Christmas Cards by Visitations Creator Scott Larson

Christmas cards has always been a fun tradition. For many years I illustrated my own. Since we're so close to the holidayI thought it would be nice the artwork from them:

2007

Gouache paint on watercolor paper

2008

Gouache paint on watercolor paper

2009

This is a photograph of my Grandpa Larson from the 1920's

2010

Gouache paint on watercolor paper

2011

Ink on bristol board colored digitally

2012

Digitally created

2013

Ink on bristol board colored digitally

2014

Ink on bristol board colored digitally

2015

Ink on bristol board 

2017

Ink on bristol board colored digitally

Have a wonderful holiday!

Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com

Designing Visitations Issue one

In a previous post I described where the idea for the first issue of Visitations came from. One of the things I decided I wanted to do with the series was to do things that normally weren't done in comics and make each issue unique. This uniqueness would be the approach to both art and page layout.

Issue 1 is an introduction to all the characters: Clayton Blackwood, Nellie McCullough & Kincaid, The Entertainer, The Piper Boy, Beast 666, and Santa Muerte. I would be doing the book in my usual art style but really wanted to highlight each character. The best way I thought to do that was to provide a two page introduction for every member of the ghostly team. The first page would be a normal comic book page with sequential panels. The second would be a splash page. This splash could also function as  a pin up and could be used for marketing the book and even for merchandise ( prints, posters, t-shirts, etc.) if people buying the book liked the characters. After each splash page the reader would be introduced to a new character.

Below is page layouts and finals for issue 1 for 2 of the characters

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Christmas With The Famous

This post isn't very "Visitationsy" but since we have entered the holiday season I thought that it would be fun to focus on something lighter for the remainder of the year.

When I graduated from American Academy Of Art I was contacted by someone who was looking to commission a number of paintings of celebrities for a book of holiday stories. The book,  Christmas With the famous, took over a decade to be published. When it finally saw print, only a handful of the hundred or so illustrations I worked on made it onto the cover. The book has no images within. However, I've been given permission to share them. If you are looking for a copy of the book, it can be found HERE

Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com

That Toddlin' Town

View from my office window, downtown Chicago

Why is Visitations set in Chicago? There are a number of very good reasons.

Chicago has had a long history dating back to before there was a United States. First mentioned by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1679, Chicago has figured prominently in many important events. It was the transportation hub between the eastern and western United States with the it's first railway, Galena & Chicago Union Railroad,  and it's steamship and sailboat  shipping connections from the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes with the Illinois & Michigan Canal. Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination for President a the convention held in Chicago in 1860. In 1871, a Great Fire destroyed the city which the population completely rebuilt as witnessed, a mere 20 years later, by the entire world at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. The Union Stockyards revolutionized the meat packing industry and the Pullman Rail cars offered luxury to travelers. Organized crime became synonymous with Chicago  during prohibition with the infamous gangster Al Capone. During the 1940's the scientific minds at the University Of Chicago developed the Atom Bomb which brought a swift end to World War 2. More recently, former President Of The United States, Barack Obama, called Chicago home.

The history of Chicago has shaped the entire world in a very unique way.

In addition, Chicago has some great environments - from downtown to the lakefront. Art deco architecture permeates the landscape. The waterways of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan make the Chicago like no other city. 

There are a number of spooky, haunted places which fit right into Visitations. Cemeteries Graceland, Rosehill,  Resurrection and Batchelor's Grove. Downtown landmarks like the Congress Hotel, Holy Name Cathedral, the old Chicago Historical Society building, the Oriental Theater, and the Drake Hotel. The Biograph Theater and Lincoln Park also have their share of stories. 

Lastly, the reason I set Visitations in Chicago is because I live there and know it well. 

Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com

How To Create A Comic Book Page From A Script

Ever wonder how an artist draws a comic page? My process now is organic since I'm writing and drawing ( more on this later). However it wasn't always like this. Before I started working on Visitations I drew from scripts written by other people. Here's the process I used.

This is page one of the first Stormy Tempest story that Len Strazewski and I worked on together for AC Comics Femforce title. Stormy is a police officer from the future who was sent back in the past to assassinate a political candidate. She was captured, and Len thought she should be put in a Gitmo-type facility.

When I read the script, I thought about James Cagney's walk down the last mile in the 1938 film Angels With Dirty Faces. I wanted to capture the mood of that scene, so I kept it in mind when I worked out the layout of the page.

After I do thumbnails, if I have time, I take photos of a model. I almost always use some type of photo reference, primarily for proportions. In this case my friend Natanya Rubin was the model for Stormy.

After loading the photo reference into the layout, I start drawing. I do a rough pencil for editorial approval and to work out any kinks. If there are any problems with the layout or the drawing, they are solved here.

Once I get approval, I do my final drawing, cleaning up the line work and adding shadows and blacks. I use a 3H pencil for the line work and an ordinary #2 pencil for the blacks.

At that point, the pages leave my hands and go to the inker. In this case, the inker is Jeff Austin.

And that's it. I usually work on more than one page at a time - I'll do 5 pages of roughs and then start the line work on all 5 pages before adding the blacks. It's a good process and works really well for me.

Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com

Rosehill Cemetery: Chicago's Largest Graveyard

Visitations creator Scott Larson visiting Rosehill Cemetery

The  cemetery in Visitations where the characters of the story reside is called Gracehill. Billed as Chicago's oldest, Gracehill Cemetery is fictional. It's based on a combination of several burial grounds in the city. One of the inspirations for the graveyard is Rosehill Cemetery on Chicago's North Side.

Rosehill Cemetery has a Civil War section that made it into the first issue of Visitations

Rosehill was founded in1859. The largest cemetery in Chicago, it encompasses the  neighborhoods of Lincoln Square, Andersonville and Edgewater. The area had been known as Roe's Hill after farmer Hiram Roe, who had owned the land. Far from the city limits of the time ( Chicago ended at Fullerton Avenue, several miles south of where it does now), and being the highest elevation of the area ( and of current Chicago) the cemetery was intended to be the burial ground of the diseased bodies of the victims of typhoid and cholera epidemics.

Rosehill was designed to be a state of the art, landscaped memorial park. It became a popular spot for picnics and parties in the late 19th Century. So much so that an issue arose for the administrators of the graveyard: too many people were showing up on the weekends. Visitors to Rosehill (and it's sister burial ground, Graceland Cemetery) were required to prove they had someone interned there before being let in.

Rosehill has a number of famous Chicagoans buried within it's gates. The cemetery is the final resting place for a number of notable figures such as Chicago Mayors John Charles Haines,  George Bell Swift, Harvey Doolittle Colvin, Levi Boone, Buckner Stith Morris and Roswell B. Mason. Business magnates are residents,  including  Oscar Mayer, Darius Miller, George Joseph Schmitt, Richard Warren Sears, and John G. Shedd. Numerous architects, sports figures, inventors, gangsters and Congressmen are also within it's walls. There is even a survivor of the Titanic Disaster.

My first encounter with Rosehill was when I was 12 years old. Every year on Memorial Day the cemetery hosts a military parade. My dad and I attended it. Afterwards we stopped by his grandfather's grave which is located near the gates at Western Ave.  When we moved into our house a couple of years later, Rosehill was practically in our front yard  - a half a block away on Belmorial Avenue. To me, it's the neighborhood graveyard.

Scenes from Rosehill's annual Memorial Day celebration

Rosehill Cemetery is also rumored to be one of the most haunted places in the city. Legends of Richard Warren Sears stalking the graveyard, the boy from the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder being seen, memorial statues disappearing in fog and the sounds of screams and chains rattling through the night are but a few tales attached to it. The Mausoleum is a ghost hunter's paradise because of the EVP recordings there.

Rosehill's very haunted Mausoleum

Frances Pierce and daughter who died on the same day. They disappear from
this glass case when it fogs up on the anniversary of their deaths.

Lulu Fellows who people have heard crying as well as experiencing the smell of
roses during the winter at her gravesite. The bottom of the monument is filled
with money which visitors have slipped into the glass case.

The stories I find most interesting are not what happens inside Rosehill, but what occurs beyond it's walls. Multiple houses surrounding the graveyard are rumored to be  haunted as is the Fireside Restaurant on Ravenswood Avenue. Apparitions on Western Avenue - including in the new forest preserve the city of Chicago built in an area that used to be part of the cemetery-  and on Peterson Avenue. In addition to this Rosehill was part of the infamous "Clown Hauntings" from a few years ago.

 Clown sighting at Rosehill Cemetery in 2015. He climbed the main gate on
Ravenswood Avenue in front of witnesses and disappeared into the graveyard.

The abandoned caretaker house for Rosehill Cemetery.

The house place a part in Visitations as the home of Bradley Walker.

Belief as to whether or not Rosehill Cemetery is haunted is up to the individual. However, it's an interesting place to visit and is an important part of Chicago history. Visiting this graveyard is highly recommended. Just beware of who you may meet while there...

Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com