CELL :: The Stephen King Project

tomer :: for the first time in it's history Entertainment Weekly magazine is running an excerpt of a novel. CELL is King's homage to zombie films and his goriest, most horrific novel in years. from Amazon: 'In Cell King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind.' the hero of the book does not own a cell phone and therefore not infected.

The opening scene unfolds in the Boston Common (a park) by an ice-cream truck. our hero, a struggling cartoonist, just sold his first Graphic novel ( ! ) and filled with optimism, stands in line to get himself an ice-cream just as the cell phone meltdown hits.

since the excerpt is spread over five pages, I've created these spots referring the story's exposition about the world being destroyed within a month -- the idea is to have a mundane street corner transitioning into a burning ruin. the destruction is broken down into five stages so the reader is experiencing a sense of time passing watching the images and reading the story. this will also play to the hero's profession (a comic book artist) by lightly quoting a famous Crumb strip called 'a short history of america'

I tried keeping the color light, positive and pastel so to support the ice-cream / day in the park atmosphere and let the gore exist in contrast.

beirut :: cafe montana

asaf :: this is a colored sketch for an animation project about the war in lebanon.
for those less familiar with the subject - in 1982 the israeli army invaded lebanon in order to fight terrorist cells, or at least this is what the minister of defense at the time, ariel sharon, had promised the government. what meant to be a 48 hours operation became a nightmare that lasted months.
the war became a suppressed trauma in the collective memory of israel. ariel sharon, until recently a popular prime-minister, is now in coma.

here is a view of a cafe in beirut were some of the fighting took place.
more to come on this one.

The Possibility of an Island

tomer :: the epic new novel from the highly acclaimed and always controversial author Michel Houellebecq examines, among other things, the trials of old age and the death of love. Playboy magazine chose an excerpt describing the breaking point of a devastating relationships between the aging protagonist and a super hot young actress half his age. the scene is taking place at her birthday party which is populated by her young good looking circle of friends...he can't win.
Toulouse-Lautrec is a great source for seedy party atmosphere. he also have a great way of 'controlling the crowd'-- giving an impression of a room full of interesting characters but not having it feel messy or over whelming, his focus is very selective.
the AD felt the sketch was missing something at the lower right corner and the empty space attracted too much attention to itself. this was solved with a cold martini.

Sudden Revulsion Syndrome

asaf :: Philadelphia Magazine was looking for an illustration describing someone in a relationship who suddenly decides they have to breakup with their partner. the writer talks about how she finally meets her boyfriend's family and discovers how "middle-of-America" and boring they are, and realizing what he will turn into when he gets older.



my original idea was to create a composition around the young women that will somehow pressure her, so that a sense of urgency to escape will be expressed. the idea was to have the faces create a curve between the dad and the girl, going through the mom, the kid and the boyfriend.



at one point the AD changed the dimensions to a wider format, so I re-sketched everything with different characters, and houses in the background. they didn't like it, and I agreed it came out more stiff and lacked focus on the girl. I went back to the original sketch, while fighting my natural fear of the void, leaving empty spaces on both sides, hoping this sacrifice will help bring back the attention to the main character