A couple weeks ago I recieved an email from the people at a big, national rock magazine. They were familiar with my online comic work and wanted me to do an illustration for an upcoming interview they'd be publishing with the band Fantomas. I accepted the offer, and was told there were no creative constraints on the project and I should just create whatever I felt would work.

These are words most artists love to hear.

Well, Fantomas is a really weird band, so I wanted some sort of weird theme in the piece. I told my contact at the magazine that I was thinking about some sort of mad scientist thing, and he agreed that sounded awesome. Halfway through me getting the piece done, he requested a rough draft he could use to layout the story.

Here's where tragedy struck:

APPARENTLY the higher-ups at the magazine had a specific idea of the piece they wanted in their minds, but had neglected to tell this to my contact, who was thus obviously unable to tell me. Based on my rough draft (for those of you who aren't familiar with the process of creating cartoon art, a rough draft basically looks like complete ass, just laying out what will be positioned where, etc - the piece doesn't start to come together until the inks are applied), they decided my piece did not fit their vision, and cancelled the contract. By the time I heard this news, I had finished the inks and was about to start coloring.

This upsets me for two reasons:

1) It was an important job that I was hoping to use as a foot in the door of the magazine illustration field.
2) I inked the piece specifically to be colored. I am personally not much of a colorist, and so I usually cater my art to pure black and white, with lots of filled areas and hatching, etc. Had I known the coloring process for this piece wasn't going to happen, I would have inked it in an entirely different manner than I did, and the inked piece you see here would look infinitely better than it does now.

I've asked Margot Jenner to take over coloring the piece, despite that it won't be published any longer, and she has agreed.

The guy at the magazine told me he wanted me to do something else for them instead, but later wrote in and said they had gone with someone else entirely, and that they might call me in the future if they want something else. Basically I blew my chances with these guys, and I'm back to square one.

Anyhow, that aside, this is the final inked piece, Fantomas.