Morning Checklist

My dudes, it’s been over a year since I’ve posted anything here, my Instagram, or Youtube channel. Family life (4 and 1 year old boys), my wife’s business(Karen’s killing it), and that year and a half I spent as a Kindergarten teacher(whaa?) absorbed my time completely. I’m so thankful for the chance to grow beyond my previously narrow framework of art-making and writing. And while I never abandoned those personal pursuits even in the busiest seasons it is time to get back in the saddle and start sharing them with you again.

So here’s a little morning checklist for my 4 year old. He’s seen my character Blue enough to like him. He’s usually around me while I draw so this was a project he’s enjoyed watching as I make it(and I’ve enjoyed him not bothering me to draw something for him). I’ll print it large(once finished, more noodling and color ahead) and laminate it so he can cross off each of the six steps and also the 100 days on the wall as he completes them. If he does them independently for a certain amount of days(10 maybe?) I’ll buy him more Brio train stuff (total train-head over here). Typical working conditions pictured below.

I got the idea from this page (above) in a Richard Scarry(arguably one of America’s most formative cartoonists) book. It was such a simple way of showing my son the actions expected of him in the morning.

But trust me to make the simplest things too complicated. I thought it would be fun to make a cross-section of our entire house. Something else I’ve seen, and love, Scarry do. There’s an absolute thrill to his two-dimensional model building and how he can make the most ordinary things interesting. Too much work for this dad though so I pulled back and settled for the kind of vintage RPG perspective of just three rooms that you’ve seen in the first image here(top).

Alright, see you back here next Monday to see how this or something else is inching along! Thanks for your attention!

Joe Death and the Art Print Adventure

Hi everyone! I just made one of my favorite images ever, read along to see how it happened!

Heroes Con happened a few weeks ago, a fantastic event. And as I sat there for three days (not as unpleasant as it sounds) I thought, “man, I really do need to make some art prints, seems like people buy those!” I’m no hand at fan art so that was out. Hmm…what source, what text, could I pull from to create illustrations, works of art for your wall…oh yeah, my own book! Here’s the scene I started with, click on the pages to enlarge and read them.

It’s a flashback scene that I think is really successful, or at least I’m very fond of it. It establishes a key relationship for Joe even though I’m sure it’s still mysterious to most readers. I managed to get out these thumbnails and sketches while probably looking pretty lame referencing my own comic book at my convention table. Should be drawing those superheroes man!

When I got home I tried to go the easy route and just reuse the exact landscape I’d drawn in the book (below). It was fine but I wasn’t excited about it(an important factor! Don’t paint or finish sketches you aren’t thrilled about) probably because I had already done it before. Thanks easy route! *forehead-slap

I went back to my thumbnails and decided to go in a more symbolic, iconographic direction, straying pretty far from the original comic scene. This last color sketch(above) did get me excited as I caught the hint of John Bauer and Arthur Rackham possibilities lurking in the primordial sketch stage.

Iconography…hmm, what to say about that. I’d say most children’s book illustrations are iconographic, employing the simplification of shape for a clearer visual understanding, and a higher chance of being memorable. One way to think of this is that the picture frame, the book spread, or image box actually affects that which is inside it, the composition and content within. If you look at the scene from my comic book you’ll notice that I basically squashed the hill and tree to fit into this frame. The layout of the characters is also based on clarity, not perspective, though one is implied by the overlapping of shapes and the gradations of shadows. Everything is flatter, more like an icon.

I enlarged the thumbnail and printed it out, tracing and adding to it in the sketches above and below.

Composited them all together in Adobe Photoshop.

Printed it out at full size, 11in x 14in, and traced it using a Blackwing Pearl pencil on Strathmore layout bond paper.

Scanned into Photoshop where I proceeded to color it over a long period of time. All in all it looks like I spent 30 hours making this image. I do hope it sells well at conventions, but regardless I know I’ve grown tremendously by simply doing it. And I think I may know one other reason why I even attempted such a thing…

Do you all know Jeremy Bastian? Take a look at these illustrations. Extraordinary, right? While I don’t ever see myself doing anything half so detailed as that I was impressed! Well, by everything, but most off all by his range of mark making and imaginative detail. Before I began the finished work on my picture here, I studied a little of the master(below).

I met Jeremy at Heroes Con and bought his Patience Rampant sketchbook. It hung out next to me while I made this image. A constant reminder that if my work is boring, it’s my fault. The possibilities of beauty are infinite and inexhaustible, BUT you must fortify the marrow of your own mind and body with the inestimable virtue of patience, otherwise known as “long-suffering.”

Be good to yourselves by not running away from the challenges life brings you. “Self-care” is a popular phrase, and a fine one I think, but only if we know how to actually care for ourselves, what is actually good for us? My feelings, my emotions, are always improved after extreme exertion through a challenge that I actually don’t want to engage in. I would have loved to just make money on my character design prints(inside tip, they don’t sell well…maybe I’ll make a book of them instead?) but if I had I most likely would’ve never made this image, which I’m really happy with. “Virtue signaling” is also a popular phrase, and I’m not very interested in it. “Virtue acquisition” however? That’s the real ticket, that’s what I’d like to talk about.

You can purchase a print of this image HERE.

I hope it reminds you of a few good things and inspires you along your own cruciblic(made up word! But if you guess the root you know what I mean!) journey. Reading wasn’t easy for Joe, as you can see by the look on his face, but it’s how he communes with someone higher than himself. Perhaps we do this too.

Book Launch and Exhibition Poster

Joe Death and the Graven Image publishes THIS month to comic book stores and next month for the book market! I will however, have a decent amount of my own copies to sell and the first place I’ll be doing that is right where I live, Greenville SC. Trying to drum up fans the local yokel population isn’t that easy, but I thought a big poster around town watering holes wouldn’t be a bad idea. Here’s how I made this one.

From a technical standpoint all you really need to know can be seen in these three sketches. I traced one after another making incremental improvements as I went. The metaphysical standpoint, what’s happening in my mind while drawing each stage might be more entertaining:

Blue, the little(big in this context) moth protagonist of Joe Death is becoming to me something like Mickey was to Walt. An icon existing outside of any particular story, one used unsparingly to elicit appeal and direct attention to the particulars of that artists worlds, mine in this case. Anyway, he came first and I built around him as he reads, presumably the book I’m advertising, the book he plays a staring role inside.
Let me beg you to sketch uninhibited by the thought of the end result. Sketch loosely and don’t stop your lines from drawing over other shapes, you’re building the house now, the skeleton is the thing to be concerned with.
I could’ve actually stopped at this stage and something inside me wishes I had.
Final polish, word bubbles added, time to let go and leave it there, resist the undeniable urge to add or change in any way.
Add color(below) try to make it bright and engaging, it is a poster after all. The “delicate” gradients add more to this image than you might think. Subtle, ponder this word.

Alright, if you’re in Greenville, South Carolina, or close to us, come see me at The Commons on March 31, 2023 from 6 pm-9 pm. I’ll have books and prints to sell as well as a physical exhibition of my work, displaying many of the processes used to make the book, a comic and storytelling centric event. See you there.

Ewok Adventure Pitch - Part 3

This is possibly one of my favorite images that I’ve ever made. It came easily to my mind and through my pencil and the meaning sticks, resonates. It is SO Star Wars but a particular corner of it that we haven’t seen before. Force ghost Leia now visiting her old friend, Wicket, himself much older.

I made this image in two parts, similar to my first Ewok sketch (part one). The background and the characters superimposed upon it. This kind of technique lets me treat each as a character, enjoying the details of each. It was also necessary because Leia is a Force Ghost and I knew I wanted to see through part of her at least.

The real zinger here might be the bright-colored Wicket and Leia but they really wouldn’t stand out so much without the nearly monochromatic background. And I say nearly, but really, there is a lot of subtle color work in that background. Notice the multicolored rocks and tree trunk, but also the gradients in the sand and water.

I’m also vlogging about this on my Youtube Channel if you’d care to check it out. Share this around with some friends and family if you’ve enjoyed it! And stay tuned for some more posts here on this series.

Ewok Adventure Pitch - Part 2

This one began with the trio of Ewoks in my last post but after a few unsuccessful tries, I thought I’d just lose the third wheel and go with a classic pair instead. I also tried to create another background but for the sake of time lost that as well. I have the tendency to try and make everything I do feel really special and well-made. There does, however, come a point when enough is enough and I just need to move on to the next part. I think I’m getting better at finding that breaking point.

It’s helpful for me to remind myself that this is only a small part of a larger whole. If I can find an end to it that satisfies me enough I need to take it and keep investing in the whole project as opposed to just that one image. The color for this one was very fun, the green undertones denoting a kind of creeping evil, the bright eyes suggesting “deer in the headlights.” I was thinking about Frank Frazetta and his colors in particular with this one. Thanks for reading! Please share if you’ve enjoyed this! Thanks!

I’m also vlogging about this on my Youtube Channel if you’d care to check it out. See you in part three, coming soon!

Ewok Adventure Pitch - Part 1

For the most part, I feel like I’ve done a respectable job of keeping my affection for Star Wars off the internet and away from the general public’s scrutiny. I am more interested in developing my own stories and worlds so it’s been difficult to pull away from them and do any kind of fan art for existing properties. UNTIL NOW!

I’m not exactly sure why I have an Ewok story rolling around in my head, but I do and since Dark Horse Comics now has the Disney publishing license for Star Wars I thought perhaps I’d make a pitch and see what happens! Star Wars comics were the first and only comics I really ever read until encountering Hellboy many years later, and they always seemed to represent a kind of wild space where anything could happen. My first step begins with drawing the little guys, translating Ewoks through my interests and abilities as a cartoonist.

Once a suitable design template for Ewoks has been found I throw a few of them together to start getting variety and interaction. All of this is done really without thinking about any particular story, though I did have a vague notion of one at the time.

Once my trio of Ewoks has been defined I sketched around them to figure out a setting/background, very much like one would do in animation where the characters fill a stage, that stage being specifically constructed for them. I’m just trying to find appealing shapes that look like trees and vegetation, it takes me a few layers to find something I like.

This is a test intended for “internal” use, not to be shown as part of my pitch really so I just went ahead with these sketches and erased a lot of lines in Photoshop. Coloring in Photoshop is kind of like playing a video game to me, lots of button pressing that dictate a visual change on screen, the whole process much more instinctual than technical to me now. Which could be the reason why these Ewoks look more like carebears…

I’m also vlogging about this on my Youtube Channel if you’d care to check it out. See you in part two, coming soon!

The Past is Pulp - Part 4

Not too long ago I had an active Patreon where I posted process documentation for Joe Death and the Graven Image and other random side projects. I’m currently deep in developmental primordial ooze for my next book so I wanted to bring out a few older posts from that Patreon. This will be a four-part series I “aired” between August 2020 and May 2021, called The Past is Pulp. Please enjoy!

Alright, Riley Phillips, this one's for you! Riley noted on my last "The Past is Plup" cover that each has a season and so it would be absolutely insane not to do all four seasons. I completely agree so here's the fourth!

This one was a little bizarre in that it has essentially three setpieces going on, the floating woman with a magic stone, the two men fighting on stairs, and the castle siege below. It's realistically ridiculous in perspective but that absolutely doesn't matter if we're looking at interesting things. The interest is in the oddity, not despite it.

The final drawing here below is kind of lackluster, not nearly as many lines as the other three covers. I kept it free of two many lines so I could detail in "ink" and color.

Also, a stack of 4 is much better than a line of 3. Thanks for the push Riley!

The Past is Pulp - Part 3

Alright, the last and most likely final Planet Stories cover copy! My intention was to do a series of 5 but I think 3 is enough as I'd be treading the same territory over essentially. This cover is different than the last two in the case of the main characters who are featured in closeup with only one supporting character in the back, firing a gun off-camera, it's also a black backdrop instead of a brighter color.

At this point, my interest in copying closely the costumes and characters is gone and I wanted to just make up something that felt more interesting to me.

Same process as found in the other two cover copies, sketching small, getting to know the relationships of shapes and composition.

This third cover was a little more difficult for me than the last two, something just felt off. Maybe not seeing the full figure of the main character put it in a different sort of balance.

Lining them up together felt good, a representation of unity and variety. Seeing them together has maybe been more illuminating than I should admit...up until this point I really have been only thinking about covers in the singular, never together. I think there's a collectability aspect to this, a type of desire to "catch them all," in a sense. Hmm, interesting haha.

The Past is Pulp - Part 2

Back at it! Instead of running myself dry on Joe Death, I did no artwork on Saturday and then played around with this Planet Stories cover on Sunday, second in the series. Here's that first one if you want to look back on it.

I love how audacious these covers are, ambiguous action and adventure. Who even knows if there's a story attached to them, I kind of doubt it actually. The cover is all about the image and that's pretty freeing for me because I don't have to write or concept a character or idea, I'm just riffing on the pulp of the past.

Of course, I can't help thinking who this character is...is she the protagonist? The small fuzzy creature on her arm suggests yes, but the whip, higher ground position, and cruel features imply otherwise...I guess I had to be there.

Really small thumbnail and thumbnail tracing let me experience the scene quickly, as well as improvise changes to the background and foreground alien.

This cover has 3 planes instead of the first cover, which only had 2, an extreme close up on three characters, and a distance castle backdrop. The tiny man and alien behind the woman was great to see just what can be done with only a small amount of space. Also, the original covers always seem cropped too close for me, so I brought the camera out a little on this one, getting the foreground alien fully in frame.

This issue is the winter issue according to the original markings so I knew I wanted to push the colors cooler. It was very hard not trying to clean up all the overdrawn lines and then keep a loose coloring style but I do love the results better than if it was tightly rendered. I also added a few light sources, one being the laser and the other being the sorceress's magic hand. The relationship of the action is improved I think, implying her stunning the alien who misfires, giving her enough time to use an archaic weapon like that whip. Wham-mo! Also, the guy in the back is struggling as well. The original image of him impaling the alien through the neck felt a little less interesting as the action was concluded with a clear winner.

Hope you all enjoyed this! Please try your hand at something like this if you want to improve without having to concept an entire situation from the ground up. Hope you're having a great week!

The Past is Pulp - Part 1

About halfway through last week, I was spent, really drained. This was probably due to splitting my attention too much, trying to do comics, kids books, and animated backgrounds. I was tired but not necessarily tired from working, I think I was just tired of trying to make sense of each of those industries.

I mentioned yesterday that I've noticed a few of my favorite artists just copying their favorite artists, master-copy, study-type, stuff. Two artists, in particular, do this and they are, to me, doing some of the most exciting things in comics, illustration and animation. Kickliy, as I featured yesterday and James Noellert. I'm a subscriber to Noellert's Patreon and he wrote this the other day, talking about drawing and practicing from reference.

"An end thought on reference in general, when I hear people talking about finding their style or voice by intentionally trying to do things differently than what has come before, I want to cynically exaggerate the other approach- just do my best job to rip off all of the things I love. Over time, the aggregate and remixing of all these stolen ideas turns into what looks like a cohesive and original approach (hopefully) but with the subconscious skeleton of something more concrete and universal."

If you see one person you admire doing something, you could call that interesting. If you see two people you admire doing the same thing, you could call that a necessity for your own practice. So, I combed through my Pinterest boards looking for something to have fun with. I found this, a long-time favorite:

That horse though...can you believe it? I had to draw it. At first very small to get a handle on the basic composition and character positions, then tracing at the same size.

Now, a little larger at 4x5 inches. Then tracing that sketch twice.

I really wasn't interested in treating this exercise like a polished cover or comic page, but rather more similar to how I've been coming at my children's book stuff, small, loose, a little sketchy.

I also didn't try to replicate a painting, but instead translated the original painting into more of an ink drawing with flat colors, like a comic. This taught me a lot about inking three-dimensional forms. The painting is already doing that well, so it was relatively easy for me to figure it out.

The more literal color was fun, but I thought lacking in many ways, so I played with a contrasting warm and cool light for the background and foreground.

This was a blast and I would love to do many more, but perhaps that would get me in a worse bind than just doing them whenever I get drained from other work haha. I'd highly recommend you trying this if you're wanting to improve as a visual artist, this is kind of like a "full-body workout" for the illustrator and cartoonist.

Happy Saturday folks!

Warwick Hutton

A few weeks ago I visited West Chester Pennsylvania, and the Brandywine River Museum of Art. While there someone told my friends and I to visit Baldwin’s Book Barn. I’m glad I did. Five stories of well preserved, well-curated books of every kind, and in the stacks I found my new favorite illustrator, Warwick Hutton.

Hutton draws like he’s having fun and his compositions and layout design are so strong that his thin, squiggly lines never feel overdone, but always in the right place. I’ve never seen watercolors used so well to create the blinding effect of light. The left page below reminds me of the famous French cartoonist Moebius but with a charming vagueness. Click on the image to see it better.

Hutton draws like a human, not trying to render to perfection his subject matter. And he draws humans as humans, slight, frail, soft, sexual but not pornographically sexy, which is so often a mechanical fabrication of real humanity.

I suppose I could write a lot more, but I think it would detract from this whole thing, the pictures should be looked at, the book should be opened, the artist should be inspired. If you’d like to see Karen and I flip through this book and talk about it check out my Youtube channel HERE.

Thanks for reading! Do share this around if it has inspired you. Warwick Hutton died of cancer at the age of fifty five, too soon, and I’m sad to say to early forgotten, at least on the internet it seems. If you’ve been a fan of his for awhile let me know!

Drawing a Crowd Scene - Part 3

Alright, this segment is going to be probably the hardest to understand. Once I began coloring I was locked in a match to the death and rarely came up for air to document my process. Here are the results, now let me try to backtrack to mine something useful for you all. Keep in mind that layers in Photoshop are essential here and selecting those layers creates a mask(like a piece of tape over an area that you don’t want your watercolors painting) that you can paint inside and outside of if you reverse the selection.

Here’s a reasonable place to start, though it wasn’t where I necessarily began. You can see all of the characters flatted in one color, their eyes painted, and on the red carpet a dark gradient moving from the top to the bottom and a lighter gradient moving from the bottom upward. There is a middle plane of red backing it all. The one thing that makes this image pop is the circle spotlight highlighting Blue and Sloe, some of our main characters in Joe Death and the Graven Image.

That circle was made with a round brush turned to about 50% soft, placed on its own layer. This functions as the mask I will use to color in contrasting value 3 distinct layers. 1) The background, red carpet as you can see above. 2) The black line and “ink”, turning it into a color hold with its own gradient. 3) The character’s colors within the circle, warming and brightening them up.

Here you can see the color hold on ink and line, bringing it up from black and making it a deep red. Nothing within a direct beam of sunlight or artificial light remains black.

What you’re looking at here is just time-consuming color flatting, picking and choosing, and adjusting colors that are harmonious. A good rule of thumb is to start with the primary colors, red, blue, yellow, and keep everything pretty rainbow-esque. Then use the photo filter adjustment layer to harmonize all of them under a warm or cool filter. I tilted toward a green to contrast better against the red background. Take note, inside that light circle you see the colors really popping, they should be their true colors under that light and even warmed up a little.

There’s not too much to say beyond what’s been said. I will show you the final image without the border below and point out some things though. There’s a blue gradient applied to all of the characters in shadow starting at the top and coming down, as well as a warm yellow-green gradient coming from the bottom applied to the same shadow characters outside of the spotlight.

This is intended to be the back cover but I forgot to include a space for the barcode! Ugh! I’ll see what I can do with that later. Thanks everyone for following along, the likes, shares, and comments do help tremendously. I’m itching to get this book back up for pre-order and will be raving about it when it does, thank you for your patience, especially those who pre-ordered this book pre-pandemic!

Now to figure out that spine…book spine that is! Any tips out there? What stands out to you when looking at a row of books on a shelf? My inclination is to go all white with a faint grey or color for the title and publisher mark…we’ll see, and those on my newsletter will be the first to know!

Drawing a Crowd Scene - Part 2

After drawing and grey-flatting each individual character(scroll down to see this in last weeks post) I began shuffling them around in Photoshop, playing with the variety of big and small, shrinking who I needed to be smaller and expanding who needed to be bigger. I’ve never done this before and it worked out remarkably well I think. My main goal was to not obscure the faces of any character and I actually did work in chuncks. For instance, I drew probably 60% of the characters and then composed them in a pleasing group, then I drew more in my sketchbook with the intention of filling those gaps, so, what you see is not completely random from sketchbook to this, there was probably 3-4 back and forth manuveurs.

Below on the left is the black and white printout on 11in x 17in paper. I did have to go into my character layers and change all of the grey flats to white flats to get here. It was a pain but had to be done to get a clear black and white layer. On the right is the first tracing. It was on this layer that I realized I would have to keep all of the bug antennae as feather lines and not try to draw them with outlines.

At last we’ve come to the final line and it’s a bit of an experiment as well. I’m always on the lookout for techniques that add variety but at the same time don’t add too many other tools into the mix. Line variety is that magic bullet that I want to experiment with much more on my next book. This images has a bit of it if you’ll notice the antennae and some of the edges of the fuzzy bugs. These lines were made with a very dull Blackwing pencil and a technique called “the stop and go line”. They contrasted very well with the rest of the finer lines done with a 0.5mm lead mechanical pencil.

Alright, next week, COLOR! Thanks again for tuning in, if you’ve found it helpful please share it around. Crowd scenes are no one’s favorite thing to draw (excepting Martin Handford, Where’s Waldo) so I hope this helps someone along the way.

Drawing a Crowd Scene - Part 1

Ok, I don’t exactly know who my audience is here so I’m going to go about this series like a hardened high school teacher from the old days who doesn’t care about your feelings, will probably throw a chalk eraser at you, and will most definitely not listen to any excuses on why you haven’t done your homework. This sort of starch has helped me in my own work ethic so maybe it will for the students out there.

A crowd is probably ten or more characters. It is a representation of communal life, individuals existing in the same world together. If done well it can interest your audience for a very long time, just like people-watching in our own world. If done right the audience will get the sense that each character they look at has his or her own complete story and life outside of the narrow confines of your main story.

This can be done only by believing it yourself and helps significantly if you are aware and interested in the opinions, personalities, desires, pains, joys, loves, terrors, etc. of other people. Many people think of George Lucas as a filmmaker, but further back and more foundational to his work is anthropology, the science that studies mankind, especially its origin, development, divisions, and customs (Websters New World Dictionary).

When you come to that sketchbook and need to design a bunch of characters it helps to have a visual system, a base language that can be built on in a variety of ways. Think about the lego man, one body system, endless amounts of variation. Joe Death and the Graven Image has three worlds in it, humankind, the beast world, and the bug world. I have a type of base visual language for each but the bugs are the simplest. Big round heads on essentially human bodies, the variety of options like multiple pairs of arms, wings, antenna, and a variety of noses, is added on to that base.

Technically speaking all you have to do to start out is design individuals who could exist in a space full of others, sometimes these are pairs and couples of people whispering together, holding hands, fighting, most of them will be looking to one side or another, looking around checking other people out. What you’re seeing here in the first two images is the first pass of designs in my sketchbook, they are rough and I’m giving most of my thought to the expressions of the characters, once found that should help you out with their pose. A worried face means a tight, closed body language, their hands might be held together holding a suitcase or purse like a safety blanket. A malevolent face may have their hands hidden, implying a secrecy to them.

For the nerds in the class these are the tools I’m using. A large Moleskine sketchbook, a 0.5mm mechanical pencil with 2B lead, and a big pad of marker paper. I’ll draw in my sketchbook for those rough designs, then trace over the ones I like using marker paper. This is a really quick way of working requiring no light table and no other drawing instrument. Once these tracings are scanned into Photoshop I give them a grey background so they’ll be ready to pose together without having to erase any portion of each character. But that’ll be next week! I hope you’ve enjoyed this first little dive into how I go about drawing a crowd, please share around if you did find it helpful. See you next week!

Pauline Baynes - Illustrator to the Stars

Pauline Diana Baynes is best known to the world through the covers and interior illustrations of The Chronicles of Narnia, and the lesser works of Tolkien like Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. While remarkable, those books don’t showcase Pauline’s incredible talent and variety of craftsmanship. This book, A Companion to World Mythology, does.

Throughout the book Baynes displays a range of styles and techniques. In some places trompe l'oeil in detailed realism and in others loose and free and totally linear. This technique allows her to layer these side margins up with depth, detail coming forward and simplicity as backdrop.

Watch and listen as Karen and I flip through this big book on my Youtube channel. I happen to have 5 copies of this book and would be happy to sell them to anyone interested at $40.00 each. Email me, you won’t regret it, this book is brimming with inspiration at every turn.

ABU GUNG - Editing in Comics

I'm noticing a fantastic development. Mike Mignola scholarship is a thing. Every day I seem to see more and more comic creators and commentators discussing Mike’s work. If you've ever watched any behind-the-scenes content of the Lord of the Rings you'll notice quite a few people who have the title "Tolkien scholar" as part of their introduction. I believe Mignola's work is worthy of the same sort of scrutiny, at least within the comic book industry, as any equivalent professional in their respective industry. And the excavation of Mignola's work is only possible because there's so much of it and all of it yields rewards when put under the microscope. But don't take my word for it, let’s look at an example.

Does the name Abu Gung ring any bells? It was a short story in the Amazing Screw-on Head collection. This is a purchase you won’t regret, seriously, go buy it, and every time you want to look at Instagram for inspiration open up that book instead.

Beautiful, right?! A fantastic and fun adventure. That was my first reading of it at least. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this original version while flipping through the $1 comic boxes at a used bookstore.

A 5-page story expanded to 9-pages, totally redrawn and rewritten, a fascinating and rewarding find! Scroll through and notice how the color differences affect how you perceive the mood and atmosphere of the story. Take a closer look below at the panels, comparing the old and new. I’ve placed the old either above or to the left of the new versions. There are many fantastic one-to-one comparisons, very useful when considering the character and background design improvements with the same composition.

The flies here have grown in size and now overlap the edges of the women’s hair. Anytime you can overlap small objects on top of big ones you’ll start to get a feeling of three dimensional space.

The simple latticework in the later version is a beautiful background improvement allowing negative and positive space to contrast, and it’s the simplest of shapes.

While some panels expanded to two or more.

The change above allows us to better view character expressions as they deliver their lines. The pause between the panels and his smile is the reason the newer version is funnier when Abu Gung says, “no thanks”.

A personal favorite of mine is Mike’s choice to change the hawk to a giant bat. It gives it a weirder, more fantastic atmosphere.

Also, take a close look at the small prologue and epilogue of the new version. The introduction by the archeologist of the Gung River Valley, professor E.E. Stoop who translated this story for us. I won’t say this is effortless world-building, but its success and implications are huge when compared to these two simple panels. Imagine with me the ongoing adventures of Abu Gung The Magnificent in the land of Mu, a Gung man from the Gung River Valley. I like the character already, and it’s easy to imagine a Conan-type character striding through a campy fantasy world full of giant animals and magic, sign me up for that one!

This is a brilliant example of a small story with big implications. Anyone wanting to dip into comics could follow this kind of model with great results in my opinion. Lastly, take a look at this Dark Horse logo. It perfectly fits the tone of the book, Scatterbrains, a collection of wacky tales. This type of thing is wonderful when allowed and championed by publishers, the minor details conforming to the tone of the book. The brand expands when necessary. These minor things matter to the true fan and practitioner.

Check out my Youtube channel and watch my Karen, my wife, and I flip through the pages of both versions and talk about it. If you’ve enjoyed this and thing others would as well please share and subscribe to my Youtube channel and weekly newsletter, Ole' Noggin’. Ciao!

Salomé - Oscar Wilde, P. Craig Russell, and The Bible

This is the romance comic you never thought you needed. One of my first and favorite comics of all time, filled with heart and horror. This is Oscar Wilde’s tragedy in one act that debuted in Paris's 1896 opera scene, adapted in 1986 for the comic page by the brilliant P. Craig Russell.

I kid you not, this was in my hands at a very young age. It was one of the few comics my dad owned and, though graphic, it was a Bible story and literature at the same time, so it passed the filter! Lucky for me because this subconsciously telegraphed to me what comics could be, how different they could be from the constant stream of superhero material.

This is a 32-page story and packed with wonderful character dialogue and acting and really spoiled me for most comics because its literary foundation, the Bible and Oscar Wilde, very hard to beat as sources material. Search eBay for an original copy, I just checked and they were going for around the $10.00 mark, a great price for an artifact like this. Russell also has an artist edition selling now for $50.

Russell’s graphic and iconic design, lettering, and color lead the audience through what could be a very confusing plot, time period, and lack of narration. If you’re a fan of Cartoonist Kayfabe you may remember Jim Rugg’s consistent calling out of the full moon being used for non-narrative reasons, used most often to silhouette a character at night. I’d like to put forth that this is the only comic with a good reason for a full moon, and it actually functions as a character, interacting differently with each of the other characters in turn.

There are so many things I could say about this comic…and I have! Just not here, check out the video below for a page-to-page commentary from my wife Karen and me. We’re planning on releasing a weekly video reviewing our favorite comics and kids’ books so subscribe, and share it around if you think what we’re doing is valuable! No one does this kind of thing better than Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg via their Cartoonist Kayfabe channel on Youtube. I certainly can’t beat them, so I’m joining ‘em in spirit to bring you the best from the printed past in the hopes that more people invest in print. See you THERE!

To Catch a Screenshot

As I’ve exhausted my favorite podcasts I intended to put on an old movie in the background while working. Something dialogue-heavy, something classic, something Cary Grant. I found To Catch A Thief and was surprised to know it was a Hitchcock film.

As background noise, this movie didn’t work well because it’s such a good film in the sense that it keeps to the rule “show, don’t tell.” in the case of exposition. The above still of the cat and the newspaper are great examples, the cat is a visual metaphor for the thief, and the newspaper is explicit narration, but both are silent. Note the connection of the cat and newspaper in both scenes, the cat on top of the newspaper in the one, and the cat scratches dug into the newspaper in the other.

The use of green in this movie is extraordinary. In an older movie, I believe, these would have been shot during the day with a kind of dark-colored film over it to convince the audience that it’s nighttime. I’ve seen it done with a blue filter more than with green, I love the green versions so much more. The screenshot directly below looks like something Maurice Nobel would have designed for Looney Tunes, with very clear contrasts inside the analogous color scheme.

There could have been an infinite amount of screenshots for this film highlighting different features, the costuming, the characters, etc. This is a sophisticated movie and does get quite boring in places because the characters are so clever in their dialogue that I often felt like I was watching a book being read to me. I love it and don’t at the same time. I’m looking back on it from a different time and I see potential in different ways. I found it really interested that Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book was published in 1953, this film by Hitchcock came out in 1955, and the first Bond film was in 63. There are so many sharp visual images from this movie that, I imagine, helped create a foundation for what Bond would become in film. It’s almost as if someone pitched the first Bond film as To Catch a Thief but make it pulpy and outrageous, sophisticated but fun!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Professionally, my roots are in children’s books. They are shallow roots, but they’re still there and my affection for them has only grown as I work towards visual simplicity and atmospheric, or emotional, representation. Simplicity is often associated with graphic, clear visual information, icons, and infographics that get the viewer some quick learnin’. Atmospheric work on the other hand would be painting or illustration with a large range of similar and contrasting values, colors, and the illusion of a depth of field, foreground, middle, and background; you’re supposed to look for long periods of time at this kind and while there is information to be received it’s more of a restful mode, a conversation instead of dictation, an atmosphere to be in, not analyze.

I think this version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears achieves this balance well. The information is clear because of simplification and interesting because of the detail and cartooned perspective. Feodor Rojankovsky’s observation and implementation of pattern is of particular note, it’s realistically convincing and graphically designed.

I’m a great big fan of drawing chairs and a not at all a fan of drawing beds. I know, splitting hairs here, but Rojankovsky makes both kinds of furniture sing, there is so much variation and personality on display here and the way he stacks them is graphic though with a perspective that’s just at least a little believable. The table scene below is another great example, hardly photo-realistic but still close to correct perspective. I doubt he ever made a horizon line and vanishing point, just eyeballing the thing works well enough and adds charm.

The left illustration above is remarkably flat but so fun because of the believable plant variety, everything there is iconic. And on the opposite side is the opposite kind of perspective, a very close representation of where Goldilocks is standing with accurate perspective in play. Fluctuation between the two extremes is another form of variety!

This hallway image on the right is masterful, we see three rooms in one illustration. The bed designs aren’t even consistent with the ones we saw earlier and it doesn’t matter because they are symbolic, iconic. The particulars of the designs and patterns aren’t important. He trusts the audience to understand what’s happening and he treats each image uniquely. For example, the poppa bear bed is dark brown because it’s in the foreground, elsewhere it will be a honey oak kind of color.

That picture on the wall! (crying emoji) Talk about foreshadowing! AND a great use of complementary shapes. Again, the bed design changes here to meet the needs of this illustration, not the previous ones.

Could these bears be any creepier? Look at those blazed eyes in a field of black in the above right illustration. Terrifyingly fantastic! Little rings of death and desire. They are so oddly cartooned, anthropomorphized enough to be characters, yet still very much real bears.

I don’t take many photographs or draw from life as often as I should, but I do use these vintage, printed materials in the same way. This is a safeguard from skimming off the top of the current visual culture and establishes roots based on the traditions of printed books. Below are a few examples of how I interact with these books and translate them into a usable language for myself.

Also, I’m back on Youtube! Watch me flip through this book and talk about it more fully there as well as draw these sketches. I’ve missed it more than I thought I would and am excited to come at it more regularly, hopefully once a week! Subscribe, like, and share if you dig it. Thanks!

Book Design - illustrating chapter breaks

As Joe Death and the Graven Image is completely written and drawn I’m now able to turn my attention to the cover(the one posted back in February of ‘21 is in need of an update), title pages, and chapter breaks. As its subtitle(Graven Image) suggests; sculpture, iconography, and symbolism have always been a part of this book. Though the story is continuous I want to have clear chapter breaks with titles of their own, places of rest that allow the reader to put it down or just think. In order for that to work, the breaks should take a slight departure from the normal style of the paneled pages. The biggest thing in effect is white space.

Mike Mignola, probably building on Jack Kirby’s mark-making and his own observations and reference, gave every cartoonist a sublime language for drawing sculpture, as is seen in virtually every pinup, cover, and illustration of his, examples below.

It seems even back in 1997(?) he was well known for this and Wizard magazine featured his tutorial on how to do it. Really good stuff here, open it in a new tab or drag and drop it to your desktop in order to read it.

If you read the tutorial text you noticed Mike suggests, at least several times, that you need to be looking at the real thing, tombstones in this case. That reality of background and setting, if achieved, will ground the fantasy adventure of fiction. It’s the George Lucas, “used universe” idea; if space and other planets exist in reality then ships would be unpolished, clothes would be worn, farm equipment, even moisture farm equipment, would be rusty and streaky.

Well, I’m not creating Hellboy, or Star Wars, and chances are you aren’t either. So we need to bring our particular interests into this visual medium. I’m very interested in meaning, and how it manifests all around us in different ways. Joe Death is an exploration of that and so his world needs to be created from the ground up, similar to Tolkien’s. One of the tools extremely important to Tolkien were ruins, scraps of text from the ancient fictional past, poems long past down. The Lord of the Rings has the weight of meaning for many reasons, but one of them is this imagined past. Comics are a visual medium so what was a poem in Tolkien might translate better as a distressed sculpture, tombstone, tchotchke, totem. I went to this Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols for a few good grabs to start learning the visual language of our past, the imperfections present in the imprecise mediums of stone, wood, clay, tapestry, etc.

At the risk of being pedantic, I’ll point out that what you see in my sketchbook(above) is design, not drawing. Design is the line that organizes and communicates information. I may have been drawing when doing this, but I wasn’t thinking about drawing. When you shoot an arrow from a bow at a target it’s best to look at the target and let your hands follow your line of sight. Thinking about drawing while drawing won’t allow you to design, you’ll be caught up in the trap of rendering. I thought only about animals and little rock sculptures when designing these elements, plenty of time for rendering after the design is made.

My first attempt on the far left here is wild, kind of a stream of consciousness sketch. I wanted to see the low resolution version and made this very fast. I liked it, but after some thinking, I decided to move away from Schoolhouse Rock and toward something a little more sophisticated and literary. So instead of the letters popping out I went back toward the reality of them being carved into stone, and kept close to the standard letter forms instead of trying to create my own wonky type.

These little animal totems started as ideas to be carved into the tombstone around the words. But, on its own, the tombstone looked pretty boring, so I tried surrounding it with smaller motifs. The result, I think, is a better presence on the page. I added a little benign poetry beneath before calling it quits. Joe Death and the Graven Image has six chapters, so the work of keeping the structure while making each one unique and interesting has begun! I’ll share more of this later, but definitely not all of them until the book is out there in print.

I hope you’ve found this helpful on your own artistic journey or at the very least, fun! If so, please consider sharing privately or publicly on any channel you may be a part of. If you’d like to be notified when I post future blog articles you can sign up for my weekly newsletter using the form below. Thanks!