Chris Schweizer

A week from today, I'm honored to be hosting a discussion with Jeff Smith (Bone, Tuki) at HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. (This’ll be June 16, 2023, since Tumblr doesn’t always make easy with the dates of a post).

Jeff has been a huge influence to generations (his own, mine, and the newer folks) of comics-makers, both on and off the page. His work has helped to shape a publishing landscape in which kid-friendly comics are not only viable, but the best-selling of any American comics; his publishing and convention practices upended speculation-based comic retail and made it possible for artists like me to sell their own work at conventions (now very standard practice), and his comics, notably the millions-upon-millions of copies sold BONE) have had a profound influence on many folks' approach to storytelling, timing, inking, and composition (including mine; Jeff was probably my foremost influence when I was starting out).

I've got plenty of questions to ask him and, if you're a comics maker (or reader), you probably do, too... well, don't worry, we're going to have some time for Q&A. I hope you'll join us at the panel if you're attending the show!(the pic is of some little BONE figurines I've had for about twenty years)

In theory, but right now I'm only taking them through Patreon and at conventions. If I get ahead on owed ones I may open them up. Thanks!

I was rewatching Mike Flannigan's MIDNIGHT MASS on Netflix, and I thought I'd do a portrait of one of the characters from the show: Father Paul (played by Hamish Linklater), one of the most interesting and rich characters to grace horror fiction in many, many years.

If you haven't seen Midnight Mass, it's like most of Flannigan's other offerings: profound beauty and hope wrapped inside a surface of truly terrible horror. As a meditation on faith and also on guilt, and death, I think it's a really spectacular work. If you haven't watched it, and aren't adverse to scary stuff, I'd highly recommend it (on Netflix).

In the background of the piece is the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which features pretty prominently.

Blades of May #22: a push dagger from central India, with gold koftgari facing on the handle

Blades of May #21: a late 16th century German rapier with a little Sagittarius guy (like me) on the pommel, and other classical-style iconography worked around the hilt

Shoot, I nearly forgot! Here's Blades of May #20 (still a day behind on posting): a dragon-hilted kastane from Sri Lanka.

Blades of May 19: A European Hand-and-a-Half sword with a wooden (looks like white oak) handle, at Leeds. These were versatile swords, short enough to be able to be used one-handed with a shield, but with a handle long enough to allow for more powerful double-handed fighting. (in recent decades, most of the medieval and dark age and heck, even antiquity swords that we see in movies and TV are given anachronistic near-bastard handles, because actors look cooler giving their all with a two handed blow at a fight's climax; this is just the current anachronism - back when more actors fenced, the handles of early-to-high medieval swords were suitable short, but the blades were much smaller/lighter to them to incorporate more modern fencing techniques)

Blades of May #18: the remains of an iron Brigante sword sporting a beautiful brass hilt with enameled glass inlays, from north of Hadrian's Wall, in the British Museum

Work focus kept me from posting yesterday, so, catching up: Blades of May #17: a partisan English rapier with a wooden handle carved in a quilt pattern. The portraits on the once-gilded hilt are ostensibly of Charles I & his wife, Henrietta, but in that "every photo of an unidentified skinny guy in the old west is Doc Holliday" sort of way; the portraits might well simply depict the blade's cavalier owners

Blades of May #16: a brass-tack-studded club with an iron spike, in the Iroquois exhibit of the British Museum. The term "gunstock" refers to its shape rather than its material origin, as is sometimes suggested.

Blades of May 15: an antler-handled hunting hanger, made in the 1500s in Hounslow, which had a sword factory.

I loved looking at the hangers in the hunting section; absolutely gorgeous artisanal bumpkinry. Aesthetically, they had my favorite hilts of anything in the Armouries.

Blades of May 14: An arming sword from the era when swords, primarily secondary weapons, began to dramatically taper to better pierce through gaps in plate armor

Blades of May 13: a great sword whose blade is from the late Ming Dynasty, but which was rehandled for (probably) civilian or martial artist use nearer the Boxer Uprising

Blades of May #12: A ring-sword, found in Buckland . There's no universal scholarly agreement on the purpose of the rings - mostly they're believed to symbolize oaths - but one theory that I think is interesting (if unlikely) is that they were what was used to secure swords to scabbards during meetings between rivals, similar to how costume weaponry is secured at comic cons today.

Blades of May #11: an iron-bladed sword whose copper alloy handle bears one of the earliest representations of the human head that has survived from the British Iron Age (displayed in the British Museum).

Blades of May #10: a late-16th century sword inscribed with the seal of the Brewer's Guild of Cologne, as long as I am tall (6'3) and weighing a shave under ten pounds, from the upper gallery of the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

Blades of May #9: an ivory-handled Chinese straight sword from the 18th century

Blades of May #8: a 15th-century German sword with a twisted pommel and guard

I forgot to post yesterday's Blades of May drawing! Sunday's prerogative.

Here it is now: Blades of May #7, a 15th century pollaxe from the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

Almost forgot to post today's Blades of May drawing. Here's #6: a Cinquedea, a beautiful but brutal blade which vendetta brawlers in Italy would use as cleaver during gang fights