Tyler B. Ruff

@wearetheunforgiven.com

108 Followers 138 Following

Eisner-nominated comic creator and carpal tunnel-haver. Traditional artist, writer, & dystopia-fighter. Usually overwhelmed. He/Him, Human. 🚫AI www.WeAreTheUnforgiven.com

A much younger version of me sits at a drafting table, petting a tiny, tiny orange kitten.
Crop of a comic book page. All panels are grayscale pencil drawings, with only the figures in full color. Panel 1: a cat walks across a grass lawn toward a dilapidated shed off to the side of a stone path. The figure in the foreground (Shaggy blonde hair, teal collared button-up shirt), facing away from the reader, watching the cat, says "But we make the rules here." Panel 2: the cat wiggles its way beneath the dilapidated shed. Panel 3: The figure from the first panel squints his eyes and says "C'mon. I've got a hunch about something. And it seems to me this is the kind of place to trust those." Panel 4: The same figure and his friend behind ascend the steps of the shed. Panel 5: The figure's hand turns the shed's rusty doorknob.
A green flyer pinned on a bulletin board advertising the St. Louis Comic Book and Collectible Show at the American-Czech Center at 4690 Lansdowne this Sunday, July 26th from 9 am-2 pm
An image of Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh holding a “don’t speak ill of the dead” card, countered by Yugi playing a “don’t be a piece of shit while you’re alive” card
A Siamese cat squeezing himself on an artist’s lap at a drafting table where there really is no room for him, making it very difficult to work
A screenshot from the TV show Fringe with flash-forward text that reads “FRINGE MEDICAL NEW YORK MAY 20-2026”
A pencil drawing of a crazed-looking guy with a mad scientist-like jacket and goggles on his forehead, hair sticking straight up, points an ice pick behind him at a grinning demon-looking guy with curled horns and black smoke for hair
Two art prints made from linoleum block, one in blue ink and one in orange ink. The images are of a man and a woman touching foreheads together, their brains seen through their heads stretching mingling thought lines across the page. Two figures in winter clothing run down a deserted beach away from the viewer in the bottom-center. presented on a frozen lake.
A man in an orange jumpsuit with brown hair in a ponytail, mustache, and soul patch, smirks at the reader. He is surrounded by lush green wilderness, a few feet from what looks like a prison wall.
Three masked, robed riders on horses carrying torches and muskets gallop through the snow away from a village they've just set alight. Three cottages burn within view, smoke rising to the top of the page. A skull with glowing eyes and curled horns looms large in the background. All traditional inks, black and white.
A grayscale comic book page, full-page art. The city of St. Louis, downtown, post-apocalyptic, in ruins. Overgrown, crumbling. The shadow of The Gateway Arch thrown across the ground.
A series of overlapping collages squares. Near the center, a blue nuclear mushroom cloud, with Marilyn Monroe looking on with a grin, the words "The End." above her. A rocky, barren desert below her. Suburbs and cities torn away toward the bottom-right.
A gouache painting of elements of elements from the David Tennant + Billie Piper run of Doctor Who in a loose grid pattern. From top-left to bottom-right: Dalek shell casing; K-9, front-facing; Cyberman eye; The 10th Doctor, from Doomsday; two shades of Chucks, the tan and the red; blue TARDIS outer panels; brown trenchcoat; blue suite with red pinstripes; brown suit with blue pinstripes; 3-D glasses; Rose Tyler's purple leather jacket, pink shirt; orange space suit; TARDIS interior panel; Rose Tyler, from Doomsday; Union Jack; The Moment; Davros shell casing
A full page of comic art, rendered in graphite, of London burning. The Great Clock of Westminster stands at the forefront, one of its clock faces burst out in flames.
An inked double-page comic spread from The Atonement Bell of a witch in a long, fur-lined robe and skull mask with curling horns protruding from the forehead points her finger menacingly at a figure kneeling in the bottom-right. The figures are in a winter forest, snow swirling around, while several robed and hooded witches float and fly around the scene, some carrying wood and stone spears.
An ink wash painting over an ink drawing of a one-story red brick house and detached garage on a grassy hill beneath some green trees
A mixed media ink wash + charcoal painting from 2016 in purple hues of Jessica Jones (seated, cross-legged, in blue jeans, gray jacket, black boots, white tank top, shoulder-length black hair) enveloped by a purple cloud of smoke trailing her name from the mouth of the background figure, The Purple Man, seen only from the shoulders up to the bottom of his eyelids. He's smiling; and, y'know, purple.
A hand-cut collage of a large cat peering into a stone building where tiny people are gathered
A glowing, full-color peach hanging from a bare, snow-covered tree limb as four gray hands (or the same hand, moving up from the bottom of the page, and aging as it does so--depending on how you want to read it) reach(es) up to grab the fruit.
A black and white/grayscale comic book page. A man walks down the street toward the viewer/reader, hands in his pockets. He wears a jean jacket with the hood up, jeans, and a t-shirt with the Unforgiven flame logo on it. Other people mill about. A repeated sequence of six panels makes up the background behind him: A man sleeping in bed. Adjusting his tie. angrily driving to work. Suffering in a cubicle at work. Angrily driving home. Watching TV and eating dinner. Sleeping in bed.
A pencil sketch of Aaron Burr in the margin of a notebook page with the caption "Oh No, it's Aaron Burr!" He wears a collared jacket and cravat, with his hair slicked back. He holds a vengeful fist in the air and points a gun at the viewer, and looks particularly deranged and enraged.
The same cover posted previously, but with digital text and decorative elements
A colorful comic book cover featuring the silhouette of a wolf man with long, bushy hair and glowing eyes, wearing a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He grips a struggling victim by the shirt, and we can only see the victim's rumpled clothes and his hand thrown up to protect himself. The wolf man is framed in the glow of a fire behind him, which we can only see by the light it casts and the smoke it emits. A woman in a rumpled shirt and jeans lies on the ground in the distance behind the wolf man, shrinking back in fear. Behind her, in front of a tent, three scruffy-bearded men in rural garb also look on in terror. A wheat field is in the far background, framed by a deep blue sky filled with ominous purple clouds. The title, "LOOM," adorns the top in a bright seafoam. The corner box at the left features a more well-lit head of the wolf man in front of evergreen silhouettes and a starry sky. Three circular vignettes align in a column at left, in the style of old horror comics, each with a yellow banner identifying the characters. A lone yellow banner above says "Featuring..." The first vignette is Adam, a man in a red flannel shirt and wide-rimmed glasses with longish, sideswept blonde hair. The second viginette is Shelly, A woman with long brown hair and mouth open in a hiss to reveal vampire teeth. The third vignette is "Fishman," a green, bug-eyed monster with a large, wide mouth in the style of a bass fish.
A black and white/grayscale crop of a comic book page. Panel 1: a girl with a ponytail and freckled shoulders, wearing a tank top, is seen from the chest to the chin, lifting a small golden retriever puppy from a cage. Panel 2: a profile view of the girl holding the puppy up to her face
A photo collage with a whole bunch of drawings of characters from the comic book series The Unforgiven as though they are photographs taken of them. They are spread out on a brown wooden table. A blueprint, two diamond playing cards, and two childhood drawings underlay the photos. Arranged around and amid the "photos" are a coffee mug, creamer, a pack of cigarettes, a plate with two sunny side up eggs and two pieces of toast with a fork, a cloth napkin, a spilled ketchup bottle, a German textbook, an arrow for use with a bow, a miniature metal Titanic, a miniature metal bicycle, a plastic army man, a wooden pencil, three glow-in-the-dark stars, and a small metal globe.
Two gloved hands holding a friendly baby squirrel
A self-portrait in pencil of a bearded man with dark hair looking at the viewer with skepticism
A baby squirrel squats on a teal outdoor rug between two human feet in gray shoes and black socks.
A black and white/grayscale comic book page, traditionally illustrated. Three panels. In the first panel, from the neck down, a woman is seated on the left, a man on the right, and a bottle of mostly empty gin sits on the floor between them. The woman on the left (Sara) wears a slouchy turtleneck, leggings, and tall socks. The man on the right (Caine) wears a wrinkled tee beneath an open robe, and pajama pants. Sara says: "...I don't even remember where I heard it, but something about the context must have given me the impression it might be a 'bad' word. But it was also a *hilarious* word to me, so I had to find out if I could say it without getting in trouble. So I wrote 'fuck Tammy' on this piece of paper, and I had Andrea go and give it to her while I stood in the back room, listening. And from down the hall, I heard Tammy scream, 'DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOW THIS TO YOUR MOTHER??!'" Caine laughs. Panel 2: Sara, on the left, her blonde hair in a messy bun, smiles as she continues the story; Caine, long, blonde, disheveled hair, wipes away his tears as he responds. Sara: "So yeah. That's how eight-year-old Sara learned she probably shouldn't say 'fuck' to adults." Caine: I always wondered why the babysitter didn't like Andrea." Sara: "My bad." Caine: "Whew. That's amazing. I don't think I've laughed, since..." Panel 3: Caine and Sara, their smiles fading slightly, look down toward the floor. Caine: "I'm glad you came." Sara: "I could stay." Caine: "Hah. If only." Sara: "Really. Honestly, whatever I have to do to keep Ben from atomizing me again. I've already lost my lunch. I'd like to keep my *dinner* down, at least."
A black-and-white, six-paneled comic book page, "colored" in gray Copic marker. Panel 1: A little redheaded girl in jeans and a dark t-shirt and an old bearded man in a cabbie hat, jacket, and jeans kneel on a tiled floor while one State enforcer in riot gear points a gun at them and another holds the girl's hands behind her back. The old man is tapping his wooden staff on the floor, as a third State enforcer in the foreground, facing the reader, shouts "Three, motherf--" Panel 2: A close-up of the top of the old man's staff as it lights up and throws sparks, or, the closest I've got for "sparkles," with a "FWAAASSSH" Panel 3: Close-up of the shouting enforcer's face as he squints and says "WHAT--?!" Panel 4: A close up of a previously seen character's obfuscation mask flickering with the EM pulse from the old man's staff, as he smirks Panel 5: The locks on cages holding stray cats and dogs click open. Panel 6: The cats and dogs burst from their confines, about to cause havoc (and a distraction for our heroes)
Pencil work for a comic book page from The Atonement Bell, six panels. Panel 1: the outside of the St. Louis Public Library downtown, seen from the front. Snow is piled up on the ground. Panel 2: three teenage characters in winter attire (two boys, Jake and Baby Al, and one girl, Sara) move through an interior of room of the library, dwarfed by its lavish architecture. Panel 3: Sara and Jake are seated in front of a computer, set to the task at hand, while Baby Al continues to take in the intricate details of the library's decor. Panel 4: All three teenagers, facing front, are engrossed with something on the computer's screen (off-panel). Panel 5: Jake points at something on the computer screen. Panel 6: A close-up of the computer screen displays an illustration in an old manuscript of a robed woman in a horned skull mask holding her hand over a kneeling woman with her hands together in prayer position.
A six-panel comic book page, rendered in grayscale, with a slight hint of orange light emanating from the flames in all panels containing them. Panel 1: a pair of hands holds a matchbook in the left while the right strikes a held match alight. Panel 2: the hand holding the match lights a gathered pile of kindling. Panel 3: a shadowed figure, seen from behind, watches the pile of kindling and brush go up in flames, and we're pulled back enough now to see that the pyre is collected and lit atop the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Panel 4: A different scene, concurrent, interjected: A white, middle-aged man in a suit jacket and collared white shirt enters a office where a woman, seen from the waist to the neck (suit jacket, white collared shirt, painted fingernails), is gathering her things in the familiar "pack up your stuff, you're fired" brown file box. The man says "Dana, there's a man here from the Chancellor's office. They want you to retract The Unforgiven story. It's...not a *request*." Panel 5: The woman (Hispanic, chin-length straight black hair), seen from the shoulders up, smiles silently as the hint of orange from the previous scene's flames symbolically bleeds into her panel. Panel 6: Back to the fire starter (Black, thick-rimmed square-frame glasses, scant facial hair along the jawline and upper and lower lip, bandaged cheek, hooded jacket, hair shaved along the sides and tall on top) seen from the shoulders up, smiles hopefully in the orange glow of the fire of revolution.
A collage of images: A page from an anatomy book with a spine and skull atop shown in profile as the backdrop on the left-hand side; some sheet music atop that, on the right-hand side; in the center, a photograph from a book of autumn leaves in reds, yellows, and oranges; an image of a bird (I THINK a swallow, but I'm not great at bird identification) at the end of a cascade of black and white leaves; a black and white ink drawing of a tree; and, atop that, a black and white image of a woman in profile with feathered, shoulder-length hair, looking down, wearing a tank top and striped shorts, with the legs cut out at the hem line to make it look like she's growing from the tree in the image beneath.
A black and white intaglio etching of Tony Danza, smiling, hands folded in his lap, wearing a black suit and white collared shirt, sitting on a high-backed throne bedecked with flames on the back and skulls on the armrests.
A black and white ink drawing of a woman with long, flowing hair, wearing nothing but a crown of antlers, emerging from a pit of fire. She steps forward, up out of the flames. The smoke rises high behind her. Black birds fly in all directions. Several robed, hooded figures standing around the fire react with shock. The woman points angrily and speaks to someone off-panel we cannot see.
A black-and white comic page with two panels. The first, a narrow panel spanning the top of the page, is a close-up of an elderly, Caucasian, bald, bearded man, seen from front-facing POV from the neck up, to the left of a brick wall stretching back behind him. His arm is raised toward his face, and he speaks into a wrist communicator of some sort with a shocked look on his face. He says, “Christian…” In the second panel, spanning the rest of the page, his dialogue continues as a text box overlay: “I think the world may be a whole lot less empty than we’ve been told.” This panel features a detailed landscape spread of Rio de Janeiro, seen from behind the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer, looking out toward the ocean. The tall statue of a man with long hair, seen from behind, wearing flowing robes and holding arms outstretched, towers over the city from a pedestal on top of a mountain. A few people mill about below the statue, silhouettes, nondescript, minuscule by comparison. Dirigibles fly above the city, in the valley below, and guard towers dot the mountains along the coast as well as several circular, raised platforms circling the inner city, giving it the appearance more of a futuristic prison than a metropolis. This is not the Rio we know, but a future dystopian incarnation of it that the characters of the story had long been told did not exist.
A crop of four panels from a comic book, all rendered in black-and-white graphite except for the human figure and the comic book cover in the first panel. The first panel is a comic book laying opened, face-down, on a stone path, while a cat's paw gently steps on it. The comic cover says "The Unforgiven #14: Dirge for a Dream - Tyler B. Ruff." The cat says "Mrrow?" The second panel is a close-up of the cat, purring, and rubbing himself against a small boy's leg as the boy says "Miles!" The boy has Caucasian skin and muted yellow shorts. The cat, though rendered in black and white, would be an orange and white tabby pattern if rendered in color. The third panel pulls back to show the concrete back patio of a house with white siding, where the boy is crouched down to speak to the cat, who is now rubbing himself against the gray metal screen door of the house. We see now in addition to the previous details that the boy wears a muted teal t-shirt, and is blonde. He says to the cat, "Where's Chester, hm? Where's your brother? Hm? Oh! You want in." The fourth, small, inset-panel shows just the hand of the boy pressing the button on the handle of the screen door to let the cat inside, saying, "Here ya go."
A hand-cut collage. A sepia-tinted image of a skyscrapered city on a coast serves as the background. A female park ranger, seen kneeling in profile along the shore, large in the foreground, facing the right, is wearing black boots, brownish-green pants, gray short-sleeved top, white gloves, brown, wide-brimmed hat, blonde-brown hair clipped back, and a radio on her belt. Her arm is extended outward toward the ground where she appears to be placing a large, vibrant, pink-orange flower among the other skyscraper-sized flowers clustered along the shoreline, in pinks and purples and yellows.
An illustration of a Caucasian man with long blonde hair and an arrow protruding from his face (and several other parts of his body), sits lopsidedly at the end of a trail of his own blood against a graffitied stone wall beneath a ruddy window in a derelict warehouse littered with detritus. The man wears a long brown hooded trench coat and blue armor with gold accents. The text box reads, "Here I am." The title page of an issue of a comic book series, the issue information is also written on the wall ala graffiti: "The Unforgiven, written & illustrated by Tyler B. Ruff. 2.2.1: Strays, Part One."
A recorded screen of the Ditto character from the Pokemon Pokopia video game stealing an entire building by punching it down brick by brick
Close-up of a tired artist’s hand drawing a bunch of tiny little trees and underbrush with a mechanical pencil and further exacerbating his carpal tunnel syndrome. Zoom out to the full panel which shows an abandoned rock quarry with tiny entrances shoved into a vast rock face. Lots of foliage. Cracked parking lot pavement with weeds grown up through. All rendered in graphite.
The Vince McMahon meme, wherein Vince becomes increasingly more floored as “your therapist” becomes increasingly more interested in your indie comics
A screenshot from an askreddit thread posing the question, “What do you actually want AI to be used for?” in which a totally correct person answers “I’d like to see it used to go fuck itself”
Two women clad in cold-weather play music in the woods. One standing, on the left, plays guitar, while the other, seated, at right, plays percussion
A screenshot of a tweet stating “How being on social media feels right now in the writing community” with an image of the “This is fine” meme dog sitting in the house on fire, but his speech bubble says “so I have a book coming out” because it do be like that
An opened comic book showing two pages side-by-side in close crop. The left page is in grayscale, with some color figures, slowly fading into sepia tones with some desaturated color figures. A high school fight is taking place.
A brown cat paw with white toe tips is interlocked with the toes of a black cat paw in what may be one of the most adorable things to ever happen
A screenshot of a text message conversation in which participants discuss the various items they will be bringing to the book club discussion, each making reference to something from the book Project Hail Mary: vegetable bullion base in gogurt tubes, strong vodka and protein with toxic metals, burgers made of cloned flesh, and 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎶
A brown, five-shelf bookcase sits against a white wall near a window, beside a white comic longbox, in a local St. Louis comic book store. Each shelf is filled with front-facing indie comics made by local authors and artists, such as The Unforgiven and The Atonement Bell
A reddit screenshot of a thread where someone asks, “Is there any point going into comic art with AI about?” A reply states, “Yes of course. Most people don’t like AI art.” A reply to that comment states, “I posted some AI cover[s] I thought were cool and comic fans here tore me a new one.” A reply to that comment states, correctly, “Perfect.”
A pencilled comic book page showing two figures fleeing a demonic-looking entity through three increasingly destructive and destroyed panels, from the top-left corner to the bottom-right: a high school hallway where locker doors are exploding off of their frames, a frozen lake where the dock is being ripped up and the ice cover is bursting, and a Greek-style museum where the ceiling is caving in and columns are falling down
A cicada pressed against a window, screaming—a parody of that meme of the Sickos guy
A six-panel, black and white comic book page depicting two characters in a bar dressed as military police in full riot gear body armor. One, a mustachioed fascist, is confronting the other, whom he does not recognize, as he is masquerading as an officer. The disguised man flips off the real cop, the real cop laughs heartily, and has his face punched and nose broken by the disguised rebel.
A pile of 1” buttons that have the red “no smoking” slash through the letters “AI” and say “support *real* artists” around the outer edge
As I sit here on stolen land, in a place founded on and built from the cruelty of a people citing a “manifest destiny” as their “god-given right” to wrest a lush countryside teeming with life and vitality from the peoples who tended and nurtured it; and, through murder and slavery and exploitation, turn it eventually into parking lots and billboards and Applebees, I wonder if the lust for conquest of colonizers the world over will ever be sated. The descendants of some of those colonizers still hold the reins of this land, admitting or ejecting people at will who have as much right to be here as any other—using their militarized violence workers in the streets to quash any protest of their aims, as they pass legislation and judgements that further dehumanize and endanger all people, and funnel our meager earnings to the richest among us at home and to genociders overseas.
An old, white, Panasonic CRT television, sitting on a dark blue TV stand that hasn’t been dusted in several weeks. I see that now.
A screenshot of a text conversation with a friend, incensed at the level of invasiveness a smart TV will employ when allowed. Not sure if screen readers scan and read text like this, so I’ll also transcribe (skip if you’ve heard this): Yesterday, 11:25 PM. I’m watching King of the Hill on the Roku TV. I’m watching it on my OWN PERSONAL DVDs. A banner appeared at the bottom (of the screen) telling me I can “watch this episode from other providers” if I click the asterisk button. I am so fucking mad. My own fucking TV is advertising bullshit to me while I watch MY OWN DVDs specifically so I am not advertised to.
A black and white scratchboard etching of a black cat bust, in profile, surrounded by various stylized flora. The cat is all black with a white patch of fur on her chest, and she is looking off to the left of the portrait. The background is stark white. White flowers edge the bottom of the frame, while several black flowers etched with white texture lines frame the top. The sides are framed with black leaves rendered in the same style.
Two baby bunnies hidden in some brush in a deep fire pit, surrounded by a gray stone wall