NONAME: project thumbnails

We'll start here.

 This is not the beginning though. This project has been in development for a while and with the help and encouragement of several people is finally getting into what can be called prototype stage or proof of concept. The idea is to produce content that is entertaining and has embedded sponsor content, all that in the form of a comic, a digital comic. The details are more for those involved, this post (and the ones to follow) is more about the process of the prototype. First step thumbnails, YEAH!

Like I mentioned, this is not the beginning, but this is where things start to really take shape.

The format, functionality and story all meet and meld for the first time in these thumbnails. I have begun to put the story the writer and I developed together with the function that is crucial to the idea of the project. You can see story notes, tech notes side by side with the art. Dialogue is not done, and word balloons and narrative boxes are indicated in red.  They may not all be used but they show where text can be placed and what for. The thumbnails are now in the hands of  the writer who will flesh out the dialogue and script. Then I can tighten up the art, adding details like facial expressions. The blank panels are "black boxed" we know what has to happen and that there may be text there but the images are yet to come. There are a few thumbnails that I have used more finished art from a previous test stage.

So, these are getting scripted. While that's happening I'll be working on a specific usability issue and how to make it look the way it has been envisioned and not too intrusive. Also I'll begin (and finish!) a style test. So we can see just what this will look like when it's all done and polished! I'll post about that next, in a couple of days. Also the Final Final look for the main character, and perhaps a peek at the circular development he took! Stay tuned!

Camper Van Beethoven Reissue Comic

Hey music lovers! Camper Van Beethoven is using the comic, "That Gum You Like, (Is Back In Style)" in the reissue of their album, New Roman Times. The comic was originally done for No Depression Magazine's review of the album's initial release, so it's a real treat to see it picked up for the reissue. In the comic I followed and developed the narrative of the songs. A dystopian view of a near/alternate-future American West, with UFOs! Turns out the band liked it and obviously remembered it. All these years later I get a call for the record company asking to use the art! I made a few small changes and sent the pages off to the designer. The final product has yet to arrive, but it's nice to know when an illustration is well received, and ,"Back in Style."

Hey Kids, Comics!: The BTS Master

Well now, where I…
This comic was done as a direct mail advertising piece. I've done ad comics in the past (at least two for Microsoft!) and most often they are on the safe side, given what they have to do and the toes that must be avoided. This was born of an ad, the art for which was also used as the cover (shown above). At the time of doing the ad the heroes had no specific relationship, one was just telling the other something about the product, the BTS Master, a device that tests and analyzes cell phone tower transmissions. The characters were done with more attention to the expressions that anything else.
Later it was decided to do more with the comic theme. Originally, the project was a four panel newspaper format comic strip. I was pushing for a two-tiered "Star Hawks" format. That would have been fun. I had convinced the marketing/creative director to let me write it since it was short and I know the format so well. Just then, the project changed. For a reason I can't remember, they decided to make it a five page mailer, and the four panel strip became a five page story! I convinced them to let me flesh out the story without adding to it. I was writing, lettering, coloring and drawing a four panel story in five pages of space!
The cover art was essentially done (see my roughs above, done for the ad illustration). I added title lettering under the helpful eye of The In House Art Director. Then I began the pages.
The story was pretty simple, monster/villain wrecks tower, female lead calls in heroes, they show up and save the day using product X,( hilarity ensues, roll credits). But with the extra space I could really set a nice pace, and have it not feel like an ad.

In page one, top panel we see the monster, Irk, because he's irksome, chomping on a cell tower. I did my research on cell towers believe me! In drawing Irk I kept thinking of the monster in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", part monster and part gremlin. A corner-of-the-eye thing, well not so much in the end! He has cooling rods in his back (ouch!) a hammer, which shows he does damage, and feet that allow him to grip and scamper up towers. At the bottom we see Vicki, the female lead. I wanted to have a character that would interest the readers (mostly male, tech, engineer types) and act as a counter to the main hero. I based Vicki on Tina Fey, Geek sex symbol. In the bottom panels she observes Irk and calmly calls in our heroes. A color note; the action starts at night and ends at sunrise. As we all know, monsters and gremlins (and freaks) come out at night. The change in light sets a definite time period and pace for the action. Also, this allowed me to do some subtle color stuff.

Page two introduces our heroes, Doc and his sidekick Volt, and sets up their characters. This would not have been possible without the extra pages/space. This page is a complete luxury. The only essential panel is panel one, which shows the heroes flying in. About the dialog; I read up a bit on the actual technical jargon and from there created super-jargon and tech-speak for Doc and Volt. So, somehow, what they are saying should really make sense. Vicki's dialog reflects the real problems the product is designed to test and solve. In panel two I show Doc as being the cool thoughtful hero while Volt, my favorite, is the hot head, giving off electricity. His dialog is more aggressive. Their costumes riff on the difference between Silver Age heroes and Image era heroes. Doc echos Space Ghost if you look hard. Panel four has more reality than it appears. Volts dialog, the machines in his hands and the rack unit behind him were heavily referenced, and reflect what may really be done and used in a similar situation. Well I mean not if you had a monster on a a tower but just a problem with the tower. The color palette is pretty limited and I feel I did a decent job of restraining myself to a tasteful level. I tried to create a sense of light from a definite source and color.

Page three starts with an unusual beauty shot of the product and our heroes, and goes into a harder ad pitch. All this followed by Volt blasting off to take care of things the old fashioned way! Which is what the product offers a streamlined alternative to. Panels three and four are just a little humor that I thought alleviated the hard sell of the piece and added a bit to the characterization while keeping the story moving right along. Doc is drawn an bit more cartoonish and breaks the panel border to add to the effect. It also lets the reader in by breaking the Fourth Wall.
Page Four takes two panels to develop Irk. He's just a simple, hungry monster with a desire to be his best. Even though Volt took off first in Page Three, Doc is first up and everyone takes note of how well Doc handles the situation using the product. I'm not all that happy with the color on this page. I think the light coming from Irk being zapped should have been the main/stronger light source for everything on the page. I remember struggling with the colors in Irk. In hindsight it seems pretty clear what to do. The grass and concrete texture are made from using a scan of one of my airbrushed illustrations.
Page Five has Doc take a little credit, basking in his superior intellect and promoting the BTS Master even more. You can tell now the sun is rising by the colors in the background. Irk is now more of a cute lil' gremlin. pointing to the happy light-hearted ending. The last panel has dialog the explains what would actually happen, the limits of the product, after it's use. Vicki's dialog shows her relationship with Doc, and Volt's is a double entendré. Both of which I thought would get cut, but didn't.
Clients who use comics often get excited about having a comic book created for them, and about their product. Issues arise when the story and art wind up being less than what is hoped for. This is usually solved when objectives for the comic are made clear up front, and competent, experienced creatives are left to come up with a solid comic book. This client needed a comic that introduced the BTS Master in a fun, quick non technical way, to a comic savvy audience.
In the end everyone was happy.

Hey Kids, Comics :That Gum You Like

In 2004 Camper Van Beethoven reformed and released "New Roman Times", a key track was "That Gum You Like is Back in Style." One of my first editorial illustrations was for an article in The Rocket, on Camper Van Beethoven. I was assigned that illustration by Grant Alden. Years later, in 2004 to be exact, Grant asked me to do this extended editorial illustration in No Depression for the new CVB release. How could I resist! Grant is one of my favorite, and best art directors working. The trick to this comic piece is how little I wrote! As I recall, I used the CD track titles and notes only, in order! A tribute to how well CVB did in creating a story. We wanted to to do a comic that had a bit of flavor from the old men's magazines of the 40s and 50s. You know, the ones where badgers are ripping the flesh of a guy.


So, a healthy dose of dry brush, aggressive brush work and garish lighting were called for.
The first panel is a movie like double-truck (I love that old term!) From left to right there is; the cabal of evil old Texas Oil-men, our young GI Joe-ish/ Texas Ranger hero, and finally the warring hordes raising their guns to a Hellion in a red dress. All that's missing is the badger! While the colors are my normal garish, (red and yellow) they are muted somewhat. I think that helps the colors to work better when I pull out the more stylized monochromatic palette for effect, as in panels four, five and seven. The brush work is slashy, bold and rough, I was aiming for movement even in the static panels. All the characters are definite types. My favorite in the spread are the Old Texas Men, which I did have reference for!

Panels two and three work as one, a moment in time, divided, our attention split on two characters. In two, the old spy (who's gum that he likes, is back in style) and in three, the jittery bar keeper/informant/contact. I like drawing old men and junkies. This was actually the first image that came to mind when I got this assignment, and of course contains the comic title. It also mimics the top tier of page four, good circular storytelling.

Panel 4 is another dose of Men's pulp art. The monochromatic panels are the most obvious nod to Men's magazine pulp illustrations. The colors and the line-work. I wanted the ink brush lines to sort of have the same feel as the brush strokes in the old illustrations. At times like this I think less of what I'm doing as line-work and more like painting with one color. After that, the color goes on, with the same sort of treatment, with a cohesive textural effect. I hope.

Panel five, the background references riots in I believe LA during the 60s. While I'm working on these I am very particular about what my references are and where they come from. There can and usually are a lot of subtle and hidden connections between the reference and what I'm working towards. In fact I tend to have a large file of reference or scrap while I compose the art. Small subtle details, in my opinion create a richness and connection wit the viewer. It's not always noticed but, I like it, and when it is noticed, well, it's that much better. When the piece is done, there is the somewhat ceremonial trashing of the reference folder. Some of the scrap goes into my file cabinet/morgue, and the rest into the trash. All of it tends to go out of my memory, sadly.

Panel six. I think in this panel the two guys, (spies no doubt!) really look the part of Eastern Bloc spies! I can just see them in some 60's new cinema cold war spy movie. I know I used reference for both of these guys, they were the focus of my attention. And what says R-n-R better than a Eastern Bloc blond in a red dress? Or is she Octobriana in disguise?

Panel seven is another sort of Men's mag spin. If you look close you can see how little there is to the drawing most of the lines radiate to the point of light. That sort of restrained drawing is not something I normally do. It's akin to Dennis the Menace's one line neck.

Panel eight starts to slow things down a bit as we move from the album/discs main characters wild youth to his gradual enlightenment, via drugs! I thought the cactus was a nice mirroring of the characters lost limbs and loneliness. I wanted the spare composition to sort of slow things down and signal a change of pace. Lucky me that it fell just right so that this spread was a very masculine and boxy thing.

Panel nine, like all good last panels is intriguing. I used the same loose brush work but here to give it a more fly away, dreamy feeling. As much of a fly away dreamy feeling as I can create with my stuff! The color in this borrows from panel eight and ads some pink for effect, because they're POPPIES!! You might also see a little Kirby in this panel.

PAGE THREE
Panel one and two, more double spread goodness! This time I work both side to show the split and growth of the character, from soldier to hippie. This is another time when I so loosely use reference it looks like I just made it up, at least to me it does.

Panel three I can remember listening to Eric Clapton as I drew my famous smoke clouds. I should have gotten them out of my system before then! But no, for some reason I always think they're a good idea when I start but later, like now…ugh, not so much!

Panel four worked out well because I get bored sometimes and this was a perfect opportunity to switch up the styles. Notice the Native American influenced sun symbol, and yes, diamonds in the sky!

Panel five actually gave me a hard time. For some reason It was tough getting the image I wanted/needed into the space and having it read visually. It turned out okay enough. I think the best part is the color, which went very quick. It's amazing what I remember after all this time.

Panel six is my shame! This one falls like a clunker! There is not one thing I like about this panel. Most of the time as in panel five there is something I like, something I feel went well. But this one lacks any sort of merit. I'm not sure why it exists the way it does, other than due to my own laziness. Note to clients, avoid lazy artists!
Now that I think of it, I must have been at a low ebb as I was winding this page up. Both the last panels are not that inspiring to me.

However, PAGE FOUR starts with a good panel! Another spread, (Mmmm, gotta love those) Plenty of fun stuff to draw. Crazy old men, a craggy ex-spy and an Invaders type flying saucer! Topped of with better clouds than in panel three on the previous page. I think I obviously had a clear vision of what I was aiming for on this page. It seems to skip the herky jerky creative mess of page three and pick up where the double truck left off. I mean look, I even pick up the hippie theme and gradually disintegrate the figure over the remaining four panels. The lines going dead, images overlapping, breaking panel borders. Going from Captain America to a suicide bomber, all the while keeping it light and happy.

I do like my little graphic, the Peace symbol with "The end is near have fun" written around it. Of course without punctuation it could as well be read "Have fun the end is near." Is the glass half empty or half full.

NEXT WEEK in "Hey Kids, Comics!"…advertising comics, the amazing BTS Master, or how I got away with one long inside joke!

Hey Kids, Comics: The Flitcraft Parable!

Well it's comic book time kids! We'll start with a project I was incredibly happy to do and proud to say it's not too shabby. There are things I'd do differently, but that's hindsight for ya! "The Flitcraft Parable" starts on the cover. I always consider the cover part of the story. It works to set a mood and generate the first spark of storytelling magic for the reader.
The cover portrait illustration of Hammett was done twice. Like any good Op, Hammett had more than one face. The first likeness I did had much more personal influence on it. I was calling heavily on the fact that Hammett was a private detective. It was a moody, stern-jawed likeness, that evoked him, but didn't look like him. Since the lead article was about Hammett, and more revealing, I thought it would work better to see him how he was. His face had a softness to it that was hidden amongst smooth flat planes that denied detail. The classic photo of him getting of a train shows that, his face is a group of stark black and white planes beneath a wide hat brim. The map came late from the article's writer, Michael Sullivan. It's a map of Tacoma, made during the time that Hammett lived here, showing some of his favorite places. I think it was drawn by Hammett. My initial likeness lived on as the face of Flitcraft himself in my adaption, adding another subtext.
A bit about the layout. I may go into this more with the other posts. But, for Flitcraft I kept it simple. My reason being the audience was not made up of comic book fans, but of non comic book readers. I think the difference is that regular readers have a small set of expectations about comics that they are willing to have broken and expanded upon. Most often it's because a regular reader doesn't expect much from a comic book, the bar is set pretty low. Interestingly enough they seem quite open to different styles of art. Comic Book readers are more sophisticated about comics and what they can do. They expect more, but also seem to hold the comic book to, at times, a more rigid standard of what constitutes a "comic book". I remember a quote from an illustration text book ("Illustration Today" by Robert Ross) that goes something like, " A successful illustrator is one who thinks his way into the minds of individuals." Blah, blah blah. So to illustrate for the regular reader, think like the regular reader. I used an old paper texture to evoke the period. The same with the coloring, which springs from old Readers Digest illustrations. They were often black line work with a couple of process colors roughly cut or drawn. Not quite the same time period, but cheap printing plus cheap paper equals 100% Pulp!



Page one, and right from the start I get to draw Spade and Brigid! Even though there's not a lot of movement, I spent a lot of time on the characters, poses and type to set the mood quickly since I didn't have very many pages. Brigid is based on a photo of a secretary that Hammett was supposed to have had an affair with, and may have based the novel version of Brigid on. The clothes are authentic, from a vintage Sear's catalog. In the first panel I had a lot to establish quickly. I did a few passes at this page, but it was the wonderfully freeing advice of the editor to change things if I had to, that put me on the right path! In the novel Spade and Brigid are not staged this way. I made the leap to position them in a sexually playful way, that's a bit antagonistic. It also made a nice pyramid structure that helped the type. The type is a modern font that echos an older style, the way I hope the art does. I had the help of a wonderful designer Colleen Gray (the "In House Art Director") and the input of my good friend designer Jesse Reyes.
I gave the word balloons a squared off tail to make them different from American comics and something a bit special. The tails are like some of my favorite European comics. I figured the audience would be open to that. The last two panels immediately take us into the first level of flashback.


More authenticity on the second page with housewife style dress and the Davenport Hotel in Spokane. The hotel had been remodeled recently and their website is full of great images of the lobby and front desk. Here I used my original take on Hammett as the character design for Flitcraft. The second panel shot of Flitcraft is based on a photo of Hammett. The visual theme of the "beam" starts in the last two panels. First, I used the beam shape to focus light on Flitcraft's eyes, like in old films. Then I used it to set the light and shadow in the background of the same panel. Again, the beam appears in the last panel as a silhouette, like Flitcraft himself. I was hoping the silhouetting would tie the two together, like fate had. Get the hip waders 'cause it's gettin' deep!


Page three goes into the flashback within a flashback! I took the liberty of having Flitcraft tell his own story. That's the reason for the wonky structure. I stepped into a different color scheme and the art is a much more symbolic and illustrative. Panel one is a bank building (The Washington Building) that was being constructed around the time Hammett was living in Tacoma. If memory serves me, it had the dubious distinction of being part of some big swindle that halted construction and caused a national scandal. It was in the right place at the right time to drop a beam near Flitcraft. Panel two, I thought the beam acted like a bolt of lightning (from God?) so my beam hits the ground bending and crumpling, transforming to a lightning bolt like shape. I gave the bolt and Flit the "jitters" like Horror type. Panels four to eight we see as well as read how his life and thought begin to crowd him, forcing a new direction. Relief come in the expanded ninth panel, his face a clear, blank slate.
Panel ten, all the other possible lives, chances and changes represented by beams. The scar is prominent on this page as a marker for the character, like Johnny Quests hair, a good strong visual cue.


Page four ends the flashback and works to get us back to the story proper. In panel one I wanted to show how Flitcraft was shaken and separate from his fellows on the street. I showed this with a thick rough key line around his figure. Somewhat like the blank slate he think he could become, his face is basic and stripped bare. In panel two he talks about ordering his life. Somehow that made me think that all he had done and accomplished was by the hard work of his hands, in a metaphorical way. So I separated him (his face) from his hands. The narrative box also is the middle in the three panel descent, so that in panel three, when things are calmer, the narrative box is at the bottom of the panel, creating a nice progression that really connects all three. Panels 4 and 5 work to bring us back to the first level by a shift in color, and the change of Flitcraft and the identifying scar. Panel 6 we see Flitcraft/Hammett talking to Spade. The angle is on Spade so as to make a smooth transition to…


Page five, panel one. A close up of Spade similar to Page one panel three that took us into the flashback. The "photo" of Flitcraft is again taken from the photo of Hammett same as page two, panel two was. About Spade, he is described as looking "rather like a pleasant blonde Satan". I work to get the characters set and stay on model but this last page is the better Spade.
The bottom panel is a nice half page that mirrors the start of the adaptation.
I try to make (at least for now) circular stories, where the beginning and the end echo each other. Here we have Spade and Brigid in a pyramidal composition similar to the first panel of page one. The body language is less aggressive, and adversarial but more playful and cozy. He did tell her a nice story after all.
I like the adaptation. I think of it as "Noir", and as such, I felt for a while I should have used more black shapes and areas to create a darker feel. But now I'm happier with tone that comes across emotionally without the trope of a lot of inky blackness.
NEXT WEEK in Hey Kids, Comics!…911 single page comic for Dark Horse Comics!

Hey kids Comics! Intro

Like a ton of other comic book artists, I put a lot into my work. Some noticed, some not so much. Seldom do I, or any other comic book artist, get to explain in detail what they do. So, over the next three weeks I'll be posting three comic book projects explaining what and why I did things, panel by panel. That is what this blog is about after all, the what and the why.

The projects are;

A five page adaptation of the famous parable of the falling beam from Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, "The Flitcraft Parable" for City Arts magazine,

A four page visual liner note for Camper Van Beethoven reunion album, "That Gum You Like" done for No Depression magazine,

A 9-11 page done for Dark Horse Comics. I haven't looked at this in years myself!

An advertising five pager,"BTS Master" for Pullen Advertising, the client was Anritsu.

And a special surprise, the job I got because Mike Richardson, me and my editor at Dark Horse got mixed up, my eight page Western Fairy Tale, "Out in the West"!

Tell all your friends (and a few enemies)

I have been fortunate enough to be able to experiment on just about every comic book project I've done. Maybe posting about these dissimilar experiments will help me better understand what I'm doing and point to some creative experiments for my next comic book work.
Live fast, draw hard.

Cool World covers

I like this cover the best. It was fun to draw the characters in my own style. 

No she's not holding up a building. I think I put something in the street names but I don't remember. 
After hounding my contacts at DC comics, I finally wound up with some work from them. If I remember correctly I had been doing a strip in the DC Comics employee newsletter and had sent off the obligatory second round of inking samples. The Ralph Bakshi film "Cool World" was being released and DC was doing the film adaptation. Film adaptations get a bad rap and rightly so. They are kin to license work and come with a ton of restrictions that are piled on by committee and client, at times making no sense. In this case I was told that I had to avoid likenesses of the actors (Brad Pitt, Gabriel Byrne, Kim Bassinger). I was tasked with inking the film adaptation and doing covers 2 thru 4 of the mini series. Bakshi was doing the first cover. I dutifully inked the adaptation.  I was really happy and excited when the editor kicked back my initial cover sketches as not being wild enough. They wanted me to really cut loose and have fun with the covers. So I did. Looking back, I think I went a little too wild but I did do just what I wanted on three covers for a major comic publisher.  Weeks later I got my share of the inked pages, finished art is divided between the creative team. All the faces that I inked so the did not look like the actors (as we had been told) had been carefully pasted over and redrawn to look like the actors.  It's funny that the method used to patch the art involved cutting a slit in the page art at the throat of each character and sliding in a new piece of paper on which  the new head was drawn. They had all been be-headed.

I don't think I have any of the pages I inked but I do have the pre digital covers stashed away somewhere. Every once in a while I come across the covers on line. Small, cool world huh?