Draw #10 by TwoMorrows Publishing

THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS AND CARTOONING UP, UP, AND AWAY WITh the JLA’S

RON GARNEY

NUMBER 10 SPRING 2005

$5.95

IN THE U.S.A.

Comic Books to Comic Strips with The Phantom’s

Graham Nolan lettering a round-table discussion with

todd klein

draping the human figure, part 2 by

PLUS! ADOBE ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR ILLUSTRATOR TUTORIAL TUTORIAL BY BY

bret blevins ALBERT O RUIZ !

THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING WWW.DRAWMAGAZINE.COM

SPRING 2005 • VOL. 1, NO. 10

FEATURES

Editor-in Chief • Michael Manley Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Proofreaders • John Morrow & Eric Nolen-Weathington Transcription • Steven Tice

COVER STORY INTERVIEW WITH JLA PENCILLER RON GARNEY

For more great information on cartooning and animation, visit our Web site at: http://www.drawmagazine.com

Front Cover Illustration by

COMIC STRIPS PHANTOM AND REX MORGAN ARTIST GRAHAM NOLAN

Ron Garney

Coloring by Mike Manley

SUBSCRIBE TO DRAW! Four quarterly issues: $20 US Standard Mail, $32 US First Class Mail ($40 Canada, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail). We accept US check, money order, Visa and Mastercard at TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614, (919) 449-0344, E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com ADVERTISE IN DRAW! See page 2 for ad rates and specifications. DRAW! Spring 2005, Vol. 1, No. 10 was produced by Action Planet Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Address is PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082. Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2005 by their respective contributors. Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if workfor-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in said artwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; and said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied. Batman, Flash, Justice League, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Wonder Woman are TM and © 2005 DC Comics • Captain America, The Hulk, Silver Surfer, X-Men TM and © 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Vampirella TM and © 2005 Harris Publications • Rex Morgan, MD TM and © 2005 North America Syndicate, Inc. • Phantom TM and © 2005 King Features Syndicate, Inc. • Banana Tail TM and © 2005 Mark McKenna • Rex Ringo and the Robot Ranglers TM and © 2005 Ron Garney. This entire issue is © 2005 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

LETTERING DISCUSSION CONDUCTED BY TODD KLEIN

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR TIPS: BITMAP TEXTURE FUN BY ALBERTO RUIZ

BANANA TAIL INTERVIEW WITH CREATOR AND PUBLISHER MARK MCKENNA

DRAPING THE HUMAN FIGURE, PART II BY BRET BLEVINS

Figurative interpretation by Bret Blevins

FROM THE EDITOR

New year, same old mag! In an effort to try and pick up the pace towards getting DRAW! out faster (something I know everybody reading this wants—including the guy typing this), with this issue I am happy to have the stalwart TwoMorrows man-of-action Eric Nolen-Weathington aboard. Eric has taken over the Quark duties from me, which will allow me to spend more time crafting the interviews rather than fighting uphill with my limited Quark skills. Look! We almost shipped on time! I’ve known fellow former-Batcave artist Graham Nolan since the days of DC’s “Knightfall” and “Knightquest”—back when Batman had his back broken and all the ensuing Azreal drama. Though we have both been out of the Batcave for a spell, Graham is still drawing classic characters. No more bats, but plenty of “Ghosts Who Walk” in the Skullcave and the operating room. Graham now illustrates both The Phantom and Rex Morgan, MD for King Features Syndicate. I thought it would be of great interest to compare and contrast the change of artistic venue and audience Graham experienced. I was anxious to finally get to do something with Ron Garney, whom I have also known a long time and whose work I’ve always admired. His work on Captain America is still a high-water mark for good, solid, entertaining comics of the last decade. It’s clear to see from the amount of work Ron puts into his layout stage why his work is so solid and in demand. Our regular DRAW! teachers return. As convention season kicks into full swing, stay up to date with the DRAW! crew’s appearances. Bret, Alberto, and I will be at the MegaCon in Orlando, Florida (which will have come and gone by the time you read this), the Wizard World Philadelphia Con, and Comicon International: San Diego, as well as the Chicago and Baltimore cons. Check out the website http://www.drawmagazine.com for all the latest, and while you’re there, check out our ever-expanding tutorial section and message boards where you can ask Bret, Alberto, or myself for a direct critique or pointers. See you in July! Mike Manley, Editor E-mail: mike@drawmagazine.com Website: www.drawmagazine.com Snail mail: PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082

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HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

ith his dynamic layouts, solid drawing, exciting storytelling and pacing, Ron Garney has been an artist to watch and enjoy for over a decade. From his work on such top-tier books as Ghost Rider: Spirits of Vengeance, to his spectacular run on Captain America with writer Mark Waid, to Silver Surfer, The Hulk, X-Men and now JLA, Garney has long been at the top of the pack. It was clear to see that Garney hit his stride on Cap, and he hasn't looked back. Garney spoke with DRAW! editor Mike Manley from his home studio in Connecticut just after he broke up the old studio he had shared with fellow DC Comics penciler Howard Porter (The Flash) in Northford, CT.

Ron Un-stopable! Conducted 12/9/04 by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice DRAW!: So let’s start at the beginning, like I do with everyone. Were you into reading comics or collecting comics as a little kid or a teenager? RON GARNEY: Hi, everybody! All my readers, I love you, and it’s all about you, the fans. Anyway... yes, I did. I have been reading comics since I was very young. But there was a period there where I gave up comics in lieu of other forms of entertainment. I read them when I was real young, in the late ’60s. I read stuff, whatever my mother brought home. I didn’t have a subscription anywhere, so whatever my mother brought home for me to read, I would read. I remember reading Magnus, Robot Fighter back in the early ’70s. I do remember reading the FF back in the late ’60s, and Spidey SuperStories. The Electric Company! My mother would bring those home, but I lived in such a remote area out in Connecticut that I didn’t have access to a store. The nearest store was in Torrington, which was probably half an hour from where I lived; I lived way out in the country. We owned eleven acres and a service station. DRAW!: You owned a service station? RG: Yeah, my family owned a dealership/service area. We did body work, we worked on cars, and we sold cars. And it was on eleven acres out in Cornwall, Connecticut, which is probably one of the most rural places in the state. It’s a very historic area, so the DRAW! • SPRING 2005

RON GARNEY

COMICS

zoning would never allow for any major development there, so it was a real retreat of sorts. And there’s a lot of modern actors, movie stars, and things like that, that have houses up there that, unbeknownst to a lot of people; like Michael J. Fox has a house right near where I lived, and Kevin Bacon, and people like that. So that’s where I lived, and I didn’t have access to comic shops. But I did—I would read them when I did get my hands on them, and then— DRAW!: So your mom would just indiscriminately grab a pile of comics at the drugstore or whatever? RG: I guess so, yeah. There was one place right in the outskirts of Torrington, which, like I said, was a half hour away. And it was a store, and I had a friend who knew of this store, and he was into that magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland and like that—a lot of

the Warren publications. He knew of it, so I might have mentioned it to my mother, and that’s where she started getting comics, and once in a while I’d get some comics to read. But it wasn’t regular. I remember reading Dracula, which is the interesting thing; I remember reading Dracula back in the early ’70s with Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. Actually, that was probably the mid-’70s.... DRAW!: Yeah, ’74, ’75, somewhere in there. RG: I guess Palmer was inking him, and little did I know I’d end up working with Tom years later on Nightstalkers and stuff. That’s always been a kick for me to have that connection with Tom Palmer, because here I was out in the middle of nowhere, reading one of his comics, and to end up working with him years later was kind of a neat thing for me. DRAW!: Now, were you drawing a lot as a kid? RG: Oh, yeah. I was drawing at a very young age. Actually, I’m going to send you, if I can find them, some drawings of Superman that I did when I was two or three, which are funny, because they look like little balloons with backwards S’s on them. DRAW!: [laughs] You were drawing Bizarro Superman as a kid! RG: I swear, you’ll get a kick out of it when you see it. So I had a thing for it very young. The Batman TV show was my favorite show back in the ’60s, and that was before I lived in Cornwall. I lived in an area called Bantam, which was a few towns over. That was back in the ’60s, and I can remember watching Star Trek at night through the fuzz, because we didn’t get NBC back then, through the rabbit ears, too well. But I do remember watching the Batman show—we would get that in really well. And McHale’s Navy would come on right after that. That, and the Fantastic Four cartoon were on back then, and that was in, I think, ’69—’68 or ’69. So I would watch them, and I really got hooked into them, so I had a love for superheroes at a young age, for whatever reason. Who knows why?

BATMAN © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

DRAW!: Well, I think that Batman show was such a big, huge pop culture event, I think anybody who was born in the early to mid-’60s, that was a big thing for you as a kid, you couldn’t escape it, it was so exciting. Waiting until the next episode. My brother and I were both big fans of that show as kids.

ABOVE: Batman sketches, with a Joker and Alfred thrown in to boot. TOP RIGHT: Rough Superman sketch.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

RG: Well, it was always left on a cliffhanger. Made you want to see it. It was funny, because a few years later, when I was in grammar school, I remember telling this girl in school about the show, about how I loved it, and she mentioned to me that it was originally intended to be a comedy. And I remember taking real umbrage to that [Mike laughs], because I took it so seriously. This

COMICS is Batman, y’know? It wasn’t until I matured later and looked back at the show that I saw how easily that could be a comedy.

RON GARNEY SUPERMAN © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

DRAW!: Oh, yeah. To adults it’s a comedy. To a kid, you’re taking it seriously; you don’t necessarily see the comedy. RG: Yeah. As a kid, you’re just seeing what they represent, and the fact that they fought for good. I can remember even liking to watch the opening credits with the animation, like the “Biff!” and the “Pow!” And then you saw the graphics of the villains flying across the screen toward the right as Batman and Robin were kicking their butts. And then it showed the Bob Kane animation sort of running towards the camera. I was just really drawn to it, I couldn’t wait to watch the credits, even. The interesting thing about that is that as a kid, you wouldn’t take it as comedy, because the opening credits didn’t seem to be funny. DRAW!: It’s kind of just straightforward—to a kid—basic action. RG: Yeah, the villains looked evil, and Batman in particular, the drawing of him looked pretty cool. It didn’t look “gay” or anything, if you know what I mean. [laughs] I’m politically incorrect here, but you know what I mean. It didn’t look weird or effeminate or strange to me, it just looked cool. But then, when the show came on, you had that mentality from the opening credits that it was a serious show, so probably, as a young kid, you just followed through with it. But then, later on, as you got older, you realized how ridiculous they looked, and how ridiculous the situations they were in were. DRAW!: So that fueled you to want to draw? Were you drawing comics and things like that as a kid? You said you were drawing Superman, so were you doing your own little stories? RG: Yeah! Oh, it was funny. I can remember the first time I drew anything, and that was when my aunt showed me how to draw a picture of Bugs Bunny back in the mid-’60s. I was born in ’62, so this had to be when I was two or three, and I can remember it. I can remember her sitting me down and drawing the ears, the face, and from that point on, I noticed the reaction. I can remember getting a positive reaction from my family members from drawing, and I think that’s probably a big moment for me. I showed a talent for it pretty early, once I got into school and everything, as well. But probably that positive feedback kept me going at it, and I was always drawing. And I started drawing these Supermen and stuff, little backwards S’s, and I think I even drew a Batman on there, on that piece of paper that I have. So I started very early, very, very early. And then, after watching the Batman show, I think by the time I got to fourth grade, I started trying to do my own comic book, and I can’t remember the name of it, but I remember the kid I did it with. His name was Johnny Hart, and we would staple the notebook paper

from class in fourth grade, and I remember drawing a whole comic book, and him saying, “Oh, you should publish it, you should publish it!” [Mike laughs] If I could only find it now, it’d be a real kick to see how it looks. But yeah, fourth grade I actually did my own comic. I wish I could remember the name of it, though. DRAW!: By the time you got into high school, had you given up comics? Were you still following them? Were you thinking you wanted to be an artist? RG: Well, I was an artist, I guess. I could always draw better than everybody since first grade. I remember winning the “draw the star for the Christmas tree” contest, so it was always sort of attached to me at a very young age. There was nobody else in any of my classes who drew pictures. I was the only one. Now it seems like every kid wants to draw, but back then, and especially where I was growing up, I don’t think—I can’t remember if there was even one kid who could draw. By the time I got to fifth grade, there was another kid who could draw, so we became friends for a bit. He was into drawing dinosaurs. And that’s the kid I was telling you about, who would get the Famous Monsters magazine and things like that. And then, after that, I got hooked into Star Trek for a while. For a couple years, I became a real Trek fanatic. And I wasn’t reading comic books so much, but what I really got into Creepy and Eerie magazines. DRAW!: Last week or the week before I pulled out a bunch of old Creepy magazines and Eerie magazines that I had packed away, and hadn’t looked at in a long time. I loved those magazines; I wish they were still going today. RG: Yeah! They were really great. I look back and they had beautiful illustrations in a lot of them. I can remember later on, they had Richard Corben paintings. There were some Spanish artists there, one in particular, I can’t remember his name. He DRAW! • SPRING 2005 5

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COMICS

was doing Vampirella stuff, and just the way he would— DRAW!: José Gonzales? RG: José Gonzales, yes. He would draw her so well, and I just remember thinking that the art was really evolved beyond Marvel Comics or anything. It was just beautiful illustration, and even as a young kid I could still see the difference. Who knows why, but I just liked the way he drew her. The eyes, the way he would draw the eyes, and it was very well done, I thought. So I was into that for a while, into Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella. A friend of mine had a whole stack of them, so I was just reading those, and that was around seventh grade, and I was still into Star Trek. By the time I got to high school, I’d turned another corner and got really into music and sort of forgot about all that stuff for a while. I was into music and girls and dating and things like that. DRAW!: So you did the typical thing where you abandoned comics and then came back to them later? RG: Uh... yeah, like I said, I became a Star Trek fan, so I wasn’t really reading them all that much anymore. I was really into other things. I was into Godzilla—I was a big Godzilla nut; couldn’t miss any of the movies on Creature Feature on Saturdays. I don’t know. I wouldn’t say I abandoned comics per se; it was more just a transition. Once I got into the other stuff, I was just distracted by so many other things. Plus, where I grew up, it was different. I was outside a lot. We had eleven acres, and I was always roaming. My brother Wesley and I had our own TV show that we pretended to have every Wednesday that we called Kirk Vs. Spock on Vulcan. [laughter] DRAW!: What, did you have cable access? Was it an eight-year-old’s version of Wayne’s World or something? [laughs] RG: We just pretended the cameras were there, but we’d just go out in the backyard. It was based on a particular episode, “Amok Time,” where Kirk fights Spock on Vulcan, which we thought was the coolest episode ever. So we would go out in the back, and for each week, he was Spock and I was Kirk, and we had Star Trek shirts and we had the little plastic MPC models and little plastic phasers. And depending on which week it was, either 6

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

he would win or I would win, and then we’d invent some scenario. But the whole thrust of the show was that we would have to fight at some point. DRAW!: So did you slice each other’s chest with that weird axe thing? [laughs] RG: Whatever weapon we could find. It was kind of like Kirk when he fought the Gorn, it was like, “Look, there’s diamonds over there. Cool!” [laughter] Instead it would be, “Oh, look, there’s a big hunk of brownstone that you can throw at your brother.” DRAW!: There’s nothing like a nice Saturday afternoon where you blast diamonds into your brother’s chest with some homemade rocket device. RG: Exactly! It wasn’t my brother though, it was Spock. DRAW!: Oh, right, right, gotta stay in character. RG: Spock had super-strength, so he had the edge. Kirk was wily and limber in body and stuff. We were also into the Bionic Man [The Six Million Dollar Man] show, too. And one time I threw Wesley off the car. [laughs] The thing about our role-playing is that whenever we would throw each other, we’d have to yell out “Kirk vs. Spock on Vulcan!” And then he’d throw me. One time we were playing on one of the junk cars that we had in the back, and I yelled, “Steve Austin!” And I threw him off. And he went into the engine well of this car and a big piece of metal went right through his arm. DRAW!: Ow! RG: Yeah! And his muscle was hanging out. And

HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS INC.

COMICS I’m like, “Oh, I’ll pay you a dollar if you don’t tell Mom!” DRAW!: [laughs] Yeah, you just show up at home with a piece of muscle hanging out of your arm. RG: Luckily our backyard was pretty much a little boy’s dream; we had woods all around and junk cars, everything around us. It’s amazing that we didn’t kill each other or get killed.

ART SCHOOL DRAW!: Now while in high school, were you thinking of going into art? Were you going to college for art? RG: Well in eighth grade I won a civic area art award, and then I won a blue ribbon at an art show at my high school, so I was always, like I said, tagged as “that kid, the artist.” But I also played sports. In grammar school I played basketball and soccer and baseball. And I think back then, seeing the attention some of the males got from the girls, even at that age, I think I kind of wanted to play sports a lot. And I could do it. Obviously, my real talent was in art, but I enjoyed being out and socializing, too, I guess. But anyway, I think that by the time I got to high school I got into music and other things, so I put art on the backburner, for the most part. I was really getting into being in high school and meeting new people and everything else. But by my senior year of high school, or my junior year, I really started focusing on art again. I did it, but I wasn’t as focused as I had been before, because there was nobody else artistic around me. There wasn’t even really any competition for me, even in high school. I know that sounds egotistical, but that’s just the way it was. So I kind of took it for granted.

RON GARNEY

attention. And that might have been music at the time; I was in a rock band in high school. But I will say, out of all those interests, the one thing I always gravitated back towards was my art, my drawing. So eventually I learned to embrace it once I got to college. DRAW!: Where did you go to college? RG: I went to Southern Connecticut University for Illustration, Psychology, and Graphic Design. And there were a lot of good professors there. It was fun taking figure drawing classes. And painting was fun, too—I was really getting into that. At that point I was really into Frazetta’s paintings. Like I said, by my senior year of high school, I got real serious about art again, and I really got into Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta and stuff like that. And I was really into oil painting and doing a lot of acrylic paintings. At that point I wasn’t really just drawing anymore. DRAW!: So were you thinking that you would become a...? RG: Fantasy illustrator. DRAW!: A fantasy illustrator, okay. This was what, the early ’80s?

DRAW!: So you never had another kid in school who was your rival artist?

RG: Only in fifth grade, that was it, that kid who I told you about, who gave me those Famous Monsters books. When I got to high school, there were other guys into art, but they were a few grades ahead of me; at the time I was a freshman, so I wasn’t around them. So in my particular classrooms, I was always able to draw easier than most of the other kids. So I kind of took it for granted, and my teachers got on me about it a little bit. They were annoyed that I had this talent and that I was just sort of, “Yeah, whatever,” because I could always do it. Eventually I think I suffered for it, because I lost interest, and that had always been a problem for me; I was always getting interested in other things. Distracted. I’ve always sort of been like that, I’d get focused on something for a while, and then something else catches my LEFT: A couple of very nice sketches and one nasty looking Hulk. Ron also colored the Hulk sketch. RIGHT: Wonder Woman illustration.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005 7

COMICS

RG: Yeah, and then, in my mid-college years I became a doorman at a nightclub, and I ended up managing a nightclub and doing all these other things, so really I just wasn’t into the comics scene at all. I was still doing art when I could and things like that, but I was trying to survive. I put myself through college. I won a scholarship in high school for art, and used it for Southern Connecticut University.

DRAW!: How did you win the scholarship? RG: Well, I applied for it and they had a board of review and I was awarded one. The board looked at your grades and your work and made the assessment if you were eligible or not. When I graduated from college I was bartending. I had forgotten all about comics, per se. But then what happened was a fellow bartender was reading a comic book, and it was a Fantastic Four comic, I think, or a Secret Wars comic. And I thought it was cool! I’m kind of glad it happened that way, because it was all new to me all over again. I had forgotten about these characters. I think Secret Wars was kind of cool, regardless of whether the story was good or bad, because to just to open up a comic and have all the characters in one place, all pitted against each other, is every kid’s fantasy. And the love of comics kind of came flooding back. I started looking at them, “Oh, let me see that.” And it hit me right in that moment, right there, square between the eyes. I was out of college. I didn’t know if I was ever going to use art as a career. It just seemed like I had no direction as to where to go with it. I just had too many other distractions, managing a club and bartending and bouncing, and the social distractions were just so immense that I was kind of lost as to what I was going to do. But when I opened up the comics, it kind of hit me between the eyes, and I realized that was what I wanted to do. It was just, bang! I was really into film and movies, too, and when I open up a comic book and saw the short form of that, the shorthand of all that, the storyboards and the panels and choosing camera angles. As soon as I read that Secret Wars and that FF issue, I was going down to the local bookstore every night after bartending or waiting tables and picking up stuff to read, I was just so into it, trying to find the back stories. It’s amazing how that can 8

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work, anything that can hook you into it. It was just so much fun. I picked up some Frank Miller Daredevils at that time. The early to mid-’80s is a real fun time at Marvel, I think, and DC, too. DRAW!: Well, I think it was also just a fun time in comics. RG: Yeah, it was very creative. DRAW!: It was creative; you had the independent guys going, you had Marvel and DC going good. And, in a way, the business is still really feeding off of that. RG: Yeah. But it wasn’t filled with the business sharks; it was really just about the love of the comics. It wasn’t filled with the “let’s be a star” mentality that just permeates it today. DRAW!: And also, the money factor, the greed factor, had not so consumed the business. RG: It was still just about the characters. I think it was one of the most creative eras in comics, ever. Just the artists that were coming along.... But it wasn’t about the artists, it was still about the story, and everything revolved around making good comics. For the most part—I mean, there were still stinkers, but by the time the ’90s rolled around, what a shift! It just became about, like a reality show, who the creators were. And it wasn’t about the comics anymore, it was about the coolest-looking art. DRAW!: So did you at that time decide that you were going to try to break into the biz? I guess you bought the Marvel Tryout book, you were thinking to break into comics? RG: Yeah, I just figured I was going to win the contest. I was too big for my britches, because I had rested on my laurels from grammar school and high school, and I really hadn’t done much as far as comics. So I entered it, my heart was really into it. I was so into it, drawing Spider-Man, working it all out. Looking at John Romita, Jr.’s pencils at that time, which were so good. And all of a sudden, I felt competitive about it, which I had never felt before. So something I needed was to get that first rejection letter. I sent my samples in, like, the day before the deadline. [Mike laughs] It figures, y’know? © AND TM 2005 RESPECTIVE OWNER.

RON GARNEY

DRAW!: Now, were you aware that this was a serious vocation that you could go into? Did you ever go into any conventions or meet any artists or anything? I mean were you aware of fandom at all? RG: I had never gone into any

COMICS

RON GARNEY

so into it; it was so cool and vivid, and Jerry Ordway’s inking over Byrne was great. It was just very vivid and clear. I got hooked up to the stories. It was escapism and fun, rather than find something on television. I got really hooked into a lot of different comics. Like, Walt Simonson’s Thor, which to this day remains my favorite run of any comic writer on the book—the whole Surtur saga with Odin. That whole time, for me, was just—I was in heaven, because I was a big mythology buff when I was in high school and college. So I was reading them. I was really just enjoying being a fan. And then I met Byrne at the Port Chester Museum of Art right outside of Connecticut. It was in New York, but right outside of Greenwich, Connecticut. A friend of mine’s father was a comics fan—he was an older guy, and he was really into Hal Foster. He introduced me to this artist, Sal Trapani, and I really felt like, wow, this is a really exciting world for me, learning all about artists who I’d never known before. I mean, I had Prince Valiant books growing up, so I kind of knew who Hal Foster was. So I was showing Sal the stuff I was reading, like the Byrne stuff, and it turned out Byrne was going to be at the museum. So we went down there to listen to him speak, and he was with Terry Austin. I had a Superman Sunday page that Sal Trapani had drawn and inked, or maybe Dick Giordano inked it, I don’t remember who. But at that time I was still very naïve as to original art. So I walked up to Byrne thinking he would be impressed, and I got the complete opposite reaction. [laughter] He kind of just looked at me. I said, “Oh, Mr. Byrne, look what I have!” And he kind of turned his back to me. DRAW!: Where did you get the original page from? RG: From Sal Trapani. DRAW!: Oh, he actually gave it to you? RG: Yes, he gave it to me. And to me that was a treasure. I was just like, “Wow! An original page of comic art!” ABOVE: A page of Ron’s sketches with some nice expressions. LEFT: A Martian Manhunter sketch and a rough layout.

DRAW!: Oh, yeah, when you see an original for the first time, it’s just an amazing thing.

of that. I had no real familiarity up to that point in my entire life with any of the artists or creators or people who worked in comics at all. The one artist who I started reading—well, it was obviously Mike Zeck who was doing the Secret Wars stuff. I liked his work, but like I said, I just looked at it and saw it, loved it, wanted to draw. Then all of a sudden, there was this world out there that was a lot more competitive than anything I had ever experienced. And, in a perfect world, I wish I’d had that exposure much earlier, much younger.

RG: Yeah! It really is, especially for the love that I was—I had this renewed kind of fan fanatic mentality about comics, and it really hit me between the eyes. I’m not kidding when I say that, it was that instantaneous.

DRAW!: So after the rejection from the Marvel Tryout book, did you then start pursuing it more seriously? It didn’t stop you obviously. RG: No. I was determined not to stop until I got in. And another thing, interestingly, was meeting John Byrne in person, because the other comic that I really got into the story was the Fantastic Four. It was the other comic that the guy behind the bar had. The story was called “Evening of the Witch.” Mephisto showed up at the end of the issue, and the FF were living in Connecticut under assumed identities, and their next door neighbor who just happens to be some kind of witch or something, summons up Mephisto. And I was just

DRAW!: Anything else about meeting Byrne for the first time? RG: Hmmm.... Well, I was such a huge fan of his, so to me it was like meeting a movie star. And I noticed that a lot of the fans that day had that same attitude towards him. At that time comics really started becoming that sort of a microcosm of Hollywood thing and Byrne was really the first “star” in comics. So I’m not surprised he had that attitude at that time, as I was just one of many fans presenting him with all kinds of things they wanted his approval of.

MIKE ZECK AND BREAKING IN DRAW!: So after you met Byrne and everything, I’m trying to find out, when did you start sending in samples or going into the offices with work? Did you meet somebody, meet an artist who coached you or anything? DRAW! • SPRING 2005

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COMICS

RG: Yes, when I was reading Secret Wars, and I don’t remember how I found out, but it turns out Mike Zeck just happens to live five minutes from me, literally. And that blew my mind. He could have lived anywhere in the country, and the guy whose comic I just happened to start reading again was right next door, a few miles away! So that was a real goof and it was just weird. I don’t remember how I found out, but I called him up on the phone. DRAW!: So you just looked in the phone book and you saw a “Mike Zeck” and...? RG: Yeah! That’s how it happened! Mike Zeck, and it was just such a rush. It was like, holy sh*t, wow, this is awesome! And he was right in Westhaven and I was right in Newhaven. He lived literally about five minutes down the boulevard from me.

guy who really should have gotten an award for just helping young professionals, because he helped a lot of guys in the business. DRAW!: Really? Wow. RG: Yeah! Some guys like Jerry Ordway, I think Zeck helped him get in, and look at Jerry. Mike was sort of the wise guy who lived in a cave to whom everybody brought their stuff to for a critique on it. So he called me up and he told me what I needed to work on, and that was pretty eye-opening, too. DRAW!: Can you remember any specifics?

RG: He told me that I needed to learn how to draw with more of a sense of proportion. Meaning the way I placed figures in environments, things like that. The size of a car in DRAW!: So did you go relation to the size of a over and show your work person standing next to to him? it, that sort of thing. At least that was the one RG: Well, I called him thing I remember first. up and I just left him a I had been working message, I think, on his on the stuff, but I had so answering machine and far to go. So over the just said, “Hello, my course of the next year, I name is Ron....” think, I started working DRAW!: “My name is up more samples again. Ron, I know where you But in the meantime I live!” [laughs] became friendly with him. I had talked to him RG: “I got your numagain, and I invited him ber!” [laughter] I left him to the bar where I a message that I was a worked, and he came in young guy really interestwith some friends and ed in doing comics and I had drinks, and he invitbartended. He called me ed me to a convention CAPTAIN AMERICA © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC. back the next day, I think, out near where I lived. and just said, “Yeah, if So I got to meet him and ABOVE: A page from Captain America. you want to work up some other people in the some samples, put them business, and that was in the mail, and I’ll give you call when I get them and I’ll let really the beginning. It was right around the time that he came you know what I think.” It was really nice of him— out with that Punisher book, The Return to Big Nothing. It was the oversized thing with the airbrushed cover with just the stark DRAW!: Oh, yeah! image of the Punisher in black, and John Beatty inked it. So it was right around that time, and he was signing those, and he RG: So I did that, and I was so excited. I sent him the work, and he gave one to me and signed it. It was real cool, because he invited called me up and he went over every page with me on the phone and me to sit there and draw for people. So I was like, “Whoa!” So I what I needed to work on. I’ll tell you something about that guy, got to sit down and draw with these professionals, and I wasn’t even though he hardly shows his face anywhere in comics anymore, even in the business yet. he’s a real great guy for that. He helped a lot of young guys. He’s a 10

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COMICS

RON GARNEY

DRAW!: This was at a con, a local con? RG: Yeah, a local convention. And then I just became friendly with that group and they invited me to volleyball games and stuff like that, so I would go. And then eventually I worked up more samples and he invited me over to his house, and we’d hang out, and he’d show me what I needed to work on. It was amazing to watch him fix my stuff, and I would learn so much from that, just from watching him go over the things I needed to work on. And he would say, “Well, your head looks a little off, here,” and he would draw this brilliant head, and I’d be like, “Whoa!” [laughter] Kind of like watching Joe Kubert. DRAW!: It looks like it’s magic when you see somebody who....

CAPTAIN AMERICA © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

RG: It really was magic to watch his pencils go over mine and fix things and make it this beautiful drawing; it was just something. And it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me, because I honestly, like I said, I had just sort of taken it all for granted, but now I was at the low rung of the ladder, which I hadn’t really been all through school. So it was something I really needed to go through. But I was like a sponge; the more criticism for me, the better. Anytime somebody could look at my work I took advantage of it. Mike brought me into the city at the time he thought I was ready. So he brought me to DC and they offered me a job right away. DRAW!: Wow, that’s a great story, your first time to go up and get offered a job. And to be taken in and helped by such a good and generous artist. Not many artists are like that. RG: Yeah, and I was with this other guy who Mike was trying to coach, too, and this guy I guess wasn’t as far along as Mike would have liked, but he was trying to get work. But I went right in and I got a job offer at DC to do Animal Man as a regular book, but they wanted me to do eight pages first to see if I could do it. So I brought it home and did eight pages over the course of a week and then brought them in again the next week. I’d pulled a couple of all-nighters already, I was so eager to get in the business. And I brought them in, and this editor basically said that the guy who they’d originally asked changed his mind. And I think Grant Morrison might have been writing that at the time and this guy, Chas Truog was the artist. DRAW!: I remember him, yeah. RG: I’d also gone over to Marvel that first day, and Marvel offered me some stuff right away. So I had pretty much three offers on my machine by the time I got home from New York that day. Ralph Macchio called me up, and Danny Fingeroth. Ralph Macchio offered me a Daredevil story or something, and then Danny Fingeroth asked me if I would be the regular penciler on Moon Knight, and then Bobbie Chase wanted me to do G.I. Joe. I don’t remember how it all worked, but I think the first thing I did was G.I. Joe. DRAW!: I think that the young artists trying to break into the comics business now have no idea how really different it was back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, that you could go in and actually first off see an editor, and then have that editor, later that day, call and offer you a job. People in comics would actually return your phone calls... that doesn’t really happen, in a serious way, anymore. It’s not the same way at all. RG: And at that time I had the advantage of being with Mike Zeck, who was already a tried-and-true professional.

ABOVE: Pencils from pages 9 and 16 of Captain America #452.

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RON GARNEY

COMICS was putting an angel on the top of the Christmas tree while Peter watched. I chose an angle right at the top of the tree. Mike had me move the camera to either an upshot or a down shot looking at MJ with her hand in the foreground, rather than a straight on shot of the angel. Little differences like that made a huge difference, and like I said I was like a sponge.

HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

DRAW!: That’s really the most important stage, the storytelling problems. I teach a class in storyboarding, and I always draw the analogy to sports. It’s like a passing drill, you run down 40 yards, you break to the right, and the quarterback throws the ball and you catch it. If you don’t do it, you keep doing the drill until you get it right. But often, young guys who I will meet at a convention will show me samples, or even on my message board some will post work, and you will give them a critique, show them how to fix the problem, the keys to a solution, and they never go back and actually fix what you gave them the critique on. They go, “Okay, well, thanks. I’ll try to apply this next time.” And it’s, “No, you really should go fix your sample so you actually learn how to do it right.”

ABOVE: Ron’s rough layout for the cover of Hulk #2. RIGHT: The final published cover.

DRAW!: True. Certainly you couldn’t go in under better circumstances. RG: Plus, I was ready. Mike was the guy who was eyeballing my stuff for a while, and it was the course of a year or two before he thought I was even ready. And I just kept working on samples and working at them—I’ll send you some of that stuff, too—and I could see my progression in getting better as I kept working on the same stuff over and over. I think I must have drawn the same scene, a Spider-Man scene, for a sample literally a thousand times over. [Mike laughs] “Let me put the camera over here. Well, maybe I need a down shot. Well, maybe I need an upshot.” The thing that was good about working with Mike Zeck was he was the one showing me, cutting away all that indecision and making the correct one right away. DRAW!: Can you be more specific here? Any storytelling points you remember? RG: A lot of it was in my choices of camera angles and such. I did this one scene with Peter Parker where Mary Jane Watson 12

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RG: That’s exactly right. That’s the biggest thing I don’t see guys doing nowadays. And I go to conventions myself, and somebody will show me their portfolio; you try to tell them and they get this glazed-over look like a deer caught in the headlights, and the only way I can get the point through is if I show them the way a guy like Zeck showed me. I go over it with a marker on piece of paper and fix what they did wrong. Then I tell them the same exact thing: “Redo that page the way I did it. Try to keep working at it until you make it better.” And that’s what they don’t do, you’re right. They kind of just go on to the next thing, because they get bored. Unfortunately, this business, I think, attracts a lot of guys like that. DRAW!: That’s the hardest thing for most of us, to go from drawing when you want, what you want, to “Now you’ve got 22 pages and you have ten days.” [laughs] And maybe it’s not always your favorite subject matter or whatever. RG: That’s where, if it gets to the point where you’re so unhappy that you just can’t work like that, then that’s when you write and draw your own thing, if you can get it. But it takes years of working. You really have to go through the trenches and prove yourself

COMICS before you can get to that point. You can’t just walk in and get a big gig—some guys do, but that’s rare. I won’t mention names, but I’ve seen guys come in and create characters for a company like Marvel and just have zero drawing skills, and they’re drawing and writing their own sh*t. It’s just mind-boggling. That, again, is where the big change happened, in the late ’80s.

RON GARNEY

[laughs] I had no money, so I didn’t have a light table. I was sitting on my art bin and a stool to elevate myself. So it was a real test in the very beginning, especially with a book like G.I. Joe. DRAW!: Since Zeck had worked on that book, too, were you still talking to him and getting pointers?

MARVEL DRAW!: So your first job at Marvel was what? RG: G.I. Joe was my very first Marvel job. Like I said, DC changed their mind because I guess Chas Truog changed his mind about Animal Man. And it’s funny, because his first eight pages of that issue look exactly like mine, so they probably just gave him mine. [laughter] DRAW!: “Here you go! You’ve got a head start!” RG: But I got paid by DC, then I went over to Marvel and it was fun. It was a real nice boost for me at the time, bartending, making zero money, and all of a sudden I had a career right then and there. So I got offered G.I. Joe, which was something in and of itself, because at that time Marvel owned all the rights to the toys, or had a deal with Mattel or whatever, who had the G.I. Joe toys, the action figures. So everything had to be referenced perfectly, and all the vehicles had to be referenced perfectly, the planes, everything—

HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

DRAW!: So did you have to go buy all the toys? RG: I think they sent me most of it. They sent me all of the toys and whatever I needed, back issues and stuff like that. But that was an eye-opening experience, because it was 24/7. I’d never drawn an entire comic in my life. I was bartending at night, but during the day I was glued to my table. And I really tried to be professional about it, but working on all that reference and everything, and trying to draw on a 10" x 7" light box, y’know.

ABOVE: Ron’s rough for the opening two-page spread from Hulk #2. RIGHT: The final published pages.

RG: Well, by the time I did G.I. Joe, I was on my own, now. I got the job and now it was up to me. And I wasn’t really showing him that much. I think I showed it to him; I would ask him about storytelling things, because I had a real problem figuring out how to tell the story, because everything was plot-driven back then, and I was going, “How am I going to break down this action, and what camera angles?” That’s where I was having the most difficulties. As far as the draftsmanship and everything else, that was more just slogging through the hard labor of it. But the actual thought process of how to tell a story is really where I needed as much help as I could get. So I’d show him stuff and say, “What do you think? How should I do this?” And he might come up with a thumbnail that would help, but for the most part, I was on my own. And I got the job done. But during that time, I think, I was offered Moon Knight as DRAW! • SPRING 2005

RON GARNEY

COMICS

RIGHT: Two different approaches to panel five of this Captain America page.

CAPTAIN AMERICA, IRON MAN © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

a regular gig, and it caused some problems, because I guess Bobbie Chase was going to offer me G.I. Joe as a regular stint. DRAW!: Not a bad thing for you to have two people fighting over you, but.... RG: Well, it was good and bad, because at that time, it was my first month in the business, and here I am. I didn’t want to get back to that mentality where I thought my sh*t didn’t stink, or I thought I could just do it, because it really wasn’t like that. But I didn’t want to turn anything down. That was the big thing, learning to say no, because I was afraid that if I said no, I would never get a job. How many people get offers like that from Marvel Comics? Me, I had walked into the Mecca of comics, this giant thing that’s so unreachable at the time, and I was getting job offers. So it was nice, but I was killing myself. I think at one time I was drawing G.I. Joe, then I did Moon Knight, and I was doing Daredevil fillins, and just really working myself to death.

LEARNING ON THE JOB AND LAYOUTS DRAW!: Now, were you still studying? Were you studying other artists, were you studying the craft? Because you’re still trying to learn, and obviously you’re learning on the job. Obviously, getting to learn from a guy like Zeck, who’s very methodical, helped. He does little layouts, he does these layouts that you could actually print as a comic they are so finished. Was that influencing your approach and how you were going about breaking down the stories and laying out your pages and stuff? RG: To some degree. I would always try to do a tiny thumbnail, but it was very, very loose. What I had learned from Sal Trapani early on—actually, Sal Trapani was a guy who was helping me out a little bit early, very early. You know, I didn’t even think to mention that, either, but when I was friendly with Sal Trapani, 14

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he asked me to do a Sunday strip called Adam, which was about the first monkey in space and about his ex-wife and a chimp in space. So I’d had a little bit of experience already. Zeck, he did those tight thumbnails, but I was doing more of a bond paper approach like Buscema would do that I learned from Trapani. Where you just do the rough full-size on layout paper. DRAW!: With a real dark pencil or a marker or something? RG: Yeah, just a number two. I would go over the page and just rough in everything real fast and loose, and then just trace over that on a light box. But what I learned over time was that was causing me a lot of problems. That’s what I learned about the methodical method of Zeck: that it’s better to see the page as a whole, smaller first, before you go in, because it prevents you from having all kinds of problems doing it full-size, which was basically fitting all the story on the page. The bigger you do it, the larger you tend to draw. That’s what I’ve noticed, that when I did it full-size, original art size, I wanted to make everything bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, to the point where I would get really frustrated because I couldn’t fit everything on the page that I wanted to fit on. DRAW!: And especially something like G.I. Joe, because G.I. Joe’s a team book. If you’re working on a team book, you’ve got to draw a lot of medium shots, just the nature of the job, because you’ve got to have Snake Eyes and whoever all standing next to each other all the time, and show the vehicles, and locations, etc. RG: Yeah, exactly. That was causing me some problems, so I learned the wisdom of patience and doing small thumbnails—

COMICS not too many people are John Buscema. As a matter of fact, nobody is John Buscema. Who could do what he did? He just had such skill that he could do that and fit everything in just right. I hadn’t had the experience yet to even think I could attempt to do something like a master, like him.

RON GARNEY

today. It’s just so well done; it’s so brilliant. Growing up, all that stuff has just seeped into my consciousness.

PLOT VS. FULL SCRIPT

DRAW!: So did you start going back and doing smaller thumbnails, then?

DRAW!: So is what you’re doing now on Justice League very different, because I’m assuming that Kurt Busiek is writing a full script? And it’s multiple characters instead of one hero like Cap.

RG: No, by the time I started doing thumbnails I bought an Arto-graph. I had learned about the Art-o-graph projector from Michael Golden, who I had met through Zeck, and he was telling me that he would use that to blow up his thumbnails, so I started working out a lot of the problems small, and it saved me a lot of time and frustration. Plus, compositionally, you’re able to see the entire page as one compositional whole rather than pieces of it. It’s kind of like sitting in a movie theater watching a movie in the front row; you can’t see the entire thing, and you’re just picking up pieces. And that’s sort of what it’s like drawing full-size. So that’s what I was doing, and I eventually just learned to rely on thumbnails. Every now and then I’d switch back to doing fullsize stuff, but very rarely do I not do a thumbnail.

RG: That’s the hard part for me getting into the comic, and I think I’m suffering for it. And maybe the readers are, too. When I did Cap, it wasn’t a full script, it was a plot. And Silver Surfer was a plot. I spent years developing a storytelling technique based on working from plots, breaking things down and how I would tell a story. On Cap, I think I reached a peak, because I was really approaching my storytelling technique from the point of view of musical notes, rhythm, and tempo. You mentioned the big shots and the little shots. Well, everything kind of worked in concert to make that big shot mean something, so that it had an emotional impact and an iconic impact on the character. I was really kind of feeling the flow. My engine was running.

STORYTELLING DRAW!: Every artist has his sense of storytelling. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about your work, especially your work on Captain America, is the fact that you are very good about going in and having a big dynamic shot, and then you pull out to show a medium shot, so on a page you get a real variety of shots and angles while moving the camera around, so it’s not static, and it builds up and then goes down. So often in modern comics, what passes for storytelling is just to draw everything big, bursting and rippling with veins and lots of lines, but you never know where anybody is in relationship to anybody else. There is no acting, pacing, mood. Your work on Cap had it all.

GALACTUS, SILVER SURFER © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

RG: Yeah, I know what you’re saying. That’s probably one of the things that got me the most notice. I mean, I was nominated for an Eisner for Cap, and I honestly believe that’s one of the reasons right there. You’ve hit the nail on the head. It was because of that, because I was one of the last guys who was rejecting that whole Image mentality. It’s funny how Image is now connected with that mentality. Yeah, my schooling came from Buscema, and Zeck helped out. Plus, I had experience growing up with fine artists too, and illustrators like Norman Rockwell. I have to say, though, I was more influenced by Buscema before Zeck, because I was looking a lot at Buscema’s stuff. I didn’t mention it before, but things are coming to me as we’re talking. But I can remember reading a lot of Buscema’s work. My very first comic when I was young was the Silver Surfer #4. I had that issue right off the stands, and I would just sit there and stare at the thing at read it over and over. That’s my favorite single comic of all time. I have the copy still. DRAW!: A great comic, a high-mark for him and for super-hero comics. RG: Oh, yeah, that thing’s all dilapidated. But I go back and read it still, and it still stands up to everything that comes out

ABOVE: Ron penciled Silver Surfer from a plot, giving him the freedom to pace the story according to his own storytelling technique.

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COMICS RG: Oh yeah, him. You’re right, definitely. DRAW!: Because that run on Daredevil he did around that time, in the late ’80s, I still think that that’s some of the best Marvel Comics ever. Great pacing and storytelling. RG: Absolutely, yeah. DRAW!: And his stuff is all about storytelling. And he did the stuff with a grid. He wasn’t doing a lot of overlapping panels or panels that look like they’ve been torn into by a dog or something.

CAPTAIN AMERICA © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

RG: Yeah. I guess I forget about so many guys. Yeah, I did read that whole Daredevil run—that was one of my favorites. Ann Nocenti, I think, was writing it. JR was really putting some Wally Wood type blacks on Daredevil, and yet you could see his father’s influence in there, and he was really doing some outstanding storytelling that was very unique to him. He really developed his own visual language based on all of his influences, which is what makes him so great. DRAW!: Right, and that’s what I’m alluding to. When I look at your work, I see that—there’s sort of a “Ron Garney” pacing, I guess, if I think about. And maybe that developed because, when you started, you were not hemmed in to the rhythm of a full script. You could decide how to do the rhythm, how to pace the story from the plot.

ABOVE: Pencils for page five of Captain America #457.

INFLUENCES DRAW!: Were you studying anybody? Studying any storytelling or being influenced by somebody at all? RG: I really wasn’t. Once I got into comics, I really stopped, for the most part, reading a lot of other stuff. I would look and enjoy the artistic styles of a lot of guys. I always thought it was interesting to see what Jim Lee was doing. But there’s a lot of other guys in the business, like Mike Mignola and Walt Simonson and all these great guys who do comics. But I wasn’t really studying it for storytelling reasons. Maybe some Miller stuff a little bit. DRAW!: Can you elaborate here? What about Miller? RG: Well I learned just by looking at his sense of timing that you didn’t necessarily have to fill the page with unnecessary elements, but you could focus on singular elements and break these singular elements into smaller panels that were subordinated around a city scene or setting. With him I went back and studied his influences as well, like Will Eisner and Steranko. Those are the two influences I see in Miller: Eisner for pace, Steranko for design. And studying his influences helped me. DRAW!: What about John Romita, Jr.? 16

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RG: That’s exactly right. And I struggle with it now. Every writer I work with now wants to do full script. And the problem with that is, they want to work with me because they remember Cap, but they want to do a full script. And I keep telling them, “Look, the reason Cap was Cap for me was because I was doing the pacing, so I developed my own storytelling technique by that time.” And doing full scripts, you’re really just drawing panels that are dictated by another guy, and I don’t enjoy it at all. I’m one of the biggest nay-sayers of doing full scripts. And I know writers like having that kind of control, and I can understand why. Buy the advent of all the Image guys and having all their stuff kind of raped at times. By some artists, not all Image artists—I don’t mean to say that. But it’s obscene. Mark Waid would show me other plots he was working on and then show me what he was getting back, and it was just a shame. Because he would write stuff in, and they would leave it all out. DRAW!: Just to have, like, a big figure or something, probably. RG: Yeah! A posed figure, or gritted teeth. A big close-up of gritted teeth. And I felt bad for him because it was just ridiculous. So I understand why writers have really clamored to gain control over their stories, which is their art. And the industry’s kind of gone in that direction, where the artists are the artists, and the writers are the writers. And that’s why guys like John Cassaday are big, and guys like Grant Morrison are big, because they do their own thing. John’s stuff is very artistic, it’s not so focused on storytelling, whereas my art wasn’t so much about art as it was about the storytelling—telling a story, and pacing. Now in a way, that which was my strength kind of went to the wayside, because most of the time I can’t do that anymore. DRAW!: I always look at it as there are two types of comic storytelling. You have the more straight-ahead storytelling, where it’s

COMICS about the story and not necessarily so much about the single image. And I would say the guys like Kirby and Romita, a lot of the old school stuff was straightforward telling the story. Then you have the artists, who I say are more like Neal Adams, who was more like, there’s a story, then a really cool shot, then some more story, then another really cool shot. If you look through his work, he was an artist who sort of would play for that one really cool special panel, and I think that type of storytelling is very different than what you’re doing, or say somebody like Buscema. I mean Buscema would still have cool shots, and your stuff still has cool shots, but it’s like you’re really trying to build up to that moment to make it cool. RG: Right, right. DRAW!: And it’s a very different philosophy of storytelling. Like you said, it’s much more musical. It’s like you’re going to get to this point of the story where suddenly something is going to be really important, really cool. And that’s what I enjoyed about Romita’s stuff on Daredevil is that you could really follow the story. And there might be a little figure in a little teeny panel that’s really way more powerful than just some guy going “RAH,” with a dynamic figure jumping at you. Sometimes those little storytelling moments, the juxtaposition between two or three panels, is way more powerful.

RON GARNEY

there shouldn’t just be a bunch of lazy stuff like, “Oh, I’ve got a figure here, but I don’t know what to do with the background, so I’ll just hash some stuff in.” So many artists do that, often leading the eye away or confusing something in a good layout. And it’s especially vital for super-hero comics, because it’s all about that kinetic action, like you say, leading the character, leading the eyes through the page, and you following it, and you feeling the energy, power. RG: I’m working with Kurt Busiek right now, and I can see his influence from working with George Pérez. And George, his layouts are fine and all, but he puts so much in that he’s kind of the opposite of what I was doing, I think, in some ways. When you look at his pages, they’re so impressive, and you can’t understand how he could achieve what he did on them. There’s just so much damn detail, and it’s so small, and there’s so many figures, and he’s able to do so many panels. I try to look and see if I can find any discernable avenue for the eye to go from one panel to the next. And I really can’t, and if he’s doing that, I’m not finding it. But I’m just so impressed with the amount of stuff he’s putting in. Maybe he’s doing it, but it’s in some weird, other way that’s not as noticeable. DRAW!: Well, I think his approach is very intricate and very layered, and I guess if you’re doing a book with a hundred char-

RG: You’re absolutely right, it’s about creating moments. I would lay out the first ten pages small, and I would keep going back over it and over it, and reading the panels over and over in sequence. And I kept laying out graphically the panels in order to create some musical tempo to it. You know, it was a “one, two, three, four, pull back,” “one, two, three, four, zoom in,” or “one, two, pull back.” That whole thing. And I would go back and forth. And the other thing I was doing—and I guess this is where I probably got something from Romita, Jr.—is that there are moments in John’s storytelling where, if you go from panel to panel, it’s almost like looking at sequential snapshots, where you go from one panel, there’s a car coming down, and the next panel you see the car hitting another car, but you feel the movement of it. You actually, if you move your eyes back and forth, it almost looks like a— DRAW!: Like animation.

DRAW!: I think that’s great. This point I stress in my teaching storytelling at the college, that everything on the page, every element is for your use—you’re God. On the page, you can create anything, and everything is at your disposal to move your eye around. So

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RG: Yeah. And I started doing some of that, I started learning that. So combining that with musical tempo and pacing and everything else. And then the other thing is I remember Zeck telling me, “Oh, you try to draw your eye from one panel to the next by doing this, doing that.” And I went into overdrive doing that, where that’s all I focused on, where Captain America was leaping from one panel to the next, then would flip around a tree branch, and your eye would kind of go in this semi-circle and zip up and down and then over. So there was this real kinetic energy that your eye would feel just moving through the panels and following the character. I always made sure the point of focus with the character, with Cap, was Cap’s face on each panel, or his body, so you would follow his body through, so you would almost feel like you were running through the pages with him on his adventure.

ABOVE: Pencils for page 14 of Captain America #457.

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acters, that’s his meat and potatoes. He’s really—from the beginning of his career—really excelled at that. And that’s a certain type of storytelling or approach that’s great, but it’s very different from the Buscema or the Kirby kind of thing. You’re reading it very slow, and you look at all the detail. That’s the kind of art that you slow down to absorb everything that’s put into it. So, you were saying when you’re working Marvel style, you would lay out half the book at one time. RG: Yeah, because then I could get the whole sense of movement throughout the book, get the sense of how fast I wanted to tell the story, and where to set up that killer shot which meant something, like Cap jumping in front of the Red Skull, like that issue you actually worked with me on, where he saves the Skull from being shot. [Mike inked Ron’s pencils on Captain America #447] DRAW!: Right, that was fun. RG: That was originally written as a half a panel or something on the page, and I was like, “F that. I’m going to turn that into something good!” And even though I had to do that issue in record time, some of those storytelling dynamics were still there, and that’s a good example of making that spread work. And it’s not just about double-spreads. The thing that started happening over time was people started remembering my moments like that, like the doublespread shot, not realizing what was going on to make those things worth something, all the pacing and the tempo and rhythms I was creating to get to that. People started thinking of me as, “Oh, the guy only wants to do double-spreads.” Well, that’s not true. I enjoy doing the storytelling just as much; it’s just that I like doing the whole thing in concert with each other, without one overpowering the other.

just write panels one to a hundred. [laughs] So I could even retell some of the story a little bit; the words worked with the pictures. But doing it panel for panel, page for page, the way the writer wants it, and they want this last panel to end up on this page, and this panel to begin on the next page... it’s just too restrictive, so I can’t really lay out the whole book. I’ll do a few pages ahead and then go back and work out the details and try to—because it takes a long time to get the heads, the figures in place, left to right, to make sure the balloons are going to read in order. DRAW!: Right, your visual real estate is already sort of carved out for you that way. RG: I can’t do the Ron Garney that I’d like to. The people keep saying, “Oh, Ron Garney, he’s not doing what he can do.” Well, that’s why. Because I don’t have the freedom to do that. I mean, I’m not complaining, I’m still enjoying drawing comics. But let’s face it, it’s a different animal than doing plot. DRAW!: So if you had your druthers, you would rather work from a plot than from a full script. RG: Right. Paul Jenkins was asked about this in an interview once. He’s like, [British accent] “It’s not a pissing contest, but it’s not the artist’s job to pace a story,” and I couldn’t disagree with that more. Tell that to Will Eisner. Of course it’s the artist’s job to pace a story. He’s the director, he’s the one choosing the camera shots and everything else. Unfortunately, I think people are control freaks for their

RG: I do five pages or so, but it’s different, like I said, because I’m not doing plots—it’s full scripts. It’s really just very limiting. Like, on the recent plot, Editor Mike Carlin left me a note that said something like, “Don’t be afraid to make bigger shots.” Because I told him in ABOVE AND RIGHT: Ron’s rough layout the beginning I’d and the printed version of JLA #107 page 13. rather work from a plot. I was able to do it with Byrne on the Hulk a little bit, because Byrne would leave the page count to me, however I wanted to set the pages up, he would 18

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DRAW!: Getting back to the JLA stuff, are you going through and laying half the book out at a time, the same way?

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art. They want the control over it. I get the most enjoyment from telling the story. I’m more old school that way, where a lot of guys nowadays are more artist artists, they want to draw this beautiful, breathtaking illustration. And that’s great, I love that, too, but— DRAW!: But it’s also hard to do that on a monthly schedule. That’s the other thing, you’re doing a monthly comic that means that you probably have, what, three weeks to do an issue? RG: Well, you try. [laughs] You do the best you can, but it’s not that easy.

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DRAW!: Doing the JLA, where you have six, seven characters, as opposed to Cap, where you might have Cap and a couple other people, and they’re fighting a villain, a lot of times you get to do really nice compositions, because you get to concentrate on doing less intricate figure placements that are not hemmed in by the need to have a certain character speak first, etc. You don’t have to fit Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman all reacting to each other. RG: Well, just as an example, working with Kurt’s plots, Kurt is a retro animal. He just wants to put in panels of all these old characters that he’s written before or.... He likes referencing oblique characters that don’t have their own books, like Cyborg Man or what have you. “Oh, let’s reference him in this panel, and the JLA, so the fans can get a kick out of that.” So he puts a lot of characters in. George Pérez is perfectly suited to work with him, but it’s a lot to do on a regular monthly title. This one page I’m working on is... [counts]... 32 characters. DRAW!: [laughs] 32 characters! RG: On one page of comic art. And it’s really difficult, because you’ve got four panels or five panels, and each panel’s got five or six characters, and you’re trying to arrange them all, and put in backgrounds. All these characters, all these heroes, are specific characters with specific costumes and specific powers and locations. It’s a little bit different. DRAW!: Now another thing you’ve done on the JLA is you’ve started really inking yourself for the first time. I mean, you had inked your work a few times before, but you got to ink entire issues yourself. And that must have been a fun thing, but also a challenging learning experience, too, to decide how tightly you want to pencil something before you ink it. RG: And, again, you fall into the thing of having to get it done. I remember seeing Joe Kubert pencil once at Marvel where he was in the offices, he was doing a Punisher story. He just did a couple of circles on a page and then just inked with a brush, and drew it with a brush. I was just so impressed with that. I never could get it out of my head, and just thought about all the time he would be able to save, being able to do that. I had inked covers, but I’d never inked anything of the sheer volume of inking a regular book before. I had never developed any kind of particular technique for it, for the aspect of inking a full book, 22

ABOVE AND LEFT: Ron’s rough layout and the printed version of JLA #107 page 18.

pages a month, every month. I wanted to do it, it’s something I really felt like I needed to do as far as being an artist in this medium, the comics medium, I felt it was something I needed to do. So I did it. And I tried to do the Kubert thing as much as I could. I would do circles, and I was trying to use a brush, and trying to just ink them in. That takes a lot of experience and time and feel to do that. In some ways I was able to pull it off, in other ways not so much. And when I didn’t feel very confident, I would just pencil in more. In a lot of cases I would do a marker comp, a rough first, and then I would blow up the marker comp and trace that off and then just leave all the blacks off, and then just use the marker comp as reference, and go in with a brush and ink in all the areas I needed to ink in. So I didn’t have to fully pencil, if that answers your question. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

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DRAW!: This was all so you could keep it on a monthly schedule, and do full art? RG: I was actually pretty quick with it. And it looks good in spots. Toward the end I was working like some kind of “Bill Sienkiewicz third-generation” thing in areas, because I was having to get it done. I tend to be very kinetic and fast. I’m not a methodical-type penciler. If I’m going to ink myself, I tend to be loose anyway— my pencils tend to be loose and kinetic. So I think, in the ink, I tend to be very fast. I want to scratch stuff in here, and put that energy in that way. And I think, in a weird way, it helped me maintain the schedule easier than having to pencil for another guy to ink it. DRAW!: Then you feel like you’ve got to pencil the stuff super-tight? RG: Yeah, it’s a different thing. Penciling for someone else is different than when I’m penciling for myself. I learned that over time. And I have to do another project where I really become methodical and try to ink only and pencil tightly for myself. That’s something I need to do, as well. But yeah, penciling for somebody else is different, because there’s things you want to get in there, and there’s things you want to control about the way it looks, so you inevitably spend more time penciling. That was always my thought process anyhow is the time I spent penciling, I can just be inking in all those blacks and inking in all that tight rendering. DRAW!: Now, what were you inking with? Technically, what were you using? RG: I started with just a regular WinsorNewton Series 7 #2 brush, I think. I played with a #3. DRAW!: Procedure-wise, were you doing any pen work first, then going in with a brush, or were you were just going right in with a brush? RG: On my first couple issues, I wasn’t doing too much pen work. I was doing a little bit; I was using this black ink pen. I wasn’t doing a 20

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ABOVE AND LEFT: Ron’s rough layout and the printed version of the opening page of JLA #108.

whole lot. I was working in the areas that I wasn’t sure about. DRAW!: You were using a marker? RG: It was a flare-type thing, not one of those Sharpie things, but a black, technical Rapidograph pen. DRAW!: One of those disposable ones, like the Rotring, where you can change out the cartridges? RG: Exactly. And I did use Rapidographs after a while, which nobody believes in. And I would use a Crow Quill here and there, but for the most part, I was going for a specific sort of look. Like, I was really into what Kevin O’Neill was doing. And I’m sure he never used those pens, but just the thinness and crispness of the lines. I think I was using the pens on the small faces and things like that, because I wasn’t really confident about going in with a Crow Quill and things like that. Again, it was a new experience for me. So I kind of did that for the first couple of issues. But I was still pencil-

COMICS ing most of it in brush, and I was also looking at this guy who did the Blacksad comic. I don’t know if you’ve seen it? DRAW!: Yes, he’s an amazing artist. RG: Guarnido. You can see, he just goes in there and draws with a brush, for the most part. He’s just so adept at it. So I was doing a lot of that. I like the loose, organic quality of not ruling buildings and just drawing it in. I’m sure he penciled it in and ruled it in with a pencil, by the time he got to the ink, he was just sort of drawing it in there, and it just left this beautiful, loose quality to everything. DRAW!: Yeah, my little term for that is “casual drafting.” If you draw something, and you rule things, those ruled lines always stand out against the organic lines. That’s what I always loved about guys like Moebius. Even if they ruled stuff, I think they would use the triangle and use the pen against the side so you can kind of warble the line a little bit, so it doesn’t look like everything’s inked like a blueprint. RG: Right. Well, I think sometimes when you rule too much, even though they’re buildings, and even though they’re solid structures or cars or whatever in the real world, I just don’t think they look as good if they’re ruled too tightly. I think it’s too anal and too static. Many old buildings that you see—brownstones or whatever—and sometimes, when you want to achieve that look, it’s better to use a loose, rough, organic quality to it than to rule it all and make every brick perfectly square, because that’s not life, y’know?

RON GARNEY

have to really get on the stick about, get all that stuff to him to look it over and come up and really get that ball rolling. It’s just a matter of sitting down and doing it and having the time. DRAW!: Do you still do a lot of drawing or studying outside of work, like life drawing or other kinds of drawing? RG: I would always encourage anybody to do that, yeah. I’m going to take some courses, in a couple of months, I think, at the local community college, some life drawing and things like that. But even when I wasn’t able to do that, I would still go out and buy life drawing books, like Marbury Brown’s figure drawing book [Bodyworks: A Visual Guide to Drawing the Figure] or things like that. If you’re looking in a bookstore, and that really jazzes you, buy it. And then just teach yourself. You never really have to depend upon going to school, but you really should, because that’s the best hands-on experience you can get. But if you don’t have access to that, you can still teach yourself through books and practice. DRAW!: Oh, definitely. Because even if you go to college, you’re still teaching yourself, it’s still up to you to actually learn. It’s not like The Matrix where they’re just loading it into the back of your head.

DRAW!: So ideally you’d like to pencil and ink your own work? RG: Yeah, well, yeah. Obviously, like anything, it’s a process that I want to get better at. I see inspiration in guys like Guarnido. But, yeah, I’ve always wanted to—I think, in the end, that will be the fullest expression of yourself, whatever comes out from both mediums. It’s kind of like Gary Larson: if somebody else inks Gary Larson, would it really be Gary Larson, y’know? DRAW!: Right. So where do you see yourself in five years? Do you have a long-range plan of what you’d like to do?

FLASH © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

RG: Yeah, I really would like to write and draw my own stuff, even if it’s for another company like DC—write and draw a project. Like Barry Windsor-Smith did, where you have all the control, because I think that’s probably the most gratifying in the long run. I think I’m too cerebral a guy to keep drawing everybody else’s stories. I’m a deeper person, I have things in my head, notebooks filled with ideas, and I’d like to just flesh them out on my own at some point, whether it be with Superman or Batman or Spider-Man or whatever character I could use. DRAW!: Do you have any desire to do something yourself that’s not related to the majors, like your own characters or anything? RG: Nah. My brother Howard and I have come up with ideas, and I do have a character called Rex Ringo and the Robot Wranglers, which is a whole universe of characters that are fleshed out. I talked with Glen Brunswick, who’s doing that book with John Romita, Jr. called The Gray Area, and we may be getting something going for Image with that, although we don’t know yet. But it’s something I

ABOVE: Pencils for page six of JLA: Worlds at War.

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because I needed to concentrate, and I couldn’t be distracted. But as time went on, I was able to multitask, I guess, and was able to concentrate on working and yet have somebody there. I couldn’t even listen to music for a while. DRAW!: Oh, really?

RG: [laughs] Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? DRAW!: Now before we go, I wanted to touch on your studio set up. You work with Howard Porter (currently penciler of The Flash for DC); you two share a studio. You went from having a very social occupation, which was working in a bar or working in a restaurant, to basically having a very anti-social occupation, working alone as an artist. Is that one of the reasons why you share the studio with Howard, so you see some other human being at least once a day? RG: Yes, and I would encourage more people to do it. Well, it depends on you. If you’re the type of guy who likes solitude—I enjoyed the solitude for a bit. But I had become conditioned to being out and around a lot of people, once I got into college, the bar. To literally be by myself was a really tough adjustment. The only person I’d hear from was my editor, and most of the time you didn’t want to hear from them. DRAW!: [laughs] Because that usually meant there was some bad news on the other end of the line or something? RG: “—pages, how are they coming along?” And they’re just doing that mostly for themselves, not really for you. But there’s a lot of unprofessional guys out there who screw editors over, so I can understand why they need to keep their hands on it, especially when they can’t see it being done. I like working in a studio with somebody now. For the first part of my career, I don’t think I could have, 22

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RG: Yeah, because it would just distract me. I couldn’t focus, probably because I’m a fairly emotional guy, and music would get my emotions going, depending on what kind of music it ABOVE AND LEFT: Ron’s rough layout and was. So I’d lose the printed version of the cover for JLA #109. patience. To sit there and draw a comic book requires a lot of patience, and that’s something I hadn’t developed, or wasn’t ready for completely, by the time I started doing it. And you really need to be patient, you really need to be able to think clearly and visualize in order to make the pages work, and anything that was coming into my ears was just a distraction. Or even if the television was on, it was a distraction. So I would have to sit in perfect quiet for the first few years of my career, to get the stuff done without freaking out and being distracted, not being able to concentrate. So I really had to develop an ability to concentrate at the beginning, and then, as time went on, I was able to have to have a movie on in the background, because now the quiet drives me crazy. [laughter] I get left alone with my thoughts too much. Because that’s what happens, you’re able to concentrate on the stuff, and that starts becoming second nature to you. And then other thoughts start creeping in, you start having conversations with yourself and people who aren’t there, y’know? You’re walking around the house with Kleenex boxes on your feet. DRAW!: [laughs] And the only person you ever see is the Fed Ex guy or something? RG: Yeah, and you’re so happy to see him you run down like a dog with a bone in his mouth. You become friendly with those people, and they’re into what you do and stuff, but, yeah, it becomes too isolated, and I started seeing the effects of that over time, that the isolation starts to get to you after a while. And for Howard Porter, it was a much quicker thing. I had been in the business probably six years longer than him. He left comics for a while for that reason, so I’ve been in it a lot longer than him, and it drove him nuts for the five years he was in it doing JLA. He was working at a bank, but came back into comics and he called me up for that reason, because he was scared of going to work at home again, because it was driving him nuts. That’s the

COMICS downside to this business. A lot of people think, “Oh, you work at home, you make your own hours,” blah, blah. Yeah. DRAW!: And you never see the sun, and you don’t go outside for two or three days in a row.... RG: You have to really force yourself to be disciplined. You can’t take time off, you can’t take weekends off. [laughs] DRAW!: I was going to ask you about that. What is your typical day like? Do you really try to nine-to-five it? Do you pace yourself, do you say, “Six o’clock I go to the gym, layout till lunch, twelve o’clock I eat?” Do you try to punch a clock, more or less, even though you can make your own day?

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RG: Yeah. That was the other advantage to having a studio: it forces you to drive to work with the rest of the world, so you don’t feel like some kind of strange guy living like Ted Kaczynski in a cabin in the woods. Drive to work and—Howard was less disciplined about it than I was, he would show up at eleven or twelve sometimes. But I was always driving to the gym, work out at six, seven in the morning to eight or nine, and get to the office and work, and sit there until six or seven at night and work. And that’s what I try to do. And then I have nights free. Usually about six is when I’d work till. But even in the office you have to be disciplined. You watch a movie, or the Internet’s right there and you join a message group and there are

RON GARNEY

8000 people posting messages all at once. [laughter] You’ve got to just turn yourself off from reading all that, because you can really get lost. There’s so many distractions. Comics are something that requires concentration with not many distractions. DRAW!: It’s funny, whenever I would talk to an older guy who’d been in the business, one of the old pros, they pretty much all had that nine-to-five mentality, even though you’re right, you can work at home, and sometimes you do have the freedom if you want to go break for lunch at four o’clock instead of twelve or whatever, you do have the ability to flex your schedule. Most of the old guys, especially guys who had families, really did try to get up early in the morning, work regular nine-to-five hours. And maybe they had to burn the midnight oil at the end of the deadline, but they really seemed to be very, very disciplined about how many pages they would do a day, how many hours they worked. RG: You had to. It’s a business. A lot of the fans don’t get that part of it. They just think you’re the artist who should be producing on a monthly basis. Even though you’re right, you’re mostly an artisan and a craftsman, but still, you have to use all of your passion and your love and your skill and everything else in order to make the craft, to make the art of comics. DRAW!: Right. And it’s hard, because some days it just doesn’t flow, or you’ve got to struggle with it, ABOVE AND LEFT: Ron’s rough layout and or life interrupts art. It the printed version of the cover for JLA #109. is not like going to the Ford plant and putting seats inside a Ford Explorer every day. So what do you draw your inspiration from today? You were mentioning Blacksad. You don’t go to the comics shop often, but you do look at your peers’ work to draw inspiration at times? Do you look at classical comic stuff? When you’re having that day where you’re, “Well, the muse isn’t in the room,” what do you do to get yourself motivated? RG: It depends. Sometimes I like putting on a movie or music. The 13th Warrior soundtrack I’ve found to be good; it’s a good soundtrack to listen to make yourself feel like you’re in an epic frame of mind. DRAW!: So it kind of sets the mood? RG: Whereas before, like I said, I couldn’t do that. But now I’ve learned to use it as a tool to help. I’ve done it so long now that I’m able to work out all those storytelling things ahead of time, so DRAW! • SPRING 2005

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when I actually get down to the nitty-gritty and actually commit to the page and the thumbnail that I’ve worked out—because it takes commitment. You kind of work through a few variations of a theme or idea of a page, but then comes the moment when you actually commit to tightly penciling that page and making it work. And sometimes music can be motivating to listen to, something like The 13th Warrior or whatever. It could be Star Wars, whatever soundtrack that I can listen to. It kind of gets me in the frame of mind to make this little movie that I’m making on a piece of paper. DRAW!: Do you look at any artwork? RG: Yeah. I’m a big fan of Wyeth. I probably have an old soul in me somewhere that would rather paint pictures of cows next to a building with a window and make that mean something, y’know? [laughs] Who knows? I’ll look at that stuff and just be inspired to feel like an artist or be an artist. I have a love for art aside from myself or what I need to motivate me. A lot of times I’ll just come in the studio and I’ll just look at that art and just admire it. Then I’m in a good mood to draw. So that’s all it takes for me. Sometimes the editor calling is motivation enough. DRAW!: [laughs] I guess one of the benefits of working with another artist is, if you’re doubting your process, you can just have Howard look at it, and he’ll go, “Ah, you’re crazy! It looks great!" RG: Yeah. I’m more suspect with some stuff, because I’ve gone through pages at times where I look at it and [laughs] I actually get mad at him for not telling me something. [laughter]

favorites, too. But I haven’t really been reading too much lately. DRAW!: So you don’t go to the comics shop? I guess you just look at what comes in the comp box, or whatever?

RG: Yeah, I very rarely have the time to go and stand around a comics shop. I used to do that just to see my books come out on the stands. I would get a kick to see it on the shelf. I don’t do that anymore. Like I said, when I go to conventions, I’ll pick up European stuff like that book Blacksad when I was in Spain, or I’ll pick up a lot of foreign artists who I enjoy—Moebius’ stuff, whatever he’s done lately. Stuff I’ve grown up reading, a lot of the current stuff, I wait for the comp bundles to come ABOVE: A cover image for Ron’s creatorin, but I haven’t read owned project, Rex Ringo and the Robot too much lately. Wranglers, which he hopes to publish one day.

DRAW!: “Why didn’t you tell me this sucks?” RG: [laughs] Exactly! Because I’m not somebody that’s afraid of criticism at all, any kind of constructive criticism. I mean nobody completely feels comfortable hearing, “That doesn’t look good,” because then you think, “Oh boy, I’ve got to go through this whole process of trying to make it right.” But I would much rather go through that than look at a page later and realize that the thing looks like a piece of crap. And I’ve had to do that; you have to force yourself to give it up, give up the page, even though you don’t like it, in this business. But yeah, there’s times when I’ve looked at a page and then thought to myself, and I’ve even said to him, “Howard, why didn’t you tell me that it didn’t look that good?” Because Howard’s a very passive guy, he’s not somebody who just won’t say anything. But for the most part, he likes my work a lot, and I helped him a lot in his career early on, and helped him learn how to draw better. So I think he looks at my stuff and doesn’t see it the way I do, maybe. DRAW!: Do you read any comics now? Do you follow comics at all? RG: I guess I was reading that Gray Area book that JR did, and sometimes I follow artists. I like JR’s stuff so much. But I find myself so busy drawing all the time that I haven’t had time over the years to really read stuff. Sometimes it’s late coming. I read the JLA/Avengers thing that Busiek and Pérez did because I have to for this stuff I’m working on, so I end up looking at it for reference, then I start getting into the story more, then I’ll actually sit down and read it. So I’ve been reading that the last few days. So I’m kind of a latecomer with a lot of the stuff. But I have my old 24

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

REX RINGO © AND TM 2005 RON GARNEY.

RON GARNEY

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COMIC STRIPS

GRAHAM NOLAN

Making the Leap from the

Funny Books to the

Funny Pages Conducted 2004 by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice

BATMAN, ROBIN © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

rom the Batcave, artist Graham Nolan drew the monthly exploits of the Caped Crusader. When the artist left the Batcave and DC Comics, little did he suspect he’d end up drawing in another cave, this time the Skullcave, inhabited by the long-running, world-wide popular, newspaper strip hero, The Phantom—who incidentally was one of the influences Batman creator Bob Kane drew from when he created the Dark Knight. After initially landing the job of drawing the daily exploits of Rex Morgan, MD—another long-running comic strip—Nolan was offered The Phantom. DRAW! magazine editor Mike Manley—who coincidentally was the artist of Batman at the same time that Nolan was drawing Detective Comics— caught up with Nolan and talked shop with him from his suburban Buffalo, NY, studio. Together they tracked the steps of Nolan’s journey from the comic books to the newspaper comic strips.

DRAW!: I think one of the things that the readers of DRAW! will be interested in, and it’s something that’s sort of unique to what you’re doing, is you followed from comics back into newspaper strips.

DRAW!: So what would you say [are] the main couple of differences, the big differences that you deal with? I imagine it would be something like the fact that a strip is just three or four panels, as opposed to a comic, which is 22 pages.

GRAHAM NOLAN: Right.

GN: The biggest difference that I run into is the constraints. With comic books your storytelling options are almost limitless. You can put as many panels or as few panels on a page as you want. You can do sequential storytelling images much like a storyboard in a comic book page, and have a lot better control of the pace of it. Whereas a comic strip, as you mentioned, on a daily you’ve got three panels to work with, so it’s like your beginning, middle, and end is all right there, for that day. You’ve got to set the readers up, move the plot along, and then give them something interesting, whether it be through action or dialogue, to come back to tomorrow.

DRAW!: And in the old days, it used to be every cartoonist’s dream to actually work in the newspapers, because that was, like, the big game, to have a newspaper strip. And now you’ve done that, you’ve gone from being a successful comic book artist to now becoming a successful comic strip artist, so I think it will be interesting to discuss and explore the main differences that you deal with as an artist working in the different formats, because they are very different. GN: Absolutely.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS

DRAW!: Okay. And, as I noticed from being a fan of many old comic strips, especially the adventure strips, the last panel of today is sort of repeated in the first panel of tomorrow, because, I suppose, a lot of people don’t always have every day’s paper. They might not pick up the paper on Tuesday, so if Little Orphan Annie was about to get sawed in half on Monday, on Wednesday she may still almost be getting ready to be sawed in half. [laughs] GN: Well, I don’t run into that with Rex. The only time we do any recap on the Rex Morgan strip is on Monday—recapping a little of what happened on Sunday—because it’s more often than not that people will get either the dailies or just the Sunday paper. And if they don’t get the Sundays, then you have to kind of recap them on what happened on Sunday. DRAW!: Now, in the case of Rex Morgan, Sunday is not a separate story from the daily strip? GN: That’s correct, yeah. On Rex, the storyline follows along from Saturday. DRAW!: Because I know on a lot of strips they would have a completely separate Sunday story than the weekly story, the daily strip story.

GN: Yes. DRAW!: In the old days it was all drawn by the same artist? GN: Right. DRAW!: So what else would you say is different? Is working with King Features as opposed to, say, working with Marvel or DC, or working Marvel style, where you work from a plot—are you getting full scripts from the writer, or do you have input? GN: Yeah, I get full scripts from the writer, which is not too different from what I’m used to. I did a lot of work at DC, and that was primarily the way they worked, so I’m no stranger to working that way. DRAW!: You have to work much further ahead, what, usually several weeks or months ahead? You have to be pretty far ahead for the syndicate, because if you get sick or break your hand or something, you can’t be right down to the wire, right? GN: Yeah, I think it’s six weeks on the dailies and nine weeks on the Sundays is where they’d like you to be. DRAW!: And what are some of the other differences? I suppose

REX MORGAN © AND TM 2005 NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, INC.

GN: Yeah, and that’s how it is on The Phantom. The Phantom’s daily story is completely different from what happens in the Sunday.

DRAW!: And was drawn by a different artist, or team of artists, right?

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

COMIC STRIPS

GRAHAM NOLAN

REX MORGAN © AND TM 2005 NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, INC.

that the actual physical real estate of the page or the strip is very different from the visual real estate, as I call it, that you’re dealing with in a comic book. Also, in a strip the word balloons are a much bigger percentage of the visual landscape, let’s say, than a comic book.

ABOVE: Rex Morgan daily strip from 08/30/04. LEFT: Rex Morgan Sunday strip from 08/04/02.

GN: Yeah, you pretty much have to design your art around whatever the words are, because you don’t have the luxury of being able to move your balloons around like in a comic book. Especially on Sunday, the way that the artwork is formatted is cut up quite a bit, depending on what newspaper you’re reading it in. This is a good subject to touch on, how the Sundays break down, because you have to break in certain areas to allow the newspapers to cut the strips up and run them either vertically or run them without the logo panel. DRAW!: Oh, right, so that first big panel, that logo panel that says, “The Phantom, created by....” GN: Right. A lot of times it might just be words. They won’t use the panel, they’ll just say in words, “The Phantom created by Lee Falk,” rather than include the artwork panel. In fact, the first three panels of the first tier is called the “drop-off tier.” So, in a humor strip, it almost has to be a little self-contained gag, and can’t be integral to the entire Sunday joke. DRAW!: Yeah, it can’t be the setup for the pitch, for the payoff, right. GN: Exactly. And in a story strip, you can’t advance the plot on the first tier, because a lot of papers won’t see it. DRAW!: Now, I seem to remember that Hal Foster used to use that as a little panel where he’d talk about something from the time of Prince Valiant, like weaponry or things like that. GN: Right, right. Like Dick Tracy, it’s the wrist TV and then the crimestopper thing, because it’s not integral to the story if it doesn’t appear. DRAW!: And what about the actual physical size of the strips? I know I have a lot of old comic strips, myself—I love them and I’m always collecting—and I have strips by Frank Robbins from the ’40s that are huge. GN: The originals? DRAW!: Yeah, the originals are really big—eight inches high, 18 inches in length—but by the ’70s, he was drawing them much smaller—6" x 12" or even smaller. But even within that, from the

’40s to the ’70s, some strips in the ’60s would be a little bit smaller, and then in ’68 they’d be a little bit bigger. He seemed to change size all the time, so I just wondered would he think, “Well, this is the paper I have lying around, so I’ll just make these strips according to the amount of strips I can get out of a sheet?” GN: I have a Frank Robbins daily that isn’t much bigger, other than the horizontal sides, because of the different proportions they run now, but the vertical distance isn’t that much different than what I’m working in right now. And then I’ve got a Jack Kirby Skymasters that’s a lot bigger, and I’ve got a Straight Arrow by John Belfi that is just gigantic! One panel is four or five inches tall! DRAW!: Wow! GN: Yeah! [laughs] It’s amazing the differences. But they’re all proportional, whatever the printed format was at that time. DRAW!: And I guess the actual format, the proportion of the newspapers are probably much different today than they were in the ’50s, when they were probably bigger. GN: Oh, absolutely bigger. They’ve shrunk them down now, which is part of the reason of the death of the story strip. You don’t have that same real estate to work in anymore. Before, when you could do all these great panoramic shots—forget it. You’re lucky if you can get a whole head in there now. DRAW!: So how do you address that? Do you find it kind of crimps you a bit as a visual storyteller, that you’re more handicapped by the more restrictive format of the strip? GN: Definitely. But I don’t like to use the word “handicap,” I like to use more the word “challenge.” The challenge is to make it interesting within those limitations. DRAW!: So you’re a spatially-challenged artist. GN: I’m spatially-challenged! [laughter] One of my many challenges. But, yeah, I try to figure out ways to make it interesting. I move the camera around. That aspect from comic books I took with me, to keep the cinematic camera moving around within the panels. Can’t really have stuff bursting out of a panel. DRAW!: Right, or have word balloons going between panels, like you do in comics all the time. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

COMIC STRIPS

BATMAN, ROBIN © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

GRAHAM NOLAN

ABOVE AND RIGHT: Layout and inks for page 31 of a Batman 80-Page Giant. See page 25 for the pencils.

GN: Right. I can have them go between panels on the dailies, and on certain panels on the Sundays, depending where the break has to fall. DRAW!: Okay. Now, were strips something that you were interested in as a kid? Did you growing up thinking, “Boy, someday I’d like to have my own newspaper strip?” GN: No. No, it’s funny. The generation I grew up in, comic books was the thing. The strips were secondary. And I really didn’t get into the strips and the artists that did them until much later, until I started finding these guys and getting an appreciation for them and learning from them. DRAW!: Now, was this after you were already working in comics? GN: No, I would say part of the growing experience when I was at the Joe Kubert school, learning who some of these artists, these predecessors, were. DRAW!: They kind of taught you students a little bit of the art history, the history of the medium? GN: Yeah, just because a lot of the teachers there at that time were from that era. And then you’d say, “Ah, I just love John Buscema.” “Well, if you love John Buscema, you gotta take a look at Hal Foster. I mean, that’s who influenced him.” “Oh, okay.” So all of a 28

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

sudden I find Hal Foster. I’m like, “Oh, this stuff is great!” And “if you like García-López, well, you’ve got to look at Alex Raymond.” “Oh, Alex Raymond? Who’s that?” And you look at Alex Raymond and you’re like, “Oh, I can see where he’s getting it all now.” That aspect, I always loved to see where the source material comes from, and then you fall in love with that stuff. DRAW!: Well, I found myself that, when I was a teenager, they started reprinting some of the Steve Canyon strips from Kitchen Sink. And I’d always heard of Milton Caniff, but I didn’t really see a lot of examples—because our generation, like you said, didn’t really grow up reading the strips, per se, or at least the adventure stuff. I mean, you might be familiar with Peanuts and things like that. But then I came to discover Caniff, and then the entire school of Caniff, from Frank Robbins, to Lee Elias, Jim Aparo, Kirby, I mean, there’s just so many artists who were very influenced by him. GN: Oh, absolutely. DRAW!: So it seemed like sort of a strange style, in a way, to people who were reared on more of the Neal Adams, the postSilver Age styles—in a way even sort of post-Kirby, because Kirby obviously was very influenced by Caniff, that whole way of spotting blacks and everything. Now, what years were you at the Kubert school?

COMIC STRIPS

GRAHAM NOLAN

GN: I was there in ’81-’82 and ’83-’84. DRAW!: Wow, so you were there four years straight? GN: No, no, I went one year, and then I had to take a year off because I couldn’t afford to go back, and then I went back for one more year. So I was only there two years. DRAW!: Oh, okay. And would you say that a lot of the training you got there really gave you a leg up in any way? GN: Yeah. I would say the advantage of going there was that it opened your eyes to things, to the business aspect of it, what was expected of you, even something as silly as what materials you use, what size format to make your samples. Little things like that. They work your rear end off over there, so if you don’t have the talent going into it, you’re not going to come away with it from going to that school. However, if you have the raw material, they’ll forge it out of you and make you something better than you could have been on your own. DRAW!: Now, you started drawing comics professionally, what, in the early ’80s, then? Early to mid-’80s? GN: Yeah, I think my first sale was ’83 or ’84, to New Talent Showcase. DRAW!: Okay. Which strip did you get first, Rex Morgan or The Phantom? GN: I got Rex first. DRAW!: How did that come about? GN: Well, I’d kind of started moving away from comic books around 1998. I wasn’t really enjoying what the publishers were printing. I had an itch to branch out on my own and do the kind of comics that I wanted to read. So I wrote, illustrated, and published my own comic book called Monster Island. DRAW!: Right. I remember, because I think we saw each other at a convention right around then. GN: Could be. My initial idea was to do Monster Island as a strip. However, I didn’t have any contacts, and I knew the comic book business better than the strip business, so I thought I’d be better off going down that road. So I published it as a comic, then, once it was a comic, I reformatted it into a strip form. In fact, the original strips that I had done are running on the Komikwerks web site right now. MONSTER ISLAND © AND TM 2005 GRAHAM NOLAN.

DRAW!: The Komikwerks.com. [http://komikwerks.com/comic_title.php?ti=83, to be precise] GN: Right. So I took those strips and I submitted them to all the syndicates. And the reactions from all the syndicates were, “We really like it, it’s really nice, but we cannot sell a continuity strip to the newspapers.” They just can’t sell it. So I ended up getting a call from King Features saying basically the same thing, “We can’t sell it. However, we have an opening on one of our established strips and wondered if you would be interested in it.” And that was Rex Morgan. RIGHT: Pencils and inks for page 2 of Graham’s self-published Monster Island.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS

LEFT, BELOW, AND RIGHT: Three consecutive Rex Morgan strips, from 01/13/05 through 01/15/05.

GN: Rex Morgan did appear in the Buffalo Evening News at that time, so I had seen it. But it really wasn’t anything that floated my boat. But I didn’t want to shut the door on it, so I said, “Why don’t you send me some samples of the strip from its heyday?” Because the strip has been around since 1948, I figure there’s got to be a reason for that. So they sent me Marvin Bradley and Frank Edgington samples—the two cartoonists who did it. Nick Dallis wrote it, and Bradley and Edgington drew it, one guy drawing figures, the other guy drawing backgrounds. DRAW!: Oh, interesting. GN: Yeah. A really different way of working. But the art was really sharp. Again, it was a little in that Caniff-y school as far as the way the figures were drawn and shadow placement and all that kind of stuff, but then it dealt with medical issues, and reallife, modern-day problems and things like that. So that kind of piqued my interest, the idea of doing the strip that way. DRAW!: It’s easy for people to forget, too, that when you go back to 1948, hardly anybody had a television. But everybody read the newspapers, and the strips were like the Friends or Seinfeld of the day. GN: That’s right. DRAW!: So this was before Dr. Kildare or whatever— GN: Right, or Ben Casey, or any of that stuff. Yeah. DRAW!: And they would really research this stuff because if you had them say the wrong thing about a person getting an appendectomy, then people would write in and go, “Well, I beg to differ. I just had my appendix out, and the doctor didn’t do that.” 30

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

REX MORGAN © AND TM 2005 NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, INC.

DRAW!: So what did you think? Were you interested in Rex Morgan? Had you ever read Rex Morgan?

GN: The guy who created Rex Morgan was a doctor. DRAW!: Oh, okay. Well, there you go. GN: He’s actually a psychologist, I think, or a psychiatrist, but he had an M.D. So I guess it would be a psychiatrist. [According to Google, it’s “psychiatrist Dr. Nicholas Dallis.”] So he knew of where he wrote. DRAW!: So what was it like in the beginning? What were the things that you had to go through, and what were the processes you had to change in order to go from doing a 22-page comic book to doing a seven-day-a-week strip? GN: Well, some of the process differences were that I was doing everything—penciling it, inking it, lettering it. So it wasn’t just pencils, which is primarily what I was doing in comic books. Although there were projects that I wrote and projects that I fully illustrated in comic books, but this was everything. My style was so radically different than what was being done on the strip up to that point that we got a lot of angry letters from readers. DRAW!: Oh, really? GN: Yeah! I was moving the camera around and using dramatic lighting effects and stuff, and I think a lot of the older readers— and when I say “older,” I mean elderly readers—they didn’t like that, they didn’t like the change, and they got all bent out of shape. And it really blindsided me at first. It hampered me in some ways, because I thought I was going along on the right course, and all of a sudden, bam!, I’m getting these letters from valued readers. And I went, “Uh-oh, I’ve gotta do something different here.”

COMIC STRIPS DRAW!: So the syndicate would be happy to send you along all these letters of, you know, Mrs. Bertha P. McGillicutty from Station City, Iowa, going, “I object to this flamboyant camera angle!” [laughs] GN: Yeah! And mostly what they really objected to was my change of one of the main characters, Rex’s wife, June. I brought her into the 21st Century. [laughs] I mean, she was wearing clothes from the 1950s, everything from a pearl necklace to the June Cleaver dress. So I gave her a more modern hairstyle, I opened up the J.C. Penney catalog and had her wearing real clothes. And the older readers got all bent out of shape. “What did you do to June? You gave her a face-lift! Now she looks like she’s 25 years old!” The whole point is, she’s supposed to be! [laughter] She’s supposed to be, like, 30 years old. She’s a young woman. She’s not supposed to be as old as those readers, even though she’s been around that long. Age, you know? DRAW!: Yeah, exactly. Comic strip characters never age.

GN: She just had a baby, for goodness sakes, so she shouldn’t look like she’s in her 50s. DRAW!: [laughs] No. Or you would be doing strips about the miracle of a 50-year-old woman having a baby.

GRAHAM NOLAN

DRAW!: And there’s an entire different sensibility and a history to the strip that you are beholden to, to some degree. GN: Yeah, exactly. This is a medical strip, a medical soap opera that deals with some very sensitive issues. They want the characters to be believable, and live and breathe in a realistic sense. As funny as that sounds, as realistic as they can get in a three-panel comic strip. DRAW!: So you started out, started working, and you started getting the feedback, you started adjusting what you were doing. And then when did The Phantom come along? GN: Actually, The Phantom came along just a month later. DRAW!: Oh, really? You must have impressed them! GN: Yeah. When they had offered me Rex, I said, “Well, is The Phantom available?” Because that’s what I really wanted to do. They said, “No, the guy’s still doing that.” So that’s the reason I took Rex on, to get my foot in the door and see what happens. And then, not a month later, I got a phone call saying the guy was retiring from the Sundays, and that’s how I ended up with it. DRAW!: So right away you were into a pretty heavy workload.

REX MORGAN © AND TM 2005 NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, INC.

GN: Yeah. I was still doing comic books along with Rex, then. But then, when The Phantom came, it was like, “Oh!” All of a sudden “I don’t have a lot of time to do comic book stuff.” GN: Yeah! I mean, if that’s the case, I mean, the Phantom wouldn’t be able to get on his horse! [laughter] DRAW!: So it was sort of a little bit of a rocky entry, I take it? GN: Yeah, it was an eye-opener. It reminded me that I’m in a different market now. So I had to tone down some of the stylizations in my drawings. Comparing my comic book work to my strip work, the strip work is much more staid, much more traditional in the approach to how I light the characters. Even their poses. I try to do a more naturalistic style. When people are standing around in a comic book, usually their legs are apart, their arms are akimbo, and they’re saying [dramatic voice], “Pass me the sugar!” DRAW!: [laughs] Exactly, right. GN: Everything looks very exaggerated and there’s a lot of dynamic tension to it. At least, that’s how it should look. That’s how they used to look in comic books. But that doesn’t go over in strips, because it’s different readers.

DRAW!: So now, did you go through the same process, the learning process, doing the Phantom? Was there any sort of reaction from the syndicate or the readers to you coming on? GN: The reaction on The Phantom was different in that it was pretty universally liked. Obviously, the Phantom is kind of a heroic figure, so some of the stylings that I would do in comic books translated just fine to The Phantom. He could stand around, arms akimbo, saying, “Pass me the sugar,” and the fans liked that. That’s okay. Rex can’t do that. DRAW!: And there’s also a different discipline, then, between the two strips, because one is a soap opera and one is adventure. GN: Right. Straight adventure, yeah. DRAW!: And do you find there ever is any gnashing of gears going between the two, since you’re working on both at the same time? GN: Not really. No. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS

DRAW!: Well, that’s good. I suppose maybe it would be more if one was a humor strip and one was a realistic strip.

DRAW!: —and then they approve those, and then you go to the ink stage. You just deliver the strip?

GN: Yeah, I would think that that would be a lot harder to switch gears on.

GN: Exactly.

DRAW!: So why don’t you describe for us a little bit your process. What is your work week like?

DRAW!: So you were saying Monday....

GN: Well, all of Monday I work on The Phantom—laying it out, penciling it, inking the borders and word balloons.

GN: Yeah, Monday I get all that done. Hopefully I’ll start doing some inking on it. Then Tuesday I’ll finish that strip, color it, scan it, and send it off to King Features. And then I start laying out the Rex dailies.

DRAW!: Now, how do you get the script? What’s the writer’s name?

DRAW!: Okay, so it’s The Phantom first. Are you coloring it on the computer?

GN: Tony De Paul.

GN: No. The coloring is done the old-fashioned way on The Phantom in that I use Prismacolor markers and I color a Xerox, and then code it.

DRAW!: Okay. And does Tony e-mail you the script or does it come through the syndicate after they edit it? How does that work? GN: Usually it comes through Tony, he’ll e-mail it to me. The syndicates are pretty hands-off. That’s another difference from comic books in that with comic books they like to micromanage you, whereas the strips, once they hire you, they say, “Go do it.” DRAW!: So you don’t have to send them copies of your pencils—

DRAW!: Oh, really? They’re still coding it? GN: Yeah. DRAW!: So they haven’t switched over to just coloring it in the computer yet? GN: Cartoonists that own their creations usually color their own work, but King doesn’t pay me to color it, so—

PHANTOM © AND TM 2005 KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC.

GN: No.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

COMIC STRIPS

GRAHAM NOLAN BOTTOM LEFT AND LEFT: The inked 10/31/04 Phantom Sunday strip along with Graham’s color guide.

PHANTOM © AND TM 2005 KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC.

GN: They’re not doing that. They still sep it on the computer. They fill it in, they do, like, a paint bucket and fill based on what number I gave them. It’s almost like the eye-dropper on Photoshop. They’ll see what number I have, and that corresponds to the number, then they’ll eye-drop it, drop it in, and boom, done. DRAW!: I see. So by Tuesday you’re done with The Phantom? GN: Yeah. Tuesday I’m done with The Phantom. If I’ve finished it, if I’ve got some time left in the day, then I start on the Rex dailies. DRAW!: They pay you to do the guide, but not the actual separation?

DRAW!: And you’re a work-at-home dad; you work at home.

GN: Right.

GN: I have my studio in the house.

DRAW!: I see. So you send your guide to somebody in house, I suppose someplace in Florida?

DRAW!: So what time does your day start?

GN: Yeah, Reed Brennan, who handles all the pagination and stuff for King. DRAW!: So he colors it there, or he has somebody in the office who colors it? GN: Actually, most of the comics that are colored are done right here in Buffalo, at American Color. It’s been that way for years.

GN: My workday starts between nine or ten—after I drop the kids off to school. I get them up in the morning, get their breakfast together. And then I drop them off at school, because school’s only about a mile away. Once I drop them off, I’ll come back, have my coffee, check my e-mail, have breakfast. Maybe sneak a Star Trek episode in—the original, only! [Mike laughs] And then I get down and get to work. DRAW!: And then do you work to dinner time, have family time, and then go back later? Is that it?

DRAW!: So they’re still doing it like they used to do comics, basically, the old screen colored comic books?

GN: Yeah, I usually go back later.

GN: Exactly.

DRAW!: And how late do you usually work ’til?

DRAW!: Where you would color the guide, then you’d write the code in, like this red is 20% blue, 20% red, whatever, to get the Phantom’s color, things like that?

GN: Most of the time I usually work, I would say, close to nine o’clock at night, ten o’clock at night.

GN: Right. DRAW!: Wow, I would have assumed that by now they would have switched everything over and be doing everything on the computer. GN: Well, once American Color gets it, then yeah, that is done on the computer. DRAW!: I see. GN: It’s not like they’re cutting out rubylith or anything like that. DRAW!: They’re not using the old snow opaque or whatever it was, yeah.

DRAW!: So you’re giving it a good, what, ten hours a day, would you say? GN: It’s probably more than that. DRAW!: Yeah. I mean, I’m sure it’s always flexible depending— GN: Yeah, I would say at least ten hours a day. DRAW!: But I guess what I’m sort of getting at is, since you have a strip, and it’s the same amount of physical strips that you have to deliver each week—even though some strips might be more difficult to draw than others, because you might have the Phantom fighting a hundred pirates in the snow. [laughter] DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS REX MORGAN © AND TM 2005 NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, INC.

GN: Right. In the dark. DRAW!: In the snow, in the dark. Do you have a way of sort of pacing yourself so you’re not always crashing and burning at the end of the deadline, and then be kind of like, “Ohhh, I’ve got to drag myself back up?” Because that’s kind of how it is, often in comics. That big push toward the end, then you have that little recovery period. But I would imagine, in a strip, you’ve got to keep going. You’ve got to keep the ball rolling.

GN: Right. Scan them. The dailies just get compressed into an e-mail, but the Sundays go to an FTP. DRAW!: Okay. What’s the resolution you’re scanning the stuff at?

GN: Yeah, that’s pretty much it. You do. You keep moving. You don’t really have that crash. I remember in comics, when I finally finished page 22, packaged it up, and sent it out, maybe the next day I would take off and just chill, recharge the batteries. That doesn’t happen anymore. Not in strips, because the next day, I gotta get going on it, because if I miss a day for whatever reason, vacation, whatever, nice weather, I’ve got to make it up. Whereas if I slow down a little bit, in comics, the inker will pick up some speed here, or the colorist or the letterer or whatever.

GN: 600 dpi.

DRAW!: Now that’s all you.

DRAW!: Yeah.

GN: That’s all me, yeah! [laughs]

GN: I just do a DropStuff and stuff it. So that compresses it.

DRAW!: So from Tuesday to what, Friday, Saturday, you work on Rex?

DRAW!: So no physical strips are actually leaving your house at this time?

GN: Yeah. Tuesday, Wednesday. Well, not all of Tuesday, mostly Wednesday and Thursday I do the dailies.

GN: No, they’re on eBay.

DRAW!: Is that you penciling them or inking them?

DRAW!: [laughs] So it seems like, in that respect, everybody’s sort of now switching over and using FTP and e-mail to save on FedEx and shipping, time.

GN: Penciling, inking, and complete them by Thursday. DRAW!: And then you’re putting the lettering on how? GN: I print it out on the computer, and then I photocopy it onto a sticky film that I cut out and just drop into the word balloon. DRAW!: Okay. Then you take the strips and scan them?

DRAW!: And you send it to them as a bitmap? GN: Yeah. DRAW!: And then they can convert it into a grayscale later on, to save file size when you’re sending stuff, I suppose? GN: When I send it, you mean?

GN: Exactly. Now I don’t have to worry about strips getting lost or damaged. DRAW!: Yeah. Nothing like having a week’s worth of work lost. I remember once, when I was working in the studio with Al Williamson, he helped out John Prentiss, who was still doing Rip Kirby at the time, because a week of strips had gotten lost or something like that. They sent ABOVE AND LEFT: Rex Morgan daily strips from 11/15/04 and 4/1/04. RIGHT: Graham’s layout and finished pencils for a sample Hulk story.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

COMIC STRIPS them to Belgium or wherever. So it was one of those things where you had to hurry up, and suddenly, in the period of a couple days, do up a couple. GN: Yeah.

GRAHAM NOLAN

into comics, doing some comic book stuff on the side. DRAW!: I know I’d seen some of those Hulk pages that you’d done as sort of some new samples of doing comic book stuff.

DRAW!: Yeah, that’s a real horror show. I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore.

GN: Right. And that was a lot of fun to do, because I got to stretch those storytelling and drawing muscles again, that don’t get used in the strips.

GN: The same thing with comics. I lost a double-page Batman spread one time. After it was printed, the artwork return got lost somewhere along the way.

DRAW!: And I know when we were talking before, when we were setting up to do this interview, you were talking about you wanting to do more Monster Island.

DRAW!: Yeah, I lost a whole issue of Shazam! that I worked on, that Dick Giordano inked. The whole issue went missing after it was printed.

GN: Yeah. My intent with Monster Island was to do other selfcontained storylines. Return to Monster Island, Escape from Monster Island, that kind of stuff. I’m writing Return to Monster Island right now, but I’m taking my time on it, because I want it to be right. There’s no point in rushing it and having myself say, “Oh, why didn’t I do this in the storyline? Why don’t I move this plot thread through here?” I want to get it right, so I’m just taking my time and making sure I do exactly what I want to on it.

DRAW!: Yeah. DC paid me a kill fee, which is fine, but I would still prefer to have the original art than a kill fee. So where do you see yourself going with the strips? Is this as long as they’ll have you, basically? GN: I guess. I don’t know. I tend to get a little itchy after a while doing the same thing, and I need to switch things up, change things up. So right now I’m thinking about getting back

DRAW!: And you also don’t write The Phantom strip, right? GN: Yeah, Tony De Paul writes that. DRAW!: So you’re the tag-team on both strips, then?

HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

GN: Really? My Batman spread was inked by Dick as well.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS GN: No, no. Woody Wilson writes Rex Morgan. Tony writes The Phantom—he writes the dailies and the Sundays. DRAW!: So now you would publish Monster Island again, yourself, or would you try to seek out another publisher? GN: I don’t know. I’m really interested in the web, because I really think that that’s where the future lies for people to create and own their own stuff. So I’m exploring that avenue, too. DRAW!: Yeah, I know, you and I have both talked about that before. And you are already sort of doing it with the komikwerks thing, by having them run.... GN: Right. I let them run it because it’s that Kubert Month, so it’s to honor Joe, but also to kind of test the waters. DRAW!: Are you getting any kind of feedback from anybody looking at the strips, or new readers, people that didn’t see it? GN: No. They don’t have anything set up on that website for those Kubert Month strips, it’s not like there’s a folder for comments. DRAW!: Oh, okay. I just kind of wondered, because one of the great things about the internet is that you can get such immediate and direct feedback from people. GN: Right. I’m hoping that a lot of people will come to that site and see it.

TOOLS DRAW!: Now, what about your tools, your techiques and setup there? What are you working on, are you a Mac or a PC guy? GN: I’m a Mac guy. DRAW!: Good. [laughter] GN: ITunes going right now! DRAW!: Yeah, I had my iTunes going today and last night, too, when I was working. And you’re wireless now, right? GN: Yeah. DRAW!: Okay, yeah, I just got wireless as well.

HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

GN: Well, as wireless as you can get. I mean, you’ve still got to have your power cord plugged in, and for a scanner, you can’t really wirelessly scan anything. You’ve got to be right next to the scanner. [laughs] DRAW!: Yeah. I can wirelessly print, but I can’t wirelessly scan. GN: Are you bluetoothing? DRAW!: Yeah, my brother set it up to where we could—although I was still having a bit of an issue. It seemed like it didn’t want to do both. If you were printing wireless, then it didn’t want to print from the computer. So I don’t know, there might be some issues with that. But, still, this stuff is still, in a way, if you think about it, just in its infancy. I’m sure in ten years, probably everything will be wireless. Then we won’t have to worry 36

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

COMIC STRIPS

GRAHAM NOLAN

LEFT AND RIGHT: More of Graham’s recemt Hulk sample pages.

about having all those wires. I just hate that, all the wires sticking out of the back of your computer. It just gets on my nerves after a while. It’s like having a big jumble of spaghetti back there. [Graham laughs] What kind of scanner do you have? GN: I got the same one you have, because I bought it through your guy. HULK © AND TM 2005 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

DRAW!: Oh, okay. The Microtec? GN: Microtec, yes. DRAW!: Do you have the 9600XL? GN: I got the big one, the one that does the 18" x 12". DRAW!: Okay. Because I think there was a model right after the one that I have. By the time you and Bret Blevins bought the same one, it was the next generation, probably. Do you use the Wacom at all, the Wacom tablet? GN: No, I don’t have one of those and I’ve never used one. I hear a lot of great things about it. Again, that’s something in the future to explore. DRAW!: And you’re working on two-ply Bristol? You’re still drawing the strips in a traditional way? GN: Yeah. It’s still hand-drawn with ink and markers. DRAW!: Now, are you using a Winsor-Newton #3 brush? GN: Let’s see. I kind of go the Jim Aparo/Frank Robbins route, where I take a Crow Quill and I do all the small hands, small faces, eyes, that kind of stuff, with that pen, because it gives me more control, and it keeps the hands from getting too rubbery-looking. And faces, too, can get rubbery if you’re not careful. So I use that for the small faces and hands, then I use a Winsor-Newton series 7 #2 to lay in my thicker lines, my thicks and thins, that type of stuff. Then all my straight-edge stuff, I use the Pitt artist pens, so I use my straight edge for that. Sometimes I use a Crow Quill if I want a fine line, because a Pitt doesn’t make a small enough line. So I rule all my straight lines with those, and then sometimes I’ll fill in the blacks with the Pitt brush pen, rather than to have to keep dipping and stuff. So if I’m in that mode, where I’m filling in blacks and stuff, I can take my work up with me and sit with the family, watch some TV or what have you, and I’ll use my Pitt brush pen and just plow through all those blacks that gotta get laid in. DRAW!: A lot of guys are doing that now. Some people even fill the blacks, after they scan it in, they can fill it in Photoshop—just paint bucket it. So you would say that your working method is pretty much the same as it was when you were doing comics, for the most part? GN: Yeah, pretty much. I use the same tools. DRAW!: What kind of ink are you using?

GN: I use the Black Magic. It’s not great for filling in your blacks; that’s why the Pitt pen is really nice, because it gets that really thick, dark black look. DRAW!: Now, do you leave your ink bottle open and let it thicken up? Do you have separate ink for pen and brush? I have two. I have the bottle for filling my blacks, which I always leave open, and as it evaporates, it gets thicker. And then I have that other little jar for my pen ink, which is always fresh ink, because you can’t have that goopy ink on your pen or it won’t flow. GN: Yeah, it won’t flow at all. Or on your brush, either. DRAW!: That’s true. So do you have two separate, or do you just use one bottle? GN: I have a couple bottles of the thick stuff, but a lot of times, for speed’s sake, I don’t like to take one, put one down, put the other one in, I’ll just fill the blacks with whatever I have. DRAW!: And what about the whiteout? DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS

GN: Whiteout, I use ProWhite. DRAW!: Do you ever use a razor or anything? GN: Yeah. If I’m doing a rain effect, a speed effect, that has a lot of blacks, I’ll just drag a single-edged razor through it and get that nice, lifted white look. DRAW!: Yeah, it kind of skips across and chips out little pieces of the paper. GN: Yeah.

SUPERMAN © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

DRAW!: I still remember the first time I saw that on a page of art. I used to wonder how guys got that effect. That’s another thing I picked up from Al Williamson, and I remember John Romita used to do it. A lot of guys would do that. And I used to think that they used to take the whiteout and make those little marks. And then one day, I forget what he was inking, but Al was, like [tearing sounds], and I was thinking, “What the hell’s he doing to his page there?” And I went over to see, and saw him using a razor blade at an angle. “Oh, that’s how he did it.” GN: Yeah. You can get them nice and straight, too. You just take a steel ruler and then drop the razor down, dull edge against the steel ruler and just drag it straight down and get a really nice, straight line. DRAW!: It’s funny, because all those old strip guys had all these great different techniques for doing stuff. I know Stan Drake used to do a sort of cheat to save drawing time, where you would take a Xerox of a photo of a city, and then high-contrast it, and then stick it right down, “There’s your city!” Have you done that yet? GN: Yeah, I did that, I sure did. DRAW!: [laughs] And guys like Wally Wood used to even do that with cars. He would find a car ad in a newspaper, a lot of times they would have a line drawing of that car and he would just Xerox it and stick it down, “There’s your car!” Anything to save time, I guess. GN: Yeah, exactly.

INSPIRATION DRAW!: Now, what inspires you today? Do you still follow comics much, comic books? GN: I haven’t really been following comic books. A lot of the stuff is really ugly-looking in comic books. I don’t see a lot of fun, a lot of energy, in the drawings. They’re either photo-realistic, guys with wrinkles in their super-hero suits. I don’t see the heroes doing heroic things and exciting things; I see them standing around and talking and lamenting a lot. But there are some guys out there whose work I’ve seen that I really do like a lot. John Romita, Jr.’s stuff is fantastic. I like Lee Weeks’ stuff a lot. Steve Epting’s stuff is looking really nice. Ron Garney’s stuff, real solid. Alan Davis, also nice. DRAW!: Are you part of the National Cartoonists Society since you’re doing a strip? 38

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GN: Yeah. Yeah, I joined—I mean, you don’t have to be a strip artist. Comic book guys can join it, too. I just never did join it until I became a strip guy. DRAW!: And do you go to any of the functions, and do you follow, since you’re sort of in the newspaper strip industry, do you follow that industry at all? Do you follow strips? GN: Yeah, I try to keep abreast of what’s happening in that business. And the business end of comic books I’m still very much involved in. I read the daily posts at the various websites about what’s going on, what the sales numbers are, all that, and try to keep my nose in that, too. DRAW!: So have you gone to any of the National Cartoonists Society functions? GN: Yeah, my first year I went to the Reuben Awards. That’s the big one that they have. It’s a black tie affair that lasts, like, four days. The one I went to was in Boca Raton in 2001. I haven’t been back to a Reuben yet, because it’s quite expensive to go to these things. DRAW!: You’ve gotta be the guy that draws Beetle Bailey to afford to go. [laughs]

COMIC STRIPS

GRAHAM NOLAN

SUPERMAN © AND TM 2005 DC COMICS.

LEFT: Layout and inks for a page from Superman: Odyssey.

DRAW!: I have a few golf balls, and I will occasionally have an adult beverage, but I don’t smoke. GN: Yeah, I’m not a smoker, either. I’m strictly a beer and wine man. So I don’t know how I would fit in. DRAW!: How is that, as opposed to going to a comic book convention, where you’ve got a guy wearing a cape bringing you all the issues of Batman or Detective that you drew? It must be sort of a different thing, because, basically, there are no fans, it’s all professionals. GN: It is. I guess it would be like Pro Con, I suppose. Although I’ve never been to Pro Con, but that’s what it sounds like it would be. DRAW!: Do they have seminars, how to do this or that? GN: Yeah. But the whole awards ceremony is kind of clique-ish. A lot of stuff is who you know, are you in, are you out. There’s a certain kind of conceit there by the strip guys, which I find a little bit funny. In fact, Will Eisner presented the Reuben Award for comic books the year I went. The house band would play a musical theme for each award category... and what do you think it was for comic books? DRAW!: Oh, [sings the Batman TV show theme]. GN: Yeah, it was the Batman TV show. So you can’t get around that same stereotype. There was some snickering and giggles from some of the cartoonists, and Eisner got up and kind of reprimanded everybody. “You know, some of the best art around is being done in comic books these days.” [makes disgruntled noises] DRAW!: “Harumph!” GN: Yeah, “Harumph! Harumph!”

GN: Pretty much, those are the guys that run the show. DRAW!: It’s the millionaires club! [laughter] GN: Yeah! Oh, yeah, you should see them. It looks like—butlers waiting on them and all this. It’s the old school of cartoonists that you hear so much about. But they’re all humor guys now, whereas, back in the day, you had Frank Robbins and Roy Crane and Raymond. Stan Drake, a bottle of scotch next to his table. [laughter] DRAW!: “And keep it coming!” GN: And there was a cigarette burning in the tray! DRAW!: I know, it’s funny, you see all these old photos of cartoonists, and it seems they all drank, played golf, and smoked. GN: Yeah, exactly.

DRAW!: [laughs] Well, I guess if there’s anybody who could berate that crowd, it would be Eisner. GN: Yeah, and I was very happy to see him do that, because he toiled away in that business for so long. DRAW!: So where do you see yourself in five years? GN: Hard to say. DRAW!: Still doing strips, maybe? GN: Yeah, possibly. It depends. DRAW!: And I guess the other thing, too, how does this pay compared to the same amount of effort in comics? If you were to draw 22 pages worth of The Phantom, as opposed to 22 pages of Detective? Is the pay commensurate? Higher, lower, same ballpark? DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GN: You know, in the strips, the pay is based solely on how many newspapers you’re in. Whereas if, say, Frank Miller took over Metamorpho, he’s going to get paid for his Frank Miller rate regardless of whether he’s drawing Metamorpho or he’s drawing Dark Knight III. Whereas in strips, it depends on how many papers that strip is in. The two strips that I do still have a good client list, so the pay comes out to be commensurate with comic books. Now, the downside is there’s no backend money, there’s no royalties. So when my stuff is reprinted, I don’t see anything for that.

COMIC STRIPS PHANTOM © AND TM 2005 KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC.

GRAHAM NOLAN

ABOVE AND RIGHT: From layout to pencils to inks—a Sunday Phantom strip comes together in just two days!

DRAW!: Oh, really? I guess in the case, if you had originated the strip, you would share 50/50 with the syndicate. GN: Correct. DRAW!: So Charles Schulz was always seeing money from all those Peanuts reprints or greeting cards or whatever. GN: Oh, yeah. I mean, Jim Davis, that guy is a millionaire. He’s always on Forbes’ list of richest people. Schulz was, certainly. DRAW!: Now, do the syndicates ever solicit you for new ideas? GN: No. I mean, the door’s open if I have stuff, because I did submit some other adventure/humor style stuff, more in the line of a Captain Easy kind of adventure for a modern audience, but there’s just no interest in that. There’s no interest whatsoever in launching any new continuity strips. DRAW!: So they’re basically all humor strips, and they’re basically all joke-of-the-day kind of things? GN: Yup! DRAW!: With very little continuity between strips for the week? Although there was some of that in Calvin and Hobbes. So they basically want humor strips today. GN: That’s right. DRAW!: And mostly they seem to be very joke-of-the-day stuff. I will follow the strips, not in any regularity, but one of the 40

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

things most cartoonists do is, you probably think, “Oh, maybe one day I’d have a comic strip.” GN: Sure. DRAW!: It could be one of the things that you could do. Every once in a while I’ll go and I’ll read a whole bunch of the strips, and I’ll think, “God, this is so depressing.” Some of the writing is just so mundane and horrible. I’m thinking, “Who would want to read that every day?” I think a lot of the craft, a lot of the drawing you see, guys that are so clearly trying to ape Bill Watterson or the guy that’s doing Mutts, Patrick McDonnell, there’s a lot of people aping that style now. GN: Yeah, and McDonnell’s stuff is kind of aping the George Herriman stuff. DRAW!: Right, but I really like Mutts, but there’s so few good new strips. I look at them and I go, “Who would draw that every day?” [Graham laughs] GN: Right. And it’s not sitting there next to Walt Kelly or Roy Crane or anything else.

FRANK ROBBINS AND ROY CRANE DRAW!: Do you study a lot of the old strips, yourself? Do you study that stuff, at all, for inspiration? GN: Oh yeah, yeah. If ever I’m in a jam as to how to lay out a complicated scene, I’ll open up some Johnny Hazard stuff and see how Frank Robbins would do it.

PHANTOM © AND TM 2005 KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC.

COMIC STRIPS GRAHAM NOLAN

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

GRAHAM NOLAN

COMIC STRIPS

DRAW!: Yeah, it doesn’t look like Frank Robbins ever had an artist’s block, that’s for sure. GN: No, no. And that’s the thing, he probably did, but he just doesn’t look it. He makes it look so damn easy. DRAW!: And I guess, in the end, that’s the beauty of it. It should always look like it’s easy. GN: Right, right. It never looks like he second-guesses himself, either. DRAW!: No. I’m such a huge fan of his stuff. I’ve spent a lot of money over the last several years buying his strips, and it’s amazing to watch an artist like that, whose work, when he started out on Scorchy Smith, following [Noel] Sickles, he was very much in the Caniff school, but I think he really went his own way. And his style continued to evolve, and even at the end of the strip in ’77, when the strip ended, he was doing some really amazing, quick, loose drawing, that just had so much life and energy. He wasn’t hacking it at the end. Because a lot of old guys, when they get to the end, the ghost comes in—and, as far as I’m aware of, I don’t think Robbins ever had a ghost. GN: I don’t think so. DRAW!: And I have a lot of reprints of his stuff; I’ve never seen a ghost. So he’s one of the few guys that—it would probably be pretty hard to be Frank Robbins’ ghost, I suppose.

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GN: Y’know, Frank Robbins is one of those guys that, when I first came across him, it was through comic books, the stuff he was doing at Marvel. Or, actually, I came across some of his Detective work, too, when he was working at DC. DRAW!: Oh, yeah, and I loved that stuff. GN: At the time, I did not. “Look at the weird Batman pose, or, that funky little point-the-toe stuff on Captain America.” But, you know, Frank Robbins wasn’t a super-hero artist, that was not his forte. I liked his Invaders stuff because he drew really great Nazis and World War II equipment and all that. But what I didn’t know at the time was all the years he had put in on Hazard. And then, when I came across that stuff, I was like, “Holy cow! This guy’s a genius!” DRAW!: Yeah, I remember seeing his stuff when I was first buying, actually, when I was first actually buying new Marvel comics. He was the guy that was on Captain America, and I was just so excited to buy new Marvel comics that I just kind of read it along with everything else. And I guess I always kind of liked his stuff. I didn’t like it like I liked Neal Adams, but I didn’t hate it. And then it wasn’t until years later that I discovered Johnny Hazard, and it was a real revelation to find that material. Then you go, “Oh, that’s where this guy came from!” GN: Yeah, exactly! The way he draws cars and planes, oh! DRAW!: Yeah, I always use him as a good example for artists, especially younger artists, to study, because whether you like the way he styles the form or whatever, he has so many great solutions for laying out something, taking something that’s mundane and making it interesting, the spotting of the blacks, textures, things like that. GN: And I would say that Frank Robbins and Roy Crane are my favorite strip cartoonists of all time. DRAW!: Oh, really? Well, that’s great. I know Frank Robbins is certainly one of my favorites, and I like Roy Crane’s stuff, too. And it’s sort of unfortunate, in a way, that today a lot of great cartoonists like them are forgotten, to an extent. GN: Absolutely. DRAW!: So if people are willing to do a little effort, it’s actually not that hard to find these guy’s stuff now, because, unlike when I was a teenager and, say, you found out about Frank Robbins or Milton Caniff, you might see one or two examples in a book on cartooning. Now they have all those great reprints and collections. GN: I wish they had more Crane stuff, to be honest. Not a lot of his stuff in collections. DRAW!: No, and I’ve never seen very many of his originals, either, so I don’t know.... GN: I’ve got one of his originals on my wall in my studio.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

LETTERING

TODD KLEIN

Letterers on

lettering by Todd Klein

rom 1995 to 2000 I hosted a monthly online chat room for letterers. The topics were wide-ranging, but occasionally we did actually talk about lettering, oddly enough. Recently Mike Manley asked me if I had any letterer interviews that he might be able to use in DRAW!, and I thought of putting together a few excerpts from those chats. These focus mainly on hand lettering—we talked about computer lettering quite a bit, too, but much of those discussions are now irrelevant or outdated due to the ever-changing world of computer hardware and software.

PHOTO BY SOPHIA QUACH

TODD KLEIN: Steve, did you get started in the Marvel bullpen? STEVE DUTRO: That’s right… two years on staff doing corrections and cover copy.

Steve Dutro came out of The Kubert School, then worked in the Marvel Bullpen in the 1990s, freelancing for companies such as Dark Horse as well as Marvel.

TK: I think Novak meant a sharpening stone. John Costanza could make a point in a few minutes. I would struggle for an hour, and throw it away. So I went back to technical pens for the regular lettering.

TK: Did you work with anyone in particular for lettering training?

SD: Tech pens are faster, but you can’t achieve the chiseled look.

SD: There’s not any real training going on any more. There’s too much work to do.

SD: I could never get a C-6 to behave the way I wanted it to.

TK: So you just picked it up as you went along? SD: Sometimes Mike Higgins would give me some pointers. I heard about people training under Jim Novak or Mike Heisler, but I never got that. TK: You have the thick-thin line down, which I never could get very well. Do you file down an FB-6 Speedball point? SD: At Marvel, everyone uses a Hunt 107 point, which is nonflexible. It has a very fine point. TK: That has a chisel tip already? SD: No, it needs to be filed, preferably to match the angle of your desk. TK: Jim Novak likes to talk about the “Gaspar Stone,” for creating the perfect chisel point, referring to Gaspar Saladino, a letterer we all admire. SD: I’ve never heard of the object. I use sandpaper.

TK: I now use a Speedball C-6 for calligraphic stuff.

TK: Maybe it’s because I’m left-handed, but it works for me. Did you get any on-staff lettering training, Chris? CHRIS ELIOPOULOS: Yeah… Ken Lopez and Mike Heisler taught me. Chris Eliopoulos is another graduate TK: What of the Marvel Bullpen, doing lots of was your work for them, as well as for DC and first printed WildStorm. He is also the creator, job (that writer and artist of his own feature you’ll admit Desperate Times. He is currently overto)? seeing lettering on many Marvel titles. CE: I did a 12-page Punisher story with Mark Texeira, working on staff at Marvel… 1990 or ’91 maybe. How ’bout you, Todd? TK: First printed was, I think, a Dave Manak humor piece for Sick magazine in 1977, a Star Wars parody. CE: ’77? You old man, you! TK: What pen point do you prefer, Chris? CE: I use a Hunt 107, filed down. So do Mike Heisler, Bill Oakley, Ken Lopez, Jim Novak, Phil Felix… and countless others. We call ourselves the “Magnificent 107s.” DRAW! • SPRING 2005

TODD KLEIN

LETTERING

TK: Hahaha! The Marvel point. Have to try that someday. CE: What do you use, Todd? TK: Castell TG1 technical pens. Sizes 2 and 2.5 (for bolds) mostly. Also 0 and 4 at times, and Speedball C-6, with Speedball B-5, B-4, B-3 for larger letters. CE: I file down a Hunt 107 even more for bolds. So, you’re all over the place with pens, just don’t matter? TK: Regular lettering is the first two almost always. I keep both tech pens in hand and switch back and forth. CE: You’re a lefty, right? How do you do that? Work backwards? TK: Sometimes. Usually I skip around on the page to allow areas to dry. I still put my hand in wet lettering occasionally. CE: How do you structure your day? Do you work a normal schedule? TK: I work from about 6:30 AM to 4 PM most weekdays, will do more in the evening if I have to. With breaks, of course. Weekends I often put in four to six hours in the morning, do other things in the afternoon. CE: It always seems that there’s a rush job every week… can’t catch up. I’m always afraid there won’t be any more if I turn away work. TK: Editors will usually respect you if you know your own limits enough to say no. Don’t sweat it. Rich, what letterers influenced you?

RICHARD STARKINGS: One of the best letterers of all time is Steve Craddock. Look for his work on “Captain Britain” reprints. Ben Oda was a much bigger influence on me than Gaspar Saladino, incidentally. Richard Starkings is the President and First Tiger of the Comicraft lettering studio he founded with John “JG” Roshell in 1992. His work has been seen in 2000AD and many Image, Marvel and DC titles, including Batman, Catwoman: When in Rome, Generation X and his own book, Hip Flask.

TK: I saw a lot of Ben’s work when I was on staff at DC (1977-87), and I liked it, but in the end it went downhill. He worked way too hard. And I have to say I don’t see a lot of Oda in your work, Rich. RS: I took Oda’s crispness rather than his style. Tom Frame was also unique, and there’s Bill Nuttall, who gave me my first break. He lettered “Rogue Trooper.” TK: I’ve seen some of those, will check out the others. ABOVE: Sharpening stone and Hunt 107 points. LEFT: Various dip pen and tech pen points. RIGHT: Steve Craddock lettering on “Phoebe Zeitgeist.”

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

LETTERING RS: The British guys use the Rapidograph or technical pen over the dip-pens. That’s the major reason they all look similar. Of the newer ones, I trained half of them and the ones I don’t know were trained by them. TK: But John Workman, who got me started, uses tech pens, and his work doesn’t look like theirs. I think it’s more what you’re exposed to than the tool. RS: Workman has such a slick style it overpowers the tool. His work on Thor is some of his best ever. TK: One letterer I think is under appreciated now is Bill Oakley. RS: Bill is, I think, the best of the more recent Marvel Bullpen bunch. When Bill improves his fonts and builds up his title font library, I’ll be watching my back. TK: Tom Orzechowski on X-Men is pretty hard to beat.

TK: Yes, I noticed him there first, but have you looked back at it lately? It’s very different from his style now.

TK: Sorry, my memory isn’t that good. You? RS: I liked Orz’s “Infinity Effect” in Warlock, and all that stuff he did on “Metamorphosis Odyssey.” TK: One thing that impressed me in the late ’70s or early ’80s

was a Marvel pin-up book with Jim Novak logos for each character—all different, all terrific. RS: Novak created or perhaps cemented the block style. It was jarring when he took over Dreadstar from Orz. TK: Orz’s work was a labor of love, which always shows. RS: It would be neat if all the letterers pulled out the stuff that inspired them and we could put together a reference guide.

Ken Bruzenak: You know, I still enjoy just working on pencilled art. Kind of archaic these days. Ken Bruzenak came to prominence working with Howard Chaykin TK: Me too, Ken, and I do on American Flagg in the 1970s. He that on some books. has worked on many titles with Howard and others, such as Azrael for Willie Schubert: I find DC, and is currently lettering Powers myself doing more by for Marvel’s Icon imprint. hand these days than ever.

RS: Orz began to shine on Warlock.

RS: Any particular title page you remember as inspiring, Todd?

TODD KLEIN

Willie Schubert began working for First Comics in 1984, and continued lettering for a variety of companies, including DC, where he worked on various Batman comics and Terminal City, among others. He is currently working for Gemstone as well. Susie Lee: Any tips for someone developing their hand lettering? TK: Practice. That’s all you need to do. And use the pointy end…!

WS: It sometimes helps to mimic (or even trace) a style you like to get a sense of its rhythm. TK: Good point, Willie—I learned a lot from doing corrections on other people’s lettering. KB: My style just evolved as I worked. It’s not the Costanza look I want, but it sells. WS: What is it about Costanza’s style you aim for? KB: John’s hand lettering is very fluid, warm and readable. I’m more spiky and angular. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

TODD KLEIN

LETTERING LEFT: Bill Oakley lettering on Action Comics #690. RIGHT: Tom Orzechowski lettering on X-Men #126.

TK: Gee, I always have to remove Brit spelling from scripts by Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, etc. TO: From there, I did six-page stories for the black-and-white monster magazines, over young Doug Moench, young Claremont, Gerber, McGregor, and like that. TK: Good training, those shorts. I did a lot of short horror and war and Superman Family stories at first. TO: Knowing Buckler and Starlin from the fanzine days got me over to the color books before I was very good. TK: Starlin was where I first noticed you. ©2005 DC COMICS

TK: Costanza has a wonderful way with round shapes that’s hard to beat. Draws terrific balloon ovals by hand, too. KB: I think John also does very creative handcrafted sound effects. And I like his work on Casper as an artist, too. TK: Yes, he’s great at hand-drawn sound effects. It’s his funnyanimal sensibility and drawing talent, I think. WS: Ken, do you push yourself to back off on the angular look? Or is it in the rhythm of your hand? KB: I do try to fight that spiky look, but my hand has a mind of its own. Also, it’s hard to judge when printing processes vary from page to page. WS: I found my style also changed when I had to change pens. I often feel my work doesn’t print well. TK: We all feel that way, I think, because we know what was supposed to be there. Where did your lettering career get started, Tom? Tom Orzechowski: My earliest work was in January of ’73, retouching the earliest Lee and Kirby hero books for British release. Tom Orzechowski has been one of the top lettering stylists since the early 1970s, gaining notice on Jim Starlin projects such as Warlock, and continuing with a long run on various X-Men titles as well as on Image Comics’ Spawn. He has also worked recently on the Dark Horse manga Ghost in the Shell II, and on DC’s Harley & Ivy.

TO: The oddest thing was doing new, splashy titles for the ’50s suspense stories. Mine were nowhere near as good as the ones done in the first place. I started looking at Ben Oda and Costanza a lot right then. TK: On staff I used to do those for text stories—remember those? TO: Where did those text stories appear? In the 25-cent Strange Adventures type reprint books? TK: No, in the mystery/horror books, instead of letter columns— weren’t enough letters. TO: Hah! Isabella, McGregor and Gerber, the young editors, made ’em up sometimes, even into the early ’70s. TK: I loved Gaspar from the start, and also liked John Workman a lot, and Costanza. I really liked Workman on Marshall Rogers’ Detective Comics stories—remember noticing it before I worked with him at DC. TO: John looked just right on top of Marshall. A looser look, like Costanza, would’ve been wrong. John was just a little stiff then… and look where he is now! Loosest guy around. TK: Did you work with Irv Watanabe? TO: Danny Crespi, the late great, had pity on poor me. I never met the freelance guys, though I can see that Irv influenced me. I met Joe Rosen at his home once for a minute or two, picking up a job. He didn’t seem to want to chat. TK: So you were you on staff for a while, or always freelance? TO: I was on staff for three months, at which time everyone agreed that I should stay home and work there. Office work, instant deadlines, were driving me buggy!

TK: Did you have to do Brit spelling?

TK: Tell me about it. I don’t know how I lasted ten years.

TO: Yes! That experience with Brit spelling made me the ideal guy to work with Chris Claremont, who peppered his scripts with them. I knew more of them than the editors.

TO: Currently I’m re-learning to hone the nibs for my lettering pen. Been using Rapidograph #1 for a year or so. Rapidos are okay in a pinch, but I miss the flexibility.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

LETTERING

TODD KLEIN vellum on an oversize job… the vel is smaller than the art. Production will have to do something with it after I’m done. TK: Yes, that could be a pain for them. But, they may just copy and paste on a larger sheet. TO: I’m so productiondepartment impaired… guess I’ll use the full 17" x 22", or cut it down. TK: I mainly use vellum for logo sketches these days, not too often for page lettering.

TO: When it comes to logos I can always come up with three comps… first impression, polar opposite, and a middle ground… the problem is settling on something clever that I’m interested in developing. TK: Tom, I often like my first take best, but label it “version 3.” TK: Interesting, Tom. I finally found a source for my beloved Faber-Castell tech pens—a shop in Denmark. I ordered a lot, and am ordering more. I want to lay in a lifetime supply. TO: Smart. I found that my fave white-out (Re-White) has been bought by a British firm, and is no longer being made! Formerly Steig Products, in Camden NJ. TK: The longer you work, the more such problems occur. I went through quite a struggle to find a new ink, and have recently found the vellum I’ve been using is discontinued. Do you use a sharpening stone for your pen nibs? TO: Yes. I bought a pinky-finger size Arkansas stone in Manhattan about 20 years ago. I’ve started a second job for Shelly Roeberg, and did two pages on that DC vellum you liked so well. I just can’t get used to it. I prefer more rag in my vel. TK: I recently went back to DC vellum for one oversized job, and found I still like it pretty well, but I’ve been using Canson Vidalon lately. For dip-pen points I have a box of Speedball C6s that I file to different thicknesses. TO: C-6? Don’t you mean B-6, or A-5? TK: No, I prefer C for wedge lettering—works better for my lefty. TO: I may have pulled a faux pas by using 11" x 17" sheets of

Jon Babcock: But, don’t you find yourself forcing yourself to include that logo you hate with your roughs and finishing it against your best judgement later? Jon Babcock also went to The Kubert School and worked in the Marvel Bullpen, though his style has a closer affinity to that of Tom Orzechowski than some of the other Bullpenners. Jon has lettered many projects for Marvel and DC, and recently for Gemstone’s Disney comics. TK: Sure, of course. JB: Tell me—while it’s just you guys—who are your favorite letterers? TK: Favorite letterers? Gaspar Saladino first, John Workman, Tom Orzechowski… looking back, Ira Schnapp and Walt Kelly (with his assistant Henry Shikuma). Oh, and Will Eisner is a great letterer. TO: Bill Everett was wonderful. The letters looked just like the character designs. He had a nice, integrated approach… some show-card knowledge, obviously. I think all the ’30s-’40s generation of cartoonists knew show-card styles. My fave letterers? CONTINUED ON PAGE 58

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CARTOONIST!

TWO FOR ONE! TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE SAME TIME! The MIKE MANLEY SKETCHBOOKS EACH BOOK PERSONALLY SIGNED AND NUMBERED BY THE ARTIST ART ATTACK is limited to 200 copies. It’s 48 pages filled with gals, monsters and weirdos for only $10 US. THEY CAME FROM OUT OF MY HEAD is limited to 500 copies. It’s 48 drawing jam-packed pages for only $10 US. Add $1.50 each for shipping. Overseas orders add $7.00 US Send a check or money order (preferred) to my mail box: PO BOX 2129 Upper darby PA 19082, or my paypal account by sending money to Action Planet Inc mike@actionplanet.com

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DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

ecreating the look and feel of Renaissance decorative art with a digital flair is exactly what Vampirella™ would have wanted, I’m almost positive. This project was so much fun to do in AI, mainly due to its capabilities to handle text and vector objects, as well as a surprisingly robust support for transparency blends— Photoshop users are so jealous.

For this demo, I combined a scanned drawing, photos, clip art bitmaps, text, and rasterized vector images, all without leaving Illustrator.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

ALBERTO RUIZ

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

First I scanned the original red pencil sketch at 450 DPI into Photoshop, after adjusting the contrast to an acceptable clarity using the Levels command [command + L (Mac); control + L (Windows)]. I saved two copies of the scanned art: a high-resolution version (350 DPI) for print, and a lo-res copy (100 DPI) which became my temporary template. I then created a new document in Illustrator and placed the lo-res file with the Template button checked. The hi-res image replaced the template at the end. I created a new layer directly above the “template.” The logo, background, and other complex elements, such as the robe, were also assigned individual layers. As usual, I started by “tracing” the main masses with the pen tool, following the “template” as closely as possible. The elements that make up the head were drawn first—the technique used is the same throughout. Each of the main masses of the body is composed of at least three shapes layered on top of one another. The first one is a flat-colored “skin base” filled with C6 M7 Y10 K0—no stroke (outline), 100 % opaque. An exact duplicate of the “base shape” is then placed directly on top of the original using the Copy and Paste-in-front commands [command + C and command + F (Mac), control + C and control + F (Windows)]. This shape is usually filled with a Gradient and a Transparency Blend. The “base shape” is copied once again and pasted in front of the “gradient shape.” This third object has no Fill, just a Stroke; this I call the “outline shape.” I only used two basic gradients to color the skin (pictured on the right). I call these “cool and warm” gradients. In order to blend the “gradient shapes” with the “base shapes” in a smooth fashion, I applied one of three transparency modes: Multiply, Color Burn, and Color Dodge (these options are found in the Transparency Palette). For more information on transparency blends, please see issue #8 of DRAW! magazine.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

ALBERTO RUIZ

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

ALBERTO RUIZ

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION I scanned a page from a book on DaVinci (image on top-right). I edited out the illustrations using the rubber stamp tool in Photoshop and saved it as a TIF (I’m almost positive Leonardo would have approved). I created a new layer in Illustrator directly below the “Template” layer and placed the DaVinci image. After changing the red hue to bright orange using Hue/Saturation in Photoshop [command + U (Mac), control + U (Windows)] I went back to AI and from the Transparency palette’s pull-down sub menu I selected Multiply and voilá! I exported the file as a TIF at 350 DPI and I was done. Further color tweaking was done in Photoshop and the mode was changed to CMYK for output. 1

The decorative frame on the right was not used in the final image, but I did explore a couple of background variations with it (shown below). This image is part of a Dover clip art book called: Decorative Ornaments and Alphabets of the Renaissance: 1,020 Copyright-Free Motifs from Printed Sources. The DaVinci image came from a book called: Leonardo DaVinci by Daniel Arasse.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

ALBERTO RUIZ

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

Everyone deserves a

Golden Age!

GiVE BACK TO THE CREATORS WHO GAVE YOU YOUR DREAMS.

SEE A COMIC CREATED FROM SCRATCH!

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th & Mik Fingero

It starts in WRITE NOW! #8, when comics industry pros DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY document the steps they take to create an all-new comic, as ideas are proposed, tried out, and modified, until a character’s look and origins are arrived at! Then in DRAW! #9, the creative process continues, as storylines are ironed out and Mike and Danny produce an adventure starring their new creation! The result of their labors is a pullout, full-color, printed comic inserted into DRAW! #9! PLUS: Mike and Danny show you how it’s done in the feature-filled How To Draw Comics, From Script To Print DVD! See a new character created from scratch, and watch a story drawn from roughs, to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering! It’s 120 minutes of “how-to” tips, tricks, and tools of the pros, plus Bonus Features! MAGAZINES: $8 EACH US PPD. • COMPANION DVD: $34 US PPD.

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Don’t miss the GROUNDBREAKING CROSSOVER in WRITE NOW! #8 and DRAW! #9, and the COMPANION DVD!

LETTERING

TODD KLEIN

ABOVE: Walt Kelly and Henry Shikuma lettering on Pogo daily strip for 10/9/63. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47

Gaspar, Danny Crespi, Sam Rosen, Workman…. JB: I think the first time I noticed the beauty of Comics Lettering was Little Nemo.

TO: It was when I learned calligraphy in ’75-’76 that the work started to fall together. As for the quality, those pretty much were my samples. Steve Dutro: I’d like to see your old sign paintings.

TK: I’d say Mike Royer has been overlooked as a letterer.

TO: What about you, Steve? What were your first jobs?

TO: Royer had that amazing, sloppy-brush style for titles. Couldn’t figure it out how to do it, myself.

SD: I started with Marvel right out of school, and it was totally hideous.

TK: He did the Disney Comics logos for their brief run at publishing their own.

TO: Me, too. Just out of high school.

TO: He’s a Disney animator now, isn’t he? TK: I think he’s more of a designer for Disney.

SD: High school? Jeez, and I suffered through The Kubert School for nothing? TK: I had a few other jobs first. Gives you a better perspective on the comics biz.

TO: Howard Ferguson was the letterer on Captain America and most of the Timely books, early ’40s. Ferguson did incredible draftsman-style work. Simek, Royer… they both look so unhurried. Plenty of space between those letters.

TO: I didn’t actually paint more than a couple of signs, so didn’t get the brush technique. Plan to learn eventually [guffaw].

TK: Almost architectural. Tom, I was looking at some of your Star*Reach stuff this week. Quite good. Much better than what I was doing then.

SD: There’s a guy who does some killer sign painting around here. I should take reference photos of them and use that style.

TO: (moan) That was during my first couple of professional years… ’74, ’75.

TO: What I did pick up was a half dozen excellent sign books from the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s. Wow, were those people good!

TK: That early? Well, I wasn’t doing any lettering then, except a few samples.

TK: A lot of signs around here are done with computers now.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

TK: I did a few signs for friends. Didn’t go too well.

LETTERING TO: A bloody shame. You can simulate it that way but the heart is just lacking. There are a couple of sign shops I know of here in town that do it the old way. If comics ever tank, I’ll take six months to learn and try out for them.

Susie Lee: The usual manga relettering: Oh, My Goddess at the moment. Susie Lee was Tom Orzechowski’s assistant for a time, then went on to letter manga like Oh My Goddess for Dark Horse. In addition to her own lettering work on various Gemstone Disney titles, she now runs Studio Cutie, which specializes in manga lettering.

TK: Might be fun. TO: Yeah! The old standards! It’d be wonderful! Working out color schemes, arranging the layouts… yeah! I’m ready except I don’t know how! TK: I like fooling with color, but I’m not much good at it.

TK: Well, back then it weren’t bad. TO: I’m talking graphic presentations for storefronts, display ads… if you’re ever in town I’ll pull out the books for you. TK: Yeah, that would be fun. TO: When I first met Leslie Cabarga and he was looking over my sketchbooks he pulled out some of his signwriting texts and I said “I want to do that!” He shook my hand and told me there’s no market for it whatsoever, and that he wants to do it too. TK: The name isn’t familiar to me. TO: He’s created something of a market for it in his own way. He does all the best Betty Boop artwork… Fleischer Studio stylings. TK: I see. Nice work if you can find it. TO: He had several great books out from Dover of old clip art, signpainters’ alphabets, movie ads… art directors’ reference for period effects. TK: Of course, I keep getting asked to do more retro styles for comics all the time. TO: His books are cheap… $6 or so, being Dover books. TK: Dover is great for that. I have a few. I like old type catalogs and magazines better, but they’re expensive. TO: Oh, Todd… I actually finished the Daring Escapes and Houdini logos… pored over movie posters, vaudeville posters for a couple of days! Great fun! TK: Good, I’d like to see it! Can you send me a copy of the book when it comes out? TO: Sure thing. TK: Hi, Susie. How’s things? What’re you working on these days? RIGHT: Suzie Lee and Betty Dong lettering/retouching for Oh, My Goddess #110, with an assist from Tom2K.

TK: How many of those are you doing now? SL: Doing three books at a time,

plus other occasional stuff. TK: How much time you you spend on the production of a page, average, after lettering? SL: Depends on the effects and retouch, but about an hour right now. This latest Goddess has tons of retouch. TK: So, paste in the lettering, sound effects, retouch. That’s the formula? SL: Yeah, pretty much. TK: What do you paste with?

TO: There’s a great book by Atkinson, published 1917, that goes through the colors and layouts. I have one that boasts that a good “sign man” can make a dollar an hour doing such work.

TODD KLEIN

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

TODD KLEIN

LETTERING

SL: Glue stick. TK: Ah. Is it removeable without ruining the lettering, if you have to move it? SL: Sometimes… depends on how long it was stuck. But reprinting the lettering is no trouble, anyway.

TK: If you’re lettering over a good scan on the computer, you’re pasting it at the same time. Just print out the result! Of course, with manga, you’d have to cover the Japanese characters with blocks of white, and probably do art retouching over that in some places, so maybe not a whole lot quicker than doing it by hand. Hi, Willie, how’s it going? Did you see Fanboy #6 yet?

TK: Similar to one-coat rubber cement, then.

Willie Schubert: Hi, Todd. I just got it today… haven’t had time to look at it.

SL: Yes, but it smells better (no scent at all).

TO: I haven’t seen it. Does “Willie” have a few pages?

TK: Notice anything familiar? The Wonder Woman issue.

SL: Sometimes—I always assumed it was the office’s fault. I could be wrong, though. TK: I was just wondering how tight the edges are to the stat. When I did lettering paste-ups at DC, I used one-coat and burnished the edges. We were working with stats of the lettering, though, not printouts. SL: Did your cut lines ever show? TK: Not often. Another trick with questionable edges is to go over them with white paint. SL: Stats of the lettering? Isn’t that one more step away from original?

ABOVE: Todd Klein imitates Willy Schubert’s lettering style for the monster’s dialogue in this Fanboy panel.

TK: We’re talking pre-computer, Susie. Lettering on overlays, then stats or Xeroxes. Stats were easier to work with. SL: I figured that the original lettering was pasted on. TK: No, I haven’t done that often. When necessary, I did it on one-ply Strathmore paper. SL: Hmm. That smooth stuff? Or cold press? TK: Smooth is easier, but sometimes hard to find. Marvel often used to make acetates of the vellums, and paint the backs of the balloons white, like an animation cel. SL: Ack! More work. I did something like that for Tom Orz once. It was a Violator mini-series. I hadda paint the back of his vellums before it was stuck onto the original art. TK: Right, that was another method. I like painting, but it’s no fun when it’s all white…. SL: The vellum would warp a bit, making paste up a little trickier. TK: Computer paste-up is easier than all those. SL: Is it? Sounds time consuming. 60

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

WS: …checking… TO: I just realized… Todd, I may have to do you in the Bat-Mite book, if they do ’80s Batman. What pen do you use? TK: #2 and #2.5 tech pens, mostly. That would be fun, Tom. I tried to imitate you in that Spawn/Batman book, and it killed me. TO: You mean Rapidographs? TK: Actually Castell TG-1s, but you can’t get them anymore. Same idea, Tom.

TO: I use the #1 for ordinary body copy and the #2 for bold. #2 and #2.5 sound awfully big.

TK: My letters are a bit bigger than yours, Tom, and I move the pens pretty quick. TO: What setting, then, on the Ames lettering guide? Clear white or clear green? TK: White Ames set at 3.25. Bottom Row. TO: Good. I’m slow as anything on my own work, but I’ll rocket through to get that T. Klein casual look. TK: I’ll look forward to it! TO: You know that Spawn’s lettering style is just me doing Willie. WS: Yeah… and when I did a parody of Spawn I called up Tom to ask about the style. TO: What a dumb situation… parodying your own stuff. WS: I didn’t know at the time. Todd, in Fanboy #6, is the monster in the Steve Rude section supposed to be me? TK: Yes, Willie, it’s pretty bad, but it’s supposed to be you. All the Rude characters. The whole book was very late, so I didn’t

LETTERING

TODD KLEIN

have time to finesse.

well for me.

WS: Ahhh… now I see it. What kind of pen did you use on the monster?

KH: I use Koh-I-Noors almost exclusively. No wonder I can’t find the Speedball F-series. Been looking for twelve years!

TK: Probably a C-5 Speedball.

TK: Yeah, they went south years ago. I keep expecting the regular series to go too.

WS: Eeek… haven’t used those in a while. Kurt Hathaway: I tried the C-5 a few times and hated it. Willie, don’t you use a fountain pen?

WS: I saw Neal Sternecky use a Speedball as a lefty… lettering Pogo. His hand did the weirdest hook. TK: I do have to contort a bit, but the C-type angle still works better for me.

Kurt Hathaway started lettering for DC Comics in 1985 and has lettered for just about every publisher since, including Marvel, Dark Horse and Image. His most recent work includes Green Lantern, Aquaman and Justice League Adventures.

KH: No… I’d just get frustrated when the box ran out. WS: I sent Gaspar Saladino a box a couple years back.

TK: What brand, Willie, though I’m sure you’ve told me.

TK: Thanks, no. I still have a few, but don’t use ’em.

WS: I’ve got a Koh-I-Noor drawing pen that has been altered slightly.

WS: By the time I found ’em I was experimenting/transitioning with different pens… having learned that they were no longer being made.

KH: Filed down? At an angle? WS: It’s basically a drawing point with the sides taken off. Thinner downstroke, wider across. KH: Doesn’t it catch the paper? WS: No. It’s kind of a rounded tip to start. I used to do it with the old Speedball FB-6. TK: I used to try to file down Speedballs like that, because Gaspar did, but I never got comfortable with it. KH: I’ve filed Koh-I-Noor tech pens, but never to my satisfaction. WS: They stopped making the FB series. TK: I know, Willie. But being a lefty, that angle didn’t work so

WS: As I was making the transition to the fountain pen I found a lot of the FB-6 points. They were lying in a Denver art store’s warehouse. You need a box?

KH: My Speedballs rust and collect dried ink like crazy. Is there a secret or am I just lazy? TK: Rust? Could be the ink. Or the climate where you are. WS: Never had a rust problem… must be the ink. KH: I rinse ’em in water, then put ’em in an empty glass. TK: Dried ink can be wiped or scraped out (carefully). WS: Collected dried ink was always a problem. Also in the fountain pen. KH: Actually I use that Rapido-ese cleaner stuff to get the ink off—then I can read the point size! That’s why I don’t use fountains. Plus, the handles don’t seem to fit my hand.

LEFT: Mike Royer’s lettering from the splash page of Mister Miracle #8. During the time Mike was inking and lettering Kirby’s work, he primarily used a Speedball FB-6 for the lettering—not his first choice, but the best option given the type of paper Kirby used. Mike used Speedball B-5s and B-5 1/2 s for sound effects.

WS: The Koh-I-Noor art pens were close enough to what I used for the Speedball holder… that wasn’t a problem. I’m using tech-pen ink that has an ammonia base… Koh-I-Noor #3084-6 Rapidraw. KH: Is it necessary to use waterproof? I try to stick with it, but it crusts up. TK: Well, if you don’t, your fingers will proba-

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bly smudge the lettering. KH: Ah, from the oils. TK: Right. WS: The Rapidraw is waterproof… holds up moderately well to erasing. And I’ve learned a trick on heavy pencils that has helped with heavy pencilers, courtesy of Tom Palmer. TK: What’s the trick? WS: Make a little kneaded eraser log. Roll over pencils. Grays out the pencils, removing the clay component so the ink reaches the board. TK: Good idea. WS: Tom said he does that to the whole page before inking heavy pencils.

TO: And one of the covers was clearly Reed Crandall pencils. An odd character to place him on. Dunno why DC editorial didn’t recognize Crandall. Sam was really loose on those. 1941… a young man, but not that young. TK: No one at DC seems to know that Ben Oda lettered almost every story in their Mad reprints. He never got credit at the time, but it’s so obvious. TO: We really must take over the world and instill a sense of respect, eh? TK: Another fantasy! TO: Of course, that’s what I’ll miss most when digital lettering is all there is… that eccentricity that makes the body copy pop… at least for guys like me. TK: Kurt, you still doing some DC stuff?

KH: Who’s that inker/letterer who used to iron Jack Kirby’s pencils to get the right board texture? Mike Royer! TK: Oh yeah, I’ve heard that. WS: Smooths out the paper? KH: Yes, he would heat-treat the boards with an iron. TK: Seems like it would work. Lot of trouble, though. KH: Sure—but a great idea! TK: I was just reading the Mage: Hero Defined collections. First one had no lettering credit (Sean Konot), second one spelled his name wrong! Tom Orzechowski: His is one of the easier names, too. They always get mine right… I guess it’s intimidating enough that they’re careful. TK: True. Well, I expect he got paid, anyway, but.... TO: Paid on the collections? Nice deal! TK: No, on the original lettering.

TK: Reprint fees are another letterer fantasy. We lead a rich fantasy life. TO: Oh… I noticed Sam Rosen lettering on the final six or so Plastic Man stories! TK: Really? Interesting! 62

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TO: The credit doesn’t matter if people can tell it’s me, I figure. If they can’t tell, who cares?

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BOTTOM LEFT: Ira Schnapp lettering on a DC house ad from the 1960s. RIGHT: Gaspar Saladino lettering on Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special.

KH: Yeah—a lot of the Silver Age stuff. TO: What Silver Age stuff, Kurt? TK: A whole event—series of books, specials, etc. KH: Secret Files, annuals, 80-page giants—all part of the May push. TK: I’ve only done some cover lettering for it, and Gaspar Saladino is doing some too. KH: Didn’t Gaspar do all the originals? TK: A lot of them, Kurt, though the earlier stuff was Ira Schnapp. He did the classic ’50s-’60s cover stuff. TO: When you say “cover lettering,” you mean titles, or blurbs? TK: Blurbs, is what I meant. Not logos. TO: Heck, I’m re-creating some of that right now, for an art dealer. TK: I wanted to do some of that, but they did it elsewhere. TO: Talk about clean… Ira was almost as solid as Leroy. Speaking of which, did you know they still make Leroy lettering devices? KH: Y’mean like the EC stuff? TO: Yeah, the EC stuff. I figured in these days when everyone owns a Mac, who needs one of those imprecise gizmos? TK: I have one—it’s very, very time-consuming, so I made fonts from it. KH: I never used one—but kinda figured out how it worked through the art store window. TO: I understand Ira Schnapp was in his 80s when he died. Neal Adams told me that his hands shook until he sat down with a lettering pen. Solid as a rock, then. TK: Figures. The final year or so is a bit rougher, though. TO: There was a lot of advantage to working at the old twice-up size. Room to be precise. TK: The reduction helped the regularity, too. I get asked to do Schnapp a lot, so I made fonts for that as well. TO: It’s interesting to compare late ’50s lettering, editor to editor. There seems to have been a model sheet, but Gaspar still shines. TK: Gaspar didn’t do any covers that I know of until the late ’60s.

TO: Right, but that DC Greatest 1950s Stories book has him on “Phantom Stranger,” “Viking Prince”… I’m talking interiors, here, not covers. TK: Oh, on inside lettering? Sure, I think he started around 1950. TO: Yeah. Everyone was working with narrow letters then, even the “o”s… but his had snap… and still do, I should add! TK: Definitely, though his earliest work is a bit stiffer. By the early JLA it was loose and lovely. Speaking of Ira Schnapp, I was told he was originally a stonemason, doing carved lettering on stone. I believe he worked on the inscriptions on the NY Public Library on 5th Avenue. And I’ve heard Gaspar used to do fashion ads. TO: Yeah! Ira emigrated to the states for fear of his life in the mid-’30s. Comic books as a second career. Have you ever seen Gaspar’s fashion ads, or do you know where they might have appeared? TK: No, Tom, I don’t. Probably the NY papers. TO: It’s been such a kick looking so intently at the ’50s DCs. Gaspar looked then as he did for the next 30 years. He had his chops down at birth. TK: I had an interesting experience recently at DC. They’re reprinting a Sgt. Rock 80-pager from the ’60s, and asked me to recreate the lettering. I looked at the computer file, and thought it was pretty good, though hand-lettered, of course. I got the original scan, at a higher resolution, cleaned it up a bit, and dropped it into place. It now looked exactly like the printed cover. DC’s art department DRAW! • SPRING 2005

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said they didn’t like it—too rough and uneven. I convinced them it was an exact match for the original, but they would probably still have made me redo it, if it hadn’t been so late. TO: Wonder why they didn’t call Gaspar. He did most of the combat books, as I recall. Ken Bruzenak: Costanza’s early work was for Kubert, wasn’t it? TO: On Tarzan, I think. Right. KB: I thought he was on Sgt. Rock in the late ’60s. TK: Costanza did some of the Kirby stuff at DC around 1970. KB: I remember watching his style evolve on the Gene Colan Dracula material. TO: I didn’t read all DCs at that time. I remember Costanza on Tarzan and Neal Adams’ Batman and the first few Kirby Fourth World books. TK: Costanza’s early work has the reversed number (white on black) on each page 13. TO: He’d be a guy to talk to. The first new letterer on the scene at DC since 1950, almost. KB: I remember your stuff, Tom—on the Craig Russell “War of the Worlds,” wasn’t it? TO: Oh geez… no, the other McGregor book, Jungle Action (Black Panther). I did a lot for Craig later, at National Lampoon and elsewhere.

TK: Hey, John! John Workman: Hi, Todd. I wanted to thank you for your help on sending that Orion stuff to DC. John Workman began lettering for DC in the mid-’70s, and later became the art director of Heavy Metal magazine. He has also edited, written, pencilled, inked, colored and designed for various companies. He continues to letter for numerous publications, especially those created by Walter Simonson, Marshall Rogers and Tommy Lee Edwards. Recently he has written comics material for Archie Comics and for Playboy. TK: No problem. Then, it did work, I guess. JW: I haven’t heard anything from them about it. Guess it worked out. Walt Simonson liked what I had done with the lettering. TK: Good! I’ll look forward to seeing the covers. JW: I think you’ll like the book… Walt’s best since Thor. He’s having fun. TK: Should be cool—I enjoy his work, and your lettering on it. JW: Walt and I think alike. If you look at his own lettering, there’s a stylistic similarity. We stole from the same sources. TK: I can see that similarity, now that you mention it. What sources? JW: I picked up a lot from Carmine Infantino and Al Williamson and Will Eisner. So did Walt. TK: I can certainly see the Carmine, but wouldn’t have guessed the other two. Have you ever lettered any of them? JW: I lettered Williamson’s Flash Gordon for Marvel. He did it on 30-year-old Bristol board! TK: Figures. Was it turning brown? JW: He had already inked the stuff when I got it. Live art area was the old 12" x 18" size… and this was bleed art! He spotted the balloon areas and left exactly the right amount of room. Actually, the Bristol was far superior to current paper.

TK: Sounds like a fun project. Did you work larger than usual, then? LEFT: John Costanza lettering on Arak #4. TOP RIGHT: John Workman lettering on X-Files Annual #1.

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JW: Oh, yes, the lettering was large. I enjoy working that size. Did something similar on Heavy Liquid… not to mention Heavy Metal. TK: Gee, all the Heavy Metal relettering stuff I worked on was printed size, I think—except “Starstruck,” which was done here. I’d never work that small now, but I was glad to get the work from you then! JW: The things that I drew and wrote for them were larger than usual size. I like working large. The few things that I have done lately have been 12" x 18". TK: I’ve never had the chance to letter at that size except for a few pages here and there. JW: I remember doing “Barbarella” with incredibly tiny lettering… printed size. On one issue of Fantastic Four—when Byrne was doing it—the size was 12" x 18". Fun stuff.

TK: Cool—was it a special issue? JW: Just a regular issue that Byrne wanted to do the old size. TK: So, John. Since you’re new here, let’s talk about you for a bit, like what lettering tools you’re using these days. JW: Some watered-down Pelikan and rapidly disappearing tech pens. TK: Ah. What Pelikan are you using? And what brand of pens? JW: Whatever I can get as far as Pelikan. A fellow sent me some pre-new formula ink. I still use Castell TG-1 pens. TK: The good old stuff! JW: It’s a tragedy to go into an art supply store these days. TK: A few years ago I bought what I hope will be a lifetime supply of the Castell pens from a store in Denmark. What sizes do you use most? JW: Mostly 0 and 1… 2, 2.5, and 3 for borders, balloons, sound effects and such. TK: If you get desperate, John, I might be able to spare a few. Or I can tell you what I did to get them. JW: Any help would be appreciated. I’ve started using regular Rapidographs again, but I like the TG-1s. I remember distinctly the first time I lettered with a size 1. Paul Levitz told me it would never print. TK: I remember that. Looked fine, didn’t it. Did you get the Spirit Archives Vol. 1?

JW: A friend of mine had a copy of Police Comics #13… at that time it was the earliest Spirit story I’d seen. It was in the Archives book. TK: I’d never seen any of these except the Christmas story, which is the best, I thought. I don’t know if Eisner did the lettering, but it later becomes more typical comics stuff. That probably wasn’t him. JW: Abe Kaenegson was a regular letterer for Eisner. I wonder what the actual potential readership was for the Spirit supplements at the time? TK: Don’t know. Doesn’t sound like it ever had a huge number of papers. Not compared to, say, Peanuts. I don’t know if Kaenegson was with him that early. I don’t really know his style. JW: Readership still had to be in the millions. TK: Probably. I thought Eisner’s comments about not having one fixed logo were interesting. Here I thought Mad was the first one to do that, but I forgot The Spirit.

JW: Yeah. Wonderful stuff. It was a good package.

JW: It was a great way to help keep the thing fresh and surprising. I’ve often thought that any series has to have a combination of the old reliable and the surprising and new to keep working.

TK: Agreed. I thought the evolution in the first year was interesting. The lettering started out as a Flash Gordon/Tarzan imitation, I thought.

TK: Sounds about right to me. All different all the time doesn’t work, neither does all familiar. More work, but it makes the covers more diverse. I’m doing it on some of the ABC books. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

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RIGHT: Ben Oda lettering on Showcase #102.

JW: Those ABC books are great. I keep ’em all. TK: Well, thanks—Alan Moore’s work is wonderful, isn’t it?

JW: He’s so good at what he does. I’ve lettered only one 8-page story of his, but I’d sure like to do more. You’re doing a great job, by the way. I remember the story I did… about twelve years ago. An 8pager with a 25-page script. TK: What story was that? JW: A horror story drawn by Bill Wray for… I think… Harris.

about Ben coming to all the strip artists’ houses to letter their strips, often in the middle of the night.

TK: Oh, a Vampirella story?

JW: I’ll go back and read it.

JW: Nope. It wasn’t a story with a regular character, though one of them introduced it. Uncle Creepy, maybe?

TK: He was a good letterer, but worked way too hard. I remember coming to work at DC some mornings to find him still there, asleep at a desk, lettering all around him.

TK: I must have missed that entirely. Wonder how they got Alan to do it? JW: I don’t know. I knew of him from some of the British books and from Watchmen, which you turned me on to, remember? TK: Yup. They probably just offered him enough money. JW: I couldn’t believe his script. Everything was there. TK: Yes, someone else described it well: He gives you every detail you could possibly need, and then tells you to ignore it if you want. JW: I liked the fact that, after setting things up so there was only one way to draw it, he said to the artist, “but if you have a better idea, go to it!” TK: Not many people have better ideas. JW: Yep… and I often think of Ben Oda and what he’d say about current comics. Ben had his whole family working at lettering at one point. Don’t know if he could keep ’em busy now. TK: Did you read Mark Evanier’s column in Comic Buyer’s Guide that talked about Ben? JW: No. Was it recent? TK: Few issues ago. An interview with Irwin Hasen. Talked 66

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JW: He was kind of phoning it in at the time I met him. Still, he could do great stuff, and he was a wonderful person. TK: I thought that, too, John. When I look at his Mad work, it’s pretty nice. JW: I think that his kids actually did some lettering, but his wife probably guide-lined the pages. His Warren stuff was beautiful. TK: One thing he did really well was upper and lower case, when he had the chance. JW: I saw him do balloon borders with what looked like a Crow Quill pen. TK: I think he used a Crow Quill most of the time. The lettering chats ended after five years, as freelance lettering work and attendance was dwindling, but we did have some good discussions. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading these. — Todd Todd Klein has been lettering comics since 1977, and has won many awards for his work. He has long been associated with Neil Gaiman titles such as Sandman, and recently with the Alan Moore America’s Best Comics line.

NEXT ISSUE: DRAW! #11 • From Nexus to The Moth, multiple Eisner Award winner Steve Rude’s skill and powerful draftsmanship have made him one of the “artist’s artists” for almost two decades, and in this issue DRAW! Editor Mike Manley gets “The Dude” to discuss and illustrate his approach to the craft of comics, drawing and the mystery of The Moth! • From the heyday of the web cartoon, Roque Ballesteros has been in the forefront of Flash animation with his award-winning flash cartoon Joe Paradise. Having survived the burst of the dot-coms, and with his new studio partners Ghostbot, Ballesteros continues to be one of the leaders in Flash animation, from Happy Tree Friends and rock videos to commercials. DRAW! holds an artistic seance with Ballesteros to reveal the inner world of Ghostbot! • Jim Borgman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist and a Reuben Award winner for his daily comic strip Zits which chronicles the life of 15year-old Jeremy Duncan. DRAW! interviewer Jammar Nicholas catches up with the busy cartoonist for a revealing interview and a look at how he works! • Plus DRAW!’S regular instructors Bret Blevins, Alberto Ruiz and more!

NEXT ISSUE’S COVER ART BY STEVE RUDE!

96 pages with COLOR SECTION, $5.95 IN STORES july 2005

Please send your letters to: PO BOX 2129, UPPER DARBY, PA 19082 or e-mail: mike@drawmagazine.com VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT: http://www.drawmagazine.com ALSO VISIT OUR MESSAGE BOARD AT: http://66.36.6.76/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi

SELF-PUBLISHING

MARK MCKENNA

monkeyin’ around with Mark McKenna Interviewed in 2004 by Mike Manley

Transcribed by Steven Tice

ark McKenna is a 20-year veteran of the comic book industry, having worked for DC, Marvel, Image, Acclaim/Valiant, and Malibu’s Ultraverse line as a talented inker who’s lent his masterful brush and pen work to the pencils of artists like Mike McKone, Barry Kitson, and currently Jim Calafiore on books such as Exiles, Batman, Spider-Man, Aquaman, The Punisher, and Venom to name only a few. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, Mark apprenticed at Marvel Comics in the Romita’s Raiders program in 1985, where he learned the tricks of the trade in the famous Marvel Bullpen under art director and classic Spider-Man artist John Romita. However, we are not here to talk about Mark’s inking, but his move into a completely different end of publishing: children’s books. At the 2003 Comicon International: San Diego, I bumped into Mark, and was handed a copy of his new book, Banana Tail. Banana Tail is a children’s story about a young monkey who loves bananas, and who spends all his time thinking of different ways to enjoy eating them. The book also has a varied and interesting cast of supporting characters, as well: Tic Tac the

zebra, Reena the rhinoceros and Eggboo the ostrich, who all live on Anima Island. The book is charming and fun, and has its own website, www.bananatail.com, complete with games and banana recipes for the younger set. And Banana Tail is quite a hit with the children at the schools Mark has visited as a guest speaker, promoting his book. Frankly, I found it quite interesting to see Mark undertake this completely different track of self-publishing, his own children’s book, instead of what most cartoonists do, self-published comics. This shows once again that the skill-set any good comic artist needs to produce comics can be used to expand beyond the panel borders filled with long underwear. I caught up with Mark and conducted this interview over the phone and via the Internet with him from his Florida, New York home. We discussed his journey from the realm of freelance cartooning and super-heroes into the realm of self publishing and children’s books. —Mike Manley DRAW! • SPRING 2005

MARK MCKENNA

SELF-PUBLISHING

DRAW!: Tell us a bit about your education, and how you got into comics. I know from our previous talks you went to college at SVA? MMc: I graduated the School of Visual Arts in 1982 with a BFA in illustration. In my senior year I was introduced to perspective teacher Sal Amendola, who at the time was DC Comics’ New Talent Coordinator. After a few meetings with Sal, he told me that if I worked hard at it I could get a job inking in comics. I started out in comics two-plus years later in 1985, as a Romita’s Raider doing art corrections for legendary comic book artist John Romita Sr. John had tried to persuade me to join the art corrections program two years prior, but the hourly wage kept me from commuting 60 miles from my home in Long Island to New York City every day. Finally on his third attempt, John convinced me to join the Raiders. He told me that he would do his best to help me make extra money by doing assisting work while I was on staff. It was the best move I ever made. I made friends with some of the editors, met artists that I only knew by name or reputation and spent 12 to sometimes 14 hours working at perfecting my craft, inking. I roomed with then-Assistant Art Director Tom Morgan, and watched over his and John Sr.’s shoulder quite a bit and learned about varied brush and pen strokes and became a real student of the game. My first regular book with a big company, oddly enough came from DC working on Dr. Fate with Shawn McManus in 1986. Before that I did a few jobs at Marvel, Eclipse, First, and Now Comics. DRAW!: So why Banana Tail? Why not self publish a comic? Were you always into children’s books and illustration? MMc: Banana Tail was a brainstorm of my father, John McKenna. Dad was a great idea man, but never felt he could make any of his ideas or written prose stick, so he procrastinated all the time. I called him the Great Procrastinator. I told him in the mid-’90s that if he ever wanted to get something seen that he wrote or created, he wouldn’t get a better opportunity than having a son in this business. I was hoping to use my comic book background as a stepping-stone to launch something outside of comics. This was also a time where comic book sales fell by the wayside and it was time to have a Plan B. While appreciating some of the fine illustration work done in children’s books, I didn’t really decide that was the way to go until Dad came up with Banana Tail. Having a newborn and four-year-old at the time, it seemed like a natural way to go and tied in neatly to his ideas. 70

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ABOVE: Mark with his wife and father, who came up with the idea of Banana Tail. LEFT: The McKenna clan.

DRAW!: Since you were entering a different area of publishing, different from comics, what were your first steps on the path to selfpublishing your own children’s book? MMc: I decided on self-publishing only after 20 or so rejections of my sample packet, which included story ideas and about ten pages of pencils and a few inked, digitally colored pages. Sad but true. I had printed out this article that explained that Dr. Seuss had 24 rejections before he hit pay-dirt, so the rejections hurt, but didn’t destroy me. I eventually did start to doubt the product a bit; while I knew it had great character designs—I had spent 15 years as a comic book inker—but my writing of the material could be awful. It was then that I nearly had the dream come true! DRAW!: So you didn’t let the knocks discourage you, which is a tough but necessary step. What year was this? MMc: It was 1996 and Golden Books contacted me and told me that they had an editorial meeting and Banana Tail was a hit in the meeting. The editor I was in contact with said that Golden considered a few options. One was buying two of the characters outright and using them as supporting characters in an existing classic re-launching of Golden’s Saggy Baggy Elephant. They also discussed bringing in a writer and having him/her write from my story ideas. My mind swelled with the ideas. I was to meet with them on a Thursday, a week from the original phone

SELF-PUBLISHING call. But that meeting never materialized. Golden Books filed for bankruptcy that week and had laid off many employees. I was devastated, but when the smoke cleared I knew that if it was good enough for Golden, well then... it must be good enough. I had a few more “near misses,” and finally decided that if I self-published the book and publishers could see the final result, perhaps then the speculating on what I brought to them would be over. They could see the product the way I intended it to be. I finished the book, procured the trademarks and printed 2000 books. I decided the grass roots direction was the way to go. If I sold my books and was a success story, perhaps then a big company might take note. I sold all 2000 in less then four months by soliciting and selling through elementary schools in my county. The energy I exerted to do this wore me down, and I lost my direction with my original plan to get back to soliciting children’s book companies. DRAW!: So it was the amount of labor involved in shipping, taking orders, etc.? You were a one-man-army so to speak. But still it must have felt good to be able to sell out as opposed to having the family garage filled with boxes of unsold books. MMc: Currently my basement is packed with books from my second print run, T-shirts, coloring books and advertising materials for when I do conventions or shows. When I ordered a second printing I did so just before striking a deal with this Active Media Publishing, so my stamina dropped to a halt. I figured I would let the publisher work out his angles—publicity, advertising, solicitations—and I could take a break. I signed a one-year contract with Active Media. This contract had the lusty number of 100,000 in sales attached to it. But these numbers were to be based on a new production of my property— a hardcover. I think that door has closed. The publisher was working with a backer, and that backer has stopped funding the project. From what I understand the most crucial point of getting the book “out there” is the marketing/advertising, and the backer decided to back out of any further dealings with the publisher for reasons unknown to me. The publisher and backer both have their versions of what went wrong, of course. All I know is it wasted a year-and-a-half of my ambitious start. I am once again starting to think about direction on how to promote sales on my own. Now I have two agents that are looking at BT in New York City, as well as a marketing guy down in Tampa, Florida.

MARK MCKENNA

catalog. I have yet to see the catalogues, but I understand that it sold 42 more copies [laughs] since they’d originally ordered the 1800 initially. DRAW!: What you really need, then, is somebody to properly showcase it and give it a push. MMc: Yeah, that’s a lot of it. The other part for me now is that the hardcover version is not as nice-looking to me. I’m partial to my little softcover and the blood and sweat I put into it. I never warmed up to the hardcover and fought the fledgling publisher on everything from color to text and cover design. I do see that the hardcover has a nice firmness and larger size which I imagine children would find appealing. DRAW!: I seem to remember you gave me a copy in San Diego, or you were showing me a copy. MMc: While I was initially intimidated with the original idea of selling 2000 books, I sold my first print run out in less then five months, maybe four months. It’s a lot of work wearing all the hats and paying out of pocket to get trustworthy freelancers on a work-for-hire basis. I am publisher, editor, marketer, art director,

DRAW!: Now, the publisher who was backing the first printing of Banana Tail, where was he advertising it? MMc: They were advertising it with Baker & Taylor and Ingram Distributors, in their catalogues. The book was in there, but here’s the problem: I don’t think the publisher spent the money to advertise properly, so it was just one book in a giant RIGHT: Concept drawings of Banana Tail.

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MARK MCKENNA

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distributor, and owner of the property. I hired comic artist Kevin West to draw Banana Tail, but had paid two other artists to do “try outs” for the gig. I also hired Emily Kanalz to digitally color the book. Emily is the wife of Wildstorm’s Hank Kanalz, so you see I stayed with comic creators, because this is what I know. There were so many unknowns, I needed a comfort zone, and really, why not comic book people? DRAW!: This is really a completely different approach to doing art and stories than you’ve spent most of your career working on, with super-jocks smashing each other to solve their problems. How do you try to both excite kids and at the same time avoid the slam-bang action of comics, the violence which seems to be such a no-no in children’s publishing?

MMc: It’s quite the learning curve. I recall one writer friend telling me, “You can’t use the word kill or kill animals in the book.” Then what do you say when you have Snap the alligator trying to eat Banana Tail the monkey? He wanted to nibble his buns? I’m writing for a kindergarten to 3rd grade crowd. I think if I get the laughs, I can hopefully avoid the violence. Part of me sees that there is a good, hardy laugh that can come from a tense, possibly dangerous situation. Inherently children know what dangers lay in the jungle. I can play off of that knowledge. DRAW!: I agree, and kids are so smart, they instinctively pick up on it if you are trying to baby them. I know I did as a kid. I resented that aspect of certain cartoons and such. MMc: Of course I want to do a story where the animals are pretending to be super-heroic, but there are no super-heroes to play off of, so the pretend play would come from a heroic animal, legendary to the island they live on. I hope I can do stories that kids who might end up being comic readers in a few years can get their reading chops by reading Banana Tail as a young person. DRAW!: So the publishers give you specific guidelines about content versus age? MMc: When I started Banana Tail, I did it when my children were newborn and four years old. Coincidentally, Banana Tail is for the ages of three to seven years old. I created the text and guidelines myself. I’m sure there are specific company guidelines for children’s book publishers, but the company that created the hardcover is a new publisher, so nothing was set in place. Funny, but I ran into problems with the art in one specific case. I had a visual of Banana Tail sunning himself with a furless tail. The idea was that he pulled the fur out of his tail to get a tan and be a brown tailed monkey, because the tail was yellow, hence Banana Tail. Well this one woman read the book at a kid’s birthday party, when all of a sudden they get to this page and one perverted woman says his tail looked like a penis. I had read the book to hundreds of kids to that point, but get one dirtyminded woman and voila, instant change. DRAW!: So since you are not drawing this book yourself, but writing it, what was that process like? I imagine you have to feel really good about what the artist is bringing to the book. How closely did you work with the artist? 72

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ABOVE AND RIGHT: Sometimes a furless tail is just a furless tail, but when someone complains that it looks too phallic, a change in the artwork may be required.

MMc: At first I didn’t know artist Kevin West and I’m no writer, so the very beginning of our relationship was a bit tricky at first. I wanted to give Kevin enough leeway to be creative, yet not baffle him with uncertainty. I gave Kevin a plot and page-by-page description, but Kevin told me it read more like a storyboard than a book. I had to believe him, what did I know? My writing credits to that point were probably in an 8th grade journalism course. First thing I had Kevin do was two or three pages of characterdriven pencils, so I could see if he had the chops for drawing, what I call “big foot animals.” His stuff was great. There was no doubt that he had it down. With a little push and pull, Kevin gave me layouts for the book, ten pages at a time. From his breakdowns I would nitpick what I felt needed to be adjusted and have Kevin then go to final pencils on whatever paper he was comfy working on. Kevin decided on an 8 1/2" x 11" bond paper. When I received his final faxes of the pages, I light-boxed his pencils onto Strathmore 2-ply board and inked away. After the inks I sent copies of the art to the colorist, Emily, who put the final results on a CD. I have to say, I made Banana Tail a rhyming book and didn’t know the “unwritten rules” of pentameter or timing, so I wrote the book unevenly, thinking it was no big deal. Of course anybody who knows the unwritten rules, or simply knows how to write, can see the flaws in my scribbling. However, it’s an honest first effort, and I begged and borrowed words and thoughts from anybody who would offer them.

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MARK MCKENNA MMc: The publisher, Benny Powell, is the front man for Active Media. DRAW!: So he rewrote the copy for your children’s book? MMc: Right. Telling me that I’m not a writer, he can do better. He allegedly hired another guy to work on it. He wanted the prose, the pentameter, and the cadence to be right. You know, the verse, seven-five, seven-five, rhyming on the sevens, or something like that. And I didn’t do that when I wrote the book; I didn’t have the sense of it at first. So when he went and did it, I fought him like crazy over this stuff, but ultimately he told me that he could sell the books. And I said, “All right, let me shut my mouth, let’s see what he can do, and if he fails, then I’ll say something.” Then, 18 months later (the contract was for one year) he wanted to renew the contract, to extend the contract for six months. And I said, “Well, if you want the contract for a year-and-a-half, give me some kind of penalty clause in the contract that says if you fail to meet any kind of expectations that you have created, that I get some kind of bonus or penalty money. Because at this point you’ve had the book for 18 months, and nothing’s come of it.”

DRAW!: So, last May, you sign a deal with Active Media the publisher, who not only re-published the book, but then proceeds to come in, rewrite— MMc: Rewrite, recolor the existing artwork—you could say “reimagined”; he re-imagined my black-and-white artwork. But the new publisher, Active Media’s head guy, got his friend who was an alleged colorist—whose work never sat well with me—to go in and color the art. The publisher told me the guy had a super-talent, but I fail to see the talent. And worse, the publisher himself rewrote the whole text for me; he rewrote everything I wrote!

MMc: Right.

DRAW!: What?!

DRAW!: And he sold...?

DRAW!: Wow. Not what you thought would happen, I expect, to say the least! Okay, so he re-imagined the book, had somebody else color it, and he rewrote your prose. And he published that version as a hardback.

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MARK MCKENNA

MMc: 1800 copies. Yes. [laughs] Which is what I have paperwork for. Now, in the contract, he was supposed to sell 100,000 copies. So he’s only short by 98,200 copies. DRAW!: Okay. But, originally, when you did the first version of the book yourself, you sold 2000 copies. MMc: I sold 2000 copies in four months, by myself. DRAW!: So it seems to me that working for yourself you’re doing a much better job than going through this bigger publisher! MMc: Right. The problem there is that he isn’t using any grassroots tactics. He was just going right for the throat. He wanted to sell them through Barnes & Noble, Borders, and all the big chains. B.J.’s Wholesale clubs. He was going for big numbers. And he laughed at my little 2000. But I went through schools, I went through elementary schools in my county, I had one school buy 550 copies from me in one day. DRAW!: And what was your percentage of the cover price from the publisher? MMc: Fifty cents on a book, on a $13 book. DRAW!: So you’re getting 50 cents on a $13 book, and the publisher sold 1850 copies. MMc: Yes, But I don’t get any of that gross, only net proceeds 74

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from that. DRAW!: So it sounds to me like you’re better being a small, one-man operation, going around to school districts and libraries and selling Banana Tail that way. Doing your little chalk talk, or talking to the kids. MMc: Exactly, I do a 40-minute presentation. I do it for free, just for sales of the book. I mean, I could have added a two, three, four hundred dollar fee in there, but a lot of the schools didn’t want to deal with that. So I did it for sales of the book. Sometimes I’d sell 70 books, sometimes I’d sell 40 books, and sometimes I’d sell 200 books. But it went well that way. And I also thought, Mike, with the background of being a comic book guy, that I could sort of roll those into each other. The fact that people are fascinated by comic book guys doing something different other than comic books. DRAW!: Or just the fact that here’s a guy who used to work on Spider-Man or Superman, and that gets kids excited. MMc: Yeah! And do you know what? I got a lot of coverage from that. Silver Bullet wrote an article about me, as did WizardWorld.com, and I just did an interview with Newsarama.... Now I talked to a guy who told me, “They’re not going to pay any attention to you because they don’t care once you get outside of comics.” And I have to tell you, as soon as I got the guy from Silver Bullet on the phone, he said, “Well,

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they had some people get up and speak about what it’s like to do children’s books, and possibly have us at their schools to speak.

we’ll put you in the next online update.” So, of course, this guy who told me that they wouldn’t pay any attention to me was pissed off, because he wanted to do his own stuff, and it didn’t work out that way. So that was nice. Did it help me sell a lot of books? No. But it was nice to have. And people come up to me at shows that go, “I hear you’re doing this thing now,” and they are curious.

DRAW!: So they were trying to sell their books to the libraries and schools?

DRAW!: So are other comic book artists coming up to you at a convention and asking about what you are doing? MMc: Yes. Or fans, fans that read that stuff online. DRAW!: So they’re curious, “Hey, what’s the other thing you have going?” MMc: Yeah! “I heard you’re doing this thing, Banana Tail. I’ve got little kids, I’ve got nieces and nephews.” I’ve got to tell you, that was encouraging to me, y’know? DRAW!: Let me ask you this question. Did you research the children’s market; did you research the book market, to find out what is considered to be a success? I mean, in comics, the small press, or indy side of the business, if you sell a thousand, for some people that’s a success. If you sell 10,000, that’s considered to be a great success with many small publishers today. If you sell 50,000 copies at Marvel or DC, that’s considered to be a superhot thing today. Did you do research yourself, before you got into the market, to find out what is considered to be a success?

MMc: Barnes and Nobles? I think so. They were actually trying to help the creators out and at the same time, get some interest into the local schools and libraries in Clifton—to help boost sales for the store and at the same time have the community be aware of authors that would make visits to schools and libraries. So it had a little bit of a two- or three-edged sword to it. But I talked to the husband-wife team who did a book, Puss in Cowboy Boots, for Simon and Schuster, and they were clueless as to what their books sold. They couldn’t get the information for some reason or other, or simply didn’t know how to go about getting it. DRAW!: Some of this information you can get from Publisher’s Weekly, and there’s certain trade magazines for children’s books, just as there are for fiction, non-fiction. I would think that the publisher would, by law, or by the contract you have, be forced to give you full disclosure on the kind of numbers that you’re selling. MMc: Yes, there was an accounting house that was supposed to be accessible to me to find out what sales were, and I could access them at any time. Of course when sales aren’t brisk, I would imagine it’s harder to part with those numbers for a publisher because it could get embarrassing, which in my case, was embarrassing, because of the high numbers in my contract.

MMc: I did a little bit. You have to be privileged to get that information. I talked to a couple that had done their own book, something called Puss in Cowboy Boots, for Simon and Schuster. I was at a show with them. We were at a booth with a bunch of Barnes & Noble people.

DRAW!: Wow. So are you keeping records of all this as you go along? Are you charting this all out, so you can go back and see where you were, and see where you are now?

DRAW!: What show was this? MMc: It was a show that was—it wasn’t even a “show” show, it was a—Barnes & Noble had done a, I want to say, like, a library presentation is what it was, a school and library presentation in Clifton, New Jersey. And

MARK MCKENNA

TOP LEFT: Cover pencils to the Banana Tail Sketchbook. ABOVE: Concept drawings for Eggboo the ostrich.

MMc: I do have a lot of information, yeah. Really, the book marketing has slowed for me, and that’s why I feel now I need to pick it up again. I don’t have a lot of hard copy information, but early on I did keep records of every solicitation, event, sales, etc. Every time I sold a book, I would mark it off, and I had this whole journal of how I did with the book. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

MARK MCKENNA

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Of course, the publisher and backer were a great enigma to me, because I have no idea what their inner workings are. Recently I found out that the publisher and his backer have parted ways. DRAW!: So what’s the biggest difference for you now, as an author as opposed to being an inker? When we ink comics, we’re like Jiffy Lube. We’re a service industry. MMc: Yeah, that’s true. DRAW!: Being an author, how do you view yourself after this experience? Do you view yourself as being more positive, proactive, even though you’ve learned; you’ve had a few hard knocks, would you still want to go back at it? Do you want to lick your wounds and go back and try to do things yourself, barnstorm the country, or do signings, or extend your range? MMc: There’s a long answer to that, but a lot of it is, I’m aware that I can sell the book myself, and I think I’m a pretty likeable guy, and I have a feeling that I connect well with the children when I do this stuff. I have them laughing, I have a bunch of pictures of me speaking to the kids at schools. I have this picture of me in front of 550 kids in an auditorium. A week before my visit to the school, George L. Cooke Elementary in Monticello, NY, the children made an art project wrapped around my visit. They did a whole showcase in the school foyer and gym all related to Banana Tail. It was fantastic and brought a tear to my eye. They had giant cutouts of monkeys climbing up banana trees, four-foot long zebras taped to walls. They had a chain of three-foot high Banana Tails holding hands, draped across the length of the stage where I was to talk. DRAW!: [laughs] That’s great! MMc: It was great! I walked into the school, “George L. Cooke welcomes Banana Tail author Mark McKenna.” It was fantastic. They made me feel like their favorite guy on TV, and it was really good. And that’s the kind of stuff that I feed off of, y’know? My energy level was really high for that and I have a great memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life. The downside to this is that it’s a lot of work and it wore me down. I mean, I sold 2000 books, and the thing probably cost me $10,000 to do (including art work, TM, logo, printing and talent), and 2000 books at five bucks a pop is $10,000, but did I make that money back? No, I didn’t. I couldn’t have because of all the legwork and solicitations I put forth. DRAW!: Right. But also, at the same time, the fact is that you’ve proven to yourself that you can connect with an audience in a personal way. So it seems like your problem is—this is like a hobby on the side, right? MMc: To a point, yeah. DRAW!: Because it’s not paying enough money to be your vocation, so it’s like your hobby. And you’re spending your days still churning out— MMc: Comic pages.

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DRAW!: Comic pages. So you’re trying to find a way where somehow you can make that transition. MMc: Well, you’re right, that’s what it is, Mike. It’s a 90/10 split right now—90% inking and 10% Banana Tail—and I want it to be the other way around, because you and I both know that this is not to be in for the future, comic books. I tried to go back to school, possibly for teaching, but I live in a little town called Florida, New York, and the closest school to me to offer a Masters program in art education is 45 miles at SUNY New Paltz or 65 miles at The College of New Rochelle. New Paltz, the closer of the two, wanted me to complete a BSA degree first and then continue on with the masters program. My BFA from The School of Visual Arts didn’t do much to support my cause. I figured to be 53 before I got the proper credentials. With New Rochelle, they offered a 45 credit Masters degree, but again, it was 65 miles by car to get there. I still would have been 50+ years old. Nutty. DRAW!: The perfect age to be a teacher! [Mark laughs] Yeah, you’ll have the gray hair, you can be distinguished— MMc: A dash of gray? DRAW!: Yeah, yeah. You can wear your tweed suit with the leather patches on the sleeves. MMc: Yeah, a little dried drool on the side of my mouth, a little spittle on my chest. Oh, and a pipe to finish off the look! DRAW!: So do you have plans to do another book? MMc: Boy, what a segue. I’m one-third done with the second book. I gotta tell you, this second Banana Tail book is going to be a revelation after all that I learned the first time out. I’m paying a well known children’s book writer to work with me on the writing. And even though I had many issues with Active Media’s version of the book, I learned a lot from that experience. For one, a hardcover is ultimately more durable, and a larger-sized product makes more sense to me for little kids, although I don’t think I could have afforded much more than what I did the first go round. I also think that even though I liked the polished look of the digital coloring, I concede that really good watercolors might be the way to go. I was trying to be “state-of-the-art” when I packaged the first book, but it’s 2005, and anybody can do digital coloring. DRAW!: Now, are you drawing that yourself? MMc: I’ve still got Kevin West. He’s so darned good at it that I’m prepared to pay him; I give him $50 a page, and it’s pretty quick work because it’s not panel stuff. It’s one panel a page. I can’t, other work-for-hire—it’s hard to do that because I won’t really see any money until I’ve sold a lot, a lot, of copies. But I’m loyal, and I believe that—right now he’s got his own schedule, he’s Mr. Mom at home with the kids; he’s not working in comics. And I’ll take care of him. If he sticks it out and I do well, he’s the first guy I’m going to go to. I don’t stiff anybody over that way. If I start to get a little bit of a catalog, I believe I can go back to all the schools that read it the first time and go to them again with a second book and go, “Here’s a second book,” and they would be interested.

SELF-PUBLISHING

MARK MCKENNA

LEFT: Samples of the book logo. BELOW: Thumbnails from Banana Tail.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

MARK MCKENNA

SELF-PUBLISHING

RIGHT: Mark’s inked adorn Jerry Ordway’s pencils from DC Comics Presents Mystery in Space.

Recently I found out about this little company out by me in the next town called Moo Crest, and the owner, she wants to take me under her wing. She said, “I want to do Banana Tail, but you’re probably more of a big fish, and I’m a small pond.” I’m giggling. Maybe it’s because of my comic book background, and she’s a fairly new publisher. But she’s published six books and she says she could sell 4000 books for me, and I’m like, “Wow, that’s not terrible.” She’s doing Toy Fair; she does little, small press fairs in New York and all over. So, she’s struggling right now. So I said to her, “Look, I’ve got 2000 books I want to sell. How can we work this out so I can sell books and maybe make you money? Could you put Banana Tail on your imprint or something?” And she goes, “I’ve got a couple different ways I can make you money. We could donate some for a zoo and put you in zoos. You give me a small percentage, like 10%. So you sell a five dollar book and we give one dollar as a donation per book to a fund, then you give me 40 cents or 50 cents on a book, and then you get the rest.” And I’m like, “That’s not terrible.” And she told me she could do it easy, she knows different ways to do it. So if I sell these out, and I get the income for that, I’m going to go right on to the second book. DRAW!: Now, are you going to go back and rewrite the copy? MMc: [laughs] I don’t want to keep what that last publisher did, I’ll tell you that. I actually want to work with a talented editor who can tell me what I did wrong and what I could be better at. I’m not a writer, I know I’m not a writer, but I had a lot of fun doing it. The book is a hit with many children in the intended age 78

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bracket (three to seven years old), and I take great pride in hearing a parent tell me that their children ask to be read Banana Tail time and time again, over long periods of time. It’s this knowledge that drives me to continue with more Banana Tail stories.

VISIT MY WEBSITE AT: www.albertmoy.com

Ken Bald Dave Bullock

Richard Corben

Mike Golden

Erik Larsen

Jim Lee

John Byrne

John Cassaday

Darwyn Cooke

Jae Lee

Sam Kieth

Jack Kirby

Bruce Timm John Severin

WANTED: Neal Adams (covers, sketches, roughs, pages, pencils, illustrations, and paintings). Other artists of interest: Art Adams, John Byrne, John Buscema, Gil Kane, Adam Hughes, Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Joe Kubert, Wally Wood, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Charles Schultz, and many more. Interested in EC artwork, any Large Size covers, any Marvel and DC covers, large and small. Exclusive Agent For: Jae Lee, Jim Lee, Sam Kieth, John Cassaday, Ken Bald, David Bullock, Bruce Timm, Peter Snejbjerg, Darwyn Cooke, Erik Larsen, and Aron Wiesenfeld. Albert has much more art than the selection shown here. Please call him at (718) 225-3261 (8-11:30PM EST weekdays, all day weekends) if you are looking for something in particular and do not see it listed.

Peter Snejbjerg TERMS: Call to reserve art: (718) 225-3261. Will hold art for 7 days. $12 postage in U.S. $25 postage for Overseas orders. All Packages in U.S. are sent registered mail. Money Orders or Certified Checks accepted. We now also take payment via PayPal and Bidpay. Will consider trade offers — Let me know what you have to trade.

Draping the Human Figure by Bret Blevins

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

Part II

DRAPERY

n Part I of “Draping the Human Figure” (DRAW! #8) I diagramed the six basic folds and discussed the general behavior of cloth, outlining the factors that shape the drapery of various garments and weights of fabric as they are effected by gravity and the movement of the figure underneath. Here in the pages of Part II we’ll examine the typical drapery patterns of a few common garments and chart the dominant and secondary folds of various posed figures. Before we get to the diagrams, notice how drapery is used in the title page illustration (a scene from Marvel’s Fantastic Four #19). Here the Egyptian costume reveals the form, pose, attitude, and action of the Invisible Girl. A character’s clothing rarely has to carry so much visual information by itself, which made this piece especially fun—depicting an unseen body

BRET BLEVINS

required drapery to do all the work. Yet the figure and her role in the scene are clearly communicated at first glance by careful attention to the shape and motion of her costume—the eye instantly “sees” the character, not an uninhabited garment. This image depends on the use of drapery for its effect, yet the drapes and folds remain secondary in importance—the focus is still the figure wearing them. Unless you specifically intend such an effect, remember that the clothes should never be more important than the figure wearing them—be careful to stress the big sweeping rhythms and directional folds that define the figure’s form or action and sublimate surface detail that weakens the overall clarity. The clothing should always play a supporting role—even if person wearing them is invisible!

Always remember to use the information here as an aid to constant study from life—don’t memorize a set of drapery symbols or tricks and graft them onto your drawings mechanically. Variety and fresh observation add vitality to every element of drawing figures (or anything else), but because of its complexity, drapery is especially tempting to codify if you are constantly drawing many figures. It’s easy to find a few symbolic rendering gimmicks and apply them over similar poses, but it robs your work of many opportunities to make the drapery active and convince the viewer the figures are alive and engaged in genuine movement, not posed and hammered over with contrived drapery indications that don’t vary. Keep your work fresh and “breathing” with the authenticity of real-world observation. We’ll begin with six transparently draped figures done from a model in which the dominant (the larger, heavier lines tipped with arrows) and secondary folds (the thinner, shorter lines) have been charted—study them as a guide to understanding how to identify each. Always establish the dominant folds first and you’ll often find these will convey all you need to make the drawing convincing and effective. Defining secondary folds may be necessary to clarify certain garments, but often the drawing looks more “alive”—less stilted, posed and frozen in space—if the drapery is simplified as much as possible. If overdone secondary folds destroy the solid impression of form. (Look at the drawn line and color illustrations of pattern catalogs in any fabric store and notice how effectively simplification is used to make the clothing attractive and easy to understand at a glance.) As you study these drawings, keep the three basic concepts of drapery in your mind—try to understand what the cloth is doing through these concepts, as if they were a filter between your eyes and the images. If you develop this habit, the complexity of draping figures will sort itself out into a clear procedural method of observation that simplifies the folds into big directional patterns that reveal both the form they cover and the action they perform. The three concepts are: I. Point of Tension or Support. II. Shape of the Form(s) Underneath. III. Gravity. DRAW! • SPRING 2005

BRET BLEVINS

DRAPERY

T S

These three facts of nature dictate the behavior of all drapery—the cut of particular garments and the weight, thickness, and density of different fabrics will affect the fold patterns, but the essential action of the drapery is still guided by the three basic influences, all properties of physical law. The Point of Tension (T) is always found at the outermost stress point of fabric pulling tight against the form underneath—typically the outer edges of the shoulders, elbows, knees, hips, breasts. The Point of Support (S) is the uppermost edge of the form within a draping cloth. When the figure is standing still, this is usually the top of the shoulders, the waistline of trousers or skirts, the nipples of the breasts—when sitting, the tops of the thighs, the bend of the knee. Shape of the Form Underneath is the structure over which the fabric hangs, pulls, stretches or flows—at the Points of Tension and Support the cloth will pull taut and folds will radiate out from the stress points. Away from or between the tension points the cloth will fall slack and drop, hang or fold back on itself.

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T T

T Gravity is the overall directional magnetic influence that pulls the cloth away from the figure, usually downward, but in the case of running or leaping figures the atmosphere can lift cloth away from the body. Gravity is still at work though—the figure is usually heavier than the garment so the drapery is reacting to the pull of the moving weight it covers. If the cloth is drenched in liquid its increased weight forces a downward drop which often causes it to cling to the figure.

T S

BRET BLEVINS

DRAPERY In these triad sets of drawings from a model I’ve established the underlying nude form first. This is crucial—you cannot convincingly wrap drapery around a vague idea of the covered forms. It’s always necessary to establish the nude forms first, even if the indicating marks are loose or sketchy. Details are unimportant, it’s the solidity and accurate contours of the forms we are after. You must understand the forms you are covering, there is simply no other way to grasp exactly what the covering fabric is doing as it pulls, wraps, encircles, drops, or flows away from the solid shape within or beneath it. The model is wearing various garments in a variety of poses. In the third smaller drawing of each set I’ve charted the major directional behavior of the drapery—I haven’t separated the dominant and secondary folds in these diagrams, though. I’ve left that to you— if you study the previous charted drawings from the model it won’t be difficult to recognize the distinctions here, though it may take a bit of practice—make photocopies of these pages and establish the dominant fold indications by going over them with a heavy pencil or marker. As you study these images, notice how every fold and wrinkle is irrevocably dictated by the three defining principles— Point of Tension or Support, Shape of the Form Underneath, and Gravity. They bear repeating—keep them in your mind constantly as you study and draw. Eventually you’ll develop a habit of using these concepts to categorize the folds and the shapes they create around the figures you observe in the real world.

S T S T T

You’ll notice in these charts that the Points of Tension usually occur when the figure is engaged in some kind of action that forces the cloth to pull, stretch, or twist, and the Points of Support occur at spots that protrude or swell, forming an edge over which the cloth falls away from toward the pull of gravity.

S T T T

S S

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BRET BLEVINS

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DRAPERY

BRET BLEVINS

Here the snug cut of the pants causes the cloth to pull very tightly around the forms of her legs, while the loose slack of the dress creates longer, looser folds that drape through the space around her legs and between her hips and knees, and also between her hips/rump and ankles.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

BRET BLEVINS

Make a close study of the fold variety formed by the increased amount of fabric in the broad draping skirt/pants hybrid garment. This unusual piece of clothing creates a completely different effect of drapery than either of the more conventional lower body coverings.

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DRAPERY

BRET BLEVINS

In the first pose the big sweeping change of direction—from rump to knee of her left leg—creates a corresponding large deep fold in the loose garment. The wide stretch of this tension virtually eliminates any secondary folds beneath it.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

BRET BLEVINS

DRAPERY

The last set of diagrams are a series of invented male and female figures demonstrating the basic directional patterns that typically occur in a basic suit jacket, pressed pants, shirt and tie outfit, and a simple sack dress clasped at the waist. They were done to demonstrate how an understanding of the natural physical properties that govern the behavior of drapery will enable you to fabricate convincing images from your imagination. Though not absolutely accurate, these stylized line drawings of fabric reacting to different poses are correct enough to create a believable impression of cloth in action. Use them to help you understand what you see when observing from life, or to clarify a drawing that has become too detailed or confusing to scan clearly at first glance.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DRAPERY

BRET BLEVINS There are no arrow charts here—use your own judgment to identify the dominant and secondary folds. Again, make photocopies and experiment until you are sure you’ve made the correct distinctions. Because these images are invented, the drapery has been intentionally simplified to scan easily at one glance. Notice the difference in complexity between these drawings and the previous examples drawn from life. The lack of subtlety in the imaginary draped figures is great compared to the drawings done from real world observation—but the knowledge gained from the natural physical world is the basis for the stylistic simplifications I’ve made. It allows me to distort the drapery forms to convincingly accent the movement of the figure beneath.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

BRET BLEVINS

The forward thrust of these running features creates a large rhythm of folds sweeping back and away from the forwardmost edges of the forms, conveying a sense of moving through space.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DRAPERY

BRET BLEVINS

These simple garments will reveal most of the typical behavior of modern business suits, dresses or skirts. The individual shape, fabric and length of various fashion designs will create characteristics particular to each garment, but again these typical fold patterns will help you see and understand how each variation shapes itself around myriad poses and movements. Some of the actions are extreme and tailored to fantasy and action scenarios, others are common everyday movements. These images are caricatures, which is inevitable when fabricating figures from the imagination, but an understanding of the basic principles of drapery allow an artist to invent convincing illusions of fabric in motion— notice how in key areas dotted lines have been used to indicate the defining contours of the garment edges by “drawing through” to the far out-ofsight side of the figure. When creating figures without a model or reference, it’s helpful to place this information on your sketch or preliminary drawing—it clarifies logical physical facts, such as occur when a figure is bent over at the waist. In both the male and female bending poses, the rear hem of the suit coat and dress rise higher at the point directly below the center of the back, because that spot is the farthest limit of the garment from the floor. As the upper garment edge circles down around the waist toward the floor, the corresponding lower hem drops too. As you fill sketchbooks with studies of draped figures, never forget that drapery should be a means to strengthen your drawings, not an end in itself— keep it simple and don’t allow its complexity to weigh down your figures with too much fussy superfluous detail. Our axiom, “Good drawing is making prejudiced selections,” is especially true of drapery—learn to sift the enormous complexity found in nature and distill the essential rhythms and choose drawn marks that convey the telling information with a simple eloquence. See you next time! Bret DRAW! • SPRING 2005

BRET BLEVINS

Although these two poses are active, unlike the running figures there isn’t much movement through space, so the folds are less pronounced and the cloth remains close to the forms.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DRAPERY

BRET BLEVINS

These two extreme cartoony, twisting poses are exagerated for effect, but the behavior of the cloth is still based on the principles of actual fabric in action.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

BRET BLEVINS

DRAPERY

In the two simple standing poses, notice that nearly all the folds simply drop away toward the pull of gravity, but as soon as the figures change direction by bending over an entire network of interacting tensions, stresses and slack drops occur. Every movement of the figure transforms the behavior of the cloth that covers it.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005

DRAPERY

BRET BLEVINS

In these poses the figure is not technically in action—in fact is not even moving—but the twisting limbs and torso of the two horizontal positions create a wide variety of rhythmic tension/slack fold patterns. The garment is your visual clue to what the figure underneath is doing in any pose—pay close attention to the effect every change of direction within the body has on its descriptive outer covering, and use that information to make your drawings convincing.

DRAW! • SPRING 2005