The Witching Hour

Welcome back for a Thursday edition of ninjaboy's sketch-a-day. Pencil on paper week continues with a sketch inspired by one of my favorite three issue mini-series. The Witching Hour, by Jeph Loeb and Chris Bachalo. It came out while I was attending the Art Institute, and I remember the day I bought the first issue. My roomie and I walked to Zanadu Comics and it started raining pretty hard. But we still had to run an errand up to a local print shop to pick up some work for a class. The entire time we were walking around I was doing my best to make sure that our newly purchased comics were staying dry. And we succeeded. They remained nice and dry, while we were completely drenched.

We returned to the apartment with the class work unharmed, and began reading our new funny books.

I loved the tone of the first issue. I hadn't read anything like it in quite some time. And it was honestly my first encounter with Loeb's writing. Little would I know that he would become one of my favorite comic writers. And Bachalo's art was just outstanding. His use of screen tones as a filter, more than a shading tool was so unique. I'd never seen anything like it.

And it never fails, every year when Halloween grows near I have the sudden desire to read those books again. But since they are buried underneath everything in the condo as we prepare for the rest of the construction on the building, I decided to do a sketch of the main character. Ms White.

Hope you all like it, and I'll see you back here tomorrow for the last traditional sketch of the week.