainee test, he decided to return to art. He got his foot back in the door by becoming a messenger at Broadcast Arts, an animation studio most famous for Pee-Wee's Playhouse. When he found out they were also working on the animated opening credits for the Madonna film, Who's That Girl, Tooks brought his sketchbooks to the production office. "And so within about two weeks, I stopped being a messenger, and was an inker on this animated film," he told Sequential Tart. This led to 15 years of working in animation at dozens of production companies including MTV and Nickelodeon, including collaborations with such names as George Lucas, Bill Cosby, Spike Lee, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has estimated that his work has appeared in over 100 projects from commercials to music videos.
As his career in animation evolved, Tooks also kept his creativity peaked with other projects. He designed album covers for the reggae record label PowWow, did set design for theater, briefly worked as a movie stuntman, and sat for two years as a juror on the Queens Council of the Arts, a seat vacated when his father died. Throughout all of this, Tooks never stopped drawing. He not only continued to fill his sketchbooks, but also started publishing original comics such as Danger Funnies and Divided by Infinity. His comic work regularly appeared in national magazines and comic anthologies. He also illustrated books such as The Black Panthers for Beginners by Herb Boyd. Though his name was not unknown in comic circles, he jokingly recalled to Sequential Tart, "I thought only me and my mother knew [my comic books] existed." He was wrong. In 2000, Deborah Cowell, an editor at Random House/Doubleday tracked him down and asked him to contribute a book to their new line of graphic novels—novels told in comic form with drawings and text.

At a Glance …
Born on September 15, 1962, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Lawrence Edward (playwright, musician, and artist) and Hazel Tooks; Education: High School of Art and Design, New York, NY.
Career: Marvel Comics, assistant editor, New York, NY, 1979-82; Broadcast Arts, animator, New York, NY, 1987-93; freelance animator: Music Television (MTV), Nickelodeon, Liberty Studios, Pan Productions, Curious Pictures, and Critical Mass, 1998-2000; graphic artist, 2000-.
Awards: High School of Art and Design, Art Excellence Award, cartooning, 1980; Publishers Weekly, Best Graphic Book, for Narcissa, 2002; GLYPH Comic Awards, Best Writer, for Lucifer's Garden of Verses: Darlin' Niki, 2006; GLYPH Comic Awards, Best Female Character, "Niki," for Lucifer's Garden of Verses: Darlin' Niki, 2006.
Addresses: Home—Madrid, Spain. Web—www.lancetooks.com.

Given complete artistic freedom, Tooks created Narcissa, the story of a young, black filmmaker who flees to Spain after being given only a week to live. Published in 2002, it won an award as Best Graphic Novel from Publishers Weekly and opened the door for Tooks to develop more works in this genre. Tooks particularly enjoyed the genre. He told Karen Juanita Carrillo of the New York Amsterdam News "I love storytelling in general, and this the best way I've found to tell stories." From 2005 to 2007, he published Lucifer's Garden of Verses, an award-winning four-part series that features the Devil himself as a protagonist in stories involving love, art, and Miles Davis. By mid-2007, Tooks was busy with several more projects including graphic adaptations of works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde. He was also hard at work on another original work, Anansi's Dreambook, the story of a skateboard messenger who gets lost in his daydreams. On reflecting on his success, Tooks who moved to Spain fulltime in 2004 told CBB, "I've come nowhere near the kind of success I'd like to achieve, however. I hope to someday create a work that communicates to all people equally."

Selected works
Books
Narcissa, Random House/Doubleday, 2002.
Lucifer's Garden of Verses, The Devil on Fever Street, ComicsLit, 2005.
Lucifer's Garden of Verses, Darlin' Niki, ComicsLit, 2005.
Lucifer's Garden of Verses, The Student, NBM Publishing, 2006.
Lucifer's Garden of Verses, Between the Devil And Miles Davis, ComicsLit, 2007.
Sources
Periodicals
New York Amsterdam News, February 6, 2003, p. 33.
Publishers Weekly, September 23, 2002, p. 52.
On-line
"Following His Own Beat: Lance Tooks," Newsarama, http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?s=0d9124a14a1f45d6b5dec2bb144e1365&threadid=11805&highlight=narcissa (June 29, 2007).
"Getting Graphic," New York Public Radio,www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2003/05/23 (June 29, 2007).
"Giant Dogs, Single Mothers, and Groucho Bronte: Lance Tooks Draws Like Himself," Sequential Tart,www.sequentialtart.com/archive/mar03/ltooks.shtml (June 29, 2007).
Lance Tooks,www.LanceTooks.com (June 29, 2007).
Other
Additional information was obtained through an interview with Lance Tooks on April 25, 2007.

Check out a recent review of STUDS TERKEL’S WORKING: A GRAPHIC ADAPTATION here:

Happy Birthday, Mom and Kimmy!
Lance Tooks

1989 is the number, another summer, sound of the funky drummer...

2011-02-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

Let's set the wayback machine to Bongotime, and another of my unfinished symphonies. Here's a taste of Bongo Shock, about the fictional poet laureate of St. Albans, NY... he later turned up in my first published book, DANGER FUNNIES ONE (Cry For Dawn Press 1992) and in a cameo in my Graphic Novel NARCISSA (Doubleday 2002). The world was different back then... we were younger and dinosaurs still walked the earth, (Big Daddy Kane, Chuck D, Biz Markie... I'm talking 'bout you!). But it sure feels good looking back! (Click image to enlarge!)

...and what happened next? Beats me! I can barely recall what I did yesterday, let alone two decades ago! Hopefully, they lived happily ever after... same as we did!
Lance Tooks

A bouquet of goddesses...

2011-01-20T06:04:00.000-08:00

This is the pantheon that I've created for my current secret project...

...or have they created me?
Lance Tooks

Something old, something new...

2011-01-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

2010 ended with a much needed trip back home to the states...
I had a great opportunity to visit family, then return to Madrid with a host of goodies to share here @ my "Journal." More to come as 2011 progresses, but here's a blast from waaay in the past, 1977 to be precise!
Like every cartoonist on the planet, I started making my own comics as a small kid. By the time I'd created this pair of images, I was already a six year veteran of homemade funnybook creation.
"The Jaguar," was a dying surgeon who received a transfusion of jaguar DNA in the nick of time. He immediately decided to stalk the night in search of evildoers, as would anyone in the same situation.

...and here's a pair of 2011 bar sketches, the second is of fellow expat Josephine Baker. Her life story would make a terrific graphic novel! Hmmm...

This promises to be a great year... I'm hard at work on a dream project with two dozen amazing artists and I can't wait to share details with you!
Watch this space, friends!
Lance Tooks

I am immortal...

2010-09-14T06:59:00.001-07:00

Writing at the close of my 48th September and having just completed an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s THE MORTAL IMMORTAL, (and Somerset Maugham’s RAIN) means that the theme of Immortality (and by extension, Mortality) is in the air.

A few weeks ago I was asked to sit for photographer Gonzalo Puertas here in Madrid. Click HERE and check out what THIS guy can do!

I was having serious childhood flashbacks sitting in Gonzalo’s chair, to the days when Ed Tooks, my own photographer/father used to sit me under hot lights, and let me hang out in his darkroom. To this day I recall the smell of developer and hypo/fixer with nostalgia. “Photography is writing with light,” he would whisper, bathed in the glow of an infrared lamp. More musings about my pop, HERE.

Above, The Bronx, NY 1966... I was 3. I wish I had the photo I snapped of him while he was snapping this one of me.
Below, Laurelton, NY 1978... we took a few shots on a Sunday just to have something to work on that day. Tookses never rest on Sundays.
I developed this one myself.

Manhattan, 1980... behind my barely visible desk at Marvel Comics. Photo by Eliot R. Brown

Manhattan Loft, 1982... shooting an independent film with friends. Photo by Kevin J. Taylor. More Tales From the Old Movie Star's Home HERE.

Greenwich Village Rooftop, 1992... a momentary repast from rowing away in an animator's galley. Photo by Geoffrey Johnson

Madrid, Spain 2007... in a bar in Huertas among a talented group of expat writers. Photo by Jose Grillo

I'll leave the profound musings to Mary Shelley... and I'll take a moment to appreciate the many gifted "Light-Writers" that I've known and been inspired by.

And so are you.
Lance Tooks

Men @ Work...

2010-08-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the city of Salobrena, Spain for including my work in a recent show of artists' impressions of Granada...

I'm currently adapting two grand British authors for an upcoming American comics anthology. Here are a couple of images "in progress" from my version of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's THE MORTAL IMMORTAL...

And these images come from my adaptation
of RAIN by W. Somerset Maugham.

The tales aren't finished yet but I'm having fun putting my spin on them. Hope the finished works pass muster... fear not, the original text will outlive us all!
Best, Lance Tooks

In Memorium...

2010-07-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

Comics writer Harvey Pekar, creator of the classic AMERICAN SPLENDOR series, died a few days ago. I had the honor to have been involved in a couple of his final projects with editor Paul Buhle. THE BEATS is a graphic history of the Beat poets and here's Harvey's script for my brief contribution, "Jazz and Poetry." His slightly unorthodox way of working out a comics script was also detailed in the terrific film of his life, AMERICAN SPLENDOR.

From there, I gathered reference and illustrated the pages as follows...

Harvey and Paul were pleased with how the piece turned out, so they invited me to participate in their next project, STUDS TERKEL'S WORKING, a comics adaptation of the classic collection of interviews with working class people. Since the interviews were pretty straightforward oral histories, Paul and Harvey trusted me to adapt my three pieces directly from the original text. These projects were a great privilege to be involved with and would be an asset to any collector's library.

Order THE BEATS here...

Order STUDS TERKEL'S WORKING here...

I receive no royalties for either book but I imagine that Harvey's widow will.

Editor Paul Buhle on working with Harvey...

In addition, Harvey had a long gestating project about the history of Jazz that I'd recently become involved with... I provided him with illustrations from my own long gestating history of Jazz (What, doesn't EVERYBODY have one?) in hopes of getting the project sold somewhere down the line. Sad to say we'll never get to read Harvey's book... it would've been one to remember.

My Jazz sketches here...

Thanks, Harvey (and Paul) for the opportunity...
Lance Tooks

Tinta de verano...

2010-07-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

...here's a bit of "summer ink", spilled on paper during another of my nocturnal sketchbook barcrawls across central Madrid. I've got a pair of literary adaptations to finish by September and a host of other projects on the burner. Hope your summer exceeds your dreams.

Lance Tooks

Return to Granada...

2010-06-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Off to Granada, Spain this weekend to present images from my Award Winning Graphic Novel, NARCISSA... I'll be doing interviews and panels, and if you're in the neighborhood, do stop by!

See you there,
Lance Tooks

Googled…

2010-04-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

The good folks at Google have posted previews of three books from my NBM series, Lucifer’s Garden of Verses… in hopes that you might read them online and add them to your library. At least I’d like to think that's why they've done it!

Book 2, Darlin’ Niki

Book 3, The Student, or Nude Descending a Starcase… Headfirst

Book 4, Between the Devil and Miles Davis

Hope life’s treating you well,
Lance Tooks

A baaad Mutha (shut yo' mouth)...

2010-03-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

MUTHAFUCKA was a comics anthology I edited and published in 1998, showcasing the work of various friends from the New York animation world and fellow alumni of the High School of Art and Design. It was inspired by the black films, art and music of the 1970s, and among the many short pieces was my GO GIRL story.

Gloria Hendrixxx, A.K.A. Go Girl, Agent of P.H.A.T. had been kickin' butt in my sketchbooks since the '80s, and her time had finally come. Cheryl Lynn over at Digital Femme did me the honor of reprinting the first story over at her site. The tale begins here...
(Click images to enlarge)

For the rest of the tale click HERE:

Perhaps she will come back someday to keep our country honest!
Sure wouldn't hurt!

Lance Tooks

Lance Romance?

2010-02-13T19:49:00.000-08:00

If you judge by my comics, I suppose I came by the nickname honestly. I've always been a fan of romance comics and much of the work I've done to date falls into that category. Here's a piece from 1998.

Click HERE to read and weep...

Now here's a REAL golden oldie from the 1980 High School of Art and Design Yearbook... I couldn't even write an old fashioned boxing story for my cartooning major without gettin' all mushy. Some kids never grow up... (click to enlarge)

There's plenty more where that came from, so I'm gonna rest my case. Here's an image from my NBM Graphic Novel "LUCIFER'S GARDEN OF VERSES Volume 3: The Student (or Nude descending a Staircase... Head First)" Try sayin' that ten times fast...

Guilty as charged, your honor!

Happy Valentines Day!
Lance Tooks

Something for the Xmas stocking...

2009-12-13T22:43:00.000-08:00

A great gift idea:

STUDS TERKEL'S WORKING is named one of the best Graphic Novels of 2009 by the Village Voice.

A brief preview of what you're in for...

…and The Comics Journal says…

And still available:

Lucifer’s Garden of Verses from NBM Books.

(...and I actually get royalties for that!)
Ho Ho Ho, everybody...
Lance Tooks

The End of Cinema as we know it...

2009-11-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Thanksgiving, a jumbo glazed

HAM

for the center of your table! Que aproveche!
Lance Tooks
(Congratulations to filmmaker Jose Skaf on a job well done!)
PS… a few kind words from

Catch A Vibe

about the London art show!

Should you find yourself in Londontown...

2009-10-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

...between October 9th and November 10th with time to kill, saunter over to the Swiss Cottage Library Gallery for a terrific art show that I've been invited to participate in!

“Grandma said,” a short story inspired by the Hurricane Katrina tragedy will be on display in its unfinished original form (page one pictured below), view the entire finished piece by clicking HERE.

Curated by talented cartoonist Paul Peart Smith, it’s a show you won’t want to miss if you’re at all interested in the history of Black comics characters and creators. “The collection coheres around black representations through the imagery and language of the comic book medium: representation as markers of both historical and contemporary struggles. The theme is developed through archival works from the 1930’s to the present-day and culminates with a display of the singular comic art of Patrice and John Aggs, Paul Peart-Smith, Woodrow Phoenix and Lance Tooks.” More info HERE.

Thanks, Paul, for including me in this wonderful exhibition!
Enough chatter... here are a few recent bar sketches, created during some of my weekly nocturnal jaunts to Madrid's Fin Del Mundo pub! Cheers!

Thanks for visiting, friends...
Lance Tooks

"He's a regular Harry Dean Stanton..."

2009-09-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

...if such a thing exists!

Not long ago I shared a few war stories about my "not so brilliant career" as a movie actor.

Well, the plot sickens, as they say, because every time I think I'm out, "they pull me back in!" Among my recent adventures in over-acting were a pair of odd turns in Spanish station IDs for TNT. In the first one I'm a hellfire southern preacher, (sorry Mom, but this is as close as I'm ever gonna get), of course if Tyler Perry's casting any day soon, he should know I fooled the Spaniards pretty good!

Then I made my small contribution to the de-evolution of Hip Hop with the other spot... I swore I was channeling Ice Cube, but it came out looking more like an unwanted member of the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (I dare you to Google them if you're too young to remember!)

Anyway, they were a whole lotta fun to do... many thanks to my friends at TNT and TCM España. They found out about me in the first place after spotting me in a very surreal short film I was in this year, entitled ALBERT WHITE, directed by Jose Skaf.
The character I presented there could have easily been the illegitimate half-brother of Tony Soprano... he shows up to put the muscle on Pete, played by Dominic Graville (my choice for the next James Bond if Daniel Craig ever gets a hangnail)... the movie's still in the edit room, but it's already a fine piece of work, and I'm grateful to the filmmakers for letting me get my "Guido" on.
"Speaking of Big Pussy..."

Don't forget what they say about the camera adding fifty pounds... or was it the linguini?
Maybe I'll post some videos here one day, once I figure out how...
Meanwhile, back in the comics world, the web is abuzz with reviews of recent Tooks books.
Here are a few links that I hope you'll find of interest...

A recent look back at NARCISSA.

A couple more thoughts about NARCISSA.

A most detailed look at Studs Terkel’s WORKING, a Graphic Adaptation.

More about WORKING.

WORKING reconsidered.

WORKING, in brief.

A look back at Mark Twain’s A DOG’S TALE (see Reviews).

So that's my story... what's yours?
Thanks for visiting,
Lance Tooks

Still at it...

2009-08-29T05:48:00.001-07:00

I've been asked to submit a few representative images for an upcoming coffee table book on Black Comix... most may be familiar to regular visitors of this blog, others not... but here's my two cents worth. (click to enlarge)

Thanks to John Jennings and Damian Duffy for including me once again in another of their fine projects.
Lance Tooks

Kindred Spirits...

2009-07-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

(Click to enlarge)

The Beacon Press has some terrific Graphic Novels coming up… including Jamar Nicholas’ adaptation of Geoffrey Canada’s autobiographical FIST KNIFE STICK GUN, and Carol Burrell’s adaptation of Octavia Butler’s classic KINDRED. A call went out for artists to adapt both books and I applaud the very talented cartoonists chosen. I also took a crack at KINDRED, one of my favorite books, and I’d like to share the results with you. It was a lot of fun to try on for size, and they’re going to be beautiful books.
I can’t wait to see them.

Jamar Nicholas on his upcoming book

Carol Burrell’s SPQR Blues

Lance Tooks

Sketches from Spain...

2009-05-23T21:23:00.001-07:00

Recently assembled sketches, done in a Miles state of mind...

Hang in there, friends...
Lance Tooks

A work in progress...

2009-03-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

...is life. Here's a glimpse of 3 tales to come...

Lance Tooks

Strange days indeed...

2009-03-20T06:56:00.001-07:00

Hard at work on ANANSI'S DREAMBOOK, on various book proposals, and in a case of stranger than fiction, acting in a couple of TV spots for Spain's Turner Classic Movies. I play a preacher (which should make my mother awfully proud) and a rapper (well, maybe a bit less)... they shot me in front of a green chromakey screen, I'll let you be the judge as to how things turned out (Chamillionaire needn't lose sleep).

Here's a couple more bar sketches from Fin Del Mundo...

Had a great time in Granada at the Salon de Comics, my eleventh year in attendance.

Happy birthday, Seanie!
Lance Tooks

Fin del Mundo...

2009-01-31T14:11:00.000-08:00

...is the name of the Madrid bar I visit one night a week to sketch unmolested. Here's a couple of drawings done over beer and olives. Still hard at work on ANANSI'S DREAMBOOK and another dream project, to be discussed at a later date.

Happy '09!
Lance Tooks

2008 drawn to a close...

2008-12-05T01:37:00.000-08:00

...and have quite a bit of published work to show for it (see previous entries), other work hanging in various American galleries, started renting a work station in an architectural studio, acted in a film (of all things) and even managed a bit of voiceover work. Much of this was unplanned, so who knows where we'll be this time next year... hopefully out of debt!

I created this avatar for my friend Abha’s travel blog…

My book NARCISSA had the recent honor of being subject of a comparative lit thesis by a professor at Dartmouth College...

I attended the 2008 Madrid Expocomic salon and had dinner with good friend and fellow invitee Miriam Katin...

The Secular Culture & Ideas section of JBooks.com featured an audio conversation between Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle, and they ran an advertisement for the issue in the New York Times Book Review using my caricature of Harvey from THE BEATS Graphic Novel...

And I rambled on in English and Spanish on various websites and television interviews about the election, my doubts thus far unfounded, thank goodness...

If I don't see you, have a great new year!
Lance Tooks

Anansi's Dreambook...

2008-10-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

Select images from the current NBM Graphic Novel Project, written and illustrated by Lance Tooks. (click image to enlarge)

Takin' it one panel at a time,
Lance Tooks

"Too many words..."

2008-09-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

...he said, acknowledging respectfully his critics' most familiar complaint.
Here are some Lance Tooks press clippings from over the years, most unseen before on the web, beginning with an image from American Cinematographer Magazine, 1989... an animated Chex commercial fully painted in the style of Norman Rockwell...

New York Newsday, 1997 and the 20th anniversary of Star Wars commemorated with Tooks illustrations on bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew...

New York's Amsterdam News, 2003 and a few words about the Doubleday/Random House graphic novel NARCISSA...

Black Ink, Doubleday's retailer mag devoted to African American fiction, 2002...

A typical rave from the Comics Journal, 2003...

Ideal, Spain... 2004 and the Spanish language edition of NARCISSA...

A word about the 2006 "Sistuhs on Narcissa" roundtable discussion @ the Chicago Black Age of Comics Convention (The next one's in October 2008, and I'll be at the 2009 convention)

Last year at the Madrid Salon de Comics, noted in the newspaper ABC...

Thanks to all for helping spread the word about my work!
Lance Tooks

Summertime...

2008-07-07T16:13:00.000-07:00

...and the artist is taking a not particularly earned vacation from his learned vocation.

Here find a couple of odds and ends from various parts of the web...(click to enlarge) ...for example, from the very odd site, TOOGLE.COM... this mosaic turns up when the name Lance Tooks is entered...

...then LanceTooks with no space between...

...then TooksNarcissa (maybe Tooks narcissistic would've been more accurate)...

From the early 80's, a young Tooks appearance in an issue of Marvel Comics' WHAT IF series. (Caricature by Ron Zalme)

A cameo of my friend Narcissa, from the Eureka Fantasy Classics adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, Rappaccini's Daughter, done by yours truly.

Have a great, productive summer!
Lance Tooks

Another one bites the dust...

2008-06-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Just finished my adaptation of Studs Terkel's groundbreaking book of interviews, WORKING... and boy are my arms tired. Here find a couple of images, both finished and un, that should give you an idea of what the piece will be... or I should say, is. (It's hard to believe I'm done.) The bios are of Dolores Dante the WAITRESS, Hots Michaels the BAR PIANIST, and Bud Freeman the JAZZ SAXOPHONIST. This anthology project is being published by The New Press, for whom I hope to work again soon. Now I'm off to do a month of traveling, and to finally finish my NBM Graphic Novel ANANSI'S DREAMBOOK.

Thanks to Paul Buhle and Studs Terkel.
Yours truly, Lance Tooks

A Familiar face...

2008-06-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

Commissioned last month for a Democrats Abroad Madrid fundraiser.

And now, for your amusement, a whole lot of recent bar sketches...

Happy Birthday, Uncle George!
Lance Tooks

Back in print…

2008-06-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

…after a month and a half of tech problems, I’m back online and posting on a brand new Mac Mini. My scanner’s not together yet, so here are some outtakes from my book “Lucifer’s Garden of Verses vol. 1 The Devil on Fever Street” that were stored on my harddrive… accompanied by a whole bunch of reviews for my recent contributions to the Graphic Classics series of adaptations. (Thanks to my friend Tom Pomplun for the links… and the work!)

and my personal favorite.

Now, it's back to the drawing board... I’m currently adapting 3 interviews from Studs Turkel's WORKING for Hill & Wang, Oscar Wilde’s THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL for Graphic Classics, and creating ANANSI'S DREAMBOOK, an original Graphic Novel for NBM. Hope you like them!

Lance Tooks

A devilish review for volume two...

2008-03-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

From the Comics Creators Guild UK:

One of the unique things about not having a budget for advertising, is that comics creators rely mostly on reviews, word of mouth & inexpensive self promotion... like this blog for example. My NBM Graphic Novel Miniseries, "Lucifer's Garden of Verses" has had the good fortune of being reviewed several times over the last couple of years by a variety of terrific Comics review sites. Copies of the books were forwarded to everyone from the New York Times to Modern Bride, but getting my funnybooks read by mainstream critics has never come easy to me. Below you'll find the remaining active links to online reviews of Lucifer's Garden volumes 1, 3 & 4... volume 2: Darlin' Niki has never once been written about in three years until now. I always felt the book was kind of an orphan in the wild... the only Satanic cartoon musical for kids that I can recall ever seeing in stores and libraries. It managed to win two of the very first Glyph prizes, a much respected award for Black themed comics and their creators, an honor that I'll appreciate forever. But not one solitary review for my girl Niki. So, thanks to all of those critics who took the time to take notice of the series. You probably have no idea how dependent on you are "independent" creators like myself.
Lance Tooks

Archived reviews:

Lucifer's Garden of Verses Vol. 1: The Devil on Fever Street:

Lucifer's Garden of Verses Vol. 3: The Student (or Nude Descending a Staircase… Headfirst):

Movie Poop Shoot

Bookloons

Mr. Ron’s Basement #8

Comics Bulletin

Comicbook Bin

Lucifer's Garden of Verses Vol. 4: Between the Devil & Miles Davis:

And if you're curious, here's

an overview of the Lucifer's Garden series,

and NBM's series site.

Lance Tooks

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'....

2008-03-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Another Madrid bar sketch submitted for your approval...

From a 1988 sketchbook, (20 yrs ago!) my ROCKETEER "Tribute" of sorts...

...and my number-one-nephew turns sixteen today!

"Make hay while the sun shines," said my Pop.
Lance Tooks

News on the march…

2008-02-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

Here’s some more Spanish pub sketchery. There’s a lot cookin’ on the Tooks workfront:

I’m off to Granada next weekend for the 2008 Salon de Comics…

Honoring the tenth anniversary of playwright Eve Ensler’s international success “The Vagina Monologues”, there will be a major staging of the play at the New Orleans Superdome. A cast of celebrities will perform in front of an enormous backdrop of my comics story “Six Single Mothers”, which was originally published in the magazine Girltalk, edited by Ann Decker, Isabella Bannerman & Sabrina Jones for Fantagraphics books…

I’ve got work hanging in Alex Simmons’ current curated exhibition, “The Color of Comics” at Bronx Community College…
I’ve got work in the upcoming “Out of Sequence” exhibition, curated by John Jennings & Damian Duffy at the University of Illinois Krannert Art Museum…

My adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter, and my contribution to Harvey Pekar’s book about the Beat poets are in stores soon…
…and I’m making new comics too!
Lance Tooks

my story, “Six Single Mothers”

Vagina Monologues’ V-DAY site

Color of Comics exhibition info

Out of Sequence exhibition info

Salon de Comics Granada 2008 info

(PS: Happy Birthday, Mom!)

Caught in the act...

2008-02-08T16:07:00.001-08:00

...of doing my civic duty:

From the Spanish newspaper ADN... FYI, Obama won Spain.

NEW LINKS OF NOTE:

BLACK LOOKS on Cartoonists for Black History Month

Cheryl Lynn's links to Black comics on the net

See you at the polls,
Lance Tooks

2008 Madrid Bar Sketches...

2008-01-31T01:19:00.000-08:00

A favorite ritual of mine is meeting up once or twice a week after midnight at CASA PUEBLO in central Madrid, with fellow transplanted New York cartoonist Kevin J. Taylor. Tales are swapped, drinks are downed & sketches are made... til' the sun comes up. The best drawings I tend to give away... hope you don't mind leftovers:
(Click to Enlarge:)

And I promise you, at least half of these images were inspired by the actual patrons. Viva Espana!
Lance Tooks
(PS... a special shoutout to my cousin Robert in Atlanta and to Al, Nicole, Estrella & all the rest of the great folks he works with at the UPS Datacenter! Took me long enough, but here's an update!)
(PSPS... a special thanks to those out there who commented & linked to the following journal entries. I appreciate you... Happy 2008!)

Ed Tooks, my father...

HOLLYWOOD: My (not so) Brilliant Career…

Ears are burnin'...

2007-11-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

New in comics shops this winter:

ROUGH STUFF #7
Take a fascinating look into the creative process of comic art with interviews, articles, never-before-seen penciled pages, sketches, layouts, roughs, and unused inked pages from throughout comics history! This issue features an in-depth interview and cover painting by X-Men inker Tim Townsend! Also, Craig Hamilton, Dan Jurgens, and Howard Porter all contribute their preliminary art, with detailed commentaries to explain its evolution into finished form. Plus, we spotlight legendary Marvel artist Marie Severin with a career-spanning retrospective, and also present a feature on graphic novels, with art and comments by Dawn Brown, Tomer Hanuka, Ben Templesmith, and Lance Tooks! (Twomorrows Publishing) (C: 0-1-2)
Magazine, 100pgs, B&W SRP: $6.95

UVC MAGAZINE #5
The new Public Enemy comic book has excited comics and hip hop fans, and UVC Magazine takes an in-depth look! Also, Denys Cowan talks about the new animated shows on BET and his comics work; avant garde graphic novelist Lance Tooks; the comics collective known as the Antidote Trust, and an exclusive interview with Tribe creators Larry Stroman and Todd Johnson! Plus, part two of "How To Protect Your Rights" as a comics creator! (Ron King Productions Inc) (C: 0-1-2)
Magazine, 42pgs, FC SRP: $3.00

(Plus I'm in the video montage of comics professionals seen here:)

Go figure.
Lance

'round the corner from Goya & Velasquez...

2007-10-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a look (Thanks, Patri) at my work on display at La Boca Del Lobo. It might aesthetically be far from the Prado, but geographically it aint!

You shoulda' been there!
Lance Tooks

HOLLYWOOD: My (not so) Brilliant Career…

2007-09-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I auditioned for Steven Soderbergh’s new pair of films based on the life of Che Guevara. A friend had tipped me off that they were casting here in Madrid, and even though I hadn’t given acting a second thought in ages, I thought, “Where’s the harm?” I soon found the answer while doing my first cold reading in almost thirty (cough!) years. The role was a very small one, an African American military officer between 35 & 40, and my lines consisted of scowling into a video camera about how “we’ll turn those Bolivians into US grade Special Forces,” while bragging that “we’ve got the best chopper pilot in Nam.” I did three takes, and the last one being the best, was forwarded to Mr. Soderbergh. A few days later the casting agent very politely called to tell me what I already knew… that the part had gone to someone else. Someone more worthy, I’m sure, because my reading was so mechanical it surprised even me! Let’s forget for a moment that I’m roughly 75 pounds too magnificent of late to fit into the part, (let alone the uniform)… the thing is, I had genuinely forgotten how to audition!
Now, coming from the family of hams that I do, I thought for sure it would be just like riding a bike… but even that other Lance (er… Armstrong) would be kind of wobbly after a thirty year layoff.
Let’s set the wayback machine to 1979, in New York City, and the last audition I ever did…

Starting when I was four (I was the smallest Billygoat in an Alabama production of “The Three Billygoats Gruff”), I spent my whole younger life performing in plays, super8 films and my father’s various productions. I loved acting, filmmaking & prose writing… but as the years progressed I started to appreciate comics a whole lot more. It was a way to combine all of my interests into a single means of expression. I admire my father more than any artist in the world, but as I watched him spread his creative energy thin across so many artistic forms, I began to consider myself best served by picking one and sticking with it. But I kept trying on hats for size, like the time that I spent a week of school nights playing at being a gang member in Walter Hill’s THE WARRIORS. I didn’t have to audition because it was an extra part in the film’s famous scene where all of the city’s hood population converges upon a park for a speech by a charismatic gangland messiah. When he’s assassinated in full view of everyone, the Warriors gang gets the blame and the fun begins. I never would’ve gotten cast though, if they knew I was only fourteen! My Uncle George, who’s acted in over a hundred films set in New York (and only one by Woody Allen… I’ll tell that story sometime, oh wait… I already did in BETWEEN THE DEVIL & MILES DAVIS) was hired by the casting agent, but my uncle decided for whatever reason to let me play the part. All I had to do was say I was George Tooks and I’d be fine… but just in case, he told a friend of his to keep an eye on me. That friend turned out to be Steve James, legendary 1980’s action movie star. He didn’t have much to worry about… all I was hired for was five nights of screaming and running, which is what fourteen year olds do anyway.
All of this went on while I was a student at the High School of Art & Design. One of my English teachers, Mr. Cassell, knew I’d been in the movie and could tell I had the bug based on my various turns in Humor & Satire class, playing characters from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde & G.B. Shaw from week to week. When I was sixteen he recommended me to a theatre producer friend of his, who was looking for a black kid who could do a Cockney accent. I came, I saw, I auditioned in his apartment… and walked off with the part.
The secret to comedy being (wait for it)… timing, I had only just that same incredibly busy “New York week” gotten a job that any sixteen year old would’ve died for: I was hired by Jim Shooter as an intern at Marvel Comics. I felt at a crossroads… I could have done both, I suppose, but I had doubts. When I spoke to Shooter he was nothing but encouraging… the theatre guy on the other hand creeped me out a bit. So I declined the role, choosing comics and feeling rather mature about my choice. Until I went to share my decision with Mr. Cassell, that is. “You idiot,” he screamed at me, in front of a class full of students. He led me to the hallway, continuing, “You would have been paid $300 a week for rehearsals alone, more once the show started… and you would have been made Actor’s Equity! Do you know how you get into that union? You are CHOSEN!”
So much for my own choice. Up until that moment of my life I had never even SEEN a hundred dollar bill up close, so $300 seemed like “Thurston Howell the Third” money to me. I called the producer that night, but the part had been recast, probably with some lesser talent like Wesley or Denzel. I never spoke to Mr. Cassell again, but do regret not telling him when I was sixteen years old that the reasons he cited for my being an idiot had more to do with money than they had to do with doing what I felt I was born to do. But I’m sure he meant well… I’m even surer every year come tax day when I realize that there are Girl Scouts selling cookies that generate more gross income than I do creating Graphic Novels that nobody reads.
And everybody loves cookies.

I had a pretty good four year run at Marvel Comics, learning things that have served me well in decades since. While I was there my Uncle George turned up with another movie part for me. His girlfriend at the time, actress Beverly Bonner was cast in a quirky low budget horror film called BASKETCASE, about a typical American whiteboy who carried his mutated twin brother in a wicker basket. Directed by Frank Henenlotter, this (really good) film was an ode to 42nd street in the 60’s & 70’s when the Grindhouse was king… before Times Square became the soulless corporate hellhole it is today (you’ll never be President, Rudy… not while there’s life in my body). Not only do I turn up on camera a few times, but I even helped out occasionally behind the scenes (that was me in that van, Frank, when that huge guy came running out of the stripjoint with a baseball bat, and not your brother… though I’m flattered) and I rounded up extras for the film among family & friends: my sister Kim, my girlfriend Nicole Willis & my friends, artists Kevin J. Taylor, Amodio Giordano & Harry Candelario. Even my parents turned up in the movie... holding hands in a gay bar. I love New York.

In 1981, while playing volleyball in Central Park, a lunchtime ritual with the Marvel Bullpen (including Christopher J. Priest, Ralph Macchio, Mark Gruenwald, Ann Nocenti, Jim Salicrup, Jim Shooter, Mike Carlin, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Klaus Jansen, Terry Austin, Mike Nasser & dozens more), I met Scott Leva, an incredibly prolific (check his IMDB page) stunt coordinator who in addition to a part-time gig as Spiderman (for Marvel’s department of Special Appearances) was working on a Troma film to be titled WHEN NATURE CALLS. The Charles Kaufman directed comedy is the only film to my knowledge to co-star David Straithairn, G. Gordon Liddy, Freddie Blassie & Willie Mays. (It’s also the only movie I’ve ever walked out of… and I was in it!) Anyway, Black stuntmen were in short supply at the time and Scott Leva wanted to do something about that. Maybe it was my Baryshnikov-like grace in diving for a save that convinced him I was worthy, but in less than a week he had me trained to leap backwards off twenty-five foot scaffolding onto a pile of mats and cardboard boxes in Newark, New Jersey. There was an ambulance on standby, but this New Yorker wasn’t about to spill a drop of blood in Jersey.

Continuing my unbroken run of blundering my way onto the sets of now legendary cult movies (when I wasn’t trying to be an actor anymore… honest), Uncle George stepped in again (perhaps a bit surprised that I’d gotten the last job myself without draggin’ his good reputation through the mud), and invited me & my brother Eric to join him for a few days shooting another film. BEAT STREET was an unfortunate breakdance movie directed by Stan “damn-my-daughter-Sanaa-is-fine” Lathan. Hollywood’s first attempt to record on celluloid “that rap sensation that’s sweeping the nation”, it could’ve used more dance and less romance. (So could’ve I in hindsight.) You can see me getting off a subway train with my bro… and that’s how I’d like to be remembered.

So perhaps it’s better that Steven Soderbergh didn’t consider me to be in a class with Benicio Del Toro & Matt Damon… it’s not like my credits will ever have me climbing a stage at the Kodak Ballroom. But I’m proud of the choices I’ve made… without them I never would’ve gotten to meet NARCISSA.

Lance Tooks

Unpublished symphony: part one...

2007-09-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

From 2002, Brooklyn, New York, before the war.
(click images to enlarge)

Lance Tooks

La Boca Del Lobo...

2007-09-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

For the entire month of September I've got 26 pieces hanging in La Boca del Lobo (http://www.labocadellobo.com/), a terrific dance club in the center of Madrid. They're open Wednesday through Saturdays after ten, the address is Calle Echegaray 11 & their information number is 914 297 013.

The first weekend was terrific! There was a tribute to Fela Kuti last Saturday & the music (as always in that spot) was fantastic... if you like James Brown, P-Funk and company... and I know you do. The artwork was culled from a ten year period, from the 1990's til' about 2001, my pre-computer days.
Here's a brief sample of what you'll see:

I'll be looking for you!
Best, Lance Tooks

Into the mouth of the wolf...

2007-08-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

Been plenty busy preparing for a September solo show of my black & white comics work at LA BOCA DEL LOBO in Madrid...
more news later...
Working simultaneously on RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER for GRAPHIC CLASSICS, STUDS TURKEL'S WORKING for HILL & WANG, and ANANSI'S DREAMBOOK for NBM. Hope life's treating you well.
Lance Tooks

Ed Tooks

2007-06-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ed Tooks, my father would've turned seventy today. He died in 1996, a fact I actually had to look up on the internet because I've never felt the need to remember that date. But every year on the 27th of June I celebrate the old man and the many gifts he left me. (pictured below left to right George Tooks, Ed Tooks & the rest of the Genies crooning their way across Canada in the very early 60's)

He was a true renaissance guy; a painter, writer, photographer, musician, singer, composer, poet, video artist, audio-tech, screenwriter, dancer, theatre producer & award-winning playwright. He created much of this work in collaboration with his brother George Tooks, an equally impressive creator who continues to inspire and entertain folks across America with his various projects, including an ongoing lecture series on Black & Native American history. (below, Lenga Tooks, 'LenGa being an abbreviation of Lawrence E 'aNd' George A Tooks, & only bill collectors called him Lawrence)

When Dad wasn't making art he was making artists, so it stands to reason that I would grow up to be a cartoonist, my sister Kim an actress/singer/playwright/theater owner, my brother Eric the greatest unsigned rapper in history & my cousin Titus Thomas a brilliant visual artist & educator. As kids we'd get weekly assignments to 'create something', to express ourselves and engage with the world around us. Dad might say "write me a five page screenplay by Friday," or "draw me a flyer for my play" or "design me a logo" or "come sing backup harmonies on my latest recording"... or we'd help carry equipment from place to place, help him videotape weddings on the side or be willing subjects for his photography. I truly believed that every family lived like ours. I learned from him how the arts were interconnected, how things learned in one medium, (say, music) could be applied to another (like comics) and how no good idea need ever go to waste.(below, case in point- this early production sketch I made of a bar was created in 1984 for one of Lenga Tooks' plays... I later used the same drawing on the cover of and throughout my 2007 Graphic novel "Between the Devil & Miles Davis", a personal tribute)

He was my first teacher, teaching me to read & write when I was two; how to draw & take photos soon after. I was four years old when he sat me down in front of a turntable and played Sheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, and told me to imagine the stories in my head. He would spend hours talking to me about politics and philosophy, insisting that I never forget that I am an individual and that no man has a right to take a thing from me. If my moral compass was off from time to time I could always count on his. When I was about fourteen or so, I got my first rapidograph,(an expensive drawing pen) and was so inspired by the fine lines I could make that I whipped up this visceral action comic entitled "The Executioner." He wore a visor and packed a lasergun that he used to blow the heads and limbs off an army of attacking mutants. End of story. My dad strolls in, looks over my shoulder at the bloodbath I was creating, raises an eyebrow and mumbles dryly, "...well, your artwork's getting better but you're losing your mind." From that moment I tried to follow his example, creating work that is about something and that attempts to contribute more to the world than a body count. (below, The Lenga Tooks Musical Workshop, AKA our house in Laurelton NY... a million songs were recorded there, plays were written there, comics were illustrated there, productions were mounted there, meals were eaten there... thanks, Mom)

I could write volumes about the times we worked together as audio men on Videowave for Manhattan Public Access TV, or how he helped me shoot my super 8 horror film "The Diary of Dr. Zorgo" when I was in Junior High, or how he drove me out to Long Island through one of the roughest rainstorms in recorded history just to buy me a live turtle for the Science Fair, how, he & my mom, my sister, my girlfriend Nicole Willis & my friends, artists Kevin J. Taylor & Harry Candelario were all extras in the midnight-movie classic "Basketcase", or the time we wore matching yarmulkes while shooting a Bar Mitzvah ("These two Black atheists walk into a synogogue...") or the time he has me shooting transitional video footage out the window of our van between the bride's house and the chapel and SCREEECH! he rear ends the bridal limo, or how he singlehandedly tried to establish 'the Harlem Symphony Orchestra... I could talk about his incredibly talented creative collaborators like Chester Barnes, Don Thursby, Mike Dagley, William Loren Katz, Harold Waite, Beverly Bonner, Jerry Maple, comics great Billy Graham & a few really famous folk I'm not about to namedrop... but I'll save those tributes for another day. For now, let's wish my pop a Happy Birthday.

Lance Tooks

(pictured below, my father on the right with the stars of Basketcase, I'm the blurry fellow behind him in the yellow & red hat, looking over HIS shoulder for a change)

bonus link: Videowave

Way too young...

2007-06-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Condolences to the family of Dan Epstein, a good writer who honored me with an interview about my work. I used to hunt down his interviews all over the internet.

Remembered here:

And here:

Our interview here:

Lance Tooks

Like, CRAZY...man!

2007-06-11T09:42:00.001-07:00

Have a look at my character sketches from Harvey Pekar's upcoming comic about the Beat Poets. More 'white negroes' than you can shake a stick at! Coming soon:

I'm only contributing a page or two, but glad to be included.
Lance Tooks

The rain in Spain...

2007-06-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

...falls mainly on my internet provider, meaning that everytime it rains in Madrid, I lose web service for a couple of days. All my very special thanks to the brains at Telefonica (Pictured above).
NEW REVIEW:

Comicbookbin on Lucifer's Garden Vol. 4: Between The Devil & Miles Davis

Updated Weakly…

2007-04-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

Another month has raced by, and this weekly journal continues to be updated monthly. Not that anyone’s noticed, of course. In any event it’s been a busy time in Tooksworld. I taught school for a week at the Universidad Europea de Madrid: the theme being “Creativity, Comics & Animation” and the students being extraordinary. Then I shuffled down to Granada for a wedding, where much food, drink & dance was enjoyed.
Besides the good fortune of having work displayed in last month’s Other Heroes gallery show in Mississippi, I’ve forwarded drawings to my own New York City for inclusion in the Museum of Comics & Cartoon Art’s May exposition. I’ve been tagged as

“Legendary”

by the terrific Big Beautiful Wonder Woman site… they meant “a legend in my own mind”, I’m sure. As for my drawing board, I’ve got work on it that should last me till the end of the year… not bad for "the world's fattest starving artist."
Lance Tooks

Black by Popular Demand!

2007-03-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

America’s favorites are here! Collect ‘em all!
From my 2002 Doubleday Graphic Novel

NARCISSA

I give you a rogue’s gallery of the most beloved Black archetypes in American film. Can anyone name one actor or actress who hasn’t played these roles at least once? Some make a career of it! And these characters won’t be leaving screens any day soon, because YOU love them!
Lance Tooks

(We regret that one of your faves, HOT-ASS The HOOCHIE-HO couldn't make it due to space considerations... if you must find her right away we suggest you try any Hip-Hop music video. The Management.)

Mississippi Burnin'

2007-03-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

My work will be included in OTHER HEROES, an upcoming exhibition of African American cartoonists at Jackson State University in Mississippi from April 5-25, 2007. A $50 catalog surveying the history of Blacks in comics and featuring an astounding variety of artists is being sold to raise money for Katrina relief.

More news HERE:

A few recent words on my Lucifer’s Garden series of books

HERE at Lit Kicks:

The OTHER HEROES show includes a piece I created for the groundbreaking Jackie Ormes Society site, founded to honor the first Black woman cartoonist.

Join them HERE:

Thanks again for stopping by,
Lance Tooks

Amo, the complicated...

2007-02-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

Amo Tanzer, the protagonist of Lucifer's Garden of Verses, Book 4:
Between the Devil & Miles Davis (pictured above with an atypically shaven head) has just been nominated for a

2007 GLYPH Award

I'm currently working on multiple projects, but I'll be taking a
much welcomed break next week to attend the latest

Salon de Comics in Granada, Spain

See you there,
Lance Tooks
(PS... yesterday was the forteenth anniversary of Danger Funnies One. And what was that, you might ask? We'll talk about it later. LT)

Next on the menu...

2007-01-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

... in 2007, I'm creating ANANSI's DREAMBOOK, an original Graphic Novel for NBM...
plus, I'm a contributing cartoonist in Harvey Pekar's upcoming anthology about the Beat poets...
plus, I'm adapting an Oscar Wilde piece for Graphic Classics...
plus, I'm adapting a Nathaniel Hawthorne piece for Graphic Classics.
"Que Aproveche!"
Lance Tooks

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007

2006-12-30T10:58:00.000-08:00

Click image to ENLARGE. (Special thanks to NASA;)
Lots planned for 2007, starting with wishing you all the best.

NEW REVIEW:

Comics Commentary on Lucifer's Garden Vol. 1: The Devil on Fever Street

JOIN ME @ COMICSPACE:

Lance Tooks' page

See you next year,
Lance Tooks

Lucky Thirteen...

2006-12-13T10:31:00.000-08:00

Spent last weekend greeting readers at MADRID EXPOCOMIC 2006... the image above is from the Spanish newspaper ABC... the image below is of one exhausted cartoonist.

NEW REVIEWS:

CODE Z on Between the Devil & Miles Davis (HERE)

CODE Z on BEST OF 2006 (HERE)

Lance Tooks

ahem...Where Was I? Oh, yeah...

2006-11-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

Took a lot longer than I'd expected to recuperate from the Lucifer's Garden of Verses series: Four full length graphic novels in two years, in addition to various short stories & illustration projects (and a fully translated NARCISSA)... Whew!
Up next for Tooks is a new graphic novel (shhhhh...),
& a collaboration with Harvey Pekar (of American Splendor fame),
& I'll be selling NARCISSA (version español) at the Salon de Comics Madrid, November 30- December 2, 2006.

Lucifer's Garden book 4: Between the Devil & Miles Davis is available in stores and on the web, as are previous volumes:

series overview

series site

At the following three links you'll find the most recent critical response to the book:

BETWEEN THE

DEVIL AND

MILES DAVIS

Lance Tooks

Remember Katrina?

2006-09-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

I created this piece three days after the New Orleans Levees broke, as media reports relayed the uncertain fates of those trapped in the Superdome.

Thanks to Robert Bienvenu for including my story in his relief anthology, available here:
http://www.redcitycomics.com/relief.html
Lance Tooks

Where were YOU in '82?

2006-08-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

While an Assistant Editor at Marvel Comics, I began to fill up two hardcover 'Grafitti' sketchbooks a year, with ideas, concepts, designs & freeform sketches. I'd been advised by legendary mentors Marie Severin & John Romita Sr. to draw everyday... and I took their words to heart. Beginning in 1982, the forty-five volumes that followed have taught me much, charted my creative development, acted as a personal diary, & gotten me a ton of work!
From book one, this brief autobiographical strip:

More to come!
Lance Tooks

Back to the ol' drawing board

2006-08-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

Well rested, thanks... with 2 new graphic novels in the oven & a possible high profile collaboration in the works. More soon.

In stores now: Lucifer's Garden of Verses vol#4:

Between the Devil & Miles Davis,

Graphic Classics vol#1: Edgar Allan Poe (revised edition)

a 5pg collaboration with editor Tom Pomplun,

Chimurenga vol#9 special Comics issue of a South African arts publication

featuring 9 pages of Tooks.

New & unusual reviews of:
Lucifer's Garden of Verses vol#3: The Student
...complete with scenes acted out radio-style from the book!

(Ron Evry's podcast- scroll down to #8)

Lucifer's Garden of Verses vol#4: Between the Devil & Miles Davis

(a conservative take on Tooks)

...and, this just in:

(another look at the Devil & Miles.)

Here's wishing you a bearable summer, Lance Tooks

See you in August!

2006-07-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

Lance Tooks

NARCISSA's world...

2006-06-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

My friend, designer Jane Gussin recently borrowed one of NARCISSA's cast of characters for use in the film TONY & TINA'S WEDDING. More of Jane's fine design here:

http://homepage.mac.com/vividscreendesigner
http://www.avdrive.com/bios_creative/jane.html

On Summer Girls in Winter Moods

2006-06-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

Lance Tooks

6/6/6

2006-06-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

Lucifer's Garden book 4: Between the Devil & Miles Davis arrives in stores soon:

series overview

series site

In book 3 of the series, Satan appears in the form of a critic. Here's what a few devils have had to say about the work:

There were others, but I ran out of "nick"names. Thanks to all of them for helping spread the word... I sincerely appreciate it.
Lance Tooks

It never occurred to me that we might actually win something...

2006-05-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention & the 2006 Glyph Awards panel for honoring my "Lucifer's Garden 2: Darlin' Niki" with a pair of awards... Best Writer & Best Female Protagonist. That they cared enough to nominate my work in such illustrious company was gracious enough, but this was a truly welcome surprise. Thanks especially to my publisher at NBM, Terry Nantier and his staff... and to my family & friends for their continuing support. More news here:
http://glyphsonline.blogspot.com/2006/05/2006-glyph-awards-winners.html
Lance Tooks

http://www.ecbacc.com/

2006-05-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

The yearly EAST COAST BLACK AGE of COMICS CONVENTION is fast approaching in Philadelphia. I regret that I can't attend this year (I was at the first one a few years back) but wish all attendees, coordinators & my fellow Glyph award nominees the best show ever. Check here for info: http://www.ecbacc.com/

Lance Tooks
(illustration from LUCIFER'S GARDEN of VERSES volume 2: DARLIN' NIKI published by NBM)

Level the Vibes

2006-04-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

A series of reggae album covers from the late 90's created for PowWow records.

Philosophical nights

2006-04-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

X-RAY EYES!

2006-04-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

One of my childhood heroes turns 80 tomorrow.

Roger Corman's film 'X- the Man with the X-Ray Eyes' inspired this tribute image:

I also started sketchbook 44 today... here's page one: the likely cover of my next graphic novel.

Shalom, everybody. Lance Tooks

Abstractions

2006-04-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

"Narrated by hermaphroditic Lucifer ("Light-Bringer," à la similarly illuminating herm Tiresias in graphic novel marrying illustration + photo à la un/reality) pondering own relevance in face of (unambiguous) human atrocity (weight of real world pressing on superstition ) as apocalypse approaches (for him: end of fantastic face of evil – "man shall ascend"), summons hip-hop demons Beelzebub + Belial (Milton’s fallen angels; society’s rejects engine of soc’s downfall), who’ve cooked up scheme to tempt arts activist (w/illo Tooks’ diabolical plot to spur personal Armageddon thru work) Black Lily (mixture of im/purities; temptation testing own motives in creating) Baptiste (cleansing/initiatory function similar to Luc’s); switch in voice to hers (emergence of Luc’s fem-side – mirrored on opposite pages/panels – as he becomes purely masculine, fem influence in world to counter macho-fueled destruction), introducing self + community (explosion of devil + demons’ own : good outweighing bad in world/self – including Luc, who interjects to express interest ["to be closer to her is to be closer to Him": men’s salvation in own femininity]) tag-teaming w/ his narration (story still his)."
From Steven R. Johnson's deliriousfilm.com-
An 'abstraction' of Lucifer's Garden of Verses vol. 1 "The Devil on Fever Street"
http://www.deliriousfilm.com/hindsight/devilonfeverstreet.html

My first encounter with the "Delirious" way of watching movies came in '93, in a magazine shop in New York's Greenwich Village. I've long been fascinated by myths, dreams & psychology, so it was love at first sight. To quote publisher Johnson:

"The main approach of DELIRIOUS is the treatment of film as dream. This is by no means an original concept: Freud might have been the first to regard film this way in his approach to Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet, but everyone and his analyst have since noted the correlation and written detailed works in that vein, including fascinating volumes by Bruce Kawin, Patrick Lucanio and Robert Eberwein. As the product of the imaginative input of more than one mind, however, most movies lend themselves to an analysis of not only an individual’s inner workings but those of a greater community as well, providing a profile of at least one facet of a given culture, society, subgroup, maybe even era. After a few years of such observation and critique, several running themes present themselves as worthy of repeat discussion, sometimes glossed over in the text of DELIRIOUS but perhaps benefiting from further explication here. The following, then, is a brief synopsis of these recurrent motifs common to both psychoanalytic and film theory..."
From the Delirious Users guide- http://www.deliriousfilm.com/guidepg.html

Every comics piece I've written since has been influenced by that magazine I bought, including 'NARCISSA' (2002) & 'Divided by Infinity' (1994), which Steve did me the honor of abstracting here: http://www.deliriousfilm.com/hindsight/dividedbyinfinity.html
When creating a book I always go in with two tales to tell: the story itself... and the understory, which is a lot more fun for me.
Whether it's Narcissa sloshing barefoot thru a pitch-black labyrinth beneath a ancient Spanish castle; banished princess Niki infiltrating Gojira Tower to confront the judgmental father who abandoned her; or the acidic journalist Amo Tanzer's frenzied rainstorm taxi-ride into limbo (with an inebriated driver who I always thought of as 'the ferryman')... my favorite part of comics making has been making personal contact with the films, myths, comics, songs & dreams that impressed me.

Often reviewers do a superficial reading of a film, dismissing a forgotten auteur like, Tony Crechales for example, because his reach may have exceeded his grasp financially... but Delirious is not in the 'dismissing business'.
http://www.deliriousfilm.com/crechales/pointofterror.html
Artists like Crechales had a valid reason for doing the work they did, intentionally or sometimes not, and their modest yarns can resonate deeply with a viewer who wasn't even born when the movie was released.
I often wonder, about storytellers in general, why some (like my Uncle George) can weave a tale at the dinner table that sticks with you for decades after he told it... while other folks can't, even with millions of dollars of studio money, state of the art computer effects & a bucket of popcorn in your lap. A cousin, on the other hand, might wait impatiently for Uncle George to finish talking because he's got tickets to go watch 'Batman Begins' for the third time. Dif'rent Strokes.

I'm very appreciative of any reader who does me the honor of spending their valuable time (& $) with my graphic novels...
...especially those perfect strangers who have over the last dozen years, taken the time to write me thoughtful letters.
But, I'm especially grateful to my friend Steven R. Johnson for such an astute & careful reading of my comics... which his own 'DeliriousFilm' in part inspired.

(images from Lucifer's Garden of Verses vol. 1 "The Devil on Fever Street" by Lance Tooks)

What grows in Lucifer’s Garden?

2006-03-22T18:42:00.000-08:00

In choosing a theme for my next graphic novel after Narcissa (Random House/Doubleday 2002), I decided to return once again to my 40 volumes of hardcover sketchbooks. I’ve been filling up these books at a rate of two a year for two decades, and they’re filled with literally hundreds of story ideas and character designs. I’d gotten the idea ten years ago to collect a group of my fantasy stories with a related theme into an anthology series, under the title “Demon Flowers”. It was to include the tales which eventually saw print in an altered form for NBM publishing, and a few yarns that didn’t.
In 2003 I pitched an unrelated piece to NBM, and veteran publisher Terry Nantier told me about his Comics Lit line of books and its guidelines for content. Sure that I had something appropriate in my personal cartoon encyclopedia, I promised to return with a better pitch.
Literally the night before our next meeting a few months later, I cobbled together a new title for the proposed book series: “Lucifer’s Garden of Verses”. I limited my stories to ones that included the devil directly as antagonist or protagonist, following the reasoning that everyone knows the devil and we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time explaining to Diamond distributors (et al) what the series was about. Had I been aware of DC/Vertigo’s then new ‘Lucifer’ series I might’ve called it something else entirely… just to avoid confusion on the comics stands, but I wasn’t at all worried about readers confusing my approach to the work with Vertigo’s. Stylistically we’re miles apart & there’s room in stores for both. I was thinking (with the title) along the lines of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, and it wasn’t until after Terry agreed to buy the series that I realized that I’d stolen the title subconsciously from Salman Rushdie! I sure didn’t want any part of what happened to him after “the Satanic Verses” saw print, and Denmark later reminded us that fanatics don’t like their superstitions trifled with.
Which brings us to the Devil himself. As readers of “Narcissa” might guess, I’m an atheist who nonetheless has a fascination with mythology. At five years old I would check the same books out of my local library week after week: anything related to dinosaurs, and the D’Aulaires series of books on Greek, Roman and Norse myths. (I was a fan of Thor stories before I ever discovered the Marvel comics series.) Because my father was an atheist as well, I learned from my earliest days to view Judeo/Christian/Islamic myths as stories meant to teach important moral lessons and entertain… but not meant to be taken literally. The devil, who predates J/C/I myths, has always been used in folklore to symbolize evil, conflict, knowledge, rebellion, freedom & creativity. His significance depended on the story being told or the lesson to be learned. Later religions prospered by turning Satan into a literal figure, each using him to sell their particular brand of salvation through magic. My hope was to use the character myself, to examine my own feelings about my native America, the changing world and, of course, religion. Philosophy & science might eventually assume their rightful place in society’s decision making process… but I’ll never live to see that day. Especially when every man with his finger on a nuclear trigger today, takes seriously one form of archaic mysticism or another. Each blames his particular devil & accompanying godless infidels for his woes. As my pops used to always say, quoting Shakespeare, “the fault lies not in our stars…”
But that said, I too can blame the devil for playing a nasty trick on me… I was sure that these books would be a lark to create. Easy, basic tales that I could whizz through for entertainment’s sake and move on to the next thing. But, my “Lucifer’s Garden of Verses” series is suffused with personal melancholy over current events, and that made the series a very difficult one to create. I’m definitely not the kind of artist who creates with a particular audience in mind… if I knew who to market my comics to I’d probably sell a lot more than the very small number I do. But I could understand if a reader found them less than a breeze to get through… they’re the hardest work I’ve ever done.

BOOK 1: THE DEVIL ON FEVER STREET
The concept behind book one’s a simple one. The fallen angel Lucifer, who’s slept through the entire twentieth century, awakens to discover that mankind didn’t need his help at all in spreading suffering, exploitation and wickedness across the globe. Sensing that their leader might need some encouragement to complete his appointed task as “bringer of Apocalyse”, the devil’s loyal demon henchmen Beelzebub & Belial come up with a plan to return him to “fighting shape”, a light warm-up of sorts for the heavy days ahead. He is to tempt the person with the strongest religious faith in the world, a woman named Black Lily Baptiste. But if Satan in his weakened state were to fall in love, could the Tempter become the Temptee?

BOOK 2: DARLIN’ NIKI
The devil appears in book two as a sixteen year old girl named “Darlin’ Niki” who has been used her entire life as a corporate mascot to sell products, entertainment and a religion to an eager world. Our story begins when Niki is turned out into the street by her wealthy philanthropist father. She seeks a resolution to their endless conflict, and with the help of childhood friend Sussudio, tries to crash a massive corporate banquet in his honor. Niki, a willful first-born teenager is unable to abide by her father’s strict and often contradictory rules. Her father spends a lot of his valuable time and money helping others, yet refuses to see his daughter as anything more than a once useful mascot. He now considers her to be too much trouble, perhaps forgetting that she is as he made her.

BOOK 3: THE STUDENT, or Nude descending a staircase… headfirst
Features a more traditional devil as adversary. Inspired by the German Silent film classic "The Student of Prague", this is the story of Andree’ Baldwin, a down-on-his-luck would-be Basquiat who enters into a Faustian bargain with a powerful art critic in exchange for status, riches and the love of a woman. He receives all that’s promised him and more, but is haunted by his “doppleganger”: his liberated mirror image tampering with his newfound success. Acquanetta Scapinelli is the critic in question, and she recounts this bitter tale with sardonic delight... "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

BOOK 4: BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND MILES DAVIS
Book four is the wildcard in the deck, as neither the Devil, nor Miles Davis make an actual appearance in the story. Yet, this is the book that ties the previous trilogy together. Amo Tanzer is a hardened journalist, at war with the human race, who smokes and drinks too much, though not nearly enough for her own taste. Assigned to profile the late jazz legend Miles Davis, she finds herself at a creative impasse. How does one approach such an ‘overly-written-about’ artist from a fresh angle, and what’s her opinion worth anyway in a world so fast unraveling? At her wit’s end, she stumbles into the mysterious ‘Smokeasy’, the only bar in Manhattan where adults are allowed to behave as such; and it is that misty room that Amo falls under the spell of a ghostly bartender.

And that makes a quartet.
After all’s done and said, I consider myself to be more in the entertainment business than the art business. Comics were an early influence, but my current loves are film and music. I take the things I love from the entertainment that I love and ask, “How do I express this in comics form?” It’s my hope that the finished work proves entertaining to someone.
Lance Tooks

The Devil made me do it:

2006-03-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

Knew either I'd finish this book or it would finish me...
...happy to report that I'm still standing.

Book 4 done.

Narcissa charms Granada

2006-03-13T17:07:00.000-08:00

An exhausting but enjoyable weekend passed in Granada, where the graphic novel was embraced by the town that largely inspired it. Published by Ediciones la Veleta (the comics salon) & supported by the Diputacion de Granada and Junta de Andalucia (the government), a good time was had by all... more news as it develops.

While in Granada, I had the privilege of meeting in person, Sokari Ekine, editor of the very fine weblog "Black Looks". You won't find a better current affairs journal anywhere: at turns sharp, poignant, irreverent & informed... much like Sokari, herself. Check it out here: http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/

Vamos a...

2006-03-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

(Lets go to...)

GRANADA

2006-03-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

Off to Granada mañana to premiere the Spanish edition of Narcissa. Here's the cover to the original Random House edition from 2002. This full figure version appears in a barely visible 20% gray on the book's back cover. It's cropped as seen below for the front cover. Something moldy from the vault.

TAJ: Girlfighter

2006-03-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

A sketchbook drawing from the mid 90's became a 2003 Sequential Tart cover... it accompanied an interview about Narcissa & more... it's also available on a host of Cafe Press items available at the Sequential Tart website. The character, Taj, was a Bronx high schooler with a dream to be a boxer... maybe her story'll get told someday.
Tooks 2003 interview here:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/archive/mar03/ltooks.shtml

pensive

2006-03-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

between the Devil & Miles Davis

2006-02-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

Currently working round the clock on 'Lucifer's Garden of Verses, Book 4: Between the Devil & Miles Davis'.
More words about this & the other 3 volumes in the NBM graphic novel series soon.
Or, a peek here: http://www.nbmpub.com/comicslit/tooks/tookshome.html

Haven't had a decent nights sleep in sixteen years.

Convention sketches, 2004

2006-02-20T20:15:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Turtel Onli for a successful Black Age of Comics convention in Chicago last weekend. A massive undertaking that turned out very well. I was there in spirit.
By some strange jerk of fate, I now live closer to Granada, Spain than to Chicago... so that's where I'll be in two weeks, signing the Spanish language edition of 'Narcissa' at the Salon de Comics, Granada. March 9th - 12th... hasta la vista!

NARCISSA by Gwendolyn Brooks

2006-02-16T22:15:00.000-08:00

Some of the girls are playing jacks.

Some are playing ball.

But small Narcissa is not playing

Anything at all.

Small Narcissa sits upon

A brick in her back yard

And looks at tiger-lilies,

And shakes her pigtails hard.

First she is an ancient queen

In pomp and purple veil.

Soon she is a singing wind.

And, next, a nightingale.

How fine to be Narcissa

A-changing like all that!

While sitting still, as still, as still,

As anyone ever sat!

The poetry of Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks, I've admired since I was a kid... but I only became aware of her short & sweet 'Narcissa' (written before I was born, probably) about a year after completion of my graphic novel. Her description of the child, blissfully alone, is a comfortable match with how I see Narcissa. And now she's gone home for a visit.

Love for Niki

2006-02-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

the following from http://glyphsonline.blogspot.com/

ECBACC presents the 2006 Glyph Awards
EAST COAST BLACK AGE OF COMICS CONVENTION PRESENTS THE INAUGURAL GLYPH AWARDS HONORING THE BEST IN BLACK COMICS AND BLACK CREATORS

Since 2002, the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) has been an annual gathering for black creators and fans from all walks of life to meet and learn from each other. This year, ECBACC reaches further out into the comics industry at large in presenting the first Glyph Awards, for outstanding achievement in black comics. The awards ceremony will take place May 19, 2006, at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, with the convention to be held the following day, May 20, 2006, at Temple University’s Ritter Hall.

The Glyph Awards recognizes the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year. While it is not exclusive to black creators, it does strive to honor those who have made the greatest contributions to the comics medium in terms of both critical and commercial impact. By doing so, we hope to encourage more diverse and high quality work across the board and to inspire new creators to add their voices to the field.

The Glyph Awards are named for the web log Glyphs: The Language of the Black Comics Community (http://glyphsonline.blogspot.com), started in 2005 by comics journalist Rich Watson as a means to provide news and commentary of comics with black themes, as well as tangential topics in the fields of black science-fiction and animation. Watson is on the Awards Committee along with the following:

- Omar Bilal, creator of the Museum of Black Superheroes website (http://www.blacksuperhero.com).
- Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, senior comics editor at Pop Culture Shock (http://www.popcultureshock.com).
- Stephanie Brandford, moderator of the Dwayne McDuffie forum at VHive (http://dwaynemcduffie.thevhive.com).
- Eliot Johnson, co-founder of the fan club STEEL (Stop Trying to Eliminate Ethnic Legends) and former columnist with Broken Frontier.

The nominees for the 2006 Glyph Awards are:

Story of the Year
Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?, Reginald Hudlin, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson
Lucifer’s Garden of Verses: Darlin’ Niki, Lance Tooks
Moped Army, Paul Sizer
Nat Turner, Kyle Baker
Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian, Grant Morrison & Cameron Stewart

Best Writer
Reginald Hudlin, Black Panther
Aaron McGruder, Boondocks
Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian
Paul Sizer, Moped Army
Lance Tooks, Lucifer’s Garden of Verses: Darlin’ Niki

Best Artist
Ho Che Anderson, Scream Queen
Kyle Baker, Nat Turner
Dougie Braithwaite, Justice
Jamal Igle, Firestorm
Lance Tooks, Lucifer’s Garden of Verses: Darlin’ Niki

Best Male Character
Black Panther, Black Panther
Guardian, Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian
Huey Freeman, Boondocks
Nat Turner, Nat Turner
Papa Midnite, Hellblazer: Papa Midnite

Best Female Character
Agent 355, Y: The Last Man
Arisa, Perhapanauts
Niki, Lucifer’s Garden of Verses: Darlin’ Niki
Ororo, Ororo: Before the Storm
Simone Coleman, Moped Army

Rising Star Award for Best Self-Publisher
Glenn Brewer, Askari Hodari
Mark & Mike Davis, Blokhedz
Danny Kimanyen, The Adventures of EboNYC
Johane Matte, Horus
Robert Roach, The Roach

Best Reprint Publication
Birth of a Nation (softcover), Crown
Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? (hardcover), Marvel
Fierce (trade paperback), Dark Horse
King: A Comics History of Martin Luther King Jr. (trade paperback), Fantagraphics
The Lone and Level Sands (hardcover), Archaia Studios Press

Best Cover
Astro City: The Dark Age Book One #1, Alex Ross
Black Panther #1, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson and Dean White
JSA #76, Alex Ross
Nat Turner #1, Kyle Baker
Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian #2, Cameron Stewart and Moose Bauman

Best Comic Strip
The Boondocks, Aaron McGruder
Candorville, Darrin Bell
The K Chronicles, Keith Knight
Mama’s Boyz, Jerry Craft
(th)Ink, Keith Knight

In addition, there is a tenth award in which the fans will have an opportunity to vote for their choice for favorite black comic. The nominees for the Fan Award for Best Story are:

Astro City: The Dark Age Book One, Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson
Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?, Reginald Hudlin, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson
Firestorm #10-13, Dan Jolley, Jamal Igle & Rob Stull and Dale Eaglesham & Wade von Grawbadger
Seven Soldiers: Guardian, Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart
Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle, Grant Morrison, Pasqual Ferry and Billy Dallas Patton
write-in choice

Fans wishing to vote should go to the ECBACC website (http://www.ecbacc.com) for more information. The deadline for fan voting is March 31, 2006.

The Glyph Awards ceremony will also include the annual ECBACC Pioneer Award, given to a trailblazing black creator from the past who contributed significantly to the growth of black comics.

It is the Awards Committee’s hope that the Glyph Awards will be the beginning of a new tradition, in which black comics and black creators help expand the overall comics market and bring in new readers and new talent from across the spectrum. For further information about the awards, please contact committee chairman Rich Watson at cptsisko318@aol.com.

About ECBACC:
The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC), in association with the Temple University Pan-African Studies Community Education Program, is an annual gathering of comic book creators and retailers who create and sell material that caters to black readers of all ages. In addition to selling their work, they also take part in panel discussions and self-publishing workshops for aspiring creators. The convention is held on the Temple University campus in Philadelphia each May. There is also a pre-show reception held at the African American Museum in Philadelphia (http://www.aampmuseum.org). ECBACC is an outgrowth of the original Black Age of Comics Convention in Chicago, founded by Turtel Onli.

For more information about ECBACC, contact event coordinator Maurice Waters at maurice.waters@ecbacc.com

NARCISSA in Chicago & Granada, Spain

2006-02-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

The Southside Community Art Center at 3831 South Michigan Ave. in the Bronzeville section of Chicago will be the location of the 9th Annual Black Age of Comics Convention. There will be what's billed as 'an all-female' panel discussion on NARCISSA on February 17th from 7pm until 8pm. Started by creative force Turtel Onli, you can find out more about the convention here at his official site:
http://dablackage.blogspot.com/

Here's a preview of the Spanish edition of NARCISSA, premiering March 9th at the 2006 Salon de Comics in Granada, Spain.

And just below, the full-color cover to the Spanish edition of NARCISSA, for the Salon de Comics Granada 2006.

2006-02-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

The Southside Community Art Center at 3831 South Michigan Ave. in the Bronzeville section of Chicago will be the location of the 9th Annual Black Age of Comics Convention. Started by creative force Turtel Onli, you can find out more here:
http://dablackage.blogspot.com/

This event will be as follows:
A gallery exhibition opens to the public on Feb.10th. The Convention's opening reception will be on Feb. 17th and is free to the public from 4pm until 9pm. There will be what's billed as 'an all-female' panel discussion on NARCISSA from 7pm until 8pm. The Convention with vendors,artists, writers, seminars, raffles,displays, and screenings will be on the 18th & 19th of Feb. with it's hours being 11am until 4pm. The admission on those days is $2.00 per student and $5.00 per adult.

2006-02-13T19:41:00.000-08:00