The Home of the Creative Mind

Welcome to PooBahSpiel, the online voice and home of the creative mind of Mark Monlux, Illustrator Extraordinaire. Prepare yourself for an endless regaling of art directly from the hand of this stellar artist. And brace yourself against his mighty wind of pontification. Updates are kinda weekly and show daily sketches, current projects, and other really nifty stuff.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Return of Stickman #1413

It won't take much of an Internet search to find several articles relating to the news story that inspired this strip.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Monday, July 16, 2012

The Comic Critic Reviews Prometheus

My friend John Draper (who is not a member of the CLAW) and I went to see Prometheus together. He’d seen it already and wanted my take on it. The debate held during the monthly cartooning session of the CLAW was extremely entertaining. In fact, I’m sure Stowe would say that the debate was far more entertaining than the movie. I used it to showcase this review because there’s a very large portion of the movie audience out there that’s highly frustrated. It was also a struggle for me to avoid hearing or reading any discussions before I got a chance to see the movie—and I wanted to capture that in the strip as well. Of course, the amount of the debate relayed in this strip is miniscule in comparison to the time we spent hashing over Ripley’s Scott’s latest effort. You can find plenty of the controversy on the Internet if you’re interested. Warning: They’re full of spoilers.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Return of Stickman #1410

Here is the news story that inspired this strip. If you're wondering why I didn't post any strips last week it is because I was on vacation celebrating my 25th Wedding Anniversary with my wife. Not that our trip has anything to do with this strip.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Making of a Poster

When my friends Michael and Chy Shaudis told me they were going to start a Zombie Festival called Tacoma Zombpocalypse, I was thrilled. And I immediately signed up to have a table at the event. I first met Michael and Chy when Michael became a member of The CLAW. It was only natural then that Michael would call upon some of the talent at hand to do a series of posters for the event. Mark Brill did the first poster.

I first saw his poster at Crypticon where Mark Brill and I were sharing a table. The Shaudis's were also there sharing a bit of table space with Poison Apple. Now it was my turn to create a poster. Mark Brill already used the Tacoma Dome as a landmark and I didn't want to repeat that. I did want to play off the "Zombie Hunter" character he created. The next landmark that came to mind was the neglected Old City Hall Clock Tower. I remembered that James Stowe, another member of The CLAW, submitted a poster design to the Grand Theater back in 2008.

 
I always thought it should've been the winning entry. I was bummed when it wasn't used. Stowe is a great guy. A couple of months ago at a CLAW drawing session we all pulled sounds out of a hat and had to draw a picture which used that sound. The sound I drew was "Tchakka!" I drew Stowe cocking a shotgun.

Stowe thought it was great. So I decided to pay an homage to both Stowe's art and the man himself but using both of these elements in my final poster design.


And that my dear friends is the story of the making of this poster. Limited signed editions of this poster without the copy will be available in the near future. I will let you know when they come off the presses.





Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Comic Critic Reviews Titanic

Titanic is one of the best date movies ever. It has a strong appeal to both sexes. The heroine undergoes a rollercoaster of emotion, a rising dread of a fearful plummet ahead, followed by the thrill of living, the rise of love, the rapid twists and turns as that love is tested—only to go through another rise of dread for yet another plummet. In short, she’s all over the map emotionally. The hero is a rogue on an adventure. He charms, seduces, revels and then fights for the life of the one he loves. Here you have a chick flick and an action flick in one. And on top of that, you have it all under the guise of an historical disaster movie. It’s really not a surprise to me that Titanic went on to become one of the largest international blockbusters of all time.