Papernoise Sketchbook

Howling at the moon from papernoise on 8tracks.

For this episode of Giètzcovers I’ve tried to remember how it was when I was drawing Giètz. What was I thinking about? And what music was I actually listening to? No, I wasn’t listening to jazz most of the time. Usually I would listen to some 80s post punk stuff, like Joy Division or the Cure. If I wanted something jazzier I would play Bohren and the Club of Gore or the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.

So If I had to draw a version of Giètz that reflects what I was actually listening to in that time, it might look a bit more like this one: Nico the gravedigger who likes to play some good old Jazz while shooting some zombies… a mix between Dellamorte Dellamore and Young Man with a Horn.

My cover and artwork for the music EP It’s the End was just published on the illustration portal IllustrationServed, you can check it out here: www.illustrationserved.com/gallery/Its-the-End-EP-Artwork

War: The Human Cost is a comic anthology and CD recently released by UK indie pubblisher Paper Tiger Comix. The Book has been in production for several years now, facing different challenges such as fundraising. I’m really glad they now made it into the public!

The book contains one of my really old stories, titled The Hunter, a story I made when the second Irak war broke out.

For more info look here: http://www.facebook.com/sean.tiger or here http://www.myspace.com/paper_tiger_comix

Some more material from my summer sketchbook.

I’ve spent 3 years working on a graphic novel about jazz music, and this made me discover and appreciate many musicians I didn’t know (or didn’t know well) before. Still I can’t say that I’m a Jazz addict, even while drawing Gietz!, most of the time I would listen to completely different music, like The Cure or some chiptunes. At one point I felt the need to find some flavour of contemporary Jazz that was somehow more in line with my taste. I dicovered a whole new world!

There’s this current in Jazz which is called Dark Jazz, or Doom Jazz which is a mix of dark athmospheres, weird soundscapes and e-piano. There’s two great bands I would recomend: Bohren and the Club of Gore and The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble. Check out the videos below:

Another great band I would recommend is Movits! Those Swedish guys created the perfect mix between Django Reinhard, Swing and Hip Hop. I’ve been listening to this a lot while drawing Gietz! It perfectly fitted with the mood of the comic, and was energetic enough to fuel my motivation!

Short comic created for the anthology Antologia illustrata del frastuono più atroce (Lamette).

I had another terrible week. A week where I had no time ad all the wonderfully superfluous things like, among others, updating my blog. Maybe I have to accept the things as they are and renounce one and for all to the idea of posting here regularly… but whatever…

It’s no news that I don’t read a lot of comics anymore. I prefer to inspire myself with other media, like for example novels. I’ve stumbled over a couple of really interesting readings lalely, which I’d like to talk about here.

The first one is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book that take the original novel by Jane Austen and turns it into something you’d actually want to read (as the book itself states). Apart from the illustrations, which are just plain lousy (why do they pay people like that to illustrate a book, while talented people have a hard time getting commissions?) and the fact that the book is no easy reading, it’s a great experiment and great fun to read most of the time. The author keeps the original plot and linguistic style, adddins a bit of zombies, gore and martial arts here and there. While this novel is not perfect (sometimes it can be tiresome to read, due to the old fashioned language, and the there’s some problems with the storyline here and there) I highly recomend it!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice_and_Zombies

Another book I’d like to talk about it In Cuniculum by Lapin. Unfortunately this one’s only available in English, but since It contains several illustratins by me, (attention: subliminal advertising) I though I’d talk about it anyway. Lapin has a highly imaginative and surreal way of writing, the short stories that make up In Cuniculum are sometimes shocking, sometimes fascinating. One way or the other, Lapin knows how to surprise you and the book is a great read I hope he’ll get it translated in the future!

www.lacarmelinaedizioni.it