Artist Lorenzo Ross, Psychic Janet Wright, Their Pet Cats, Dogs and Friends.
Category: Lorenzo Ross Webcomic Creator & Artist
Lorenzo Ross is an artist who excels at colorful graphic novel & comic strip art, webcomics, & whimsical art prints sold on etsy.
To see & purchase his colorful art prints, his Complicated Hair comic book, and his comic-inspired art see his etsy shop titled PsychicUnicorns. http://www.etsy.com/shop/psychicunicorns
To see even more of his graphic novel & comic strip art including webcomics not for sale go to his website http://www.AlternativeCityComics.com
It’s a great feeling to finish a project. Well it’s not finished finished, but the last page of art is done for Awesome 5! #1. Now after I correct some mistakes the next phase begins which includes doing an Indiegogo campaign and choosing a printer.
These are pages 15 & 16 that wrap up the first issue. If you would like to read the entire story from the beginning click here and follow the links. I’ve decided to do new prints of Laser Girl and Buzz Saw Boy for the Etsy store which I’ll have done by Wednesday. 🙂
Chicago’s first big comic convention of the season wrapped up yesterday. I attempted to purchase a table to exhibit my work but was turned down. Not because the request was late, but because artist alley exhibit space is not decided on a first come first served basis but rather by some other criteria determined by the folks that run the con. I can only imagine they pick those exhibitors based on popularity. Which makes sense I guess if you’re trying to attract the largest amount of fans you would like to have the creators with the largest fan bases do your show. Whatever. At least they were kind enough to throw me a bone in the form of a pro pass for Friday. The pro pass used to be for all three days but hey, it’s a free pass so I’m grateful for that. Several of my friends that are artists & writers were also denied a table and they were not even offered the one day pass.
So basically I went last Friday mostly as a fan, but still looking to attend as many panel discussions that were relevant to things I’m trying to accomplish. Turns out there were only three, two of which were scheduled at the same time in different rooms. In spite of all that I was able to learn a few things, do a little networking and pick up a few books for my silver age collection and some indie books I’ve been looking for.
With so many creators out there space at conventions is going to be hard to come by. That means those of us still building a fan base are going to have to get creative in promoting our work. Stay tuned…
The one guy is a pretty cool Vision, the rest I think are Skrulls.Harley Quinn and friends.
I’ve added four new ACEOs to the Psychic Unicorns Etsy store. All one of a kind original art pieces. Now that Awesome 5! number one is wrapping up soon, I can focus on doing more stand alone works for the store. One of these days I’ll be able to do both. Still working on getting my speed up. Speaking of speed, one of my heroes from the art world passed away this weekend. Jean Giraud also known as Moebius died Sunday in Paris at 73. If you don’t know who he was do yourself a favor and look at some of his work. Also online are some videos of him working. The man could crank out pages like there was no tomorrow.
Hope to have more stuff soon. Maybe someday I’ll be as quick as Moebius.
Several of my fellow comic creators and I are working on a compilation of our work titled Anthology Of Interest. Each of us is producing a twelve page story to contribute to the book. We meet each Wednesday evening to discuss marketing strategy, content and progress. We lost a few people along the way but right now there is a core group of about six that are serious about the project. My story is the first twelve pages of my weekly webcomic Awesome 5!.
You can click on the thumbnail to see the full size cover. Each story will have a cover so this is mine. The extra “!” is part of the team’s name, I know that it looks weird but that will be explained in a future comic. The organizer of our group had the brilliant idea of financing the anthology through Kickstarter, that way none of us have to come up with the cash and there will be no bickering over who gave how much and so forth. Even if the funding amount is not reached I still plan to self publish as a mini comic. As soon as we have the proposal video uploaded I’ll post the link so stay tuned!
Aceo’s have been around for a while but for some reason I’m just getting into them. In case you don’t know, ACEO stands for Art Cards, Editions & Originals. They are miniature works of art the size of trading or playing cards (2.5 x 3.5) and are a great way to own original art or prints at an affordable price. There are little easels you can buy to display them, or you can use a business card holder to display them on a mantle, bookcase or your desk at work. You can even use them as bookmarks or gift tags!
We’ve just added a bunch of these little gems to our etsy store and more will be coming soon. There are lots of prints, but right now only a couple of originals. I’ll have to get to work on that! Here’s the link to that page.
Fabulous hair comes to webcomics with Laser Girl. Love that blue!
Lorenzo has finished page 4 of 12 of his Awesome 5! webcomic. Click here to see the entire page 4 of the Awesome 5! webcomic. If you click on that link, on the bottom you have the option of reading the pages from the beginning, in case you need a refresher on the plot. This image here is my favorite part of page 4. It’s the most detailed drawing of Laser Girl’s hair so far, with the most blue. Pretty snazzy! A laser shooting crime fighter AND cool hair. Look out!
Lorenzo and I would both love to hear reader comments here on the blog post below! Even simple blog comments help google to rank our post higher, so more people can find his webcomics and other art. Did you check out the page? What are your comments? How about the whirling helicopter’s blades? I love that look too!
On the right blog post - your small comment makes a huge positive splash!
Recently I have realized how huge blogging can be in promoting one’s business. Google loves blog posts. Furthermore, Google really loves blogs that have user comments. Since google is not human and cannot tell if a blog post is great or not, it judges by keywords you post with your blog and if they are repeated within the article’s content, and also if there are reader comments.
To use myself as an example, I am a psychic reader and healer, specializing in personal growth readings. The phrase “personal growth psychic readings” is a phrase someone may use in a google search, someone who may end up loving what I do! 2,920,000 results come up when you search this phrase on google. Today I am on the first page of results for this search, the sixth result that is not an ad. 6 out of 2,920,000. Why? Thanks to a blog post I wrote on this topic less than a week ago that has one user comment. Here is the actual post about creating lasting personal change. If you view it, notice that I listed among the keywords for the post “personal growth psychic readings.” I suspect that if I did not have that one user comment google would not have taken the post as seriously. Who knows how high it may rise in google results if I get two or three comments!
If you would like to support one of the businesses my husband and I have, please comment directly on any blog post that relates to the business you would like to support. Even one simple comment can make a massively positive splash in today’s world of google and other search engines, so it doesn’t have to be the most profound observation you have ever made. For your reference, the blog post subject categories are easy to find on the right hand side of this page. So happy positive splashing, either for your own services or one of ours.
Lorenzo Ross, at 53 years of age, is realizing some of his lifelong dreams. Nothing shows that better than his new Awesome 5! webcomic which is based on characters and stories he first created when he was in 5th grade, in Andrew Carnegie Elementary School in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago’s south side. Lorenzo recalls the student cliques in his 5th grade class as the comic book geeks, the sports kids, the bad kids who were bullies, and the girls who were above it all.
cartoon superhero The Flamester, part of Lorenzo Ross' present day superhero team The Awesome 5!
This was 1968, which comic book lovers now know as near the end of the “Silver Age,” a very creative and prolific period for comic books, also called graphic novels. Lorenzo and about a dozen 5th graders were comic book geeks, happily saving up their change to buy and share comic books published by Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Lorenzo and two other 5th graders were inspired to draw their own original comic book characters, inspired by cartoons such as Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, and The Avengers, and also the children’s marionette TV series Stingray.
Lorenzo recalls that he was the most devoted to drawing comic book characters & creating their stories, in large part because he was not allowed to do after school activities like baseball or going to friends’ houses. He used drawing as an “escape” when he had to come straight home every day after school, and stay in on the weekends.
Marine Lad finally gets a larger audience as Lorenzo Ross draws his Awesome 5! webcomics
Originally The Awesome 5! was called The Olympic 5 back in the day, since Lorenzo and his 5th grade friends didn’t know that the word “Olympic” has trademark protection. They created their comic books on sheets of typing paper folded in half, drawn by hand and only existing as one original. This was before copy machines, and they got the typing paper from school. Lorenzo recalls “as soon as we dropped the pencil we started passing it around” to show the other comic book fan 5th graders. It’s a good thing they did, because Lorenzo’s mother and grandmother regularly threw out his drawings at home every time they cleaned up the dining room. Lorenzo did not have his own room, and slept on the dining room couch. He eventually got his own desk in the dining room but it had no drawers, only shelves, so that he had no way of keeping his drawings safe from being tossed. “Stuff a kid was drawing” was not valued by the his mother or grandmother, as it was not seen as a viable job for an adult to earn a living, but rather clutter or mess in the home.
Shown in images here above are Lorenzo’s The Flamester and Marine Lad, comic characters who are now finally drawn in full color for the first time since he drew them with no. 2 pencils in 1968. Perhaps you’d like to see more of The Flamester, an artificial human or android created in the 50’s who is a boy forever who can burst into flames at will and also fly? Perhaps you are curious about Marine Lad, who was originally named Whirlpool Boy in 1968, has super strength and can swim and fly? They are part of a team of five teenaged superheroes now called The Awesome 5! This webcomic retains much of the innocence of Lorenzo’s elementary school imagination, and also brings forth an adult humor spoofing superhero comics. While colorful and entertaining, this webcomic by Lorenzo Ross proves that though some times it can take over 40 years, dreams can come true. You can read Lorenzo’s first The Awesome 5! webcomic and other webcomics on his website www.AlternativeCityComics.com. The Flamester print as well as the Marine Lad print are available for purchase on our PsychicUnicorns etsy shop.
I love mermaids and today on etsy.com I posted a treasury list of mermaid art, your one stop location for the coolest mermaid art on the enormous site that is etsy.com. A treasury list is a collection of up to sixteen different art pieces, from sixteen different artists, generally organized around a theme. Anyone with an etsy account can compile treasury lists, and keep them private or make them public.
Find your inner mermaid with our new Etsy treasury list
Here’s a link to our public etsy treasury list “March Mermaidosity” including Lorenzo’s print and fantastic pieces from 15 other artists. There’s a wide variety of colors and styles. It’s a feast for the eyes, and it also includes a creative piece from another Chicago artist whose shop name is whirleygirl. I’d love to use some of the images here, but they are all copyrighted so you’ll have to go to our March Mermaidosity Etsy Treasury List to check them out!
So guess what? Now Lorenzo is making art that inspires life in a whole new way.
The Adventures of Ms. Strawberry Cupcake
Lorenzo’s latest piece “Adventures of Ms. Strawberry Cupcake” has inspired us to create and celebrate our own new holiday: Cupcake Week! Here’s the inspirational print, now available on our etsy shop PsychicUnicorns
In this print Ms. Strawberry Cupcake is strolling by mountains of chocolate ice cream topped in hot fudge, of course.
Cupcake Week lasts from Feb 2/22/11 until Monday Feb 2/28/11 so you still have time to celebrate! If you don’t know any gourmet cupcake places, they are all over Chicagoland. You can search for cupcake bakery on yelp.com to get you started.
gourmet cupcakes from Sensational Bites in Chicago
Here’s what we did to celebrate cupcake week so far. We went to Sensational Bites, a gourmet bakery that bakes cupcakes, pies, cakes, etc., in Lakeview, Chicago. We read famed yelper Johnny T’s yelp review and knew that place was worthy of our celebration. Here’s a link to the yelp page for Sensational Bites
This photo shows most of the heavenly cupcakes we consumed yesterday. We ate the almond coconut cupcake in the cafe, so it is not shown in this photo. Clockwise from the top we ate: orange dreamsicle, german chocolate, raspberry truffle, and Butterfinger (peanut butter). They were all close-your-eyes-and-savor delicious! True story, I think I have been craving the raspberry truffle cupcake for the last six months, not knowing or finding exactly what I needed until my first rapturous moment yesterday when I took a bite. That cupcake is actually filled with the mushy yummy raspberry chocolate part too. My favorite, to say the least. Lorenzo’s favorite was the german chocolate one, saying it’s one of the best versions of german chocolate he has had. German chocolate is practically a personal religion for him. 🙂 I figured finding out which he liked second best would be more telling, but he replied “Picking one would be like saying which child you loved the most.” So there you have it folks, art inspiring life. Yummmmmm!
On Friday I will blog about our continued adventures during Cupcake Week. Stay tuned. If you are inspired to celebrate your own Cupcake Week, you may want to buy the Adventures of Ms. Strawberry Cupcake print to make it truly official, and as always eat cupcakes responsibly. Hydrate and eat plenty of protein so that you can stay healthy and balanced, while swimming in sugary bliss.
