Later this year I plan on doing a pretty large size gallery show of my own. I've alway participated in gallery shows but never had my own. I just never knew what I wanted to focus on. Then the diarrhea mess that is my Facebook newsfeed came along to strike inspiration. Growing up a comic fan you're kind of inundated with dudes that just love drawing women with rockin' huge tits and in amazingly skimpy clothing, along with teeny waists and just ridiculous curves. Now, let's just get one damn thing straight... I love the ladies. No questions about that! But I also have my own taste, and let's be honest; any hornball artist can draw pinups with women in nearly nothing fighting demons, or monsters and shit. And I say fighting like... MAYBE slightly striking. A sort of hapless expression on them. Bringing that back to that Facebook... I get to see image upon image of women in pinups. Mostly with awful high school comic art - you know the guys still emulating the 90s Image art style instead of taking what they liked from that and making their own style out of it. And yes there's a huge market for that, but if you've ever had to deal with those people at a table at a con breathing their rotten breath around & talking about nipples showing through shirts you quickly realize it's one no one should have to be a part of.
At least that's how I feel about it. I'm basically tired of softcore starring the X-Men or Alice in Wonderland. Yeah we get it, you're a pervert. Not my scene & I'm done with it.
So finally I said to myself, you know what? Fuck that! I've had the pleasure of having a rather consistent female fan base (which is super cool - I get some great conversations out of it!) so I wanted to do a series that would not only show off my tastes (Space bonanza!) but hopefully be something women could take home, put on the wall and feel good about in their comic book fandom. Another thing that came along that really inspired this was Beth Phoenix of the WWE. Last year she coined a phrase "Pinup Strong" and I really thought it was an awesome concept so hopefully you'll see a lot of that philosophy in the months to come of these.
This is the first set of these in various forms of completion (I get them done when I have the chance *cough* slowly *cough*) and I want to add some more shapes and races into the mix. I'm planning on doing between 30 or so, having a gallery show and maybe doing a small print run as a flip book or something. I already have buyers lined up for them too so I'm pretty stoked. It's a personal project I've been wanting to do so I thought why not! So let me know what you all think!
zak
