"Semper Mutatis"

Behold! My new logo for resumes and suchlike whatnots. The motto translates to "Ever Evolving", or at least it would if there was a Latin word for "evolve". It showcases drawing styles from major points in my artistic development (ages ~1, 4, 12, 19); it was really fun to go back and recreate them.

Drawn using:
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Photoshop CS3

Today's jpost.com cartoon

In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bolted the Likud party, forming his own (Kadima) and dropping Likud to 13 seats in the next elections. Now the tables have turned, as PM Netanyahu is trying to entice a split of Tzipi Livni's Kadima, itself already on rocky ground...

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Whack a Lantern

What to do when I've got no idea what to draw? Take a page out of SallyP's book and conk a Green Lantern on the noggin.

Here's Hal Jordan enjoying some yellow-tennis-ball-induced head trauma, courtesy of Lawrence "Crusher" Crock, the Golden Age supervillain Sportsmaster. Hmm, that did feel cathartic to draw, yes, yeees...

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil
Colored pencils
Black 0.25 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Po, Shifu and Tai Lung - IN COLOR

I keeps my promises, I does. I promised way back in October? I deliver!


Wait, I didn't actually promise to do this? Well, I did it anyway! Ha!

Colored in using:
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Caan!

Today a magazine with an illustration by me in it was supposed to have come in the mail. Instead we got the previous month's issue. Bleh.
To make up for that, here's James T. Kirk and a familiar (?) adversary...


Drawn using:
Adobe Photoshop CS3

Blackest Night: The Muppet Show

Spinning out of DC Comics' Crossover Event of 2009! OK, may be not, but this would be so awesome if it were real. For the unitiated: Animal--Red Lantern (rage), Miss Piggy--Orange Lantern (avarice), Kermit--Blue Lantern (hope), Pepe--Star Sapphire (Violet, love. Heh heh heh), Sam--Indigo Tribe (compassion. Don't laugh, I think he is in an uber-patriotic sort of way. Plus, he's kind of a jerk, just like the real Tribesmen), Sweetums--Sinestro Corps (Yellow, fear. Inspiring fear, that is, not fearful), Fozzie--Green Lantern (will), and Gonzo--a pretend Black Lantern (lack of emotion and, well, deadness).
DOH-HO-HO-HO-HOH!

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen
Colored pencils

Meet Treachero

He's the star of the book Hate You Forever: How to Channel Your Rage into Effective Supervillainy, due out in January, and illustrated by me!

Neogenix Team Zeta

Aurora (team leader) can fly and generate forcefields; Ammo carries a lot of weaponry and has untapped ability to "speak" to them; Rusty is not truly a robot, but rather a bio-mechanical humanoid (meaning he has blood, internal organs, etc.) and can "armor up"; Richocet Robert has near-indestructible skin and can also fly; Database is practically omniscient and would have full ability to rearrange space and time at his whim, making him the strongest Neogenix member--but unfortunately was "born" mentally retarded and thus only does so in hidden spurts; and Sparkplug controls electricity.
And this concludes my rundown of the Neogenix roster!
Team Alpha
Team Beta
Team Gamma
Team Delta
Team Epsilon

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil

Today's J. Post cartoon

Just a little holiday cheer!
UPDATE: Reposted on Tumblr, almost exactly two years later to the day, by eretzyisrael. Thanks to rebloggers haggadot and k--broflovski!

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Sea's sick

So I drew her this cartoon to cheer her up ;-)



T'yer health, Sea!

Drawn using:
Blue ballpoint pen

Today's J. Post cartoon

Yup, on Wednesday the iPhone was officially launched in Israel. Naturally I grabbed the opportunity to mock the hype like my American counterparts did when it first burst onto the scene. (The online version added the title "iPhone launched in Israel".)
UPDATE: This was featured on December 21 on a French blog called La Boucle d'Occam (translation here).

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's J. Post cartoon

Visual representation of Switzerland's recent public referendum decision to outlaw the building of minarets within its borders.
UPDATE: This cartoon was featured on the German-language Daniel Dagan blog.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Young Justice: The Next Generation - black and white

Just a preview of things to come... a proposed lineup for a new Young Justice team! (Which DC would never make because it's too awesome.) Later to be seen fixed up an' colored.
EDIT: Hand-colored version up!

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.25 mm pilot pen

A Hare and a Tortoise

These are turnaround character models I created for a sample storyboard of the famous "Tortoise and Hare" fable. I'm sending that storyboard to an animation company in Jerusalem in hopes of being hired as a trainee or something. Here's hoping.
EDIT: Didn't get the job, but I've now uploaded the actual storyboards themselves.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen

Today's J. Post cartoon

Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk's trial kicked off today in Germany. Maybe this time justice will be served.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Neogenix Team Epsilon

Flyboy (team leader) can fly and wields futuristic nunchuks; Twirly can create and control tornadoes; Shadow can manipulate an extradimensional substance called Black Ether; Yeti is superstrong with animal senses; Gamma Girl controls radiation and can fly; and Porcupine has quills which he can shoot or draw and use as weapons.
Team Alpha
Team Beta
Team Gamma
Team Delta

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil

Today's J. Post cartoon

Israel is willing to do just about anything to get back captive soldier Gilad Schalit... even releasing hundreds of murderers from prison.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's J. Post cartoon

In the latest iteration of Peace Process idiocy, the call has gone up for a building freeze on all settlements. Naturally, Netanyahu and the government caved like warm butter--and now Obama and Gordon Brown are tsk-tsking that we're continuing to construct houses in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. ...Which is not a settlement. ...Or even in east Jerusalem.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Tipping the Scales

There was some excitement earlier this year: a family friend had reached a deal with a website to post her health blog on it, and proposed to them that the articles be accompanied by cartoons--with me as the artist. The above strips were drawn as samples... and unfortunately, the deal fell through. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black ballpoint pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black marker

Neogenix Team Delta

X-Terminator (team leader) is superstrong and can fire concussive blasts via his gauntlets; Zip has superspeed; Red Menace flies and controls radiation; Specs has sensor eyewear that is laser-capable; Drill's hands are made of metal and can form any shape (but usually drills, his favorite weapon) via nanotechnology; and Random can randomly acquire the powers of any superhero within a ten-mile radius for 15 minutes.
Team Alpha
Team Beta
Team Gamma

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil

Today's J. Post cartoon

Oh how the mighty and moral have fallen.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.7 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

New header & name

As anyone who actually reads this may have noticed, the blog got a bit of a face lift recently. The name got changed from Line_of_Fire to The Eighth Day, a reference to the Seven Days of Creation (it refers to how creative I am, geddit?); and an eye-pleasing graphic got installed in the old title's stead, featuring dozens of past creations, most of which have already appeared here, some of which will be published in the future.
Semper Phi!

Drawn using:
Adobe Photoshop CS3

Terry McGinnis and fans

Will Friedle, meet Will Friedle. Will Friedle, Will Friedle. Friedle, Friedle, Friedle. Friedle Friedle Friedle Friedle Friedle... Ahem. Got carried away there.
So: Will Friedle, meet Will Friedle and Will Friedle.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's J. Post cartoon

PA President Mahmoud Abbas says he's planning not to run for re-election in January, even as world leaders desperately try to prop him up. (And the fact that he's located on a pedestal is not coincidental.)

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Neogenix Team Gamma

Bomb Boy (team leader) can make all or part of his body explode, then instantaneously regenerate; Rage gains superior physical abilities when angry (which is most of the time); Hyper has super-fast reflexes; Popsicle generates ice; Toolbox is a cyborg with a mental connection to his mechanized backpack; and Wired is covered with millions of metal strands which she can manipulate psychically, even when not in direct contact.
Team Alpha
Team Beta

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil

Well, that was unexpected

The Post re-used this cartoon as an illustration for an article in the Magazine section, captioned: "Why hide a pro-Israel position simply to attract more college students?". To say I was surprised would be an understatement. And for some reason I vaguely feel like complaining about this to someone.

Today's J. Post cartoon

After an exceptionally rainy day, the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), the national water supply, rose 2 cm. Statisticians noted that it would only take 140 more days of similar rainfall to bring it up to full capacity. ...Um.
(And yes, there really are two red lines.)

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Rister & Rob: Contest Entry

• Runner-Up, Back2Basics New Cartoonist Contest, 9/28/06

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black ballpoint pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen

Neogenix Team Beta

Mend (team leader) can heal wounds--and has the untapped ability to drain life force; Kid Cop is like a mini Captain America; Vector controls gravity; Quantum teleports (and I swear I came up with her costume design before watching Teen Titans); Ogre is big and strong; and Cosmic Ray absorbs energy and releases it in the form of power beams.
Team Alpha

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil

Today's J. Post cartoon

Reality is stranger than fiction. What can I say? (The leftist J Street lobbying group decided to stop advertising themselves as "Pro-Israel" when recruiting supporters on college campuses.)

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's jpost.com cartoon

In the latest stage of Swine Flu Hysteria, Obama has declared the H1N1 pandemic a national emergency. This, despite the fact that "normal" flu kills far more people...

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's J. Post cartoon

Apparently, the Jordanian monarch thinks that a nuclear Iran would be a piece of cake.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Bumper sticker contest winner

Today I was informed that the above design had won a bumper sticker contest organized by the right wing grassroots political organization Mattot Arim. It is based off a quote by Vice-PM Moshe Ya'alon, and says "When the dove of peace comes--guess who has to clean up after it?"
This was my first ever practical application of Adobe Illustrator and as such the first time my just-completed Computer Graphics course paid off--may it continue to do so for ever more :-)
My favorite thing about this is that since the version I was using wasn't Mideast-compatible, it was lettered by hand, which I felt--wrongly, as it turns out--had put me at a handicap. Thus, the sticker goes into print nationwide, and I get 1,800 NIS (about $500)--nothing be sneezed at, certainly.

Drawn using:
Adobe Illustrator CS4

Today's jpost.com cartoon

Turkey, a former ally of Israel, has recently displayed increasing signs of moving away from the West towards radical Islam.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Neogenix Team Alpha

The Neogenix sprouted from an idea I had that started out as a creative exercise and not, as so many other drawing subjects did, as a full-blown scheme. Naturally, they've become one of my most enduring and developing.
It is the far future; attacks on Earth by a bloodthirsty extraterrestrial species have united the world's countries and set them to creating 36 superpowered humans, in 6 teams of 6, to combat the alien menace. Unfortunately, a major attack launched earlier than expected has forced the humans to launch the Neogenix into space with their bodies matured only to the equivalent of nine years old--thereby giving some of them power glitches. Now 36 children are all that stands between humanity and oblivion...
This is Team Alpha. Burn (team leader) controls fire; Stretch stretches; Ultra's suit packs a punch; Ghost can float and become intangible but is stuck in permanent invisibility mode; Nano can shrink; and Slash can control metal molecules within five feet of his hands--his favored method of battle is manipulating said molecules into the forms of knives.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil

Today's jpost.com cartoon

Sometimes the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. For bigger confusion, we have none of the fingers on either hand knowing what anyone else is doing. Context: after the PA surpringly passed on submitting a resolution to the UNHRC to debate the Goldstone Report, Palestinian backlash has been severe; since then there have been multiple incriminations and counter-incriminations concerning just who was responsible for the deferment, an answer that ought to be easily answerable.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

This actually happened to me.

My reaction to a poster espied in Bnei Brak whilst on my way to the Computer Graphics course. (A different sign calculated that "cancer" and "Internet" had the same numerological value [in Hebrew], noting that this was "no coincidence". Of course. And the fact that "cancer" and "cigarette" have different numerologies is no coincidence either. *sigh*)

Drawn using:
Blue 0.7 mm pilot pen

Particle Man, and friends

Particle Man, Particle Man, doing the things a particle can.
Triangle Man hates Particle Man.
Universe Man. He's got a watch with a minute hand, millennium hand and an eon hand.
Who came up with Person Man? Degraded man, Person Man.
Triangle Man hates Person Man. They have a fight, Triangle wins.
Or perhaps you prefer the Tiny Toons interpretation of the They Might Be Giants song?

Drawn using:
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen

They've come to kick butt and chew gum. They've got gum, but they'll kick your butt anyways.

Or, "When the going gets tough, the cute get going".
So one day I thinks to myself I thinks, "What would Jaime Reyes's little sister Milagro look like all grown up?" After all, it's widely accepted that with such genetic awesomeness behind her, some would be bound to trickle down.
So I drew it.
Then for good measure I added Lian Harper, who has already exhibited many signs of Awesome+Cute at a ridiculously precocious age. Then I threw in li'l Alina (last name unknown), who has been stated to have vast magic potential.
Milagro I envisioned not as an actual Green Lantern (as some Internet folks are clamoring for her to become), but somewhat obsessed with the Corps and having a mentor-student thing going on with Guy Gardner; hence the shirt--not to mention the vest. No, Milagro to me is a Badass Normal. And she protects El Paso while big brother Jaime's away. (The EPPD on her cap, FYI, stands for "El Paso Police Department".)
She, in turn, mentors Alina.
Lian's costume is a combination of her father's and Green Arrow's. And like Black Canary, that's not her natural hair color, but a disguise (and doubles neatly as a reference to her initial DCU appearance, since retconned).

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.25 mm pilot pen
Adobe Illustrator CS4

Angua and Sarah

In Hogfather, a little match girl named Sarah is taken in by some watchmen at Death's behest (long story). So I figures, even though she's never mentioned again, what if she stayed in the Watch house and got raised by the coppers? Sergeant Angua would be a terrific role model for her! (She'd also eventually become Memetically Awesome, but that's beside the point.) Thus this cute little vignette.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.25 mm pilot pen

My favorite unpublished political cartoon

One of my very last cartoons submitted to the ShiurTimes before I pulled the plug on that (professional) relationship. Horrified reactions to the appointment of nationalistic Avigdor Lieberman as Israel's foreign minister led to this tongue-in-cheek pastiche.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil
Black ballpoint pen

Po, Shifu and Tai Lung humanized

A follow-up to my earlier interpretation of the Furious Five. Uncolored because I'm lazy.
EDIT: Not anymore!

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black ballpoint pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen

Today's J. Post cartoon

Oh, Hillary, if only life were that simple. (The scary part is, the Obama administration does seem to think that life is indeed that simple...)

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Touring in Tokyo

• First place winner, TitansGo.net "Trouble in Tokyo" DVD Giveaway contest, 2/21/07

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil
Colored pencils
Black ballpoint pen

I'm a Disney... I'm a WB

DC Comics has been a Warner Bros. property for decades, but when Disney recently bought Marvel Comics a new parallel was born. This is my take on it, inspired by the online "I'm a Marvel... I'm a DC" series.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.25 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Today's J. Post cartoon

The tripartate meeting being held in New York has had some issues...

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

Far Side-esque

I based this on a throwaway line in a Terry Pratchett novel. The Larsonian style was mimicked from memory, right down to the signature. No copyright infringement intended.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0