Cropped Will Cardini artwork

February 11th, 2011

Blog Hiatus until March 1st on Account of Wedding

Filed under: Sketchbook Pages — William Cardini @ 7:30 am

Hey ya’ll, I’m getting married a week from tomorrow so I’m gonna take a little breaky-break from this here bloggity until Tuesday, March 1st. When I get back, I’ll start posting pages from a short, seven-page comic called Glade and Mark in: Rocky Mountain Chomp twice a week.

Here’s some sketches that I did for that comic to tide y’all over until then:

Glade Hensel Sketches
Sketches of my future wife, Glade Hensel.

Mini Monster Sketches
Sketches of mini monsters who live on mini monster world.

February 8th, 2011

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup + Fort Thunder = Procedurally Generated Comics

It’s less than two weeks before my wedding, so of course I’ve become addicted to an ever-changing fantasy action RPG with a massive online community. I’m not talking about World of Warcraft – I’m talking about the free, cross-platform, and open-source roguelike Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup Title Screen
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup title screen

Click through to read more about roguelikes and how playing them is like reading a Fort Thunder comic

February 4th, 2011

Peter Haars Book Covers

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 7:26 am

While looking at Stanislaw Lem books covers to illustrate my previous blog post, I came across Peter Haars’ work. He’s a Norwegian graphic designer who did book covers, comics, and other artwork. I couldn’t find any of his comics, which is a shame, because if they’re anything like his book covers, I’m sure they’re amazing.

He’s got several interesting themes running through his covers. Here you can see the eye-in-landscape theme:

C.S. Lewis: Reisen til Malacandra. Publisher: Gyldendal Lanterne 1975. Cover: Peter Haars.
via svenneven’s flickr.

He’s also got a nice theme of human faces melting into inanimate objects:

Kurt Vonnegut: Sirenene på Titan. Publisher: Gyldendal Lanterne 1974. Cover: Peter Haars.
via svenneven’s flickr.

Click here to see more of his covers

February 1st, 2011

Can We Think Inhuman Thoughts?

Filed under: SF Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:27 am

In the past two months I finished Tad WilliamsShadowmarch epic fantasy tetralogy and then burned through his other, earlier epic fantasy tetralogy, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn for the third or fourth time.

Michael Whelan's cover for Stone of Farewell, book two of Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn fantasy series
Michael Whelan’s cover for Stone of Farewell, book two of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn fantasy series

What I dig about Williams, besides his excellent (albiet sometimes slow-paced) prose and efforts to re-upholster standard fantasy tropes, is his attempts to depict truly inhuman beings and cultures in his stories. Science fiction and fantasy authors have always grappled with these kinds of depictions. Some question if it’s even possible for us human beings, with our mental biases, to truly imagine the thoughts and cultures of some other type of intelligence. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss several attempts, how they succeed or fail, and how this relates to my own artistic practice. Be warned, this essay is long.
Click here to read the rest