Hashbrown Haus

Grad Show Cometh…

Currently, I am (amongst other things) working towards my graduation this fall from Florida State University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts Program. Part of this entails me exhibiting within the Museum of Fine Arts on Campus.

Here is my working progress, so far:

Idea
My idea was to tell an oversize narrative about an astronaut who travels to another planet, dispatches a robot emissary to judge the indigenous lifeforms, ultimately orders the robot to execute the life to make way for conquest, the robot refuses, and the astronaut destroys the robot via remote destruct sequence. I don’t consider myself overly religious, but recognize this tale is revisionist christianity. I am not proselytizing, or preaching, nor do I have a truly deep message here, this is more about presenting comics in an artistic format, using simplified and iconic characters to tell a simple and straightforward tale which audiences can immediately feel familiar with and also ambiguous enough to be left to interpretations. I feel so often that the pretentiousness of the art world can be intimidating to blue-collar stiffs, and something like this could help to eschew that idea.

I Want to incorporate multimedia techniques and materials throughout. Printmaking, painting, sculpture, collage etc.

Here is the original draft pages of the story drawn for Robert Fichter’s Comic Books and Graphic Novels class. Not the final story as it plays out.

Character development sheets I expanded after initial story draft. Featured is the “Naut”, his robot “P.I.P.”, the “eaters”, and the “herders”. The primaries within the story.

Sculpture of the “Eater”, bipedal-alien-bovine species which feature throughout story.

Test Paintings on drywall, (NO, it’s not my final working surface, it was free, and available, probably move towards luon for majority). Fire was achieved by stamp printing. Want to experiment with the reductive surface of the drywall to build depth, same could be done with wood, I’ll give, but am still experimenting.

And finally, sketches of how I might like the final work to display.

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5 responses to “Grad Show Cometh…”

  1. Dennis Roberts Avatar
    Dennis Roberts

    I like it. then again who am I but a proud Father, not a soothsayer of all PRETENTIOUS FINE ARTS. Anyways, a great idea that I’m sure will require hours of work. As always, our prayers,hope, and love are there for you. You can’t please them all….all the time.
    Love,Dad

  2. RWF Avatar
    RWF

    Seems like your hard at work. I’ll think on all of this and get back to you ASAP.

    RWF

  3. The Garrett Avatar
    The Garrett

    This crazy school has a graphic novels and comics class? Please Mr. Roberts, tell me more!

  4. sj Avatar
    sj

    Garrett,

    That’s right, but it was/is taught by Robert W. Fichter, unfortunately he is, retiring after this semester, and unless someone else picks up the torch, sadly, there will be no more….

  5. ..

    […] It had potential, it really did. I just didn’t have time to do anything with it. I did continue to play with it. Gave him a robot. Thought about a story. Gave it time to breathe and come to life on its own. Months passed. One day in Robert Fichter’s workshop course on Comic Books and Graphic Novels-Robert suggested a jam day- you sit down with paper and medium and you see what you can produce in several hours of class- I found myself laying out the beginning of the story in three rough pages. I liked it, liked where it was going and the ideas it helped me explore. I also enjoyed the fact that it could all be done within the confines of a comic strip. Simple, iconic characters, conveying ideas through seemingly benign actions acting as metaphors for a wealth of other topics. No two people would get the same message from it, but it could be simple fun, interesting, and provoking all at the same time. Not to mention it had the ability to speak to a wide range of cultures, age groups, etc. It had the potential to transcend mere comics. […]

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