David Heatley

New Yorker Money Issue

2008-03-24T18:29:41+00:00

I have a "sketchbook" page in this week's New Yorker. It's the first time I made it onto the "contributors" page. Got a nice plug from my upcoming book "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down." Much more about that soon... Here's some detailed views. There's a lot of hidden narratives for the adventurous reader.

Jackson Heights Map!

2008-03-05T20:05:39+00:00

A real estate developer in my neighb saw my "Queens is the New Brooklyn" piece on drawger and commissioned me to draw a cartoon map brochure for my neighborhood, Jackson Heights. It was one of the best jobs I've ever gotten. A total blast to research, organize, design and draw. I started by posting to our local message board asking people for their favorite things about the neighborhood. Of course I had my own list of things I love and the piece is largely autobiographical (like everything I do). I did strive for a balanced portrait of JH, which includes Indians, Pakistanis, Italians, Irish, Peruvians, Mexicans, Columbians, Koreans, Phillipinos, etc. etc. etc. Hard to get all that into a 2-sided piece of 11 x 17 paper, but I did my best!

Here's a link for the front and the back so you can really see all the detail. It basically took me all of February.

There's 5,000 of these babies floating around the NYC area. I'm dropping a stack off at my favorite local cafe. Otherwise you might have to be resourceful to get your hands on one. By the way, my client Dan Robinson was ideal. How often do you get the feedback, "Can you make it a little more whimsical?"

Exhibitor Mag

2008-01-22T16:39:58+00:00

Did this one for Exhibitor magazine this month. About some company who had a lot of success at a trade show by making their booth seem exclusive with large dark purple walls and a live jazz combo. They also gave away t-shirts and TVs and Starbucks coffee. Not a theme I feel terribly sympathetic to, but I managed to have some fun drawing all the characters at the event. I googled the word "people" in google's image search. The very first result was a page showing the staff of an entire astronomy department at the University of Florida. Perfect!

This was what the whole image looked like, with the line snaking across the page.

The jazz band, also based on a trio I found on google. It seemed like the right casting - these middle aged guys with cool haircuts. Probably playing some smoothed out stuff, but still swinging. I snuck my wife into the audience on the lower left there.

More of the folks on line. I drew myself in a dorky striped yellow shirt. Kind of my worst nightmare of who I'd become if I was stuck in a corporate job. My fashion sense would wither away. I'd stop getting regular haircuts (actually, even now that's kind of hard to maintain). I'd be complacent, bored and depressed, probably shrugging like this to strangers very often.

I was having fun imagining how these folks would be passing the time on line. So I had this tanned outgoing alpha male guy hitting on this cute indie rockerish chick. She's timid, but still into the attention she's getting. The older guy is saying something about the woman's shoes or something. He has a fatherly air, but she misunderstands it as creepy flirting and is having none of it.

And the stragglers at the end. I liked this guy telling the rest about the free coffee. I feel some affection for him. But I have to wonder, who gets this excited about some free coffee? Who goes to these events? Aren't they usually the people who slack off at work and jump at the chance to go to a free trade show for the day? Are they really the kinds of people you want to be generating lists for and marketing to? I don't profess to know. Just wondering...

New Yorker Cartoon Issue

2008-01-03T16:22:13+00:00

I was commissioned by the New Yorker to do a 2-page strip for the 2007 Cartoon Issue. They wanted something about Queens being the new Brooklyn. So I came up with this. I really loved working on it and was looking forward to putting my neighborhood (Jackson Heights) on the national map. But... they yanked it at the last minute. I still got paid, so I didn't mind so much, plus they gave me the rights to print it someplace else. Any magazines out there want to run it? Here's a more readable version.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo Creche

2007-12-23T15:52:28+00:00

Two pieces in the NY Times today. One is in the Book Review. It's an illustration for that book which was supposedly written by Anthony Flew (a notorious British atheist and scholar), but was highly influenced and maybe ghost written by Roy Abraham Varghese, an oddball new age-y Christian from Texas (who believes in, among other things that some UFO sightings are actually evidence of visitations by the Virgin Mary). I love the subject and really poured myself into this one.

The other piece is a comic strip written by my wife, Rebecca Gopoian and "cartooned" by me (illustrated implies I dutifully added pictures to her text, but cartooned means I wrote with the pictures). It's about her experience of my wanting a creche in our home around Christmas time. As someone whose output consists mostly of drawing myself talking and thinking at various ages and in various locations, it was really refreshing to have my wife be the main character and put myself in the background. We both found it interesting how squeamish the editors were about including anything remotely cheeky in referring to Jesus. There were a few tweaks to appease the fundamentalists, but ultimately the piece survived intact. We're definitely planning on doing more of these, so stay tuned in 2008. Here's a readable version of the strip, up for the next week.

Holiday card

2007-12-19T16:02:30+00:00

Hello, my drawgies...

Here's our holiday card, just finished today. I'll be posting some new things in the next couple of days. But in the mean time I hope everyone has a relaxing, peaceful and joy-filled holiday.

Favorite cartoon images of all time #2 (Clowes)

2007-11-27T16:28:18+00:00

Dan Clowes is my favorite writer in comics. He's also one of my all-time favorite cartoonists. A lot of his art isn't beautiful in a stand-alone kind of way. In fact until Eightball Number 15 or 16, a lot of it is really garish and jarring and Mad magazine-ish. But even when his cartooning was at its most abrasive, the writing was better than anything else out there. And even the "ugly" cartooning was still great cartooning, meaning there's rarely anything extraneous that doesn't belong in a page by Clowes. In my own work I've been mostly interested in the storytelling which I spend at least 3 times as long on as I do the art. But recently I've been interested in finding pages of comics that function as self-containted works of art, the way paintings do. This is the first page of a 3-page strip from Eightball #8. It's based on a dream and was a big inspiration for me to start doing my own dream comics. I like the blankness of the character, the creepy Q-tip like object he discovers (which later turns out to come from the breasts of a squirrel), and the way Dan draws all the foliage. It's all so stiff like it was made from sheet metal. Gives the whole page a nice tension.

The original Ghost World hardcover is another of my favorites. I only wish it wrapped all the way around the book because the back cover is a little silly. Some things I love about it which keeps me staring at it all these years after I bought it. Beautiful, precise, painted line work. Gorgeous color choices and a strange and powerful eye-grabbing composition. The folk art-like details, which Dan might consider "mistakes," but for me make the picture warm, endearing, earnest and a little obsessive. I like that the blue flowers have unnatural hard lines which make them look like cut paper. I like the awkward yellow cloud between the girls's heads. All of the architectural detail in the top and bottom. The absolute emptiness of both scenes' physical spaces. The one giant insect in the background. The hatching shadow pattern on Enid's sweater which gives it a strange texture. Her banana-like left ear with no visible opening. The light spots on her glasses. Both of their flat red lips.You can really feel Clowes' adoration and love of these two girls and his trying to get it "just right."

Ice Haven is a perfectly executed book object in my opinion. The story is among the best ever written in comics, probably in prose too. Every page design is thoughtful and attractive and so is the book design itself. The title lettering of the front and back are just one example of how well thought-out this project was – how every page was an opportunity to expand on the themes and motifs of the narrative.

I think the prettiest stand-alone image of his is this Comics Journal cover he did in 2001. Line work, color, dialogue, even the tinted color of the page to make it look like weathered newsprint. All perfectly balanced. I find work like this very soothing and comforting. All the lettering is done by hand (as is standard with Clowes) and I was told that he painted this whole thing somehow. I was sure it was flat computer color, but I was mistaken. The funny thing about it is that it's basically a strip about how he hates the comics journal and doesn't want to be interviewed. He just wants to be left alone. It's fitting that he's alone in every single panel, talking to himself mostly.

Finally this stunning cover to Eightball #19. Has to be one of the greatest comic book covers ever. It's very much inspired by Crumb's "Weirdo" covers and Harvery Kurtzman's covers for "Humbug " before that. But it's closer to being a work of art for me than any of those other covers (maybe with the exception of Weirdo #1). The central image is so dramatic. Like a biblical painting about the main characters. David Boring looking off into the distance (day dreaming), while Wanda looks right at the viewer with a sphinx-like blank stare. There's natural disasters happening in the background with no other people in sight and the border surrounding the characters is a sea of microbes. Also the lighting on their bodies gives the impression that there's more fire or lighting happening in front of them (where the reader is standing). It tells a great deal of the story in a single image, something only the best book covers (and Renaissance paintings) achieve.

Favorite cartoon images of all time #1 (Panter)

2007-11-21T14:56:52+00:00

This is an unpublished painted comic page by Gary Panter, printed in Todd Hignite's "In the Studio" book. I find it thrilling: the loose painting, the iconic cartoon that is still readable even beneath the texture, the sun setting from panel to panel (seemingly contradicting the amount of time it should realistically have taken to deliver this speech), the writing itself, the way Henry's head morphs and distorts subtly throughout, the cars, the Pee Wee's playhouse patterns on everything. And maybe most of all: the way everything is painted without black outlines and the only black on the page is isolated in the thought and speech balloons. It's a really rich piece which was never published when it was drawn in 1992. I love that and hate it. I love that Gary just had so many other fish to fry artstically, so many more ideas, images, sketchbooks to fill, strips to conceive, that this masterpiece could just slip through the cracks. I also love that Dan Nadel (Picture Box) is doing a giant-sized double book of the better part of Gary's output from the last 30-odd years. Gary is just about the greatest for me and I'm so glad he's finally getting the deluxe treatment.

Espionage

2007-11-13T15:22:12+00:00

Job I just did for Exhibitor magazine. The AD was a real joy to work with. The topic was spying on other people's presentations at trade shows. Not something near and dear to my heart. But I tried to just keep it light and focus on drawing the weird spy characters. Title lettering and 4 spots, these were my 2 favorites of the 4.

Nozone comic

2007-11-06T15:48:22+00:00

Comic strip for the upcoming Nozone. Instead of doing a forecast, I did an anti-forecast, since I don't really like thinking about the future. I try my best to live in the present. I was afraid Nicholas would think it's not political or angry or edgy enough, but he seems to like it just fine. It's funny how that happens. I get an assignment sometimes and feel like I need to distort my style or message to fit a particular platform, when the reason they called is because they want what *I* do. It's sometimes easy to forget.

Been a while since I blogged over here. I've been busy, just haven't had anything I could share. I'm working on my book mostly, though I just got a few assignments in. I should have some new images to share next week. Fingers crossed on a big assignment that's still a little speculative. If it runs, that'll be really good for me.

Stay tuned for less cryptic blogging in the near future...

Time Out New York

2007-09-26T00:21:20+00:00

This is running in today's Time Out New York. A page about all the animals, parasites, microbes, pests, etc. in and around NYC buildings. Gave me the creeps googling all those things for reference... But it was a super fun job to draw. My first time working with them and a real pleasure throughout the whole process.

Time correction

2007-09-20T11:06:12+00:00

Anyone wanting to listen to the radio show, it's at 5 PM eastern time, not 11 am. My bad.

On the Radio

2007-09-19T17:44:42+00:00

I'm going to be on the radio tomorrow on a Canadian college station called CITR. It's a show called "Ink Studs," which is a little embarassing unless you know it's a funny tongue-in-cheek comic strip by Dan Clowes. The show is on at 5 PM Eastern time. To listen to it live, click on the CITR link and click the button for the live stream. Otherwise, it'll be archived on the ink studs site a week or so from now. I have no idea what we'll be talking about, but I promise to be honest and forthcoming. Also, the host told me they'd be playing some of my music on the show, which is a thrill for me, since I'm something of a "Sunday songwriter," wishing for more musical recognition.

Along these lines, I was interviewed about a year ago on another college radio station in Kansas called KJHK. The show was called "The Panel" and the host was a nice guy named Ian Hrabe. Here's that show if you're interested in listening. I don't remember much of what I said, but it was a fun conversation.

Who knew there were so many comics-themed college radio shows? (Even if there's only 2?)

Times Week In Review

2007-09-16T23:51:02+00:00

Just did a job for the NYT Week in Review. Here's the full process from thumbnail to finish. They wanted a grayscale version for the paper, but color for the web. This one was really a lot of fun for me.

It's up ***here*** for the next week. Just scroll down to the section that says "The Week."

Original art site

2007-09-11T14:07:35+00:00

I sell original comics and illustration art on this website. There's a whole bunch of new stuff up, including things done for The NY Times over the last few years. I think there's 40 cartoonists total who sell things there. Worth checking out for holiday shopping this year!

BTW - I did this drawing when I was in 3rd grade. Kind of a sad little guy. It was the "author photo" at the back of one of the many "books" I drew throughout my childhood. Amazing how I'm still basically doing the same thing as I did back then–drawing picture books essentially to please myself and find a way to connect with other people.

SPX badges

2007-09-06T14:38:15+00:00

I got asked to design the badges for this years Small Press Expo in Maryland. It's a big one for the alt. comix crowd. I had a lot of fun really blowing out these designs in various cartoon styles.

Here's a larger image.

Summer is for sketchbooks

2007-07-03T16:18:03+00:00

I'm going away next month and look forward to 10 days in New England with no projects, no deadlines, no "house style" to worry about. Just my sketchbook to play in. I feel like I learned how to draw in my sketchbooks over the last 10 years. More than in any classroom. Looking back over 8 or 9 books, I can remember exactly where I was when I drew certain things. What I was reading at the time, what was inspiring me, who I was hoping to become. I've been meaning to share a bunch of these drawings for a while and finally got a little time this morning to scan a big batch. Check out the sketchbook gallery to see everything.

My wife and I used to live in California and sometimes get nostalgic about all that free time we had to sit and daydream in cafes. I'd doodle and she'd write poetry. So romantic! Now we have 2 kids and all that that entails. Once in a while we can sneak away to a cafe here in Queens and get a taste of that old freedom. And next month when we're on vacation.

Hand-lettering

2007-06-28T12:18:58+00:00

I love hand-lettering and have done quite a bit of it at this point, in my comics and in some commercial assignments. I just updated my galleries and started a new one for hand-lettering samples. I think of myself as somewhat naive in my approach to lettering. I never studied it formally, but while working at Ogilvy, I spent a year in the "typography studio." It no longer exists, but during that time I got to become friends with a fine gentleman named Robert Wakeman, who taught me most of what I know. He is a true genius when it comes to typography and has been working with type since the days of hot metal. Take a look at his beautiful samples and you'll see what I'm talking about. His "Type Director's Wall" is a wonderful resource.

Comics Comics

2007-06-26T11:22:01+00:00

Hey everybody,

Have you heard of Comics Comics? It's a great little periodical published by my friend Dan Nadel and it's all about... comics! All across the board in terms of genre – superhero and alt. lit comix alike. There's some really passionate writing by Dan and his cohorts. Tim Hodler in particular is terrific. Issue #3 features a conversation between me and fellow cartoonist Lauren Weinsten,
who you must have all heard of by now right? She's the bee's knees.

It was fun. We drove down to Philly to be part of their 215 Literary festival. The turn out was downright pathetic, but it didn't matter. I was among friends and wound up having a great back-and-forth with good ol' Lauren. We did this "jam" drawing which is published in the CC#3 as well. We emailed it back and forth to each other. I was pretty thrilled with how it came together since I've never really done this sort of thing before. She and I talked about maybe doing some more jams down the road because of how easy and fun it was.

Best American Comics 2007

2007-06-19T14:38:12+00:00

I'm doing the cover for this year's Best American Comics, edited by Chris Ware. It's been a great project all around. Chris gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted, so I did this crazy 2 sided sprawling dustjacket and a full-color case wrap. I'm not posting large files because I don't want to step on anyone's toes at Houghton Mifflin, but the book will be out in October.

Quit My Job

2007-06-18T16:19:38+00:00

I've paid up my drawger dues. I'm back among the living. I hope to be posting regularly. Most importantly I quit my job at Ogilvy a week ago. Now I've got time to pursue my comics, illustration work, and (fingers crossed) gallery show. This is my year to plant seeds. "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down" (my 120 page 'graphic memoir') is slated for Fall '08 and I'm hoping to find a gallery to represent me and host the opening by then. I'm looking now. Of course any pointers from you lovely folks are appreciated! This is a drawing I did to show what I have in mind for the space.

Enlarged image is here.

I write music too

2007-03-15T03:15:08+00:00

I just started a myspace page for my music. It's got 2 new songs I just recorded. I used to be a musician before I was a cartoonist. I think I recorded about 100 songs on my 4 track in a 5 year period from High School through my first go-around at college. Then it trailed off and I got serious about images. I love making comics, but there's always been an element of hiding for me. Holing up and creating and then publishing is like a 1-way street. Making music is a lot more vulnerable for me. But I feel emboldened to share it.

Have a listen.

Some context

2007-02-22T19:56:23+00:00

Wow! Thanks, everyone. You sure know how to make a guy feel welcome. I got more comments in a day than I did in a year on blogger. Thought I'd add some context for appreciating my inaugural blog image. I did a story called "My Sexual History" for a book called Kramer's Ergot #5 and for my comic book Deadpan (still available from Fantagraphics) a few years back. It's basically what it sounds like: an unflinching catalog of every sexual experience from Kindergarten up til the present. It has made me infamous. I'm planning to add a page epilogue when I reprint in my book "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down" coming out in 2008. I've got a little more to say on the subject.

Anyway, here's how I drew the strip. I did an elaborate thumbnail so I could get a sense of where all the action was taking place in each panel (no pun intended). Then I redrew the whole page in rapidograph pen – no pencilling. I wanted it to have a rough, quick, diaristic quality. Then I made a blue line from the line art and painted that, adding some color pencil tones for shading. Then finally I sandwiched the two Photoshop files in InDesign. My process isn't anywhere near as elaborate anymore. The strip took me close to a year to draw! I'm doing a strip now called "Black History," a page of which I'm showing here too. It's using the same conceit as this strip. i.e. Can I really understand my relationship with women by showing only the moments when I was having sexual contact with them (the answer, hopefully, no). Can I make a sweeping statement about black people, by segregating them all into one comic strip? Again, I hope not.

I'm here!

2007-02-20T21:37:01+00:00

I'm migrating my blog over to drawger! Got a bunch of images up, mostly illustration. I'm undecided about sharing comics stuff in progress. Though I'll probably put more stuff than what's currently up there. Hope to get to know you folks.