I loved my uni days at Queen Mary, University of London, but this makes me wish, just a little, that I’d gone to the University of Lincoln.

Source: Failblog.org

What is it about reanimated corpses that captures our fascination? Aside from the “ew” factor, there’s a degree of horror that exists in zombies that vampires, even the non-sparkly ones, Frankenstein’s Monster or mummies just don’t quite capture (even if they are, technically, also animated corpses).

I’ve been thinking about zombies a lot, which has made my sleeping time quite…interesting, let me tell you. The prospect of Friends and family turned into shuffling, mindless strangers is one that sends shivers down my spine.  But what I realized, even in just a quick perusal of resources online, is that I’d need a lot more than just a blog post to even begin parsing through all of the various zombie lore and incarnations, as well as their cultural significance. From Haitian zombie potions to humorous sendups (Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland), to biological weapons of mass destruction (28 Days Later), the topic has been covered in a variety of ways, and by those far more capable than me.

Shaun and Ed being menaced by zombies

Simon Pegg (Shaun in Shaun of the Dead, pictured wearing the red tie), wrote rather eloquently in The Guardian about why the zombie strikes more fear and dread than their undead cousins.

As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.

Simply and rather clumsily, zombies are death, the ever-creeping, impossible-to-escape fate that awaits us all. What’s more terrifying than that?

Zombies beware! (Zombieland)

Well, maybe Woody Harrelson.

In any case, I don’t see our zombie love going away anytime soon. So if you’re going to host a Walking Dead marathon, why not do it in style? You can get great zombie makeup tips from Extreme Face Painting by Brian and Nick Wolfe. If you like zombie poetry, check out Zombie Haiku and Dawn of Zombie Haiku, published by our sister imprint, HOW Books. And David Okum gives some tutorials on zombies and the zombie lord in his book, Manga Monster Madness or check out Jim Pavelec’s Hell Beasts.

Happy Chinese New Year!

It’s appropriate that today, I’ve spent most of my afternoon working on a book about dragons. Hint: it’s from one of IMPACT Books’ best-selling, most-loved authors and the art, as usual, is gorgeous!

The Daily Mail has a great gallery of images of the celebrations happening in the East, and the colors and celebrations are absolutely captivating! I think it’s a sign that this is going to be a prosperous, great new year!

So why not celebrate by picking up a copy of one of these three favorite IMPACT Books?

• Dragonworld
• DragonArt Evolution
• Dracopedia

Check out this awesome promotional video for Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley!

Be sure to preorder his book from our North Light Shop and we will ship as soon as it’s available!

Scape, Graffiti Artist and Author, will teach kids about urban art at 10 Portland schools for one week, Jan 30 through Feb 3, 2012. He will then appear at the Grand Opening of the new Dick Blick Art Store Feb 4th, 2012.
At the 2/4/12 grand opening, from 4 – 7 PM Scape will demonstrate urban art techniques on Crescent’s “Graffiti Paper”.  Scape will be signing copies of his two books Graff: the Art & Technique of Graffiti and Graff 2: Next Level Graffiti Techniques.

At the schools, Scape will engage the youth with this often misunderstood art form by articulating the benefits of expressing oneself through art on paper (not walls). These school presentations allow Scape to empower the youth in a positive and powerful way. Mays Mayhew, Product Manager for Crescent, said “Graffiti Paper is the perfect way to get urban and street art onto paper. Graffiti paper is the first substrate designed to accept aerosol paint, paint markers, and other urban-type mediums. Debuting both Scape and Graffiti Paper at Dick Blick’s new store is the perfect triad.”

IMPACT’s sister site Artist’s Market Online is offering a 10% discount on 1-year memberships. Just use the coupon code SAVE10 when you register for a complete 1-year subscription.

Artist’s Market Online includes over 1,700 listings for markets that buy artwork, including fantasy and comic art. You’ll also get regularly updated informative articles and interviews, a portfolio manager to help you organize & track your submissions, and much more…

But don’t wait! You must sign up on ArtistsMarketOnline.com and use the SAVE10 coupon code before it expires on January 31, 2012.

Have a great weekend!

Mary

Check out this free demonstration from Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley, which will be hitting shelves soon!

The Father Figure

Some manga stories take place in a world populated only by teenaged characters, where adults have seemingly been banished from the scene. Still, even the most youth-obsessed story will have at least a couple representatives of the adult world, and if you’re going to draw them properly, you’ll need to learn an entirely different system of body proportions. Manga grown-ups are much closer to real human anatomy. Many of these adult characters have smaller eyes and fully rendered noses that we are more likely to associate with Western comic book characters.
1 Build Your Frame
Begin by drawing eight horizontal lines, equally spaced. You’ll want them to be at least an inch or more apart to allow for details
later on. Draw your character’s head between lines one and two.

2 Create the Torso
Draw the neck, shoulders, torso and right arm with a rough indication of his hand. His left arm is hidden behind his body. The bottom line of the torso is about two-thirds of the way between lines four and five. This guy’s pretty big: almost three heads wide across the chest. His hand extends just a touch beyond the bottom line of his torso.

3 Sketch in Legs and Feet
There’s no need to worry about the width of his ankles because his pants cover them. The right foot touches line eight. The bottom line of his left foot is about one third of the way up between lines seven and eight. There is a slight diagonal lean to the legs. This will help to convey his solid, confident stance.

4 Add Fingers and Hair
Add a hairstyle suitable to his age and personality. You could even leave him bald. Refine the hand, showing the curve of his fingers. The angle he’s holding his hand makes the index finger look longer and hides the thumb.

5 Draw Clothes
Place his tie, lapels and buttons closer to his left because he’s standing at an angle. Suit coats don’t wrinkle much, so draw just a few lines near the elbow and shoulder.

6 Fine-Tune
Add folds to his trousers and drape the cuffs following the curve of his foot. Add soles to the bottom of his shoes.

7 Finish It
Add ink and, if you like, gray tones or color. He doesn’t look like a teenager, and that’s exactly what we want. 

2012 is going to be an exciting year! Do you do resolutions? If so, what are some of your goals this year relating to your art?

Here at IMPACT Books, we want to help! We have a great year ahead of us with some exciting books coming out, including Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley, an awesome book showing you everything you need to know about drawing characters and scenes in a true manga style. Mark doesn’t just cover the basics; he shows a wide variety of figures and faces; characters that you need to make a dynamic story, but aren’t covered in other how-to books. Check out his website at markcrilley.com and look for his book to be in stores in March and you can preorder today!

In May, look out for some fun Color Workbooks heading your way. I don’t want to give too much away yet, but I can guarantee you’ll love the the instruction from a variety of your favorite IMPACT Books authors, plus lots of line art you can color yourself!

You’ll start Fall off right with some breathtaking dragons, and be ready to mark your holiday wishlist for new, adorable furries and their friends.

And that’s just a small sampling of what we’ll have on offer. This year we plan to offer you more comics, more fantasy, more graffiti, and more everything you love to draw and want to learn!