Draw #26

#26

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FALL 2013 $8.95 IN THE US

DIGITAL

NS DRAW! (edited by MIKE MANLEY) is the professional EDITIO BLE A “HOW-TO” magazine on comics, cartooning, and IL AVA NLY animation. Each issue features in-depth INTERVIEWS FOR O 5 and DEMOS from top pros on all aspects of graphic $3.9 storytelling, as well as such DRAW! #4 skills as layout, penciling, inking, Interview with ERIK LARSEN, KEVIN lettering, coloring, Photoshop techNOWLAN on drawing and inking niques, plus web guides, tips, tricks, techniques, DAVE COOPER’s coloring techniques in Photoshop, BRET and a handy reference source—this BLEVINS tutorial on Figure magazine has it all!

Composition, PAUL RIVOCHE on the Design Process, reviews of NOTE: Some issues contain nudity for comics drawing papers, and more! purposes of figure drawing.

(88-page magazine) $5.95 INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS. (Digital Edition) $3.95

DRAW! #8

DRAW! #9

DRAW! #10

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DRAW! #6

DRAW! #7

MIKE WIERINGO interview, BENDIS and OEMING on how they create “Powers”, BRET BLEVINS shows “How to draw great hands”, “The illusion of depth in design” by PAUL RIVOCHE, art books reviewed by TERRY BEATTY, plus reviews of the best art supplies, and more!

Interview & demo with BILL WRAY, STEPHEN DeSTEFANO interview, BRET BLEVINS shows “How to draw the human figure in light and shadow,” Photoshop tutorial by CELIA CALLE, inking tips by MIKE MANLEY, reviews of the best art supplies, links, and more!

Interview/demo by DAN BRERETON, ZACH TRENHOLM on caricaturing, “Drawing In Adobe Illustrator” demo

by ALBERTO RUIZ, “The Power of Sketching” by BRET BLEVINS, “Designing with light and shadow”

by PAUL RIVOCHE, reviews of art supplies, links, and more!

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DRAW! #11

DRAW! #12

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Interview & demo by MATT HALEY, TOM BANCROFT & ROB CORLEY on character design, “Drawing In Adobe Illustrator” by ALBERTO RUIZ, “Draping The Human Figure”

by BRET BLEVINS, a new COMICS SECTION, International Spotlight on JOSÉ LOUIS AGREDA, and more!

WRITE NOW #8 crossover! MIKE MANLEY & DANNY FINGEROTH create a comic from script to print, BANCROFT & CORLEY on bringing characters to life, Adobe Illustrator with ALBERTO RUIZ, Noel Sickles’ work examined, PvP’s SCOTT KURTZ, art supply reviews, and more!

RON GARNEY interview & demo, GRAHAM NOLAN on creating newspaper strips, TODD KLEIN and others discuss lettering, “Draping The Human Figure, Part Two” by BRET BLEVINS, ALBERTO RUIZ on Adobe Illustrator, interview with MARK McKENNA, links, and more!

STEVE RUDE on comics & drawing, ROQUE BALLESTEROS on Flash animation, JIM BORGMAN on his daily comic strip Zits, BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY on “Drawing On Life”, Adobe Illustrator tips with ALBERTO RUIZ, links, a color section and more! New RUDE cover!

KYLE BAKER on merging traditional and digital art, MIKE HAWTHORNE on his work, “Making Perspective Work For You” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, Photoshop techniques with ALBERTO RUIZ, THE VENTURE BROTHERS, links, and more! New BAKER cover!

Demo of painting methods by ALEX HORLEY, interview and demo by COLLEEN COOVER, a look behindthe-scenes on Adult Swim’s MINORITEAM, regular features on drawing by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, links, color section and more!

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DRAW! #14

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DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

DRAW! #19

In-depth interviews and demos with DOUG MAHNKE, OVI NEDELCU (Pigtale, WB Animation), STEVE PURCELL (Sam and Max), MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP on “Using Black to Power up Your Pages”, product reviews, and more!

Covers major schools offering comic art as part of their curriculum, in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Plus, a “how-to” demo/interview with BILL REINHOLD, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP series, and more!

In-depth interview with HOWARD CHAYKIN, behind the drawing board and animation desk with JAY STEPHENS, COMIC ART BOOTCAMP on HOW TO USE REFERENCE and WORKING FROM PHOTOS (by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY), and more!

Interview and tutorial with Scott Pilgrim’s BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY on how he creates the acclaimed series, learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS creates his series, more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Interview & demo by R.M. GUERA, Cartoon Network’s JAMES TUCKER on the hit show “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” plus product reviews by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and Comic Book Boot Camp’s “Anatomy: Part 2” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY!

DOUG BRAITHWAITE demo and interview, DANNY FINGEROTH’s new feature on writer/artists with R. SIKORYAK, BOB McLEOD critiques a newcomer’s work, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies and tool tech, COMIC ART BOOTCAMP on penciling & more!

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DRAW! #20

DRAW! #21

DRAW! #22

WALTER SIMONSON interview and demo, Rough Stuff’s BOB McLEOD gives a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, Write Now’s DANNY FINGEROTH spotlights writer/artist AL JAFFEE, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the best art supplies and tool technology, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS offer “Comic Art Bootcamp” lessons, plus Web links, book reviews, and more!

Urban Barbarian DAN PANOSIAN talks shop about his gritty, designinspired work with editor MIKE MANLEY, DANNY FINGEROTH interviews “Billy Dogma” writer/artist DEAN HASPIEL, plus more of MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, product and art supply reviews by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, FRANK MILLER interview, plus MILLER and KLAUS JANSON show their working processes. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 US • (Digital edition) $3.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 US • (Digital edition) $3.95

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THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING WWW.DRAW-MAGAZINE.BLOGSPOT.COM FALL 2013 VOL. 1, No. 26 Editor-in-Chief • Michael Manley Managing Editor and Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Front Cover • Joe Jusko DRAW! Fall 2013, Vol. 1, No. 26 was produced

by Action Planet, Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing.

Michael Manley, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher.

Editorial address: DRAW! Magazine, c/o Michael Manley, 430 Spruce Ave., Upper Darby, PA 19082.

Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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JOE JUSKO

Mike Manley interviews the painter and cover artist about his long and successful career

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RIGHT WAY, WRONG WAY—ORDWAY!

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Jim rugg

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comic art bootcamp

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The crusty Critic

Jerry goes step-by-step with a commission

DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet, Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2013 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 work-for-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, or historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied.

This entire issue is ©2013 Action Planet, Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. ISSN 1932-6882.

Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

Jamar Nicholas chats with the indie creator about crafting comics

This month’s installment: Drawing Dynamic Figures

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy (which entitles you to the free Digital Edition) at our website or your local comic book shop. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded at

Jamar Nicholas reviews the tools of the trade.

This month: Correction fluid

www.twomorrows.com DRAW! FALL 2013

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-ING AHEAD

elcome back! DRAW! now sails on into its next decade and its next 25 issues, a little older, bolder, a little more digital, and hopefully still as wise and vital and chock full of information as it was from issue #1.

Many, many changes are facing the modern cartoonist and illustrator, and even fine artist. Daily it seems some new Tumblr comes along or some new program like Manga Studio. One thing for sure is that these programs and Internet sites all come and go—remember MySpace? Well, we are all on Facebook now, but in five years it could be on the digital dustheap along with AOL, etc.

One constant through all of this is change, and the artists that do the best with change are the ones who have the most skills—yes, traditional or old world skills. Anyone can learn a new program, but can anyone draw well enough, “think” well enough with a pencil, digital or otherwise, to create work that grabs people, tells a story, creates a world of fantasy that is convincing enough to draw in a viewer? Tra-digital skills might be the way it goes for the future, but the digital is always the impersonation of the traditional, so the better your traditional skills are, the better off you are.

It was great talking with Joe Jusko and getting to dig down into his process, as well as find out how much of a big John Buscema fan he is. Big John has always been one of my favorite artists in comics.

There are certain artists like Buscema who are what I call Big Bring artists. They string backward and forward influencing so many artists for many generations. It was also good to talk to Joe about the changing face of illustration and comics. The world of the working artist has probably never offered as many challenges to the working cartoonist and illustrator as today.

A big “welcome aboard” to Jerry Ordway and his debut as a new regular columnist for DRAW! A big Philly “yo!” and ups to my fellow Philly cartoonist and best bud Jamar for knocking it out of the park with his interview with Jim Rugg in this issue. Both Jamar and I have been big fans of Jim’s works since his Street Angel days.

It was heavy lifting, but Bret chipped in and helped raise this issue’s “Bootcamp” to a higher level. As always big thanks to my main man Eric for putting the whole thing together and making it look great, and to the Main Man John Morrow for running the steady ship of TwoMorrows.

I love to hear from you readers, so drop me a line at mike@actionplanet.com, and in the meantime, go draw something!

NEXT ISSUE IN JANUARY 2014!

DRAW! #27 (80 pages, now in its new full-color format, $8.95 print/$3.95 digital), the professional “how-to” magazine on comics and animation, covers the cover guy—DAVE JOHNSON! From 100 Bullets to Deadpool, Punisher Max, and more, Johnson gives us a intensive blow-by-blow on the creative process that keeps him in demand as a cover artist for Marvel, DC, Image, and others. ALSO: Even if you don’t know his name, you've seen Stephen Silver's work as one of today's most in-demand character designers, for shows such as Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, and Kevin Smith’s animated Clerks series.

Silver even has his own Character Design App, and will walk you through his approach to creating the look for some of the most recognizable creations in Hollywood. PLUS: “The Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the ORDWAY!” with new columnist Jerry Ordway, “The Crusty Critic” by Jamar Nicholas, and “Comic Art Bootcamp” by Mike Manley and Bret Blevins! Edited by Mike Manley.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: Four issues US: $30 Standard, $40 First Class, $11.80 Digital Only Outside the US: Canada: $43, Elsewhere: $54 Surface, $78 Airmail SUBSCRIBE NOW At: www.twomorrows.com

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A Journey through time and space

Joe Jusko with

interview conducted by

Mike Manley

and transcribed by

Eric Nolen-Weathington

F

rom the moons of Barsoom to the jungles of Lord Greystoke, DRAW! tracks down Joe Jusko for an in-depth interview with one of today’s most in-demand comic book cover artists.

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DRAW!: One of the things I’m trying to cover more in the magazine is artists who straddle more than one medium, or more than one genre.

Because almost everybody I know in comics, especially guys like you and Glen Orbik, you have to jump around a lot more. In the old days, you would have one or two clients and that would carry you. You could just do western paperbacks or whatever. But you’re doing a lot of different things it seems.

JOE JUSKO: That was always completely intentional on my part, because my attention span is incredibly short, and I get bored really quickly doing the same thing over and over again. So I kind of like being able to bounce back and forth and be versatile with the kind of things I work on.

Mark Texiera once said to me, “You’re really hard to pin down.

It’s really hard to track your work when you bounce around all over the place. People know me as the Ghost Rider guy or the Punisher guy, and you’re everywhere.” I’m a cover guy, so it’s kind of hard to stay on one thing for a long period of time. The two runs I did have were Warlord of Mars and Conan.

But I kind of like bouncing around.

I like doing different things. I find it challenging, and I always feel like I’m coasting if I do the same thing Joe’s rough pencils for the cover to Vampirella: Revelations #3. over and over.

Vampirella © DFI That’s one reason I decided not to draw comics. I admire guys who can do it, but I don’t know DRAW!: That’s interesting. I’ll often mention in classes I how you draw the same thing month after month after month teach that some people have what I call the comics brain, and some people have the illustration brain. There are a lot of peoand not lose your mind. ple who love to do comics, but it’s an element of their artistic personality that it’s better to do one image, and they find a lot DRAW!: So you’ve never drawn continuity stuff?

JJ: Yeah, I have, but it’s always been short bursts of things. I more satisfaction pouring everything into that one image. And did a Vampirella mini-series for Harris. I did that Tomb Raider then there are other people who really love being able to tell graphic novel for Top Cow. I did three issues of Black Pan- stories through continuity.

I think people today are able, in some respects, to specialize ther for Marvel Knights because Tex left and they needed in a way. You mentioned John Buscema. In that era you never someone who could work in tone to sort of follow his style.

I like storytelling, and I wanted to draw comics when I was knew exactly what your next job might be. You might do a a kid. John Buscema was my god. I learned to draw by copy- western, your might do a romance, or you might do a war story. ing his stuff. But I realized when I was in high school that I A lot of those guys had to take whatever came down the pike. wasn’t going to be fast enough to do comics, and I also got JJ: Right. That’s why I think those guys that worked in the bored with it quickly, so I thought painting would be a better ’40s and ’50s were so versatile. They really had to know how outlet for me, where I could do a single image and then move to draw anything. That’s not the case today. A lot of guys aren’t incredibly versatile. Those guys could draw anything. If they on to something else I could approach with a fresh mindset.

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Painting over a tightened, streamlined pencil transfer, Joe tackles the foreground figure of Vampirella, working from light to dark.

Vampirella © DFI

had to do a western, they would do a knock-out job, then they’d do a gangster book. I think it made them more well-rounded.

Not to say there aren’t guys today who could do that. I just don’t think it’s as much of a requirement, anymore.

reference back where it belongs and straighten stuff out so I can find it when I need it again.

I tend to clean up in bursts, and the place is restored again.

It’s a creative chaos thing that goes on.

DRAW!: There are guys today who have never drawn anyone wearing a suit. [laughs] JJ: Exactly. Every one of those old guys could draw clothing.

DRAW!: Do you tend to work on more than one piece at a time, or do you tend to work on one piece until you finish it?

JJ: I’ve developed a decent amount of speed, and I find that if I work on more than one piece at a time it gets a little bit confused. If I have to break off from working on something, I have to take time to recalibrate myself when I go back to it. So I like to work straight through and get things done. I’m a bit of a compulsive personality that way, where if I start something I keep at it until it’s finished, and if I get distracted, I get 100% distracted.

Not that ideas don’t pop into my head while I’m working on something and I need to take a second to jot down some notes. I’m always figuring things out in my head. I’m figuring out other jobs while I’m working on the one I’m working on, but I don’t specifically go and work on those things.

DRAW!:There are probably guys today who have never even owned a suit. [laughter] The level of dress people wore back in those days, they had a suit, they had a pair of dress shoes.

There was a little bit more formality back then.

So, today you’re cleaning up the studio. What’s your process like as far as that goes? Do you tend to work for a while, then clean up, work for a while, clean for a while?

JJ: No. My basement is my studio, and I’ve never fully finished it. I’ve been meaning to finish the place off, but I haven’t done it. I’ve got my file cabinets and bookshelves up, but my reference is thrown all around the place, and my working drawings and paints are everywhere. And I’ll go through three or four paintings before I realize I’m surrounded by clutter that just has to be cleaned up. I just finished up three pieces I’ve been working on, and I’ve realized it’s time to put

DRAW!: Is your process usually the same as far as how you break down a job? Are you doing any of the work digitally?

I’ve talked to several fantasy artists, and a lot of them start traditionally and then will finish some of the work in Photoshop.

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Joe finishes up the flesh details before moving on to the darker colors of the costume. The web is the last detail to be added.

Vampirella © DFI

JJ: My process at this point is basically the same as it’s always been. It’s all physical. I do nothing digitally. I see some defect in the scan, I’ll clean it up in Photoshop, but I like the tactile feel of painting and drawing.

I’ll get a job and I’ll take out some typing paper or 11" x 17" sheets of bond paper, and I’ll jot out ideas—basically just shapes. I’ll block in geometric shapes to balance out the image. If I have a figure looking at something, I know there’ll be a shape here. It might be a rock or a pile of rubble or a car—it’s just balancing the piece out. That to me is the most important thing in the work is to have an interesting image and silhouettes.

Then I’ll go back in and throw tracing paper over my initial drawings and tighten things up and change things around. I do a lot of my preliminary work on layers of tracing paper because it’s easier to move things around and restructure stuff.

DRAW!: That’s a very old-school illustration technique. Guys like Al Parker would work stuff out on layers of tracing paper.

JJ: Well, yeah. The stuff really has no value except to work out the final composition. I’m expediting the thought process.

It’s easier to do it that way than to erase and start over again.

By the way, I’m an Al Parker fanatic. I’ve been looking for a certain piece of his for years.

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DRAW!: Once you have your final sketch, is that when you send it out for approval and start gathering photo reference?

Do you shoot your models yourself?

JJ: I won’t do anything as far as reference goes until the sketches go in, because if they don’t approve the sketch, then what’s the point of doing all the work of putting the reference together? So I’ll wait until I get a go-ahead.

Certain companies, like Dynamite, are great about giving me more or less carte blanche on their covers, where I don’t send anything in until the final painting is done. It’s a ridiculous amount of freedom, which I really appreciate. They trust that I know the properties and the characters. As long as I get the paintings in every month, they’re happy. They’ve been thrilled with the work I’ve been doing for them.

Other companies are different, where you have to send two or three sketches in, and they’ll pick the one they like, and it’s normally the one you don’t want to do. [laughter] DRAW!: Why is that? Why is it always the third one? “Well, I need to send them another one. Oh well.”

JJ: And I have tried everything to steer them away from the one I don’t want to do. I’ve done them really loose. I’ve done the one I wanted to do bigger than the other sketches to draw more attention to it. They always pick the one I threw in out of

Vampirella © DFI

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For the cover of Warlord of Mars #7, Joe started with a loose sketch, which was then tightened a bit.

John Carter © ERB, Inc.

nowhere. “I really like these, but let me give them this,” and I’ll do it really quickly. Invariably they’ll pick that last piece.

It’s hysterical. It really is.

If reference is required, I’ve been cutting up magazines since I worked with [Howard] Chaykin back in the ’70s. He taught me the value of a photo morgue and a reference file, so I’ve got three four-drawer file cabinets full of anything you could possibly name. A magazine has not passed though my hands in the past 30 years I have not taken a razor blade to and swiped something I thought I might need at some point, whether it’s backgrounds, or scenery, castles, men’s clothing, any animal you can name. You name it, and I have a file on it.

Chris Moeller made me swear to will him my reference files. When we both lived in Pittsburgh he would always call me if he needed some obscure piece of reference because he knew I would have it. He was actually shocked once when I didn’t have what he was looking for.

DRAW!: So part of your process is always adding to your morgue?

JJ: Yeah. As I’m watching TV, I’ll sit there and slice up magazines, even if I only get one or two pieces out of something.

I used reference recently from my file that I’ve had since Year One or Year Two. I finally had a use for it. “There you go. I

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knew I had this for a reason.” And it’s funny how I remember I have this stuff. “I think I have an image of a shoreline like this in my file.” And sure enough, I looked through and it had the tropical island shoreline. “This is perfect.”

DRAW!: I suppose the process of cutting it out and filing it away is also filing it away in your brain.

JJ: It really is. I’m shocked that I know I have all of this stuff— even stuff from 25, 30 years ago. I might not always know exactly what file it’s in, but I know I have it. And it’s really invaluable as an illustrator to have that stuff on hand, because you can’t make up everything. If you need to draw an elephant, unless you specialize in drawing elephants, you need to know what an elephant looks like. You can make up a dragon, because no one has every seen one. You can’t make up an elephant. People may not be able to vocalize what’s wrong with it, but they can look at it and say, “Ennnh… elephants don’t look like that,” because they’ve seen enough elephants to know better. Especially if you’re a realist illustrator as I am, that stuff needs to be accurate.

I’ve always told people at conventions about the value of having a reference file. And it seems that comics is the only place where using reference is frowned upon. [laughs] Every other illustration field, it’s okay, but if you use reference in comics, it’s somehow cheating.

“[I]t seems that comics is the only place where using reference is frowned upon. [laughs] Every other illustration field, it’s okay, but if you use reference in comics, it’s somehow cheating. … You have to have the knowledge to decipher what you’re looking at in the photo. If you gave ten people a photo to copy, unless they know what they’re looking at, and they understand basic structure and proportion, they’re going to come out looking like Picassos.”

DRAW!: There’s the endless, endless debate at art school about people who use photos versus people who don’t use photos. Some people look at using photos as some form of cheating. If I go take a picture of a model and work from the picture, somehow that’s cheating, as opposed to me paying to have a model stand in front of me for eight hours holding the sword. I kind of feel it’s a dead debate, because if it was so easy to use a photo, and the photo elevated the art and made the process so Because of the tricky angle, Joe did a separate perspective sketch of the buildings. easy, then you would have five million John Carter © ERB, Inc. people who could paint as well as Norman Rockwell, but you still have only one Norman Rockwell.

DRAW!: Exactly. In fact, some of the agencies would have JJ: Right. You have to have the knowledge to decipher what photographers, and they would arrange it so that you could you’re looking at in the photo. If you gave ten people a photo have the photographs taken for you and processed for you so to copy, unless they know what they’re looking at, and they you could work. understand basic structure and proportion, they’re going to JJ: Especially doing romance books, they wanted that stuff come out looking like Picassos. accurate. They had specialist photographers and historical Just because you’re using a photo for lighting, or for an an- costumes, and you picked the model you wanted from a book. gle, or for proportion—it’s that age-old debate that still goes The company actually paid for that. I doubt they do that anyon between Frazetta and Boris [Vallejo]. “Well, Boris cop- more, but that was a major practice back then. ies photos, and Frazetta manufactures everything out of his head.” But those same people will worship [Robert] McGinn- DRAW!: So how do you go about booking the models and is and James Bama, who worked exclusively from photos—or shooting them yourself? What’s your process like? every ’50s and ’60s magazine illustrator. The awesome guys JJ: I used to shoot a lot more, back when I lived in more metwho worked back then—it’s all photo-ref stuff. ropolitan areas. I’m in Syracuse now. There’s not a whole lot I remember back in the late ’70s, when I first started, talk- up here, model-wise. When I lived in New York and even Pittsing to my buddy [Bob] Larkin, and Larkin was doing really burgh, I was able to shoot more. I was able to use professional okay with book covers. The companies back then had a sti- models or girls I knew from conventions who were local. pend they would give you to hire models. There was actually When I did the Tomb Raider book, my friend Jasi Cotton a modeling fee tacked onto your rate.

Lanier, who’s a stuntwoman in Hollywood now, came out for a

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weekend. After I drew out the entire book, she basically posed for everything I needed. I used her and my neighbor Scott Dougherty for the entire book. I had to make some major changes, because she’s tiny. She’s only 5' 1", 5' 2", and I had to constantly elongate her figure. That’s the thing people don’t realize. There’s a lot of redrawing that goes on with these photos to make stuff work the way you need it to work. They’re just good guides.

If I need something to correct a drawing, I can go through my photo morgue and find something similar and cobble it together from eight or nine different photos if need be. I’ve been doing this for so long, I can fake a figure really well if need be. I’ll shoot friends, my wife will pose for me as needed—it varies. But I haven’t hired a model in some time. With comics, there’s not a whole lot of time. Models take a good chunk out of your money, and the rates aren’t what they used to be.

shoot the photo or find the appropriate clip file, then adapt it to the drawing that I have. I may manipulate it and move it around and twist it a bit to try to give me the movement that I want within the specs that I have. That way it keeps it looking a little more dynamic and less posed most of the time.

Tools of the Trade

DRAW!: Are you working on illustration board? Are you working in acrylics?

JJ: After I have a fairly tight drawing—not the full finished drawing, but a tight layout and composition on tracing paper—

DRAW!: Right. And working from the model used to be incorporated into the deadline and into the process of producing a cover in the old days.

JJ: Now I’ll get an email saying they need a cover so quickly. It’s the last thing they think about, but the first thing they need.

DRAW!: [laughs] “Oh, by the way, Joe. We need it Monday,” and it’s Sunday night.

JJ: Right. It’s very funny. But I get a lot of pleasure out of it. Jimmy Palmiotti loved that I could turn out covers for him overnight.

If there’s photo reference for maybe 15 to 20% of it, you really can’t tell where it is, which is the effect that I want. You can photo reference everything, but after so many years, I really don’t have to anymore. And that’s the idea—you shouldn’t be able to tell where the reference was used and where it wasn’t. That’s one of the things I’m proud of with my work, is that you really can’t tell half the time if it’s photo-referenced or not.

DRAW!: Some guys project the photo, then trace it down, and then draw. Do you do one final drawing and then put it down on the board, or do you draw it on the board?

JJ: I’ll draw it freehand. I don’t like tracing stuff off because it stiffens up the final piece. Like I said, I learned to draw from John Buscema when I was a kid, so I have a little bit of movement and dynamism to my figures that a guy who draws exclusively from a photo doesn’t have. I try to keep that in my work, even when I photo-ref stuff. I’ll never actually trace or project a photo. I’ll

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The tightened pencils that as they appear on the board to be painted.

John Carter © ERB, Inc.

I work on either Bainbridge 80 cold pressed illustration board or Crescent 100 cold pressed board. I like a cold pressed board because it has a bit of tooth to it and holds the paint better. You can’t paint on hot pressed board because it’s glassy smooth.

DRAW!: It’s too slick for you?

JJ: Yeah, very much so. I’ve used Bainbridge 80 for almost my entire career, but it’s getting harder and harder to find in the stores. The place near me carries Crescent, so I’ve been using that. I’m not crazy about it, as it tends to bow when wet. Bainbridge never does. It was Bob Larkin’s board of choice, as well.

I work on an unprimed board. I work in acrylics, but I work on an unprimed board because a lot of the work I do is washes and glazes—I use almost a watercolor technique sometimes—and if I gesso the board, the paint slides around and I get streaking.

I’ll take the sketch, turn it over, and rub a #2 pencil all over the back and make sort of my own graphite transfer sheet. I’ll lay the drawing down on the board and trace the drawing off with a 6H pencil. It will give me a clean line on the board, which I will then tighten up with a 2H pencil. I make a tight, almost animation-style drawing. That gives me a really clean outline to work on. I do it that way because if I draw it directly on the board, I’ll be erasing, and it compromises the texture of the surface of the board, which will affect the way the paint goes on the board later on. By tracing the drawing down, I keep the integrity of the board and have all the work from the tracings done in one go.

DRAW!: Is there a reason you chose to work with acrylics as opposed to oils? Do you ever work with oils?

JJ: I tried oils. I’m a self-taught painter. I went to the High School of Art & Design back in the ’70s. The summer after I graduated, I decided that I wanted to paint, and I had no idea what to do. I had won an award from DC Comics that was essentially a gift certificate telling me I was the most promising graduate of the year.

The finished painting for the cover of Warlord of Mars #7.

John Carter © ERB, Inc.

DRAW!: They had an art contest sponsored

by DC? JJ: It wasn’t a contest. It’s a thing called the DC Comics Award for Excellence in Cartooning. Art & Design is a public high school in New York City, but it is a vocational school geared toward a career in the commercial arts.

It’s the only one of its kind in the country. All the teachers were retired professional illustrators. It’s a great school. So many people in our industry went to school there: Jimmy Palmiotti, Joe Madureira, Joe Rubinstein, Neal Adams, just to name a few. It’s a great, great school. Bernie Krigstein was one of my illustration teachers!

At graduation, certain students are awarded for their work—I don’t know if Marvel had one, but DC had one. I won the DC Comics Award for Excellence in Cartooning, which was a letter from Sol Harrison saying, “You’re the most promising student, yada, yada, yada,” and a gift certificate for 50 bucks.

Which is ironic, because in 35 years, I think I’ve done two jobs for DC Comics. [laughter]

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(clockwise from top left) The letter Joe received for winning the DC Award for Excellence, his High School of Art & Design ID badge, and the three paintings that got him a job with Howard Chaykin. artwork © Joe Jusko

I spent the gift certificate on art supplies, and I went home and tried to teach myself how to paint. I played with oils, but I had no idea how to use them. I’d bought a book on oil painting but found it a bit confusing. So I tried acrylics and watercolors and couldn’t really master any of them.

The first few pieces I did were a combination of watercolor and colored inks. I did one oil painting that was bad. I did another piece that was a combination of acrylics and gouache and watercolor. I was really mixing mediums without knowing what I was doing.

That summer I had met Howard Chaykin at a comic book store in Greenwich Village. He saw the three paintings I had done, and he hired me as his assistant, because he needed someone who could do color on the graphic novels he was working on. He was using a mixed media approach. He was using Higgins and Pelican inks and acrylic and markers and all kinds of stuff, and I picked up the technique he was using

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of mixing a ton of media for the stuff I was doing.

I used that mixed media approach through all those Savage Sword covers. They’re all a combination of Dr. Martin’s dyes, acrylics, gouache, and markers—which, to my dismay, I discovered bled through the acrylic overpainting. In hindsight it’s kind of amazing, because I was just making the stuff up and using whatever medium gave me the effect I wanted, all within the same painting. I never mastered any one. I knew I didn’t like oils, because they dry too slowly, and like I said, my attention span is really short. I like to keep moving, and I didn’t have the patience for oils. All the things I was using were quick-drying mediums.

I did that up until the Edgar Rice Burroughs cards I did for FBG. Halfway through that job, I switched over to exclusively acrylics. That was after a conversation I had with Bob Larkin at a gallery opening about the fact that he used gouache, which always amazed me. I originally thought his

paintings were acrylics, if not oils. He said, “I decided one day that I had to become proficient with one medium if I was going to make a living at this, and I chose gouache.” It struck a note with me that I should pick one medium that suited my personality and the way I worked, and learn how to use the paints. I chose acrylics, and from there I started playing with acrylics and working out techniques that worked for me. I cobbled together a bunch of different techniques and invented a bunch of stuff that works well for me.

DRAW!: Do you have certain brand of acrylics you prefer?

JJ: Yeah, I work almost exclusively now in Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics, because the pigment is really dense, and they’re great if you need detail or flat areas of color. I just find them incredibly easy to use. You don’t fight with them like you do with tube colors, which are more of an impasto type of paint, and which, when you thin them down to cover an area, don’t thin down well—they get grainy.

I’ll use some tube color if I have to.

Certain colors in various brands are different, so I’ll use some Golden tube colors. The majority of what I use, though, is Liquitex Soft Body.

DRAW!: One of the problems I had years ago when I was using acrylics was that—and it’s the same with oils—certain colors will cover well, and there are others where it seems like you have to put down ten layers to get the density you want. Since you’re working with acrylics, are you using any binders or extenders?

JJ: No. The way I work is all dry brushing and scumbling with soft bristle brushes, or washes of color, working with rounds and softs and blending stuff, because with soft body acrylics, you can use them anywhere from being opaque to behaving like watercolors.

I tried using the Golden retarder a few years ago to do sort of a Bob Ross background effect. I would do a base color, then brush on a layer of the retarder. I would paint into the retarder and scumble all of the colors, then brush them out. The effect is great, but it was just such a pain.

I’ve been trying to get a more organic feel to the paint the past decade or so, so I stopped using an

airbrush. I used to use a lot of airbrush, but I can’t remember the last time I used one. I found that I can mimic a lot of the effects now with the soft bristles and scumbling.

DRAW!: Do you have a favorite brand of brushes that work best for you?

JJ: For the smaller brushes, as far as the detail work, I use Loew-Cornell Series 797 rounds and flats. It’s a white synthetic brush. They’re not expensive, which is great, because acrylics destroy brushes. You need a brush that performs really well that is cheap and easily replaceable. I’ll buy them in lots of 50 in different sizes. For rounds, I use a 0, 1, and a 2.

For flats, I use various sizes from 2 to 10.

One of the three paintings Joe is holding in the photo of the previous page.

He was only 14 when he did this! Award of Excellence indeed!

Conan © Conan Properties, LLC

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DRAW!: So you go through a lot of brushes on a painting?

JJ: A brush will last three or four paintings, but no matter how well you clean your brushes, acrylics will destroy the bristles.

I read an interview with Boris many years ago—he works in oils—where he said he used new brushes on every single painting. That was amazing to me back then, but now I understand.

bunch of Grumbacher Series 579 brushes, and I still have them. Some of the bristles are worn out of them, and the handles are bowed, but I still have them. If you buy brushes now, eventually the handle will snap, the bristles don’t hold up. It’s amazing I still have those old brushes, but I’ve gone through countless newer brushes in the past 30 years.

DRAW!: The reason I ask these questions is that everybody is arriving at a finished piece in a different way. You said Boris will buy a new set of brushes for every painting. Frazetta would use the cheapest supplies he could find. He’d use a Mickey Mouse watercolor set. The problem with that is that if you use a cheap paint, the pigment will fade.

JJ: I won’t use cheap paints, but I have to have a quality brush that’s also affordable because acrylics are so hard on brushes.

And brushes aren’t made the way the used to be. When I went to the store with that DC Comics gift certificate, I bought a

DRAW!: Going back to when you were forming and learning, you grew up in New York. Did you ever go to places like Illustration House? Was there any opportunity for you to observe and learn from originals or anything like that?

JJ: I didn’t do that very often when I was younger, and I really wish I had. I think I would have learned a lot more.

I learned a lot from Chaykin about the Golden Age illustrators and about ’50s and ’60s magazine artists and book cover artists, which I think is where my affinity for that type of work comes from. I’m a huge fan of ’60s paperback art. I’ve got probably a thousand tearsheets from paperbacks. I used to buy lots of them off eBay just for the covers.

Joe’s first professional cover assignment.

Heavy Metal ™ and © Heavy Metal Magazine

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DRAW!: Well, I know Howard was really into that stuff. He used to have huge clip files and binders full of that stuff.

JJ: That’s where I learned about a lot of those guys. I had never heard of Edwin Georgi or Jon Whitcomb before hooking up with Howard.

But I would buy any collection an artist had out, especially if it had a technique section in the back. I would read the technique section to see how they worked and say, “Well, that’s kind of close to how I work.

There’s something here I may be able to incorporate into my techniques.” So the first ten years or so, I was really cobbling things together and cannibalizing a whole bunch of different techniques from different artists and trying to make them work for me.

There was one thing I picked up from a Vargas book that came out in the late ’70s.

He would mix glycerin into his water, which would keep the water wet longer on his board, which would then give him the soft gradations and wouldn’t make those hardline watercolor marks. So I went to the drugstore and bought a bottle of glycerin.

I would add a few drops to my water, and when I would paint, like, the Conan figure skin tones, I was able to put a wash of the water and glycerin over the area so the wet bled into it. It made it look almost like an oil, which I found worked for me for a long time. But if I put too much glycerin in, it would get tacky, and I would have to dry it with a hair dryer for a long period of time.

I was playing with all kinds of different techniques I picked up from different artists. Then I invented other stuff as I went along. I’ve pretty much come up with a technique now that’s expeditious. It looks like it would take a lot longer than it actually does. It’s a combination of dry brushing, and scumbling, and glazing. There’s no wet blending at all. I work exclusively in acrylics now, and it’s all wet on dry. The acrylics just don’t stay wet long enough to blend, and I think the mistake people make with them is they try to use them like oils or use them too heavily. The only people I’ve seen who use really heavy acrylics to any real effect are the Hildebrandts.

DRAW!: Yeah. I saw some originals right after I moved to Philly. There was a gallery downtown, and the Hildebrandts were there, and they had a bunch of the paintings from Lord of the Rings.

I remember having their book as a kid.

When you look at their work, it doesn’t look like acrylic. It has the body and richness of looking at oil paintings.

I met Greg at the last couple of IlluxCons, and it’s always great because you get to see the originals. They really do put down a thick body of acrylic that looks like oil. They have a process of spritzing it and keeping it wet.

JJ: They also mix an entire range of each value of each color that they keep wet.

They have all this stuff on hand so they can blend them into each other and have all these colors there. That’s way too much Joe’s first of many covers for Savage Sword of Conan—issue #63. prep work for me to ever attempt. [laughs] Conan © Conan Properties, LLC I remember when I was in high school, they took us on a visit to the Society of Illustrators. It was only DRAW!: Once you’ve got all your reference, do you do a a few blocks away from where Art & Design was. For the an- color comp for yourself? nual show that year, they had hung the Hildebrandt Bros. Lord JJ: No. Again, it goes back to my short attention span. Unless of the Rings painting of Eowyn fighting the Nazgul—that big I’m asked to do a color comp, and I’ve only been asked to do blue one with the Nazgul on the back of the dragon. I’m sure one a couple times in recent years, I tend to be able to figure there were Bob Peaks and Amsels and all kinds of stuff hanging it out in my head. I design in color. Unlike comic book artthere, but being 15, I was like, “Wow! This is incredible!” ists, who work in black-and-white, everything I do, I’m seeing the color and the value of the lighting. And I’m keeping that DRAW!: The great thing about seeing things like that, it’s im- in mind as I’m making the initial sketch, so I have an idea of pressive, but as a student you can actually see how someone where I’m going with it from the very start as far as color goes. did something.

I find that if I do a color comp, it locks me into a color scheme.

JJ: Absolutely. There’s so much more information in an acA painting evolves as you work on it, and sometimes the tual painting that you will never see in a printed piece of art. color you intended doesn’t quite work as you get into it later I’ve bought originals—I collect originals, also—and you can on. I find working instinctively works better for me with my sit there and analyze the layers upon layers. You can learn so mindset, because I work from the background forward. I’ll much from seeing the original piece. figure out my color scheme, and once I have a background

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Preliminary sketch and a tighter sketch done on tracing paper for Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #2.

John Carter and all related characters © ERB, Inc.

color in I can more easily gauge the values and colors I’ll put in the foreground.

DRAW!: That’s interesting. I know Frazetta would do those little things in watercolor, gouache, or whatever.

JJ: I’ll do that if it’s something a little ambitious or quirky that I want to try. I’ll do a little, quick block of colors next to each other just to see if the colors work together, but guys like [Michael] Whelan will do these really complex comps beforehand, and I’ve just never been able to do that. I just find that it takes all the spontaneity out of painting, and it becomes an exercise because I’ve already figured it out.

DRAW!: A lot of people like Noel Sickles would actually do an illustration two or three times. Rockwell or Cornwell would do studies of a hand or shoes or whatever. Leyendecker would do those amazing practices working things out—almost like rehearsing—then he would go in and do the final illustration.

Do you find that there are times where you might have to do a little more drawing to figure out a particular aspect of a figure?

JJ: Absolutely. You mentioned hands, and hands are one of the most intricate parts of the figure to get right, and they can

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make or break a figure. If I’m stuck at all, I’ll look at my own hands in a bunch of different positions to get what I need.

There was a Warlord of Mars cover I did with Dejah Thoris in the background, and a hand holding a sword in the foreground, and that’s my hand. I shot my hand holding a sword prop I have, because you can’t just make that stuff up. I’ll shoot photos of my wife’s hand if I need a female hand.

You can have an idea of how it works, but you’ll do the same thing over and over again if you don’t shoot reference.

You’ll develop a formula that can be repetitive. Especially for the lighting, I’ll shoot photo ref.

DRAW!: Do you have a set of props that you use?

JJ: I don’t have a lot. I have a few guns, a couple of swords.

I bought a couple of extra replica guns for the Tomb Raider book. I finally found a full-sized metal M-60 on eBay. But as far as books and costumes, I don’t have a lot of that.

DRAW!: You don’t have a box of hats and cloaks and things like that?

JJ: No, I really don’t. If I do need stuff like that—I did a Dr. Doom painting of him sitting on his throne, and I wanted his

(above) The sketch is tightened up once more on a separate piece of tracing paper. (right) The final pencils transferred onto the board to be painted. (next page) The finished painting for the cover of Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #2. Joe used his own hand holding a prop sword hilt as photo reference in the painting stage.

John Carter and all related characters © ERB, Inc.

cape that he was sitting on to be between his legs and folding over the chair. So I set up a sheet on a chair, folded it the way I wanted, and took a Polaroid so I could get the folds accurate.

I’ll do stuff like that, but I don’t keep a prop closet.

or it’s something I’ll get multiple uses from. I needed a lab coat one time, so I went to a medical uniform supplier and bought a lab coat, but I’ve never delved into costuming to any great extent.

DRAW!: Some artists are really into all that stuff. N.C. Wyeth had a huge collection of props and costumes. I know a lot of illustrators did, especially the guys who made more money.

It seems like the guys who did the pulp stuff who had to work a lot faster, they’d throw a sheet over their wife or girlfriend if they needed a dress. They’d put a pot on somebody’s head if they needed a helmet.

JJ: And that’s kind of what I do. If I need a long gown, put a dress on and I’ll tie a belt around it. I’ll put sweatpants on and tape around certain places to bunch it together so it looks like space pants. There are ways to do that if you need to do it.

There isn’t a whole lot of money doing painted covers for comics. I’ll only buy a prop if I need something really specific

The Working Artist

DRAW!: The field of illustration has changed so much since the ’80s. I went to the store the other day, and there was not one single hand-drawn paperback. Whatever was there, they had taken photos and put them together in Photoshop and put filters on them. One looked like a Robert McGinnis, but it was actually Photoshopped to look that way. Is most of your work for comics and fantasy? Do you ever branch out and do other things?

JJ: I’ve started doing a series of faux ’60s crime novel covers for myself. I’ve always wanted to do that stuff. I’d love to do a western. I don’t get much opportunity to do it. I keep getting the same stuff over and over again, which kind of bothers me.

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John Carter and all related characters © ERB, Inc.

I contacted Hard Case Crime when I first heard they were going to start publishing retro crime novels. I’ve been dying to do those types of covers, but I was told that the art director thought my work was too contemporary looking and not appropriate for what they were doing. I could do that. I did a bunch on my own and sent examples in later on because I heard the art director left, but still didn’t get work from them. It’s tough sometimes to convince people you can do stuff they assume you can’t do.

I’ve stayed in comics most of the time I’ve been working because nobody really bothers me. They know what I can do at this point, so I don’t have to fight with anybody or deal with art directors who want 14 different changes on things. I like the freedom of being trusted.

DRAW!: You’ve also done a lot of work for Edgar Rice Burroughs, right?

JJ: Yeah, I’m a huge Burroughs fan. The way that came about was that after the Marvel Masterpiece cards took off back in 1992, Michael Friedlander at FPG contacted me about doing a trading card set. Basically it was going to be 100 paintings of whatever I wanted to do—sci-fi, crime, anything I wanted to do.

Then he called me and told me he was negotiating for the Robert E. Howard and Burroughs licenses, and he asked me if I was interested in doing one of them. I said, “I did the Savage Sword covers for so many years, I’m kind of Conan-ed out,” but I’d never done Burroughs. I asked him if it was just Tarzan or every Burroughs book. He said, “No, it’s basically the entire Burroughs library.” I said, “Yeah, I want that.” I’d read those books since I was a kid, and it was everything that I like to do. It’s animals and natural backgrounds; it’s the great sci-fi stuff with the John Carter and Carson books, and dinosaurs galore. It’s such a wide range of topics that I couldn’t wait to do them.

I did 120 paintings. I read through the books, and another guy was reading through them at the same time making character notes and breaking down scene descriptions in case I missed something, and I would go though and pick out scenes from the books to illustrate for the cards. It was hard with all of the books and only 120 paintings to come down to only one, two, or three images per book sometimes. There are so many great visuals in them.

From that point on, I became closely associated with Burroughs. Burroughs, Inc. loved the cards. I was talking to Tom Yeates in San Diego a couple of years ago, and he said, “They talk about your stuff all the time.” I got in touch with them, and built up a great rapport with the new people in charge there.

(top) One of Joe’s faux crime novel covers. (above) Preliminary sketch for Joe’s faux crime novel Cuddle the Corpse. © Joe Jusko

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(above and bottom left) Tightened pencils transferred to the board, and the final mock-up for Joe’s faux crime novel Cuddle the Corpse. © Joe Jusko

I’m doing four huge paintings for the hundredth anniversary of Tarzan for them. The first one’s done already, and the others are taking a back seat at the moment because there are a couple of other things I have to work on.

But my association with them has been really smooth over the years, and I’m more than happy to paint those books as much as they want me to. I absolutely love the properties.

DRAW!: Do you have an agent? Have you ever tried to branch out into regular paperback covers?

JJ: No. Honestly, I’ve had so much work, I just haven’t. I don’t know if it’s because I was happy where I was or if I was just afraid of moving into a new field. When I was younger, I didn’t know if I was ready or if I was good enough. I’ve always kept a fairly close gauge on how good my stuff was compared to other people, and I didn’t think I was good enough for paperbacks back in the ’80s. I don’t think I really got a handle on what I was doing until maybe ten years ago, as strange as that may sound.

I think I fell into a bit of contentment and complacency and security doing comics, because they knew my stuff and they liked it. I said, “Okay, I’m accepted here.” The short answer is no, I never have. [laughter] DRAW!: Have you ever done any concept art for film?

Because if I look at the field as a whole, it’s so shifted from

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© Joe Jusko

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A private commission based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan and the Golden Lion.

Tarzan © ERB, Inc.

where it was even in the ’80s. Rates are pretty much the same as they were 15, 20 years ago.

JJ: They’re lower for the most part.

DRAW!: It seemed like in comics, probably because of Alex Ross being very successful, the tastes have changed to doing what you do—very realistic illustrations of fictional characters. At the same time, the paperback field kind of crashed, and all the great old illustrators who were left went out west and made their fortunes doing western art or things like that.

A lot of younger guys go into concept design for games or movies. That seems to be almost inexhaustible. Some people do digital, some people do “tradigital,” which is a mix of traditional and digital. What’s your feeling on that? Is that an area that you’ve played in or thought about playing in?

JJ: Well, it’s funny. As you know, the illustration market has dried up completely as far as traditional art goes. When I first started, the trifecta for an illustrator was Time magazine, Sports Illustrated, and TV Guide. If you got those covers, you were a successful illustrator. TV Guide doesn’t exist anymore in the format it once did. I can’t remember the last time Time or Sports Illustrated used an illustration on the cover. Album covers don’t exist anymore—it’s CDs, and they’re headshots of whoever’s CD it is because it’s such a small image. Movie

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posters are now photo composite headshots, selling the actors instead of the movie. So everybody who used to do that for a living has gone on to do something else.

A lot of the guys who would have gone into traditional illustration are coming to comics, which is why there are so many talented artists in comics now. That’s the area that’s left open to them. I don’t think a lot of guys who are really illustrators in comics today would be doing it if there were other markets available. The caliber of talent in our field now is such that I would never have gotten work knowing how little I did when I broke in.

And you’re right, concept design now is a big deal. I remember when I was I kid, I wanted to do movie poster art—or matte paintings. It would be really cool to do matte paintings for movies.

DRAW!: You could be the new Harrison Ellenshaw doing your matte paintings.

JJ: Exactly! How cool would that be? I was big into special effects when I was a kid. I bought all the books about how they did stop-motion and special effects. I’d see the matte paintings and think, “That would be really cool to do.” But, of course, that stuff isn’t done anymore.

But I hadn’t thought about doing any concept art. I would

like to do concept art for movies, but you need to know somebody to call you in to do that. It’s a closed shop.

DRAW!: I just wondered if you’d had any nibbles. It seems like there are so many people who are doing that on some level.

JJ: I would have loved to have done concept design on the John Carter movie. But like I said, it’s a whole different area.

It’s not something I’ve been approached to do, but it’s definitely not something I would turn down if it were offered to me. I’ve seen a lot of Justin Sweet’s concept design work, and it blows me away, how cool that stuff is. All the stuff he did for The Chronicles of Narnia is just incredible. It would be a lot of fun to do that, but I wouldn’t even know who to talk to.

DRAW!: Have you ever thought of developing a series of giclées or prints of your own characters?

JJ: I’m probably the worst at self-promotion. I’ve gotten better the past few years with social networking. I make prints that I sell at conventions. I’ve been doing that the past ten years or so, and they’re really popular. But as far as doing mail order, I’m not really set up for that.

I don’t do really expensive giclées because the market just doesn’t handle them much anymore. I used to collect wildlife giclées, and you just can’t find that stuff anymore because the market isn’t there. What was her name—the camouflage girl who did the horses?

DRAW!: I don’t think they lasted very long. It was like the Beanie Baby craze. Everybody thought, “I’m going to buy this and get rich.” They have that certificate of authenticity that, “Yes, Joe Jusko actually drew this, and then he signed it.” People thought they’d sell them in five years and buy a Ferrari. [laughs] That never happened.

JJ: Those certificates aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. They always made me laugh. “Could you sign a certificate of authenticity?” “Yeaahh. It doesn’t mean anything, but I’ll be happy to sign it for you.”

DRAW!: With the new project you’ll be pretty busy, and you’ve always got comic book covers coming in. It sounds like you could work seven days a week if you wanted.

JJ: I do for the most part at this point. It’s kind of funny.

DRAW!: Oh, Bev Doolittle.

JJ: Yeah. She kept the print market alive for ten to twelve years all by herself. The market isn’t there anymore.

I did a Tarzan and the Golden Lion painting about ten years ago, and the guy I did it for—a private commission—liked it so much that he started a publishing company, and he made some high-quality canvas and paper giclées, and they didn’t sell. There was just no market for them. They’re completely unaffordable at this point.

DRAW!: I think Thomas Kincaid put the nail in that coffin on all of that. I remember a good seven, eight, maybe ten years ago, I had gone out to visit Blevins in Arizona, and whenever I do, we go down to Scottsdale to look through all the high-end galleries.

There was a gallery there that was selling giclées of paintings by Pino.

JJ: I love Pino’s stuff.

Joe’s cover to Punisher Magazine #12.

Punisher © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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A shot of Joe’s studio set-up, with his computer, scanner, and printer on his flat files to the left, and his drawing board to the right. photo © Joe Jusko

There was a period right after the industry went digital—I’d say the late ’90s—where I didn’t have a whole lot of work.

There were four of five years where I was barely getting by.

There wasn’t a whole lot of painted work going around. Luckily I’d been around long enough where I had a decent fan base, and I was living off private commissions.

I still do a lot of private commissions, which I find to be a lot of fun to do simply because of the freedom and the time I have to work on it to make a decent painting. I’m not rushing through them in a day or three days, or whatever I have to do a cover these days.

DRAW!: How long it takes to do an illustration depends on how complex it is, but how long does it take for you to complete the average comic book cover?

JJ: Three to four days, depending on how big and how complex it is. If they last more than four days, I start getting antsy.

And because I work in acrylics and I work really quickly, four days is maybe the maximum for a full piece.

I can turn stuff out overnight if I have to. I’ve done a few of the Mars covers over the past couple of years where I’ve done them in one 17- to 24-hour sitting.

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DRAW!: Does that happen because the deadline is just so tight?

JJ: Most of the time it’s my fault because I have other stuff in house and suddenly I realize a painting is due. I haven’t been asked to turn anything around overnight in a long time.

I remember years ago when Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada were running Marvel Knights. They asked me to do the painted covers over Bernie Wrightson’s pencils for a Punisher series. I got the call at four in the afternoon, and they needed the first one the next day. [Mike laughs] But that’s not the norm. They usually give you more than enough time to work on stuff. If it gets to a point where I have to turn it around overnight, it’s my fault because I’m working on other stuff.

DRAW!: What do you do for fun to recharge the art batteries?

Do you do life drawing or landscape painting?

JJ: I took life drawing for years. I haven’t done it in a long time. When I’m not working, I tend not to work. I spend time with my wife. I used to play darts competitively, but I haven’t done that in years because there’s no place nearby. Anything to get out of the house. I spend so much time in my studio that any time I can get out of the house, I will get out of the

house. There are people who hate driving. I love driving. Just put me in a car and get me going somewhere, because I spend so much time cloistered by myself.

DRAW!: You do a lot of conventions too, don’t you? You were just in South America recently.

JJ: It’s one of the perks of the job that you get invited to go different places. It’s not going to last forever, so if somebody wants to invite me someplace we haven’t been before, I’m going to go. I cancelled my entire appearance schedule through 2014 simply because I have this giant job I’ve been working on that’s going to need my undivided attention.

One of the benefits of being around as long as I have is the ability to travel because of my work. I look forward to the trips. They’re also a break from work, and I consider them bonuses.

DRAW!: Do you have a Cintiq? Do you see yourself slowly incorporating any digital aspect to your work?

JJ: I don’t think so. It would probably be fun to play with to get certain effects, but with the way rates are in the industry today, the majority of my income comes from the sale of my originals. To work digitally would significantly affect my income. It just doesn’t work for me.

I like painting. I like the idea of having a physical piece of artwork when I’m done. I like being able to achieve effects by hand that a lot of people get digitally. I post a lot on DeviantArt, and I’m amazed at how many people comment that they can’t believe that something I did was done traditionally. I’m like, “Well, it’s painting.” [laughter]

More shots of Joe’s studio, including his supply of paints and his reference library.

DRAW!: People coming up now, they’re getting the traditional training, but they’re also learning the digital stuff. There are some people who are not learning any traditional stuff.

You’re scanning your work yourself, right? You’re not having to send anything out?

JJ: No, I invested in an Epson 10000XL scanner about ten years ago. I used to shoot transparencies for everything. I had a couple of places that shot for me, but once I realized I could scan it myself—and it’s close to impossible to find anyone to shoot transparencies anymore.

DRAW!: It’s all digital now.

JJ: When I did that big Tarzan anniversary painting—a 30" x 40" piece—my scanner is only 13" x 18", so I was looking for

photo © Joe Jusko

a place that shot digitally. There’s a place near me that can do full-size digital scans up to five feet or something. “Oh, that’s great. I can get it shot there.” Then I said, “Well, let me see if I can do it here.” It took me about 17 separate scans, but I was able to scan it in sections and then slowly piece them together into one full-size image. It took the better part of the day, but I was able to do it.

It’s laborious sometimes, and it becomes an issue when you have a large painting and you have a light area and a dark area, because the exposure will adjust as you scan, and sometimes you’ll end up with a seam because the exposure was different. Then you have to do intermediate scans to get the transition from light to dark. That’s why I had to do 17 scans to get that full-size piece. But it saves me a lot of money.

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DRAW!: Will most of your originals fit on your scanner?

JJ: No, they almost all get pieced together. The Mars covers are all 15" x 23½", so it’s two pieces, sometimes three. But if you go into File/Automate/ Photomerge in Photoshop, it joins the pieces for you. I find you have to do it one piece at a time, because if you try to merge six pieces at a time it can confuse Photoshop. If you do it one piece at a time, you can insure that the pieces are joining together properly and see if you need to rescan a section.

DRAW!: What’s your set-up like in your studio?

JJ: A have a giant flat file. On top of the flat file, I have my scanner, my printer, and my computer set up. I don’t work on an easel; I work on a drawing table.

I have a huge 32" x 42" drafting table.

I rigged up a couple of boards so I can work on it almost vertically if I have to, which I do much of the time. There’s a taboret set to the side with all the paints and brushes, and I’ve got racks with acrylics, and file cabinets on the side.

DRAW!: Do you organize your paints by color?

JJ: I have a rack of stuff I use very seldom now. All the airbrush colors I used to use I still keep in racks. Holbein Aeroflash colors are sort of transparent acrylics that I still use from time to time for base colors or washes. They’re almost like acrylic watercolors, which is really cool. So I still have those in racks by color. All the jars of Liquitex are in racks by color, and any extras I keep in a bin and dig out when I need them.

(above and next page) Rough sketch and tightened pencils for a Hulk private commission.

DRAW!: Since you’re self-taught, you figured out what worked for you as you went along. You were an apprentice for Howard Chaykin, so maybe you took a couple of things he did, and Howard was an apprentice for Gil Kane.

JJ: Howard wasn’t a painter. He painted stuff, but he wasn’t a painter. I learned other stuff from Howard, but as far as actual painting technique, anything I picked up from him I’ve since discarded because it just didn’t fit into how I worked, or wanted to work. The first couple of pieces I did for Marvel I did using techniques I learned from him, but it just wasn’t what I wanted my stuff to look like. So eventually I started studying other guys.

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Hulk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

When I started doing all the covers up at Marvel, I realized I was competing with Earl Norem and Bob Larkin, and I’d study those guys’ work every single day trying to figure out how to compete with them. I learned a lot the first couple of years in the business just studying those two guys.

DRAW!: Did you go into the offices and look at their originals?

JJ: All the time! I was up there all the time—probably three times a week minimum because I was always looking for work. I got a lot of work that would have gone to Bob or Earl because I happened to be in the office at the time. “Oh, Joe. I’ve got something for you.”

was still doing a few things, but now with the Internet, everything is superexpanded. You have people who never go into the offices, never meet anybody in person. You work with people over the Internet and never meet them.

JJ: When Marvel was at 575 Madison and then 387 Park Avenue, I was up there all the time. Since they moved from Park Avenue, I’ve never been to the offices. It’s been a good 20 years since I’ve been in the Marvel offices.

DRAW!: So they just call you up and say, “Can you do a cover?”

JJ: It’s all email. They don’t even call anymore. Occasionally you talk to somebody on the phone if you have to discuss something, but everything is done by email.

DRAW!: So the only time you meet anyone is at a con?

JJ: Right. Plus, I’m not in New York City anymore. I’m in Syracuse, and there’s no way to get in to the office at all. The guys that I know personally I might have met in the office years ago, or I’ve met them at cons since then. I’ve met a lot of guys and built relationships through social media the past few years.

DRAW!: “Joe! Here again!” [laughter] JJ: Exactly. I would go up there and make friends with all the editors and hang out in the offices and chat with people all day long. I’d stick my head in doors and see if anybody had any work.

I was 18, 19 years old when I started there. The fact that I was actually getting cover work at 18, in hindsight, is ridiculous. But I made sure that I was accessible all the time.

DRAW!: Things are different today, because you can’t really go up to the offices now. And the whole field is much larger than it was at that time. You had Marvel and DC, and Warren

DRAW!: A lot people bang on Facebook, but for artists Facebook is one of the best inventions ever.

JJ: Facebook has done wonders for my career. One, it reminded people that I’m here. Two, it gives your work a showcase. What happens is when people see your work, they comment on your work. Other people see the reaction to your work and say, “Oh, his work is popular. Let’s call Joe for a cover.” I’ve gotten a lot of work from people who have seen my stuff on Facebook.

DRAW!: Me too.

JJ: The fact that people like your work and say they like your work goes a long way toward convincing somebody to hire you, especially now when companies are all over the place— the small, independent companies.

DRAW!: It’s a democratizing voice in a way. I’ve done straight stuff and funny stuff. When I was doing straight stuff and I wanted to do funny stuff, people said, “You can’t do funny stuff.”

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But you’re right. There were a lot of guys in the old days, like Don Heck—the end of their careers weren’t good because they became stigmatized. “Fans don’t like your work, therefore I’m not going to hire you to work on this book.” Now you can put your work out there and get an honest reaction to it.

And you don’t have anyone particularly filtering it either.

JJ: They definitely don’t filter on Facebook. [laughter] DRAW!: Sometimes you wish there was a little bit more of a filter. [laughter] So you’ve got the big project you’re working on. Do you have any other smaller projects coming up?

JJ: I thought I’d be able to keep the Mars covers and still do the card set, but with 135 paintings, and I’m not doing them tiny—they’re 10" x 15", so they’re full paintings—I’m going to have to drop everything except for this card set until it’s done. So I’m going to have to drop the Mars covers. There’s just no way I can do it. If I have time, I may be able to sneak in one or two here or there down the line. With the volume of work, I’m going to have to dedicate all my time to it.

DRAW!: Does that include your commissions?

JJ: I still have a couple of outstanding private commissions I have to get done, so I’ll work on those as time allows, but as far as commercial work goes, I won’t be able to.

I’ve got five paintings done, and another ten pencils, so I’m falling into a groove, and I don’t want to distract myself and have to find my groove again. And this job totally suits my personality. It’s a different character with every painting. I can come up with a great idea for a painting, and totally reset myself for a new one, which is really cool. I’m not getting bored at all.

The finished Hulk commission painting.

Hulk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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THE BEST IN COMICS & LEGO® PUBLICATIONS! 1994--2013

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WH % ORDEN YOU E LINRE ON!

FALL 2013

Star*Reach is a trademark of Mike Friedrich.

Ambitious new series documenting each decade of comic book history!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1960-64 & The 1980s

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1950s

BILL SCHELLY tackles comics of the Atomic Era of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley: EC’s TALES OF THE CRYPT, MAD, CARL BARKS’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, re-tooling the FLASH in Showcase #4, return of Timely’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, HUMAN TORCH AND SUB-MARINER, FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics campaign, and more!

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Complete history of the influential 1970s independent comic, featuring work by and interviews with DAVE STEVENS, FRANK BRUNNER, HOWARD CHAYKIN, STEVE LEIALOHA, WALTER SIMONSON, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, KEN STEACY, JOHN WORKMAN, MIKE VOSBURG, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, DAVE SIM, MICHAEL GILBERT, and many others, plus full stories from STAR*REACH and its sister magazine IMAGINE. Cover by CHAYKIN! MATURE READERS ONLY.

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KEITH DALLAS documents comics’ 1980s Reagan years: Rise and fall of JIM SHOOTER, FRANK MILLER as comic book superstar, DC’s CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, MOORE and GAIMAN’s British invasion, ECLIPSE, PACIFIC, FIRST, COMICO, DARK HORSE and more!

All characters TM & ©2013 their respective owners.

(256-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $40.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • ISBN: 9781605490540 • Now shipping!

JOHN WELLS covers comics in the 1960-64 JFK and Beatles era: DC’s new GREEN LANTERN, JUSTICE LEAGUE and multiple earths! LEE and KIRBY at Marvel on FF, SPIDER-MAN, HULK, and X-MEN! BATMAN’s “new look”, Charlton’s BLUE BEETLE, CREEPY #1 & more!

THE BEST OF ALTER EGO, VOL. 2

DAN SPIEGLE: A LIFE IN COMIC ART

This sequel to ALTER EGO: THE BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE presents more vintage features from the first super-hero fanzine, begun by JERRY BAILS & ROY THOMAS. Editors ROY THOMAS and BILL SCHELLY reveal undiscovered gems from all 11 original issues published from 1961-78, including features on Hawkman, the Spectre, Blackhawk, the JLA, All Winners Squad, the Heap, an unsold “Tor” newspaper strip by JOE KUBERT, and more!

Documents his 60-year career on DELL and GOLD KEY’S licensed TV and Movie adaptions (LOST IN SPACE, KORAK, MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER, MIGHTY SAMPSON), at DC COMICS (BATMAN, UNKNOWN SOLDIER, TOMAHAWK, JONAH HEX, TEEN TITANS, BLACKHAWK), his CROSSFIRE series for ECLIPSE, DARK HORSE’S INDIANA JONES series and more, with rare artwork, personal photos, and private commission drawings. Written by JOHN COATES.

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MODERN MASTERS: CLIFF CHIANG

Spotlights the career of CLIFF CHIANG (artist of DC’s New 52 breakout hit WONDER WOMAN series) through a career-spanning interview, and loads of both iconic and rarely seen artwork from Cliff’s personal files. There’s also an in-depth look into the artist’s work process, and an extensive gallery of commissioned pieces, many in full-color. By CHRIS ARRANT and ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON.

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The Right Way, The Wrong Way, and The

OrdWay !

"The justice society will now come to order" by Jerry Ordway

W

hen my old pal Mike Manley asked me to do a feature in DRAW! magazine, I immediately zeroed in on taking the readers through the process of creating a cover image. In the meantime, I got a commission assignment that I felt would work just as well as a demo. I am going to show how I created a custom drawing featuring numerous costumed characters from DC Comics’ Justice Society, Infinity Inc., and All-Star Squadron.

The person who commissioned this drawing is, in effect, the editor of the piece, and as such communicated his idea, along with a character list and links to costume reference. As I was familiar with all of the costumed heroes he requested, my job was to tell a story, just as I would do on a cover assignment.

Some artists are better than others in drawing iconic action shots of heroes, either alone or interacting with other heroes.

I have never felt like the generic action pose was my strong suit, as I always want to know what the “story” is in a scene.

For example, Superman isn’t just flying at us, but rather he is returning to Metropolis after defeating a supervillain. That’s how I try to approach any scene—to either find or create a story, so that the image makes sense to me. Your “story” can inform elements in the piece, such as the mood of the character, the background setting, or even the “acting.”

I started this piece by reading the character list, and using that information to create a mental picture of it. The centerpiece was to be a classic image from an old issue of All-Star Comics, featuring the Justice Society sitting at their meeting table. That informed the whole piece. The groups of heroes not at that table would spread out from there, in mini-groups with small interactions. Again, this was about telling a story. Some of the characters

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were either romantically linked or friends within the original comic stories. For example, Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle were a couple, Batman and Superman were friends, Plastic Man was always a bit unpredictable, etc.

After mentally envisioning the scene, I sketched out a very rough layout which would serve as my template. I then used my photocopy machine to enlarge this sketch up to approximately 18" wide by 23" tall, the size of the three-ply Strathmore Bristol board I was drawing on. This is larger than what I usually work with, so it was a bit unwieldy to move around on my lightbox, and I had to be careful not to crease or bend the paper.

This is one way a commissioned drawing differs from a cover done for Marvel or DC Comics—a custom drawing needs to be perfectly presentable, with no white-out or corrections if possible, since your client will be framing and displaying it. A drawing for a comic cover can look like a train wreck, so long as it reproduces well enough in the printed comic.

A note on my tools for this stage of the job: I prefer using a lead holder instead of a regular wooden pencil, mainly because it is always the same size, whereas a pencil gets shorter as you sharpen and use it. After 30-plus years, I find comfort in the feel of my drawing tools. Depending on temperature and humidity levels in my studio, I find it easier to have lead holders with a range of pencil leads from 2H to 3B available, switching back and forth as necessary. I also prefer using a kneaded eraser for most erasing over a drafting type eraser. Of course sometimes only that drafting eraser can clean up pencil lines. My preferred kneaded eraser, made by Faber-Castell, leaves no detectable grit, and can be rolled or pressed over scribbled lines to lighten them up for more finished pencil drawing.

about being finished and then having to find room for characters I forgot to draw in. That’s also a good reason to have a list of characters that I could cross off as I completed them.

I left space towards the bottom of the paper, with the idea of having the Thunderbolt zooming across the bottom, interrupting a moment between Starman and Black Canary. That was penciled and inked as a unit after the table scene was done, though I didn’t ink the legs of the table or fill in any shadows until the whole bottom half was finished.

All characters © DC Comics

I lightbox-traced the shapes from the rough onto the finished paper, and started right in on finishing the characters seated at the table. When I am doing the complete job, pencils and inks, I rarely pencil the whole piece before inking. As long as my layout is solid for positioning, and I know how characters might overlap, I like to go in and roughly pencil and then ink in stages. With something large like this, I knew I had room to fit all the required heroes in, with no worries

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The client asked for the robotic Red Tornado to be included, and I knew I wanted him to be near the characters of Robotman and Steel, looking on impassively as they horsed around, but I had an idea for putting the 1940s Ma Hunkle Red Tornado in there too, somewhere. But she belonged closer to the 1940s JSA, which meant she was perfect for the lower right. I needed to find decent reference for her, which I did online. To avoid printing dozens of reference images that will be recycled afterwards, I sketched her costume out on a sheet of used copy paper to refer to. I do that whenever I can, to save printer ink mostly.

An aside here about reference: most can be found through a simple Google search, but since I have thousands of comics on hand, I usually assemble the needed issues of books early on, and have them as I need them. In this instance, I was having to mix and match costumes from different eras, so it helped to assemble the reference as I was wrapping my brain around the image, so as to not draw the wrong costume version.

All characters © DC Comics

Since I was inking before the whole image was fully penciled, my sometimes sweaty hand was all over the paper. I always place a sheet of scrap paper under my inking or penciling hand to prevent smudging or oils from my skin from working into the surface of the board. It makes for a cleaner original, and you might be surprised at how a little sweat can affect how your pen or brush deposits ink on paper. It can cause your

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ink lines to “spider” out, like tiny veins from your stroke, or can make it difficult to erase the pencil underdrawing at the end. Neatness counts!

As you can see from the picture of me inking, I leave a lot of tightening up for the ink stage. This is a personal choice I make, because I find it a bit boring to ink super-tight pencils.

I guess it also keeps the drawing more organic. With tight pencils, my ink lines can feel mechanical. I like organic over mechanical any day.

I jump around with my pen, inking all the figures, but I don’t erase at this stage, nor do I fill in the black areas. That is a whole ’nother stage, in my opinion, and the black balance can make or break your final drawing.

A note on my inking tools: I have inked mainly with a crow quill dip-pen, using a Hunt #102 tip, for many years. They are fairly stiff and can give a fine line. I have two on my board at all times, one with a worn-in tip, and one with a fresh tip. I will use the worn-in pen to ink larger detail, while the new tip is great for small detail or faces.

A #3 Raphael series 8404 brush is great for heavier lines, filling in areas of black ink, and some rendering effects that just scream for a brush. I use Pelikan brand drawing ink, pouring from a large bottle into a smaller one on the side of my drawing area. These are the tools I used exclusively for many, many years.

In the past five years, I have enjoyed working with the Pitt brand of art pens and brush pens. Many of the things I used to use Rapidiograph technical pens for, such as ruling straight lines, or inking with ellipse templates, I now use the Pitt pens.

The brush pens come in handy for filling in small areas of black, as well as re-inking thin pen lines to make them thicker. I love them! I also can carefully refill them with an eyedropper and technical pen ink to extend their life, so long as the pen tips are

still good. Because I prefer paper with a toothy or rough surface, the tips do wear down quickly, but they are an invaluable addition to my drawing toolbox. An added bonus is that they are easy to transport to conventions for on-site drawing of sketches.

One last thing I want to address is that no matter how many hours you have into a particular drawing, you are not done until you erase, fill in blacks, and then scrutinize the piece to see where you may need to thicken lines to add clarity or just punch up the drawing. One of the best lessons I got from my high school art teacher was to squint at your art, which serves to blur the line details, and makes you notice the contrast. I do this as a final stage, and often put in several hours more work. It’s an essential thing to do, in my opinion. I know that much of comic art is reliant on color these days to establish contrast, but so long as you are doing line art, the addition of solid black shadows, or heavy lines on the undersides of things, will only help the color work more effectively.

On a black-and-white piece, as in this example, it can make or break the final drawing.

I hope this little demo can inspire you to look at your own work, and maybe use some of the tips I laid out. Good luck and keep drawing!

Jerry Ordway is a penciler, inker, writer, and painter of comics, primarily for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He is best known for his work on Superman, Power of Shazam!, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fantastic Four, and The Avengers.

His children, Rachel (who drew the logo caricature) and Tommy (who drew the caricature at right), seem to be following the same path.

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All characters © DC Comics

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All characters © DC Comics

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Heart Craft

&

an interview with

Jim Rugg conducted by Jamar Nicholas

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JAMAR NICHOLAS: I don’t know if you remember this, but we met eight years ago at SPX 2005.

JIM RUGG: I think I remember corresponding with you after that show a little bit. It was that email that everybody does after a show when you reach out to someone. “I don’t know if you remember, but we traded books.” And I think we traded emails a couple of times.

JN: There’s nothing worse than coming home from those shows and you have a bunch of cards floating around in the bottom of your bag. [laughs] “I don’t remember any of these people.”

JR: My memory is not the best to begin with, and that’s the worst place for me to try to remember something that happens.

JN: So there will be no games of Concentration at your table? [laughter] JR: Definitely not.

JN: It was the last SPX I’ve been to, and I decided to come down with Mike Manley; we split a table. I think he had talked to you before I got to you. I was trying to get a list together of people I was really fond of to interview for the magazine. “Oh, Jim Rugg’s here?” and I found you in a closet somewhere. [laughter] I think I tried to buy a Street Angel graphic trade off of you, and you said, “Oh, I’m saving this for Mike Manley.

It’s my last one.” [laughter] JR: Yeah, I remember meeting him.

JN: I tried not to feel hurt, but it’s all good. We’re speaking now, so it all adds up.

JR: I’m sure I have more to say now than I would have back then anyway. [laughter]

The opening page of the Street Angel short story, “A Ring before Dying.”

JN: Have you been doing a lot of indie cons as opposed to mainstream shows, or do you do both? How do you keep your calendar together?

JR: I do both, and I try to do areas I haven’t been to—I’m doing Phoenix this year. I do Heroes Con in Charlotte every year, and that’s one of those shows that’s more mainstream certainly than SPX, but it does have pretty good support for indie comics.

Dustin Harbin used to book that show. I don’t know if you know him, but he’s an indie cartoonist. He booked that show for 15 years, and he started aggressively trying to book indie comic book people, because that’s what he liked. But the nice thing is, the first year or two that he did it, the indie people would complain that they weren’t doing any business, but now it’s a really nice show. It’s a cross-section of mainstream all the way to very independent mini-comics and web cartoonists. And I see a lot of shows that way, and it’s harder

Street Angel © Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg

to classify what’s a mainstream show, or what’s a superhero show, or what’s an indie show.

So, I do kind of a variety, but a lot of the shows that I do have some kind of indie component, it seems like. But it’s broad now. I don’t know too many people that only read Marvel or DC at this point.

JN: That’s true. I know a lot of people who read Image or who are into mini-comics. It’s not just Captain America anymore.

Do you have a calendar for every year, or do you only go when you have something new out? Do you make things for the show you’re going to? What’s your strategy for shows?

JR: My strategy for shows is not good. That’s an area I need to improve. I used to complain that shows were kind of like flea markets, and that that was bad for comics. Everything has gotten much more sophisticated in the industry, but I still

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For this Street Angel print, Jim started with preliminary sketches, working out the corner box art, as well as some ninja hands.

His pencils for the piece are fairly loose, leaving room to draw with the inks. Jim’s trademark rough hand-drawn lettering adds a “homemade” quality to the piece.

Street Angel © Jim Rugg

sort of treat them like flea markets. You’ll see people with beautiful tables.

I think some of the more professional cartoonists approach these shows almost as if you have a retail space. I know people who, whatever size table they have, they will set up a space in their house of that size and then basically lay out their table a week before the show. They’ll try out different combinations and figure out what they should take and if they need stands for different things.

I need to upgrade the way I do shows, because I tend to do shows that I always do, like SPX and Heroes Con, and it’s a little bit of a social event for me. I do those with some of my friends. We go in on travel costs and stuff, so whether I have something new or not, there are certain shows I tend to do every year.

This year I have a new book coming out, so I’m doing more shows. Definitely when I have a new book, I try to do more shows. It’s just a good way to promote the work. It’s part of what I like about comics, so it’s an excuse to actually go to some of these shows. At this point, I’ve been doing this for over ten years, so a lot of the people I’m friends with in the industry, that’s where I see them. And even some of my readers at this point have been reading my work for ten years or so, and I

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see many of the same people at shows like Heroes Con, and we’ve become friends over time.

JN: It’s like your comics family reunion. You can’t not go.

JR: It’s almost a work party. Very bizarre though.

JN: I like that.

JR: SPX was kind of how I would mark my calendar year. I would always try to have something new—mini-comics and things—probably for the first five or six years I did the show.

And I still kind of do that. I guess the majority of the time, I have something new—a new mini-comic, new ’zine.

JN: Do you ever find yourself thinking about cutting back or maybe even stopping doing cons? Have you reached a point where you felt like, “This isn’t worth it. I would have better used my time if I had just stayed in the studio”?

JR: Too many shows. Sometimes I’ll have a bad show, and, “I’m done doing shows,” or, “I’m done doing this show.” And maybe I will take a year off from it, but for the most part shows have been a really good experience for me over the years, and I do think of it as part of my practice. If I have a new book out, shows probably account for 20 percent of my income, so it’s part of the business too.

But in terms of reaching audience, I talk to a lot of people who phrase things as either/or. I don’t see why. Any way that I can bring my work to a reader, I’m interested in doing within reason. If somebody wants to read it in print, I hope I can provide a print hard copy. If somebody wants to read it on their iPad, I want them to be able to read it on their iPad. I have a lot of respect for comic book readers. I think they’re very intelligent, and I think they’re definitely capable of picking the format and the delivery platform that suits them. I want to accommodate that.

JN: It would be foolish not to. I know a lot of comic book guys who are really stubborn about mixing up how they do things. “I make floppies. That’s it. I won’t go to the web.”

Some people are just afraid of “the other,” and they kind of get stymied by that.

JN: Do you feel like the Internet at this point could sustain you without doing shows, or do you have readers who only will seek you out at a con and won’t buy your stuff in another fashion?

JR: I think the Internet could sustain me. I do think there are people who find my work at shows who wouldn’t find my work otherwise.

There are people who only find my work if it’s in comic book stores. The weird thing with the Internet is that we have access to so many people now, but there’s no one strategy that’s going to encompass all of them. I personally like that. I started freelancing full-time about five years ago.

JN: Congratulations.

JR: [laughs] Thank you. I was very excited to leave my day job. It wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I wanted to draw all day. So when I left my day job, I thought, “This is great. No more wasting time at work. No more commuting. This is going to be awesome.” I very quickly realized that sitting home alone, you have to figure out ways to get out of the house or you’ll go crazy.

Shows break up my schedule. That’s probably part of why I enjoy them. It’s a break from the routine. It’s a chance to actually see people.

A page from the tabloid-sized Cold Heat Special #4, done in the newspaper format. © Frank Santoro and Jim Rugg

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Jim’s inks and digital coloring for the cover of Sleazy Slice #5. © Jim Rugg

JR: I know people who match what you’ve described exactly.

I don’t know what that is. Everybody interacts with technology on a different level, and I think that’s part of it.

Technology levels the playing field for everybody, and I just can’t imagine using it as an excuse for why something doesn’t work.

JN: I’m no ageist, but I think as we get a little older—I’m not sure how old you are. I’m about to turn 40, and I know some older cartoonists who are kind of stuck in their ways, so you can forgive them a little bit. But younger cartoonists, I almost feel there’s nothing holding them back from cracking open the Earth’s secrets.

JR: I think sometimes we give younger people too much credit for that. Any time I speak at a school, I’m always interested in what kids are doing. Because they’re young, they must be on the cutting edge of technology. I assumed that to be the case, but the reality I’ve encountered isn’t that way.

They do seem to be a little more intuitive with technology, but they’re not out there exploring the boundaries.

When you’re a teenager, you focus on whatever it is you care about at that moment. It’s not like you’re saying, “Hey, I have some free time, I’m going to explore this new social platform.” If your friends are using it, you will figure out how to use it, and you’ll probably figure it out effortlessly. But I don’t think young people are exploring this technology unless it benefits them or specifically interests them.

JN: Let’s talk a little bit about your background, Jim. Where were you born?

JR: I was born in Connellsville, which is about an hour south of Pittsburgh, which is where I live now. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. I went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania—it’s a state school.

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JN: IUP. Whoop, whoop!

JR: [laughs] Yep. I studied graphic design there, and then moved to Pittsburgh after I graduated.

JN: And you’re in Pittsburgh now?

JR: Yeah, I’ve been here since 2000.

JN: Well, we can’t be friends now that I’m in Philly and you’re in Pittsburgh.

JR: Now that hockey season has started. [laughter] JN: Does what you do for a living and where you live have any correlation? One of the conceits we have as artists is

Part of Jim’s recruitment program? No, just promotional work done for two of Pittsburgh’s biggest attractions: the Pirates and the Steelers. © respective owners

that you don’t really need to live in a certain place to get your job done.

JR: My wife is a teacher, so I always thought ideally, “I’ll just go wherever my wife gets work, because I can work anywhere.”

Pittsburgh’s a relatively small city, and the art community—everybody kind of knows each other, and it’s very supportive of comics. In the history of Pittsburgh there’s a lot of pop cultural history. There are a lot of very good people in terms of comic book advocacy. The universities are open to comics. A friend of mine taught a graphic novel class at Carnegie Mellon last year.

All of my friends routinely speak at Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh Filmmakers. It’s become a city I like a lot, and I’m not eager to move.

I assume I could work anywhere, but I think having that community is very helpful. I have a handful of cartoonists I hang out with regularly. We travel to shows together, and when we’re working on something and we need another set of eyes, it’s nice to have somebody nearby.

JN: Have you ever experienced any territorial cartoonists, like, “Those are the New York cartoonists. Don’t talk to them.” [laughter] JR: No, I haven’t. I always joke that I’d like to start a feud with Portland. [Jamar laughs] They call themselves the Bridge Town or whatever, but to be honest, we don’t have the number of cartoonists necessary for that sort of thing. [laughter] JN: A comics turf war.

JR: Exactly, an East Coast/West Coast sort of thing. I always try to recruit people. Any time I hear somebody’s looking

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to move, I throw my hat into the ring. “You should check out Pittsburgh. Cheap rent.”

JN: I know a couple of people who are from there, and not to say they don’t speak fondly of Pittsburgh, I’ve never heard anybody boosting it.

JR: When people think of Pittsburgh, they think of the Pittsburgh of 25 years ago. If you grew up here, it’s probably very easy to think that way, but if you’re relatively new to the city, it’s, “I don’t know what people are talking about.

Our skies are clean.” [laughter] There are a few steel mills still operating, but it’s become more of a high-tech, medical industry city.

JN: So all your friends aren’t welders.

JR: No, but a couple of them are. [laughter] The history of the region is a huge part of the art scene, so I do know a few guys who are into welding and do metal sculpture and fabrication.

JN: Yeah, I’m a big Larsen fan.

JR: When Image started, he was the guy I was least interested in, and as soon as I read Savage Dragon #1, suddenly that was my favorite book. [laughter] From there I progressed into more independent stuff. Once I found black-&-white comics, that was really interesting, because it seemed closer to what I was doing. You could almost see how it was done. The color was removed, and I knew nothing about doing color work, so I was able to look at it in terms of taking it apart. “How do I do this?”

JN: When you get a full-color comic book, it’s like a monster you can’t really deconstruct.

JR: Yeah, that’s not what my drawings looked like.

And especially once they started doing computer coloring and lettering. It was like, “This stuff is so beyond what I understand.”

JN: When you saw that jump in production values in the early ’90s, where everything got really slick JN: Did you always and the colors jumped, is draw? that something you tried to JR: I always drew. I was figure out? “Maybe I need the kid in school who a really fancy computer to never stopped. I spent Satdo comics.” Or did you just say, “I can’t do that.” urday nights drawing until three in the morning, and JR: I hated computer coloring for a long time. watching horrible movies I hated how it looked. At on TV. some point I found Chip JN: Who are some of your Kidd, who would photoearly comic influences? graph old comic books JR: One of the first comics and take very close-up I bought was a Wolverine photos of the printed comic drawn by John Buscomics, and I realized cema. As soon as I started that part of what I was buying comics, I kind of responding to was the thought, “This is it. This is texture and the way A spoof of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way as drawn by Rob Liefeld. the perfect thing for me to the colors were sort of © Jim Rugg do.” So I bought How to bleeding together and Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Seeing John Buscema was into the paper, and that computer coloring on glossy paper like, “Wow! This guy can draw anything, and it’s dynamic was the opposite of that. And then in the late ’90s when and it looks good.” people started trying to be more photorealistic, it became very Very quickly I found Frank Miller. He was a guy who was dark and muddy—and it’s still that way. really important to me early on, and I tried to buy as much I have a comparison I’ve been working on for Hellboy: In of his stuff as I could. This was the late ’80s, early ’90s, so I Hell that compares the printed comic to the digital version. found Daredevil, and Ronin, and Dark Knight, and that stuff People don’t realize how much darker ink looks on paper. was great.

You lose a lot of detail. It’s there, but the contrast is lower, I got into the Image guys—Liefeld and McFarlane. Pretty so if you’re just casually reading the comic, it’s harder to much all the Image stuff was my favorite thing for about a read. And there was something about that artificial color that year—Eric Larsen’s Savage Dragon. grated on me.

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Jim’s pencils and inks for a ’90s Image style Afrodisiac poster.

Afrodisiac © Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca

At that point I had started reading indie comics—Fantagraphics, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware—and their stuff was either black-&-white, or Chris Ware’s color palette is so much more sophisticated. If you compare them to Image comics of the mid-’90s, the difference is insane. So I just gravitated to that because I liked it better, and I kind of got away from the Marvel/DC/Image comics. And I think a lot of it was the coloring.

I think whenever somebody is drawing a comic and they’re hand-lettering it, there’s not a lot of distance between a very cartoonish drawing and the lettering. When you get to, “Here are computer letters, and here is almost a photograph,” it’s as far across the spectrum of reading—like if you think about Scott McLeod’s pyramid of cartoons and comics. You have photographs on one side of it, and you have abstract lettering on the other side. That’s what these comic books became in the late ’90s and early 2000s, and I couldn’t read them. I couldn’t go back and forth between interpreting the pictures and reading the text. It was just too much of a gulf. Each panel was taking me out of the story, and I didn’t read any of that stuff for a long time. Now I think comics look better than they’ve ever looked, from Marvel comics all the way to the indie stuff, for the most part.

JN: I think that’s one of the things I like about your work, is that you have a lot of really sophisticated ideas, but yet you use some of the old language of comics. Your talk about color and how you like the old style of newsprint and how things

bled in the printing process, I see a lot of that in your work, like in Afrodisiac.

Did you ever reach a point when you were still early in your process of becoming a comic book artist where you said, “I don’t want to do this Image style, this mainstream style,” and you found a rhythm inside yourself to do the style you do now?

JR: You know, it’s been pretty organic. I certainly didn’t plan my career. I’ve been making comics since 2000. It makes sense from a certain vantage point, but it wasn’t like this was the plan. When I started in 2000, my ideal was Charles Burns and Crumb. I would see their work in Entertainment Weekly or some high-end magazine, and then I would read their comics and read interviews with them, and it was like, “Oh, you can’t make money doing comics, but you can make the comics you want and figure out a different source of income.”

So I thought, “I’ll try to do illustration work that looks like comics,” because that was the aesthetic I like.” You can skip ahead ten years, and that’s kind of what my life turned into.

It’s weird, and it wasn’t exactly planned.

I started making comics and self-published my first issue.

It was offset printed, and I printed, like, a thousand copies when I only needed ten. But I didn’t understand what my choices were. I was just trying to make comics. I didn’t have a lot of information about it, and I was so excited to have a comic ready to go that I printed way too many of them.

I went to a mainstream comic book show, and it was fine. Then I went to SPX, and it was all these guys making

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Afrodisiac © Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca

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mini-comics. It was like, “This is it!

This is exactly it.” Because you can do whatever you want, and you can print ten of them. I had a day job, and this was the easiest way to make comics in the world. You weren’t going to make any money off of them, but I didn’t need to make money off them. I was making comics at night; it was my hobby. It was what I was doing instead of going to a bar drinking. [laughter] So that’s what I did for a couple of years. There were only a couple of shows I would go to, so I’d have a new mini-comic for each show.

Then it just escalated. I would sell a few more copies whenever I had a new book. I would meet people whose comics I liked, and I would send them copies of my work when I had something new, and they would send me their work. It became this community, and you were getting feedback on what was working and what wasn’t, so you were slowly getting better. You could gauge reaction at shows.

The first show I did, I literally sold one comic book. I remember the first SPX where I broke even. “I didn’t lose money by buying a table and staying at a hotel. Holy cow! What’s happening?” [laughter] It just ramped up slowly.

When I did Street Angel, it was a mini-comic first. I took about 25 copies to a show, and sold out. That had never happened to me before. It was like, “Oh man. This was fun to do, and it seems like people like it. Let’s Bigfoot the legend versus Bigfoot the monster truck. Everybody wins. find a publisher,” because the next Bigfoot Fist Fight © Jim Rugg step was distributing it in bigger numbers. But doing the mini-comics allowed me to gauge that his books at the table with one of those machines with the feedback. light bulb. “How is he doing that?!?”

Everything grew out of that. Rather than saying, “Zombies JR: Yeah! I got a lot of inspiration from that stuff—that DIY are popular. I should do a zombie book, because I might be mentality. I do a tiny bit of screen-printing. A little bit of the able to sell that,” I said, “I want to some auto-bio thing,” or art-making stuff I do, it’s because I’m interested in it. I’ll see “I want to do some stupid story about Bigfoot,” or whatever I somebody do something that looks neat, and I’ll ask, “How was interested in. I was just making comics I wanted to make do you do that?” and then figuring out how many to print.

I started podcasting for that reason. I would listen to podcasts while I worked, and at some point I had to know how JN: Did you ever get caught up in the “keeping up with the you put those things together. I think it’s just the way I’m Joneses” aspect of shows like SPX? I remember when I would wired. I like making stuff. If I see somebody do something go to the shows, you had your game plan, but then you wound I think looks great, or interesting, or seems like something up sitting next to some guy who’s sitting there screen-printing that’s doable, I’m inclined to try that.

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SPX was that way. I would come home with a box of comics and say, “This one looks great. How do I make mine look better?”

JN: Do you find that lacking in mainstream cartoonists or mainstream shows? Because you don’t really see that high level of sharing the craft at a mainstream show unless you’re set up with a set of like-minded individuals.

JR: I don’t know, because I tend to ask everybody I meet a million questions. [Jamar laughs] When it comes to making comics, I want to make the best comics I can, so I want to know how you do it, why you’re making the choices you are. I don’t know anybody who does that—who doesn’t share information about their craft and experiences.

I’m friends with a few people who are more mainstream, and they’re very forthcoming when I annoy them with questions. [laughter] So I assume that they share tips with each other. It’s just that they’re outside of my social circle in a lot of cases, so I don’t know for sure if that’s what they talk about when they meet with other cartoonists.

At this point I feel like that idea of proprietary information is a thing of the past. There are still a few people like that, and

I’ve met people like that who don’t want to tell you anything about what they’re doing. You just move on to the next person.

If someone doesn’t want to talk about this thing they spend their life doing, I don’t want to try to drag it out of them.

For the most part, cartoonists I meet tend to be extremely pleasant. I think it’s because you don’t accidentally choose to be a cartoonist. “Well, I had to make some money, so….” [laughter] This is the worst way to make money for the amount of time you put into it. If you do comics, it’s because you love it, so most of the people I meet who make comics are happy to talk about it, because it’s their passion in life.

JN: Yeah, I agree with you. I also agree with cartoonists being pretty decent people. I don’t know a lot of jerk comic book artists, but I do know some of them, and I think they wear that very proudly on their sleeve. It’s almost like a gimmick for some of those guys. I think because you have to be so in tune with this very weird job we have, it’s like it has its own language, and only a few people care about that language. You want to share that language.

JR: No matter how many readers you may have, the craft of comics, if you do it well, a lot of it is invisible to a reader.

You’re not trying to stop the reader to call attention to some clever storytelling device you’ve put into the comic. You want it to happen seamlessly so that they don’t leave the story. If everything works, you’re almost invisible.

Tools and Techniques

JN: Let’s talk about your tools and technique. I’m assuming you do a lot of your work traditionally, yes?

JR: I do. It’s a mix at this point. It surprises me how much more I’m doing digitally than I used to do, because I value the original art. But I still work a lot with ink on paper.

JN: Do you work at a certain size? Are you drawing to size, or are you using traditional comic book board?

JR: It varies. I buy the pads of Strathmore Bristol smooth surface 300 series. They’re sold in different size pads, and I tend to buy the big ones—19" x 24"—and cut them smaller depending on what I’m working on.

I used to work at 150%, which is pretty much a standard, but I don’t always work that way. I work at weird sizes. It depends on the project. A lot of smaller projects, like a cover or a short story, allow me to try things. A 200-page book, you sort of have to work out what you’re doing. [laughter] JN: Right. You can’t just jump into that without knowing what you’re doing.

JR: I’ve been doing a lot of stuff at 200%. I’m not sure why.

I’ve just gravitated towards working that way for some reason.

Jim’s cover to Prophet #38. The title features an indie-minded, sci-fi approach to Rob Liefeld’s superhero.

Prophet © Rob Liefeld

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JN: It just feels good?

JR: I’ve been trying to show more work in galleries, and I realized how small comic book art is hanging on a big white wall. [laughter] So part of it has been experimenting with that. The space is so different in a gallery. I’ve actually made a

Jim’s breakdowns and finished color for a back-up story written by Jon M. Gibson for Adventure Time #10.

Adventure Time © Cartoon Network

couple of pieces that are much bigger—about 40 inches high—and I’ll draw elements that are different sizes so they can be read from different distances. If you were to walk into the room and it’s on a wall 20 feet away, you’ll read a certain image—some foreground figures doing something—but as you get closer, you’ll see more and more details, and if you want to read the entire piece, you have to get relatively close. Word balloons will be different sizes, and hopefully some narrative will reveal itself as you get closer or as you move away.

JN: So you have to get intimate if you really want to read it. That’s interesting. With the pieces you’re doing for galleries, are you making an effort to keep all that traditional, or are you still doing elements of the process digitally—thumbnails or anything like that? Does it matter?

JR: The endpiece is sort of all that matters, right?

That piece I tried to make as traditionally as possible, because I think there is value there as an art object. I’m self-taught, so one of the best things ever

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Jim’s breakdowns, pencils, and finished inks for page 15 of Vertigo’s iZombie #24, done as a fill-in for series co-creator Mike Allred. iZombie © Monkey Brain, Inc. and Michael Allred.

was when I started going to comic shows and found some original art. That was like the Rosetta Stone for me. You could see the lettering, and some pencil marks, and the size of it.

For the bulk of the history of comics, the original art wasn’t valued at all. It was production art, so a lot of it was lost or destroyed. Certainly some has survived. When you get to the ’70s, there was a window where people said, “Ooh! We should hold onto this stuff.” Then you get to the ’90s and people start producing work digitally. So there’s a small window in comics history where the original art exists.

I love the aesthetic of the original art. The book I’m com-

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ing out with this year is a collection of anthology work and short work, and some of it is a reproduction of the original art in full color. It’s a scan of the original art. You see a little bit of the blue line and whatever incidental stuff that gets on there besides the ink. I find it very attractive, and a lot of that is because I’m interested in how the comics are made, but I do think there’s an aesthetic quality to it. And from a pragmatic standpoint, Forbes magazine ran an article in 2012 about the value in art right now being in original comic book art.

It would be nice if this stuff that I like so much could be this valuable commodity as well. [laughter]

Jim’s one-page entry to Mome #22, presented in the format of a piece of original artwork.

Suburban Love Tales © Jim Rugg

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JN: Going back to tools, what are you usually penciling with?

JR: I use a lead holder. It’s a big lead, and there’s a sharpener for it. I use HB or maybe 2H lead. I draw very lightly in pencil—super-light. Sometimes I’ll do a little bit in blue pencil, but mostly I use graphite.

JN: I almost feel like Winsor-Newton is paying somebody. [laughs] JR: I’ve gotten a few Winsor-Newtons, but I don’t love them. Have you ever heard of the Rafael 8404? I bought a bunch a decade ago, and they’re good.

I taught myself to ink with a brush. As a kid, I got a pen nib, and I got a brush.

It was a cheap vinyl brush. But I learned to use the brush because I’d heard that’s what cartoonists used. I used a brush for about ten years. Then I saw some artwork I liked that was done with a pen, so I had to try that, and it was like, “Wow! This works really great.” So I have a drawer full of different pen nibs. I bought some of the Japanese pen nibs, but I mostly use a Hunt 102.

JN: Is there a reason you stick with graphite?

JR: It’s easier for me to erase. I’ll see artwork that’s done in blue pencil and they ink over top of it. Chris Ware does that, and it looks great. I’ve tried doing it, but there’s something about it I don’t love. I tend to pencil very loosely. If I did it in blue, there’d be a million lines. I pencil so light—and that’s good. I’ve never had any hand problems, and I think part of it is because I hold my pencil very lightly. I know guys that have that death grip, and whenever they’re busy, they’ll always be like, “Oh, my hand hurts.”

JN: I find a lot of younger cartoonists who are afraid of that stuff, because you can just go over to Pearl or wherever and get a bunch of Pitt pens or Microns and just go to work. But there’s a difference there.

JR: I was reading some previous issues of DRAW! to get ready for this, and I knew that the tools question would come up.

JN: And also you hand-letter, so need to save some of your health for that.

JR: I feel like I hand-letter for myself. I don’t think it’s the best way to do it probably, but I just like the way it looks.

JN: It’s a part of your style as well. I don’t know if you like using that word, “style,” but if I think if I saw your work with a computer font in it, it might seem off to me.

JR: I think about that a lot. I’m not opposed to digital lettering. I’m opposed to digital lettering without any thought behind it. You can find examples of any sort of lettering that look great, so I’m definitely not against that, and I’ve done projects I have used digital lettering for.

JN: What about your scanning process?

JR: I’ve got an Epson 10000XL that I bought on eBay five years ago. When I scan, I’m scanning for black-&-white.

I do very little color.

JN: What do you use for inking?

JR: I ink with technical pens, pen nibs, and I use sable hair brushes, like the Winsor-Newton Series 7 that everyone talks about that I’ve never had much luck with.

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Sketch ideas for an alternate cover for IDW’s G.I. Joe Special Missions #2.

G.I. Joe © Hasbro

JN: [laughs] You did your homework!

JR: The answer I usually give people for tools is that it doesn’t matter. Every time I met somebody or found somebody’s work I liked, all I would do is ask them, “What pen do you use? What brush do you use?”

Then at some point, I think it was with Dave Cooper, I emailed him and asked him, “What did you draw this with? What did you do this with?” And he said, “I used a Hunt 102 for everything. I did my lettering with the Hunt 102.” And I was like, “What? How is that even possible?” When you ask enough people what tools they use and you get enough different answers, you realize that it doesn’t really matter what you use.

The other thing is, all these tools that were used traditionally were used because you needed to make that black-&-white art for production. You don’t need to do that any more. I’m halfway through a cover now, and it’s part digital and part pencil, and I don’t think you’d be able to tell which parts are which or that it’s pencil and not ink.

Anything can be reproduced well now.

There are comics that I love that I can tell

(this page) Jim’s pencils and inks for an alternate cover of IDW’s G.I. Joe: Special Missions #2. (next page) Jim’s finished colors, along with two others of his G.I. Joe: Special Missions covers.

G.I. Joe © Hasbro

are just drawn in pencil and not inked. It really doesn’t matter any more. You’re making this stuff for reproduction, whether it’s printed or online, so the materials don’t matter. I always say that you’re better off drawing with whatever it is that you’ll draw with rather than making this process uncomfortable or not enjoyable for yourself. Making comics is not easy, so to force yourself to use a tool that you hate….

JN: That’s counter-productive. I totally agree with that. So do you use a certain type of ink?

JR: I use Dr. Martin’s Tech Ink for my brushwork. I’ve been ordering it in twelve-ounce bottles from some company in Tampa Bay, but I have to call them on the phone, and I’ll order four bottles of it at a time. I haven’t ordered any for about a year, and I’m always worried they’re going to go out of business, because they don’t even have a web site.

For the technical pens I use Koh-i-Nor—whatever the default ink is for those. I used to use Higgins Engrossing Ink with my pen nibs, because it’s kind of thin but it dries black.

It doesn’t tend to bleed. But they discontinued that a couple of

years ago, and I’m just about out of my supply. I don’t know what I’ll use next.

JN: The things that you are doing digitally, are you just manipulating things in Photoshop? Are you using Manga Studio?

JR: I’ve never used Manga Studio. I use Photoshop a lot, and I use InDesign for layout—I do some layout work, but not so much in comics—and then I use Illustrator for vector stuff.

I do a lot of logos. Depending on what the job is, I tend to composite it in Photoshop.

JN: I’m really surprised about how little people talk about InDesign in comics.

JR: I don’t do a lot with InDesign. Mostly it’s just layouts for mini-comics, where I’ll generate a PDF. Whenever I put books together, I tend to deliver a finished, ready-to-print file, so I need InDesign for that. If you’re not doing that, and I think a lot of people don’t, I don’t know why you’d need it. That was what I did in my day job, so I’m familiar with that process. And because I do a lot of mini-comics and

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’zines, it’s very handy. But I think a lot of people just turn in TIFs of the scanned artwork, and let someone else handle the rest. A lot of the freelance stuff I do, they’ll give you specs, and I just send them a TIF file so there’s no compression.

Getting the Word Out

JN: The last time I saw you, you had a bunch of newspapers.

JR: That was a book call Pood. There were four issues of it published, and it was a big broadsheet, part black-&-white, part color anthology that just happened to be in that format. I like that format, and trying different formats. I ended up being in a handful of different newspapers, because that seemed to be popular for about a year in alt circles. There was one coming out of Brooklyn. There was one out of Philly called The

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Secret Prison. They’re almost like the alt weekly newspapers that most cities have. There was one in Portland, one in the D.C. area, so I sent stuff to all of those places. I look at anthology work as a chance to put my work in front of people who have never seen my work before.

For Pood, there were four issues. Brian Maruca and I did a story in three of them for a character called USApe [Jamar laughs] which is a character we hope to do more with.

We’ve done a few strips here and there. It’s a mash-up of G.I. Joe cartoons and ’80s politics. [Jamar laughs] It’s a little bit Rambo and a little bit G.I. Joe. After 9/11 when everyone was saying “terrorism” and “terrorists,” all I could think of was G.I. Joe, and, “Whoa, was I being indoctrinated?” [laughter] That’s kind of what USApe is.

JN: I teach a writing for comics class, and one of the things I do at the beginning of the class is I hand out comics and have them read for the first 20 minutes. I’ll mix it up with graphic novels, ’zines, some highend art things, just for them to see different styles of comics. One of my favorite comics to throw into the mix is your Rambo 3.5.

JR: I’m glad to hear that.

JN: Everyone loves that. It’s a very “minicomic” mini-comic, and it seems like every page is done in a different style.

JR: That was a fun project. I had the idea for a while, but my schedule was just nuts for six months. Once I turned in the last thing that was due, I would still get up at

USApe saves the day, and America wins!

USApe © Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca

six o’clock and start working, even though I didn’t have any work that was due. I ended up doing that comic in a week or two. It was really fast because I was in that production mode. And a lot of that’s just freeform. Some of it is out of my sketchbook.

JN: Like I said earlier, you can tell you really are a traditionalist in that you don’t do things just to do them. Everything has a reason, and I really admire that about your stuff.

JR: What age are you teaching?

JN: These are college kids. I teach at Drexel here in Philly, and these are matriculating college students.

JR: I have a friend who was teaching a college course, and he would bring stuff in to talk about with the idea that he was introducing them to new stuff. Comics don’t have a very strong vernacular to talk about them in a critical way, so I always think it’s good to encourage people to do more of that.

JN: There’s always one student in the class who’s the hard-

core mainstream guy who’ll try to take over the class. But by the fourth or fifth class, they’ll be like, “Oh, man. I didn’t even know they made comics like this.”

JR: One of the reasons I like showing work in galleries is I think most people associate comics with Blondie or whatever.

But I can show them stuff they’ve never even imagined. You spend your life studying this stuff and learning it. Showing it to a new audience is the greatest thing ever. This medium that I love, I want to share it with people.

JN: You said that you do talks and things like that, but do you also teach?

JR: I’ve never taught a class, but I’m open to it. I like the craft of almost anything. I like the idea of craft, so I find the idea of teaching very appealing. If an opportunity comes up, and I assume it will sooner or later—it seems everybody I know who does comics has taught comics at least once [laughter]— I would be surprised if I don’t try that.

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Wraparound cover art for Supermag.

Supermag © Jim Rugg

JN: Do you keep a sketchbook?

JR: Yeah, kind of. I have two sketchbooks lying on my computer table right now.

JN: Was there a point where you did a better job of keeping a sketchbook, or do you just need something to put notes in?

JR: A lot of what I do with these is take notes. I don’t work as much in the sketchbook as I would like. Some of that is time; some is probably bad habit. Whenever I do pages, I often do them on a separate piece of paper at half print size. So a lot of what’s in my sketchbook is notes or one element of a drawing I’m working on. Just flipping through the sketchbook next to me, I have two pages of lettering for a G.I. Joe cover that I did, working out different lettering schemes. The page before that is notes for projects I’m working on, questions I have for a meeting I was having, and absent-minded doodling. It’s kind of fun to see how different that stuff is from what I’m actually drawing. They’re pretty loose. It’s not very attractive.

It’s not like James Jean or someone.

I always wonder about these people who have beautiful sketchbooks. [Jamar laughs] It amazes me. I feel like, one, who has time to work that refined in a sketchbook, but also you need to be loose somewhere, right?

JN: It’s got to come out somewhere. Do you have a private

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sketchbook where you put things you don’t want anybody to see?

JR: No. Almost nobody sees any of this stuff, but there’s nothing in it that I would object to.

JN: There is such a thing as self-censorship, and there are things you are comfortable doing, and things where you think, “Well, I don’t know.” I try to turn that off in my own stuff, but I don’t know if other people struggle with that.

JR: I’m pretty tame. I don’t know if that’s a result of selfcensorship or what. I haven’t done anything too objectionable in a while. It could just be me getting old. [laughter] It’s so horrible to think that way.

One page is working out designs for a really fat cat character. [laughs] I don’t know. My schedule as a freelancer is very erratic, and if you’re working on smaller jobs like one drawing here and there, you’re switching gears, and that part is very disorienting and inefficient. Unfortunately, that’s just the way things are at the moment. I should sketch more than I do. Let’s put it that way.

JN: I don’t want to give you a complex. [laughs] JR: People talk about doing free work and how that’s bad. I actually think it’s good. That’s the work I care about. That’s the work I’m doing for no money. Even if nobody pays me, I’m

A one-page story from Supermag #1 done in the Squeak the Mouse tradition.

Cat and Mouse © Jim Rugg

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Cover roughs for a variant cover of The Walking Dead #101.

The Walking Dead © Robert Kirkman

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going to do it because I want to do it so badly.

Sketchbooks are a little bit like that. They’re almost a luxury in a way.

Almost everything I draw is aimed at something. I have a show coming up in August. I really should already be drawing for it, but at some point that’s what I’m going to be drawing for every day for months. Some of the drawings won’t make it into the show, but all of the work will be intended for something. I think it would be good if that weren’t the case.

You mentioned time earlier, and being a freelancer it’s really strange to manage your time.

JN: You have nothing but time, which is weird.

JR: Yeah, it is, but you have to get control of it. This year, one of my resolutions was to take one day a week off.

JN: That’s tough.

JR: It is, but every religion says you should do it. [laughter] I was in a career development program a couple of years ago, and they emphasized you should take some time off. And I think working in a sketchbook is probably the same thing. You should do some work that isn’t intended for somebody.

I think if anything I should censor myself a little bit more. I post things online—sketches and things—that just aren’t good enough. I shouldn’t be putting them out there, because someone may Google me and find something that’s crappy, and that will be their first impression of my work.

JN: Do you worry much about your online image?

JR: I tend to be work focused. If you follow me on any social media, I’m pretty boring.

It’s going to be, “Oh, I drew this today,” or, “I The chosen one. Finished inks for the variant cover of The Walking Dead #101. got a new pen. Look at this drawing I did with The Walking Dead © Robert Kirkman it.” I don’t really post anything except work.

I don’t think there’s anything online that I regret except in JR: When you actually find the time to draw, that’s the best moment. Not even being online, but invoicing and paperwork— terms of quality. So I don’t worry about that. the business of being an adult—you spend so much time doing things you don’t calculate when you’re estimating time. So JN: Do you find yourself a slave to your cell phone?

JR: Yeah, a lot more than I’d like to be. If I go somewhere when you actually have a full day when you’re just drawing, and forget my phone—somewhere simple like picking up the it’s the greatest day of the month, because usually you’re drawdry cleaning—after 25 seconds of waiting in line, I’m like, ing in fragments. You find an hour here or there. It’s a luxury, “Oh, where’s my phone at?” [laughter] I can’t go half a min- and it kind of turns off everything else. ute and not be entertained.

JN: Does that say something about us, where other guys JN: Do you find your love for doing something as slowed would just be going to the strip club? down and laborious as making comics fighting against JR: I don’t know. It just is what it is. that?

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DRAWING

c i m a n y d

figures

by

Mike Manley and

Bret Blevins

Hulk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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D

rawing dynamic figures requires a lot of knowledge and skills. These are skills that the professional artist is always working on. You never really get enough info or practice on drawing the human figure. It’s vital to know and understand the anatomy of the human machine in order to be able to express it in a drawing or illustration that will have a vitality and life to it—a convincingness to the reader.

The young artist who is serious about his or her craft spends many hours diligently working at learning the anatomy and learning to ape the skills and styles of their favorite artists.

Right now, reading this article there are young artists doing just this—learning to do rendering and detail and draw in the style of their favorite artist or the style of the day. We have all done it; I did it, as well as Bret.

But the student or young artist often misses the forest for the trees at some point along the way. They might render figures well, but their figures might suffer from stiffness or proportion issues. Or they might be weak at drapery or perspective. There are a lot of skills to work on—all at the same time. Because comics is mostly drawing from imagination, we are always running on the knowledge we have stored in our memory banks, and the only way to get that knowledge in there is to draw it in there.

It’s like having a good workout routine in the gym. You might rotate between arm days, leg days, and back days, maybe with some cardio days thrown in. But in every gym you see the guys

with the “big guns” and bird legs. It’s the same with comics. You see figure drawings in comics all of the time on covers or pages featuring heroes who can lift mountains and defy gravity. It’s all very “kewl”—packed with a lot of effort, and lots of highly rendered figures covered with slick, stylish, “in the hot style” detail. But they look like they weigh two ounces! They have no weight, and without weight they have no power!

There is no Gravity!

The original group of Disney animators collectively known as the Nine Old Men probably drew as well as anyone in the history of drawing. They drew incredibly; they were able to give the impression of weight and volume without rendering or much indication of shadows. How so? The key is volumetric or sculptural drawing. All of the artists in this article, no matter their style, have this one key, great ability and approach.

This is essential!

One of the artists that stood out to me from a young age was John Buscema, Marvel’s main man after Kirby departed.

For me he was a key learning artist, and an artist that drew stressing a great sense of the principles of mass and weight, torque and twist, and gravity in his figures.

Even in his roughest drawings you can see the same sense of mass that is in the drawings of Michelangelo, the same sense of sculpting the mass of the figure, searching for it with a pencil like a sculptor with his clay or stone.

A Captain America sketch by John Buscema done on the back of a page of original art—which is typically where Big John did studies of this nature. Buscema studied the Old Masters like Michelangelo—a study by whom is shown here for comparison.

Captain America © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Another Michelangelo study.

Walt Disney discovered that by having his animators work this way, they were able for the first time to create figures that had a sense of realism. This drawing in a sculptural way is something that had already been around for a few hundred years in the works by the Old Masters, like Michelangelo, Raphael, and Tiepolo.

Glen Keane’s concept drawings of the Beast have a great sense of weight and mass.

Beast © Disney

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Glen Keane—another of Disney’s great animators, and one who was taught by some of the original Nine Old Men—also shows the same principles at work that Buscema and the Old Masters showed. Drawing with a strong sense of volume and gesture, he excelled at drawing big and heavy characters like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast.

What we are talking about here is what we can call a “form concept.” Now, nobody really looks like a sculpture or drawing by Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci. Their depiction or rendering of form was an intellectual concept, a way of drawing to express light falling across the form to create a sense of mass.

Rendering alone stylistically has nothing to do with giving a comic book character any sense of weight. This is the false step the young artist too often makes. The detail of a nose on a face does not give the head a sense of weight.

To create a convincing sense of having the character’s feet planted, it’s especially important to give heroic figures a sense of weight. The Max Fleisher Superman cartoons do a great job of showing Superman struggle and push against gravity to lift heavy weights or push off to fly. Luckily for you they are all available to watch for free on YouTube!

If you are a young animator or cartoonist, you should devour these great little gems of animation.

(right) This daring New Gods page by Jack Kirby has an amazing sense of weight in the figures with little or no rendering. (below) A still from a Fleisher Studios Superman short. The artists, working in a limited animation style, were still able to convey a great sense of weight and torque through the poses and volume of the figures.

New Gods, Superman © DC Comics

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Superman © DC Comics

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Rip Kirby © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Gravity isn’t always about giants or hulks with huge bodies. It can be conveyed with a charm and elegance as with the figures in this Rip Kirby daily and Flash Gordon example by Alex Raymond. Raymond is a huge figure in the pantheon of comics. His work, along with Hal Foster’s, influenced a generation of artists, like Kirby and Buscema and just about anyone else who ever drew comics, as well as many illustrators.

© Katsuhiro Otomo

Flash Gordon © King Features Syndicate, Inc.

In this page by Katsuhiro Otomo, there is a lot of subtle and beautiful drawing in the figure of the man on the ground, as well as the standing woman’s figure. You feel they fit in the space and on the ground. They have a weight that is just as strong as any superhero. It’s not always about somebody busting through a wall. Being able to draw somebody sitting in a chair is just as important and sometimes more difficult than being able to break the rules with dynamics.

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Conan © Conan Properties LLC

Look at the amazing feeling of weight and power in these figures

by Buscema—beautiful sculptural drawing!

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Conan © Conan Properties LLC

Weight can be visually conveyed in various ways. The two most basic means are: 1) By shape alone. Example A: This sack might be heavy.

Example B: This sack is heavy.

A

B

2) By dark and light. Example C: This might be a soap bubble. Example D: This might be a cannonball, but is definitely not a bubble.

C

D

Texture can also help. Although the smooth block [at left] may be solid lead and the rough one Styrofoam, the texture suggests the roughness of stone or concrete to our senses, and seems visually heavier.

When drawing figures (human or animal) all the above methods apply, but careful and knowledgeable drawing/posing and composition are required to be thoroughly convincing.

It helps to understand that flesh is malleable and is supported by the skeleton, and (unless in special circumstances such as outer space or within a “vomit comet” vehicle), is always in a visible relationship to gravity.

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When drawing a figure, think about these looser masses of flesh and muscle moving around the bones as the figure resists or succumbs to gravity. Natural gesture, pushed for impact, increases the feeling of weight—the top punching figure is solid and the action is clear, but the bottom figure is much more alive, and the intensity is greater.

Rhythm is also important (as always). The body moves in an alternating rhythm of shifting masses, and must do so in order to maintain balance in motion.

Unless intentionally posing in the stiff symmetrical fashion as shown at left, the human body rarely arranges itself in such static configurations. It’s more comfortable and natural to alternate between points of support as muscles tire and need relief. Incorporating this knowledge and observation into your drawings will convey a greater sense of humanity and personality. Massing volume clearly with light and shadow also increases the believability of figure drawings—the current fashion of over-rendering excessively busy details and “breaking” the solidity of forms with multiple light sources also removes any sense of weight.

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Simplifying the light and shadow structure imparts roundness to the forms, making them seem solid, and therefore, heavy. Though this figure is unnaturally stiff and the movement/action poorly composed, simplification of shadow masses increase the illusion of volume and weight.

When the poses and staging of movement is also improved, the impression of mass, gravity, and force is much more convincing.

Effective posing involves acting and dramatic staging, each vast subjects unto themselves.

For our purposes here, I’ll concentrate on examples that primarily depict weight.

The character at bottom left is obviously pushing a heavy door/gate—the action is clear enough, but stiff and lackluster. The character at bottom right is throwing all his force and mass into his task, visually increasing both his strength and the weight of the door.

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The Hulk usually doesn’t find anything too heavy, but there’s always been one tool he can’t easily heft. The squatting pose above makes a clunky, lumpen silhouette, so I relied on careful drawing of the straining anatomy, his thrown-back head, and—most importantly—a “hidden” understructure of shape and line rhythm that suggests a gravity point that is pulling all the forms and shapes of the image toward it.

Hulk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

The same principles are at work in the chained figure above. The figure’s bound arm is the single point of support; all the masses and shape rhythms are dropping away until stopped by the floor.

The three-stage drawing of a falling figure at left uses gesture, rhythm, and clear staging to portray the action of gravity pulling a limp unconscious form to the ground.

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Tarzan © ERB, Inc.

Tarzan © ERB, Inc.

There are many approaches to drawing, storytelling, composing, and rendering, and wide variety of tastes, of course, which all coalesce to form an individual artist’s “style.” This article is about visually communicating a convincing sense of weight, but not every artist emphasizes this aspect of drawing. On the following pages are some comparative examples that show how different techniques or combinations of those we’ve discussed can be used to portray the quality of weight or gravity, or exclude it if the artist chooses.

There is no invariable rule about what should or should not be done, but my preference is to always be in a position to choose how to apply knowledge, and not be limited in my choices by the lack of it.

Burne Hogarth is probably the most well known “realistic”comic artist who first worked in a style that consistently stressed an intentionally contrived concept of action/acting/posing and storytelling over naturalism. One of the elements he sacrificed to this concept was a convincing illusion of weight. In the examples on the previous page, you can see that Tarzan moves and interacts with gravity in ways that are impossible. Every element of Hogarth’s visual world is exaggerated into melodramatic histrionics as a means of achieving his intended effect. Though shadows from a light source are indicated, the heavy-handed line work across all the objects and figures depicted and strong outlines on the lighted side of forms undermine the sense of volume.

Comparing his version of Tarzan fighting a lion [above right] to Hal Foster’s [at left] reveals how Hogarth stylized almost every element— movement, pose, weight, anatomy. Foster’s work is thoroughly grounded in physics—he approached each image by asking, “If this unlikely or impossible thing could be done, how would it actually look?”

© respective owner

In the charming examples below, weight is conveyed by accurate observation and careful drawing—there are no black shadows to help us grasp the solidity of forms, not even variation in the thickness of the single outlines around each object, yet we feel these figures have mass and weight—the color helps, completing and separating each form and shape—but careful arrangement of the composition, and close attention to the naturalism and accuracy of each element allow us to accept and believe what we are seeing.

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These images by Henry Beckhoff, though similar in rendering technique to the previous images, are exaggerated toward cartooning, but again the careful drawing and transcription of natural observation convince us we are seeing more than mere outlines on paper. The figure jumping on the bed is clearly dropping—the stylized drapery, his hair, shoelaces, and especially his tie tell us so. The attitude and pose of the woman has a nice sense of weight and solidity too—the forward sweep of her legs and feet keep her forward-leaning torso in balance. The preening father being photographed again has no indication of cast shadows, but the precise control of the accurately drawn forms “fill out” the sense of mass within the outlines and convey a convincing illusion of solidity, and thus weight.

This sumptuous sketch by Rembrandt is one of the most celebrated drawings in the history of art, and rightly so. There is so much sensitivity, life, and such a natural sense of weight captured in so few spontaneously eloquent lines. Even the living warmth of the woman’s body is suggested in some mysterious way. Nothing useful could be added to this drawing; more detail would clutter it and reduce the qualities that make it so evocative.

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These three examples by Albert Dorne are instructive. The man riding the turtle is constructed with Dorne’s impeccable solid drawing of form, and rendered with a consistent light source, creating cast shadows that root the masses to the ground. By contrast, the other two drawings have no cast shadows, yet the figures and objects also feel solid and heavy. In the burglary image there are shadows within the forms that create convincing volume, but even without them the drawings are so carefully structured they would still be convincing—which is exactly what Dorne has accomplished in the country store scene. Notice how the beautifully accurate drawing of the gestures, drapery, and especially the hands convince us of the respective weights of the empty basket and the rooster. The posing of the two characters not only convey the balance of their standing bodies against gravity, but even tell us a lot about their personalities. Dorne was a master of whimsical storytelling illustration.

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By contrast, the brilliant Ronald Searle creates weight by his marvelous sense of fluid exaggeration and caricature, along with graphic design and manipulation of line quality. In these two illustrations from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the lone standing figure of Quasimodo feels massive and heavy, though he casts no shadow on the ground. The effect is achieved by the exaggerated drooping masses of Quasimodo’s misshapen body. The splayed feet sprung out from the locked-together knees tenuously support the ponderous weight of the torso and arms, which drop and sag like moist clay. The heavy rough ink lines around the torso and thighs are a graphic device that implies more weight too, and the lively, coarse vertical strokes indicating a fluted column behind him add downward thrust. They are heavier above him than below, optically “pushing” him toward the ground.

The image of Quasimodo carrying Esmeralda uses similar means. The sag of Esmeralda’s body feels accurate, though it is caricatured. Quasimodo’s in mid-step, and the slight forward tip of his body indicates a convincing sense of balance in motion.

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In these two life drawings, the shapes created by the fleshy masses as gravity pulls them downward against the supporting framework of the skeleton are clearly transcribed—careful and faithful observation conveys solidity and weight, though again without any indication of the ground beneath her or shadows cast on it.

A good footnote here is to always feel the pose of any figure you draw in your own body. We all feel gravity’s pull, especially when we struggle to lift something, or pull or push objects—even to climb the stairs after a long day. A heroic figure looks heroic because of the struggle against something, be it gravity to lift a heavy weight or any opposing force.

Even in repose the figures of great artists like Michelangelo can convey a great sense of mass and gravity. A great rule is to “stand up and act it out.” We all feel the pull of gravity and the weight of our own body as it pulls us down to the earth. Having a mind/body connection to what you are drawing is a great way to “feel” if the pose or the figure you are drawing is a good one or “feels right.” As always, study the greats who came before us and learn their lessons so you can apply them in your own work.

See you next time, Mike and Bret

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UNDER REVIEW CORRECT-A-MUNDO!

G

reetings to all and sundry! Through the fog and mist, your Crusty Critic returns! If you are new to my mission, a recap: In the rough waters of art-making, a great captain must know what tools will get him to his appointed rendezvous. In our art example, that’s the end of a project deadline, and you need all hands on deck and all art oars in the water if you’re going to make it home…. Sometimes whirlpools of bad art supplies appear to suck away your precious time, making navigating your page harder than it has to be. Other times it’s a 40-foot wave of panic trying to capsize the boat! I have come to your rescue, your cartooning lighthouse, guiding you to shore with good advice, a beacon of art supply hope to get you over the hump and into port, avoiding a watery grave—deadline drowning!

So get your sea legs. This time, your friend in Crust has come to help you cover up Those That Should Not Be Seen— art mistakes! The Crusty Critic reviews Correction Solutions!

In the cyber age in which we live, more and more cartoonists are turning to digital means to finish workloads. Hours that were spent fussing with scans and getting things just right by hand are disappearing as artists switch to a digital workflow. While that has its merits, today we are going to discuss old school cover-ups.

In this entry, I review several options for making white marks on your physical art. When working in India ink, it’s imperative that you have a tool nearby to correct mistakes.

Even if you are a digital fixer-upper, there always comes a need to clean things up “on the boards.”

I have included a small demo of the tools I am reviewing by writing out their description on kraft paper in order to show the opacity or light-fastness of the ink or correction fluid, so please pay attention to that to see what kind of “white” you’ll get when matched up against a midtone.

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Also, using standard comic board, I created some dark black “Kirby Krackle” and paired the sample instruments against it. I’m looking for how bright the correction medium sits on top of the black, and also how many times I have to apply another coat on top to get the desired covering.

I have enlisted the aid once again of my trusty local art supply warrior queens at Allegheny Art Company in the Philadelphia area, who always have an open door, warm smiles, and great prices for this Crusty Critic! And as always, ratings are on the five-beret scale.

Pentel pRESTO! Jumbo Correction Pen

This little guy is always at hand’s reach in my studio. Pentel’s line of “white-out pens” has always been top notch, even when these first showed up on the scene in the 1980s. They were really hard to locate back then, and now they’ve returned to scarcity.

Coming in the “squatty” rectangular pen or the regular cylindrical style, the Presto! has an agitator inside to mix the correction fluid, and a tiny ball at the tip that allows you to press down on the tool coupled with a squeeze of the soft plastic body to get a flow.

The Presto! doesn’t need a lot of help to get started. Once you press down to activate the pen, it usually flows uninterrupted, giving you a nice, bright white line for cover-up. I use these for all sorts of things besides corrections, and the white has a brilliancy not seen in a lot of the other products I will review.

The correction fluid is a nice, hot white that skates across your surfaces, and leaves you with a medium-width line. It’s possible to do smaller, precision touches with the Presto!, but it may fight you. Sometimes, if you don’t keep the point of the pen clean, the tip will splotch out little “bloops” as I like to call them—stray

spots from the pen—but when doing effects like Kirby Krackle, that doesn’t bother me that much.

During the Krackle Test, the Presto! succeeded with flying color (see what I did there?).

Covering black the pen covers flawlessly, and in the case of using India ink for blacks, doesn’t yellow out over time. This Crusty Critic has old drawings that yellowed (but didn’t crack— something else to consider when using a tool that can lay on thick correction fluid), but if you’re not using Sharpies underneath it, you should be in good shape.

These are almost impossible to find in stores. You could usually sneak up on them in Staples, but now you can get them in bulk on Amazon. Stock up before they Opacity Test: Squatty is the new black.

Kirby Krackle Test: Pentel Presto! wears the stop making these beauties. correction crown… for now!

The Presto! is normally my Pentel Presto! Jumbo Correction Pen: number one draft-pick, but you may be surprised to see something sneak out of the shadows and possibly take its throne before this review is complete….

Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen White 101 (big size) and

SHARPIE Oil-based Paint Marker

Opacity Test—Pitt White 101: It was love at first sight with this beauty, but alas.

Opacity Test—Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Marker: Sharpie didn’t cut it this time around.

Remember when you were a kid and you made the horrible mistake of getting your yellow Crayola marker anywhere near black marker, and it instantly turned that beautiful drawing into a streaky, dirty mess of tire skids? I expected a lot more from these review markers.

The White 101, from the Faber-Castell line of Pitt markers— if you follow the comings-andgoings of this Crusty Creator, you know that I adore the Pitt line, especially the Big Brush pen marker. This marker broke my heart. When revealing the nib, its bullet-style reminded me of paint markers, so I shook it on instinct, but there is no agitator—unlike the Sharpie pen. This here is India ink, not paint or correction fluid that needs to be shaken.

DRAW! FALL 2013

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Examining my kraft paper test, the surface of the paper immediately causes a reaction with the tool, and you can see the pen “greying out” as I wrote the description. First use of the pen too. Also not so brilliant of a white. First strike. The Sharpie gave me almost the same output, thus I lumped both reviews into one.

For the White 101, the Kirby Krackle test was disappointing, as the Pitt lived down to its name, and gave a Pitt-iful performance.

You can see the circular motions of my line inside the mark—trying to burrow down into my circles to maybe make a brighter white happen, but no such luck. I even went over some of the circles several times after it dried to see if I could build on the mark, but it just got muddier.

What a shame. And the more Kirby Krackle Test—Pitt White 101: There are better options out there. Don’t pick this armpit marks I made, the dirtier the bul- of a pen—it stinks. let nib got. You can see some Kirby Krackle Test—Sharpie Oil-Based Paint MARKER: Not so sharp. stray marks off to the side—my this marker may be fine to use on a different surface, but this futile attempts to clean off the pen so I could keep testing it.

The Sharpie separated on the blacks—maybe a bad combi- pen did not “make the mark” for my Crusty Review at this nation of the oil-based pen against the surface, but the proof time and is found unreliable for touch-up work. The Sharpie, is in the pudding. Look at that mess! I had to double-up just I didn’t have much hope for, and I was right. C’est la vie! to get a register.

The White 101 Pitt marker broke my crusty heart, and I Pitt White 101: had such high hopes for it. Actually seeing this pen in Allegheny sparked the kernel for this Crusty Column. I think Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Marker:

COPIC Opaque White (Small Jar)

Opacity Test: Thick and dense—though not thoroughly convinced.

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I’ve had an odd affair with Copic materials since they came onto the scene, and in my Crusty Que is a double-wide column covering the Copic marker line, but today I’ll focus on this little jewel I picked up at the shop.

This pot of dense white ink needed to be shaken and stirred, reminding me of the thick paste of Plaka art fluids that a young Crusty Critic used in art school. After applying a brush to the pot, it leaves a pretty brilliant white, and needs to be thinned for your personal use. I’m sure there are several things you could use this for, and it reminded me of some cartooning colleagues who keep a tube of acrylic white laying around for cover-ups. This opaque white lived up to the name but didn’t do much for me.

Applying the white to my Kirby sample left some lumpy hills in spots, and then changed opacity in other places. I’m sure if I had more time to experiment, I could find a lovely

midway point of enjoying this method of applying correctional whites, but as we all know, this critic is all about saving and shaving time off of an artist’s busy schedule, and I can find other ways to apply white to a page, which knocks down the beret-count here.

Now, if I was looking for precise application, I may reach for this product and a brush, for example, to create white “negative” lines on a page—say, someone wearing a black jacket, and using this product to produce stitching—but still, the color is a little uneven, and just a scant too much trouble for its worth.

Copic Opaque White (small jar):

SAKURA Gelly Roll 08 Gel Pen

Kirby Krackle Test: Copic Opaque White lays down lumpy and uneven. Proceed with caution.

Opacity Test: Not as bad as this Critic initially thought.

Kirby Krackle Test: Are you gellin’?!

This could possibly work as a last resort—a foxhole quick-fix.

The Gelly Roll 08 was a last-minute impulse buy on my way out of the art shop. I’ve never been a fan of gel pens. They trended a little while back and have sort of flamed out—possibly the appeal of the gel pen has worn out its welcome, but they keep making them, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. A past-featured Crusty Haunt, jetpens.com, has a whole section on their site dedicated to gel pens, and I think the colored versions are popular with school students, so thinking that someone may have changed the formula by this point, I gave it a shot.

As you can see by the kraft paper test, the pen has a fine point (finer than the other products reviewed) and did a remarkable job “rolling” across the page. The pen had a good feel, thanks to a soft plastic casing, giving it a natural-feeling grip, and the lines didn’t burp or skip as I wrote. That

can be a deal breaker for white pens, as you need it to go down clean the first time—usually your room for error is small when implementing white into your work. I enjoyed working with this pen.

Onto the Krackle Test—the pen made nice, fairly bright white marks for me. They’re not as dense as the Presto! Correction Pen, but it could do in a pinch. Doing laborious work like creating cosmic blobs may be a rough voyage with such a tiny pen, but if you were simply concerned with a small area, I would allow it. (An old toothbrush dipped in white ink, using, say… the Copic tub, would make great star/space spatter!)

The Gelly Roll isn’t a home run. This critic would give it a solid on-base hit.

Sakura Gelly Roll 08 Gel Pen:

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LIQUID PAPER Correction Pen

Opacity Test: A new champion?

Kirby Krackle Test: Control, proper design, and precision gives this correction pen the win.

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DRAW! FALL 2013

Easy to find in your local pharmacy or office supply store, the Liquid Paper Correction Pen surprised me.

This wasn’t purchased for the sake of this article, but preparing for the review, I pulled a few of these out to make it a little more interesting, and had no idea that I would discover that this pen is in my Crusty Opinion, just a better option for correction, covering, and control than the mighty Presto! pen. Don’t get this confused with the inferior BIC-brand Wite-Out pen— that thing is horrible. Nothing else to say about them.

If you look at my kraft paper example—pardon my chicken-scratch, but writing with this pen is a breeze, with no “double line” that you get when trying to print with a Presto!, just nice, smooth, and easy delivery.

A nice strong brilliance, the correction fluid—I don’t feel comfortable calling it ink—flows like a dream from the pen, and the design of the cylindrical tool has a fleshy bulb right in the sweet spot, and it agitates and applies fluid where you need it, not where you don’t. When making corrections, that’s where it’s at, and where it should stay!

In the Krackle Test, you can see how the fluid shows up perfectly and hassle-free. I’ve sworn by the Presto!—in fact I have a lot of them in my drawer—but I have to tip my beret to the Liquid Paper, the clear-cut champion of correction this time around, just barely beating out the Presto! by a nose.

Liquid Paper Correction Pen: The fun of art supply spelunking is the search for the great white whale—that one item that’s out there, somewhere, swimming around in a stock room, waiting to be discovered.

I have reviewed just a few things that interested me, and as I always say, YMMV—Your Mileage May Vary—and you may do amazing things with that crappy Sharpie pen!

If so, I’d love to hear about it! You can always reach me @jamarnicholas or on Facebook. And once again, thanks to the lovely ladies down at Allegheny Art Company, who you can find on the net at http://www.alleghenyart.com/ and tell them I sent you!

Until next time, stay Crusty!

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