"Necrowmancer" for Emerald City Comicon's 2015 Monsters & Dames book.
I'm excited to announce that my piece was selected for Emerald City Comicon's charity book Monsters and Dames, and will be available this year at ECCC merch booth at the convention itself on March 27-29th. I've considered submitting something for the past 3 years, but this year I finally made the time and had a strong enough concept that I couldn't wait to illustrate this and lend a hand for a good cause such as this. The proceeds for the book go to Seattle Children's Hospital, a premier child health care & pediatric center, recognized as one of the leading hospitals for children. Being that I work with kids and adults with special needs, being a part of this is pretty close to my heart. This, along with many other things, is exactly why I so strongly support Emerald City Comicon.
So what is my piece about? I decided to call this piece "Necrowmancer," a play on words mixing the words necromacer (one who raises the dead) and crow (an animal that symbolizes death and intelligence). Most of my work as of late has had occult themes (witches, magic, cryptic symbolism), so I wanted to make sure that I was able to put a bit of myself into this piece. But, based on the nature of the charity, I didn't want to make it too dark or morbid, so I played more on one of the most common and more important themes in my work; female empowerment. That being said, I also worked to make sure that she wasn't overly sexualized. It's too easy for male artists to fall into that pit of "a dame's got to be well endowed, revealing and posed in a fashion that even a child can see how inappropriately posed she is." I find that men often confuse the idea of women empowerment with strong women showing off "their goods," when what they are doing is actually perpetuating the whole over-sexualization of women. I could go in deeper into this, maybe another time, but for now let's just say this girl's powerful, can fight just as well as any man, and likes to wear cute things while doing it! As for the monster in this piece, it is an embodiment of nature's deceased animals.
Part of the reason I went for this darker theme (other than me just being into it) is that I like the idea of not hiding from the darkness of the world. We should not fear that which plagues humanity. Illness and death are inevitable, but if we walk along side it, try to understand it and do our best to help those affected by it, we can start to see the beauty in our lives reflected off of that darkness. It's important not to forget to celebrate and experience our lives while we still can.
Along with my artwork some close friends and other amazing artists will also be featured in this years issue. The book includes artists such as Cody Vrosh, Dane Ault, Daniel Davis, Jeff Schuetze, Skottie Young, Aaron Alexovich, Camilla d'Errico and many more.