Read the book that Mack likes!

**Hagler** · 08-21-2005, 10:24 AM

Hello everyone,

This is my first time on the new forum, but I used to go on the old one now and then. I've created a new book called The Boy who Made Silence, for which I am currently seeking publication. The first chapter is available for reading on my website www.joshhagler.com. The Tirage Gallery in San Francisco, which represents my gallery work, will be printing a limited edition that will be signed and numbered. If anyone is interested, please keep an eye on the website as I will announce the details as they come to me.

So, anyway, David has been kind enough to say this about it, ""Brilliant, beautiful, original, authentic, and inspiring! One of the best and most enjoyable comic book reading experiences I've read in a long time."

And Sam Kieth says, ""In his first full work, The Boy Who Made Silence, [Joshua] Hagler finds his true voice. And this is just the art alone, to say nothing of the moody and reflective impressionistic story [upon which] he effortlessly floats us along. . ."

Thanks for reading. I'm interested in your thoughts.

Joshua Hagler

**MACK!** · 08-21-2005, 08:10 PM

Welcome, Josh!

I'm looking forward to hearing feedback on the first chapter of your book.

**secretasiangirl v.2** · 09-01-2005, 03:01 PM

hello!
i tried reading... but the text is really tiny! not sure if it's b/c i should be wearing my glasses or what... the art's really cool. i like the look of it, just wish i could actually read the story!
maybe i'm the only one w/ this problem?

**shane** · 09-01-2005, 03:16 PM

man, you have some beautiful work, I'm looking for it.

This is something we don't get enougf of.

**copypastepuke** · 09-07-2005, 10:49 AM

i like it. some of it very much reminds me of mack's own work. especially the triangles around panels to make hte sort of border thing.
my favorite page is 21. that page is awesome. i love it.

**Criden** · 09-07-2005, 11:37 AM

Looks good! Going to go check it out.

**Hagler** · 09-08-2005, 02:45 PM

Hey, thanks everyone.

secretasiangirl--I uploaded the files so that it would both fit my screen and be legible at my resolution. Since people have screens with both larger and smaller resolution than my moniter, I tried to pick something in the middle. To better read the text, maybe bring down the resolution a notch in your monitor settings. It's easy to change right back to how you had it. You probably have a fairly large monitor.

smashtor--I'd be lying if I said I wasn't influenced by David's work and I've been sure to tell him so. And I can't speak for him about when he first decided to incorporate the triangles, but for those who are interested, the history of the decorative triangles work crudely like this:

Gustav Klimt is a good first example, an artist I believe David is probably influenced by since David's copies of his work have shown up in Kabuki (or was it Daredevil now that I think of it?), but even Klimt got a lot of his pattern ideas from Eastern artists. Sometime between Klimt and Barron Storey, they got passed down. Storey used them in his art journals. Bill Seinkevicz (I can never spell that) was, I believe, inspired by Storey's stuff and used it in comics. Dave McKean was inspired by Seinkevicz's use of them and they started showing up in such things as Arkham Asylum for which he became well known in comics. David probably makes best use of them, which is why I try not to use them too much. But, DAMN, sometimes they just look so good in a spot here or there! I like the triangles as a manifestation of a tradition of artists who are probably interested in and think about similar things though in wildly different ways. I'd like to be a part of that one day, not just because of triangles (how silly), but because the things that David Mack and the aforementioned others do are so exciting to me. It would be nice to be a part of that culture, I admit. I'm a wannabe for sure.

Anyway, thanks again. That was probably more than you wanted to know.

Josh
www.joshhagler.com
www.cafepress.com/jhagler

**copypastepuke** · 09-09-2005, 08:15 AM

Originally Posted by Hagler

That was probably more than you wanted to know.

Josh
www.joshhagler.com
www.cafepress.com/jhagler

no no! that was awesome. thanks! i dont know anything about art and learning stuff like that is cool. thanks for hte info! and i didnt mean for it to sound like you were copying mack or anything, that wasnt my intent! so i hope it didnt come out like that!
but keep up the great work and i hope you find a good publisher!

**Hagler** · 09-09-2005, 10:14 AM

It's all good Smashtor. And even if you didn't mean it, I actually think all artists in some ways are copying from artists before and around them. If only in small ways. I think the dialogue is a great thing. I mean, if you look at jazz for instance, that was a very open dialogue among musicians, and it just enriched that whole way of making music. Jazz is what I almost always listen to when I paint, because it reflects so strongly what I'm trying to do visually. Every artist has cultural influence that they can't ignore. Talk to any artist and they'll tell you who they're compared to. There's just so much art out there that it's natural for an audience to identify one artist with other art that they're familiar with. I don't think it's insulting.

I should have told the story actually of when I met Barron Storey. He was looking at my portfolio and being very supportive and helpful (and just really impressing me), but I was embarrassed to have him look at a couple pages because I had "the triangles" incorporated within the work. So I kind of blushed and said, "sorry I used your triangles." And he looked at me and laughed and said, "they're not MY triangles. I didn't invent them!"

So then I just relaxed into making my art with whatever came to mind.

If you can't tell, I like talking about this stuff.

Thanks for letting me use your message board, David!

Josh

**copypastepuke** · 09-09-2005, 11:35 AM

thats a really funny story. and yeah. i see what you mean.
see me? i pretty much only draw this one pretty vicious shark, but i just got into my first art class since i was like 12 years old, so hopefully this will force me to expand. well, to be honest i also do this bear in a suit, but i am pretty sure i just copied it from some comic strip from the fifties i once saw...