A wide panel or standalone piece — something desolate, atmospheric, or planetary. Open sky, lone figure, or a distant thing on a horizon.

National Mars Day is a home for comics, manga, games, posters, stickers, magnets, and the kind of printed objects that begin as drawings and end up on someone’s shelf.

The studio’s work is made for readers and collectors who enjoy ink on paper, worlds with their own weather, and a little evidence that someone has been paying attention. The site is where current work, published pieces, and future projects come into view.

An ink specimen — character study, page detail, or a figure from one of your books. Something that shows your hand clearly.

A signed dispatch from William H. Young

I’m William H. Young — WHY — and I’m a Chicago-based artist, the same way a snake is “based” in a garden shed.

The stories and images here include Somnium: Seasonal Goddesses, Dance of Wolf and Snake, and The Roar of a Distant Highway in the Early A.M. — plus more that you may have seen on Instagram, soon to be captured in a comic or art book and sold nowhere near you. Unless you live in the Midwest.

I do everything in traditional ink and pencil. I use printer paper because I like to make multiple passes of my work. Not recommended. What one starts with tends to be what one stays with — so build a nice path for yourself. Today is 20 lb. Tomorrow could be vellum. Make the future yours.

Or, at very least, don’t let the future pass you by.

William H. Young — WHY

The studio statement is kept here with the work. The artist’s voice remains his own.

NMD  ·  41.8781° N  ·  Mars Field Guide