Inspired by Symbiote's piece, The Merwives' Café. 

In .PNG format to facilitate possible coloring, remixing, etc.

I've been crazy about Symbiote's recent text, "The Iconography Of Angels." I have been working on a short series of comic-book-style pages for the piece - here's page one. As you can see, it's empty right now. It would be awesome if some of you lovely people filled it with illustrations and really brought this to life. Also - I'm looking for feedback as I continue to revise this and work on the other pages. Thoughts?

"She was as normal as normal could be

and lived all her life in the city

until one cloudy day

her nose ran away

to live in a house by the sea"

sallyiheart's coloring of tdolan's illustration of metaphorest's poem--with lettering!! i will upload the raw images of the lettering as well. this is my first time uploading any sort of visual thing to hitRECord so i hope it's alright :)

I find myself with time. Here is an attempt at coloring the wonderful illustration by tdolan for The Sorrow Bird graphic novel...this was my rough idea for pg 1...maybe this will give others some ideas? :)

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Letterer:

Panel 1: The Sorrow Bird

Panel 2: If you should hear a mournful song
A tune that makes your skin feel wrong

Panel 3:The melancholy wail you heard

Panel 4: Most likely was the Sorrow Bird

Please find here Low Rez Colour Preview of Page 1 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831125

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 1 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831054

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 1 Type Specimen, hand drafted in lead 

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

-WRC-

here's the raw lettering for the first page of tdolan's graphic novel illustration of metaphorest's "the sorrow bird". just in case anyone wants to do anything cool with this, etc. 

Here is my attempt at pg 2. It would be cool to actually change all the pages at the end to match the same colour palette...hmm

oh and sorry bit of a glitch with adding resources I'm still getting use to the new way to do the citing...I'll add them as I get it working 

Ok fourth times lucky? I hope this doesn't end up getting posted a bazillion times. 

Please find here Low Rez Colour Preview of Page 2 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831125

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 2 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831054

-WRC-

heres the second page of the sorrowbird comic with my lettering

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Letterer:

Panel 1:Though to all else the room is still
It spins round you with hollow trill

Panel 2: And burns inside your brain and ears

Panel 3 (bottle label):The sum of all unspoken fears

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 2 Type Specimen, hand drafted in lead 

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Colour Preview of Page 3 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831125

-WRC-

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Letterer:

The Sorrow Bird it rare is seen
Its feathers black, its face serene
It stares right through you to your soul
With empty eyes of coldest coal

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 3 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831054

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 3 Type Specimen, hand drafted in lead 

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Colour Preview of Page 4 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831125

-WRC-

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Letterer:

Panel 1: It empties you of all your breath

Panel 3:And turns your living into death

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 4 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831054

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 4 Type Specimen, hand drafted in lead 

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Colour Preview of Page 5 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831125

-WRC-

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Letterer:

For if the Sorrow Bird should show

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 5 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831054

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 5 Type Specimen, hand drafted in lead 

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Colour Preview of Page 6 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831125

-WRC-

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 6 with Sorrow Bird Copy 

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

Note: High Rez Version for Download Here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/831054

-WRC-

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Letterer:

"So comes the hour to slip below"

Please find here Low Rez Preview of Page 6 Type Specimen, hand drafted in lead 

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 7"x10" jpeg at 100 dpi in RGB colour

-WRC-

I left out the white boxes typical of comic/graphic novels so that letterers can have a bit more freedom with insertion of the lines from Metaphorest's poem. Have free reign! 

"From a distance,

Henrietta Hexagram-Head

looked just like a star.

So, when she fell from a tall tree,

instead of rushing to her aid,

the watching witnesses made wishes on her

(Which never came true)"

This was intended for Henriette Hexagram Head---but maybe someone else can come up with a tiny story for it?

More pages needing some assistance!

Theserpentthecharmer obviously has a gift with words, and so I was overjoyed when he put some of his short stories in the "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" collab. This is the first in a series of four drawings/illustrations for "Daughters and Vultures". Colorists and Letterers---you know what to do!

"I'd ask the hangman to wait, to wait until I found your face in the crowd. "

Second illustration for theserpentthecharmer's "Daughters and Vultures

"We all think that our time will never end, that we'll live forever, and I know that to be true."

Final drawing for "Daughters and Vultures"

"    So when the floor drops out, and my feet start kicking, know that the noose won't kill me, your name will keep my breathing."

Doesnt that line just chill you to the bone?

This is the first page of my next graphic novel project! Theserpentthecharmer wrote a fantastic story a while back adding a twist to the preconceived notions of hell, and I really want us to take up the challenge of bringing this story to life. Please note that this page needs to be viewed at a higher resolution as there are lots of details that arent apparent (i.e. the people blobs in the windows).

This is the first page of at least 10 more that I have mapped out in my head, and it needs a brave letterer with a creative flair for cramming lots of text into a tiny space, and and colorists who would like to give it a shot. Sadly, I just started a new very stressful/time consuming job and will not be able to create and release the illustrations all at once---so I will be (hopefully) serially releasing one every week.

***If this page is not your style but you are interested in the art of illustration and graphic novels, then I urge you to check out some of the other stories currently being worked on in The Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things collaboration. There are some real gems in there that next some final touches (and even more that just need to be started!)

Here are the words to the portion that need to a) be included in the page or b) have an addendum piece made to include them: 

"The terrible sound subsided and the storm rolled off like a purple bruise spreading itself thin under skin. Everything was quiet except for the wind. The wooden walls of the cottage, shuddering under the weight of all the snow that had piled up on the roof. It had gathered up against the floor to ceiling plate glass windows that lined the first floor, allowing those inside to only see out the top quarter, like an ugly porthole.     The wind was still howling and screaming like a betrayed lover outside, snow still fell but it was calmer. Like the tide gets after a hurricane. Thin, wide flakes sped around and around until they became anonymous in the rolling drifts. The forest that surrounded the house had become an empty canvas, the lake was a blank that had yet to be filled in.      Andy Lassicker stood by himself at the end of the frozen dock, holding a lit cigarette like a Russian sentry. His face had gathered little pockets of frostbite that had begun to turn black. His clothes were soaked through to his skin, but he wasn’t shivering. The cigarette embers would grow brighter every time the wind picked up. Andy let out another plume of grey-purple smoke that thinned and took off like a ghost with the gales."

Not sure if it needs colouring but the best way to decide is to see all the options.

Opinions are highly encouraged. 

As promised, here is the second page of The Shoals(written by theserpentthecharmer), my next graphic novel endeavour. :)

There is just so much text that I think this will have to be formatted as a blend of graphic novel, and your typically illustrated book. That means there is yet another task a recorder could tackle: lettering, coloring and/or illuminating a page or border design for the text pages!

Here is all the text and the designated images:

IMAGE 2, FRAME 1     In front of the dock, a few feet out onto the lake, there was a gaping hole into the water. It was pitch black and shifting like an angry king that had been stirred from his sleep. From where Andy stood, the hole looked like the entrance to oblivion, and it almost had been. Footprints had come out of the hole, but none had led to it.

IMAGE 2, FRAME 2     He remembered this place from years ago, but when he’d seen it last it had been warm and sun-stained. The fish had lost their fear of the shallows and had laid their kin under the dock to be born. There hadn’t been snowdrifts tall enough to get buried under, there had been thick, luscious grass instead. 

IMAGE 2, FRAME 3

    There was another gust of wind and the trees groaned under the tremendous burden they’d been presented with. They were peasants for god or the devil or whoever had ordered all the weather down on them. It seems more and more like the world is just a giant bull’s-eye for punishment from forces beyond. Andy thought about this as he noticed something that he hadn’t before.

IMAGE 2, FRAME 4

    The last time he had been there, at the end of the dock, he had seen all the houses that lined the lake. He recalled that there hadn’t been a spot around the water that didn’t have a home or a cottage or a boat launch. What Andy saw now was nothing, there wasn’t a trace of anything left around the shore. In place of the houses, there was only forest, as if no one had ever lived out there to begin with.

IMAGE 2, FRAME 5     The only evidence that any of his memory had been true was the cottage behind him. Andy had turned to stare at it and flicked his cigarette into the blackness of oblivion over is shoulder. In the overcast of the blizzard, the wood paneling looked bleached and worn where it had once been beautifully stained. The windows were fogged over from the heat inside and there was orange light pouring out. Figures were moving in and out of focus on the other side of the plate glass, shuffling and floating like ghosts.

Okay, so I may have skipped page number three and hopped right onto the forth page---but I was dying to draw these little beasties.

"There was a lining of red all along the trees that surrounded the house, a mass of cardinals had gathered to watch the young man struggle against the weather. They were oddly unaffected by the howling wind and the razor thin snow."

As well as The Shoals project that I am slo-mo working on, these were made to be a part of the outsider world/collab--I mean, look at those sad faces!

The paper that I paint on is so large, that I think it is often difficult to see the details on a screen shot---so here is a zoomed in version of those demented little cardinals.

Another rather useless contribution to theserpentthecharmer's "of messengers and wolves" but it was in my head and had to be done!

"You're more than a painting ever conveyed to our eyes

More beautiful than the ivory on old piano keys

I never thought the world was a stage but now I see

It was meant to display you, the unrequited, and me"

While almost completely useless for this film, I just had to draw out the pack of wolves from theserpentthecharmer's Departure poem/story/film/collab

"If you'd come back to life, you'd find a den of wolves at my door

Asking if that pretty girl is coming around anymore"

Please find here Zipped Archive containing 6 High Rez Colour Pages, re-formatted, with Sorrow Bird Poem Text

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 14"x20" jpeg at 300 dpi in rgb colour

-WRC-

Please find here Zipped Archive containing 6 High Rez Black and White Pages, re-formatted, with Sorrow Bird Poem Text

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 14"x20" jpeg at 300 dpi in rgb colour

-WRC-

Please find here Zipped Archive containing 6 High Rez Type Specimens hand drafted in lead

Collab: The Sorrow Bird

File Type: 14"x20" jpeg at 300 dpi in rgb colour

-WRC-

In my collaboration "Spiderlimbs and Eerie Things" I challenged all the crontibutors to consider coming together with our creepy stories and illustrations to create a graphic novel. A graphic novel is the perfect collaboration project as it necessitates a writer, penciller, inker, letterer, and colorist.

In the case of this first story I have filled in as penciller and inker, just to get the ball rolling, and obviously, Metaphorest was the writer of the poem "The Sorrow Bird". Now all that is needed (for this story, at least) is a letterer and colorist. Help me out guys! (Or start your own penciller/inker steps by choosing another story in the collab.)

If you want to take on either of these jobs, download the zip file of all the pages!

Colorist suggestions:

1. Blue pallettes of Craig Thompson's novel "Blankets"

2. Collage elements like Metaphorest's "In the city" remix

3. printing out and painting over it