Hiroaki Samura is an artist that I’ve been following since the late 90′s when I stumbled upon a copy of Blood of a Thousand at a friend of a friend’s house. The book belonged to the brother of said person and when I asked if I could read it he promptly gave an angry “No”. I got the better of him, I read it while he was gone.

The first thing that struck me was just how different it looked. Everybody knows what manga and anime are supposed to look like. Just the mention brings a preloaded image into your brain. I didn’t get that with Blade of The Immortal. The style was a mix of japanese stylization with a solid grounding in the natural world. Hiroaki’s compositions tell of a clear understanding of the fundamentals of life drawing. The tone was also very modern for a story in historic Japan. Samurai punk would be a good way to describe it. This is a mature title in every way, violent samurai battles, swearing, sexual themes, and political discussion on the idea of the Bushido system that governed the land. (more…)

Your favorite drunken feline is now available in episodic downloadable form in the Crappy Cat App for iPod/ iPhone. The app is free to download which gets you “Crap-ter 1: Hot Pursuit” at no charge, with future episodes costing only $0.99, including the currently available “Crap-ter 2: My Beer”. Each episode averages around 32 pages. Crappy Cat is the creation of Trevor Van Meter, a brilliant artist and co-founder of Jamungo. Check out the brightly colored screenshots below.

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It would be hard to imagine the modern entertainment world without the work of Frank Frazetta. He’s the standard by which fantasy artists are measured and the influence of his images is far reaching.

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My buddy Tomas from Streetlight Manifesto just shared this awesome illustration created by Dan Hipp for his band’s latest tour. When I checked out his blog, I was blown away by a ton of impressive, brightly-colored, expressive illustrations. Dan Hipp has his own graphic novel titled Gyakushu (Buy Volume 1, Volume 2) and The Amazing Joy Buzzards (Buy Volume 1, Volume 2), and does freelance illustration for a variety of clients. More examples after the break- Tons more at Dan Hipp’s Blog!

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Tony Millionaire is a comic artist and illustrator. He’s most famous for his creation of and continued work on the alternative comic Maakies. Maakies is a rarity in that his comics contain a main comic and a subcomic. His comic has been adapted into shorts that appeared sporadically on SNL in the 90’s. Most recently they were adapted into “The Drinky Crow Show” for Adult Swim. Millionaire’s style is different for a comic strip in that regardless of the subject matter, they are very high quality drawings. Now for the subject matter, blue might not even do it justice. It is most of the time vulgar and deplorable. Definitely NSFW, but if you’re willing to get past the shock of it, you’ll find one of the funniest comic minds out there.

If you are interested in obtaining Tony Millionaire’s Maakies back catalog, you can purchase volumes on amazon here and here.

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