Rodney Johnson, Private Dick! A post a day – Day 07 – Last day!

February 27, 2011 by 6 Comments

"Down Low Fuck" Part 01 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

Well folks, it’s been another fabulous 7 days of posting fun, and now, I’m spent!  LOL!

Tonight, in honor of Black History month, I’d like to share a series of 10 illustrations that I created for Black Inches magazine back in 2007 and 2008. There were 2 5-part serials, “Down Low Fuck” and “The Grid-Iron Grind” that were written by Joss Von Aiken and followed the adventures of RODNEY JOHNSON, Private Dick.

They were a HUGE success with readers of the magazine.  These stories were beautifully written, very sexy and really engaging because they were serialized over 10 issues.  They had a fun mythology of characters and by the end of it, you were really involved in Rodeny’s exploits, and quite attached to him as a character.

"Down Low Fuck" Part 02 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"Down Low Fuck" Part 03 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"Down Low Fuck" Part 04 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"Down Low Fuck" Part 05 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

When it came time to create illustrations for the stories, I suggested to my editor that I should design them as old style pulp fiction books. And here are the results.  The deadlines for these were monstrous, and I confess, in the end I ran out of time and shamelessly wound up re-working exiting art and adapting it for these faux book covers.  You might recognize some poses from Zahn #1 in particular!  LOL!  Ah, life as an artist under the gun!

"The Grid-Iron Grind" Part 01 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"The Grid-Iron Grind" Part 02 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"The Grid-Iron Grind" Part 03 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"The Grid-Iron Grind" Part 04 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

"The Grid-Iron Grind" Part 05 illustration by Patrick Fillion. Created for Black Inches Magazine.

Even though I’m not necessarily crazy with the final result of every single piece, looking back on them I can’t help but miss Black Inches magazine and all the years of fun I had working for them.

A few years later, a very talented artist/colorist  named GOJIRA beautifully colored the first illustration of “Down Low Fuck”, which remains my favorite in the entire series of 10… but I have to say, his version blows mine completely out of the water. It’s so moody and lush — a perfect tone and mood for the intrepid and always horny Rodney Johnson. You can see more of Gojira’s wonderful work right here!

"Down Low Fuck" Part 01 illustration. Art by Patrick Fillion, colors by Gojira.

Happy Black History to all of you!  Thanks so much for following my posting blitz this past week.  It’s been really great reading your comments and sharing this stuff with you.  I’ve got more goodies coming up, so stay tooned!

BIG BIG Hugz + kisses, Patrick XOXOX

All illustrations © Copyright, Patrick Fillion. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: A post A Day!, Black Inches Magazine

I LOVE Halloween – A post a day – Day 9

October 26, 2010 by 2 Comments

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

I love it as much, if not more in some ways than Christmas. It’s so much fun with all the candy and the costumes and the horror movies and the golden opportunities to draw special Halloween-themed illustrations!  I love it all.

Camili-Cat celebrates Halloween! Art by Patrick Fillion.

In the past, I’ve always created a special illustration of one of my boys for the Boytoons Magazine Halloween issue cover ( not to worry, this year’s Halloween issue is coming up in just a few days), but this year, I thought I would go even further and create a BRAND NEW CHARACTER for the occasion.  You’ll be meeting JACKO the HALLOWEENER (yes. Pun intended!) very soon, and I promise you he is all about the Halloween spirit — spooky, but being a Class Comics character, also VERY hot!! LOL!

Sweet Treat, a Halloween Themed illustration by Patrick Fillion for the pages of Black Inches, 2005.

Jacko is even gonna meet SPACE CADET for the first time in this month’s STRIPSHOW episode, which will premiere with the October 2010 Class Comics newsletter, heading out later this week (be sure to sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already. That way you won’t miss the episode!).  I thought, why not really get into the Halloween spirit this year and do a bit more than just a solo image for the occasion.  The other awesome thing about this STRIPSHOW episode is that I did it in my BOYTOON ADVENTURES drawing style (BELIEVE ME! it REALLY suits the Holiday), and it’s the very first time we get to see Space Cadet in that style (beyond being a poster in a dorm room!)!  How cool is that?

Stephane celebrates Halloween. Art by Patrick Fillion.

There are still a few days to wait for Jacko to arrive on the Halloween issue cover, but in the meantime, I thought it might be fun to revisit a few of my past year’s Halloween illustrations! I hope you enjoy my Halloweenized Cam, Stephane, Ghostboy and of course my “sweet treat” African-American Halloween Hunk.  I’ll see you back here tomorrow for Day 10!

SPOOKY HUGZ + DROOLY KISSES! Mwah-HA! HA! HA! Patrick XOXO

Ghostboy celebrates Halloween. Art by Patrick Fillion.

Camili-Cat, Stephane, Ghostboy and Sweet Treat © Copyright & TM 2010, Patrick Fillion / Class Comics.  All rights reserved.

Filed Under: A post A Day!, Black Inches Magazine, Camili-Cat, Ghostboy, Stephane

BOYTOONS MAGAZINE #162 – Goodbye Black Inches Magazine! The End of an Era!

May 13, 2009 by 8 Comments

boytoons-magazine-162-cover

Howdy Gang…

Hope everyone is having a great week.  Well, between the trip to Seattle (which went really well, but also flew by like a whirlwind), a futzed up shoulder and the usual load of stuff to work on, I’ve been a very busy boy indeed.  But I really felt this was important to mention.

This morning I got an email from my friend, the dialog doctor on Naked Justice: Beginnings #1 Donald MacLean.  He came across an article regarding Mavety Media Group, the folks who publish Black Inches, Latin Inches, Torso, Mandate, Inches and Playguy.  I’m sorry!  Did I say “publish”?  Well, that should read “published” — past tense!! :(

Yup!  After being in business since 1975, Mavety has decided to pull the plug on it’s gay publications.  The internet is apparently largely to blame for the demise of their gay mags.  Seems there’s a lot of this happening lately!  First Playgirl went all digital, and now the Mavety titles have gone the way of the dinosaur.

As you all know, I worked for Mavety as a freelance illustrator for 7 years, and only recently stopped creating art for them.  I suppose I saw this day coming.  Still, it’s very sad.  Those magazines were an important part of gay erotica and it’s a real shame to see them go. I’ll miss Black Inches most of all.  It was so cool to have a magazine dedicated entirely to beautiful black men.  It was a true honor being a part of that publication for so long.  I always really enjoyed creating illustrations of hot black men for them (like the one on the cover of today’s issue).

Here’s the link to the article Don sent me. It’s from the BOY CULTURE blog.   It’s quite informative!  It’ll give you more details on the demise of the magazines, and also a really cool overview on how they were initially created by a STRAIGHT man with a vision!?!

Meanwhile, I am trying to get caught up (so what else is new) on everything around here.  I have some cool new stuff to share with you and I’ll be posting more goodies very soon – including a WICKED interview with the one and only Steve MacIsaac, so stay tooned!

Hugz + kisses,
Patrick XOXO

Illustration © Copyright 2009, Patrick Fillion.  All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Black Inches Magazine Tagged With: ,
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