Vezun Book 3
"The Unsheathed Microphone"
price: $6.oo
done in 1997
media: mixed media (colored pencil, watercolor, airbrush, ink, a little oil pastels, and some funky water soluble pencils)
60 pages black and white, color cover
linear art book
saddle stitched (:staple in the middle, no spine)
print run: 2000 copies

story: A group of traveling samurai are attacked by ninja and the jungle they're in. (this story is
unrelated to other vezun books)

comments: After I did "Sinizter" I looked at it and really wanted to improve my drawing capabilities for my
next project. So, I did allot of sketchbooks for a year. And got into some other types of art. By that I mean
that instead of being influenced by graffiti art and Image comics for book 1. On books 2 & 3 I was influenced
by the imagery of the fantasy art that I had got into. Mostly Frazetta, but also Bernie Wrightson, Arthur Suydam
and the children books of Berkeley Breathed. My friend Armando was also a big influence on me at the time.
The storytelling technique is influenced from foriegn film (by that I mean instead of narration, it's a character
talking accompanied by the images that relate to what he's saying). I changed my pseudonym to Vezun and
tried to figure out a new format for my next book. I created this new format for a art book which is derived from
the way a children's book is laid out. On book 2 I was really strict to this format. But, on book 3 I really let loose
and did my most visually intense book. I believe the artwork is the best I've done. Even though book 4 is the best
overall book i've done.
In books 2 & 3, the hero/jyro is a guy who uses a microphone for a sword and a radio for a shield. In book 3 he's a
samurai. I tried to purposely not rip off asian culture but just give it a big tip of the hat.
Right after I did book 3, I got paranoid about graffiti kids biting my shit. I wrote this introduction and placed it on the
inside cover of book 2 & 3 and on the new cover to book 1. That's what all that's about.
When I printed books 2 & 3, I sent them out and was confronted with the negative effects of the association that people
made between myself and graffiti. The response made me feel hopeless and I sank into a form of depression.

Here are the originals to the covers.