Draw #29

#29 FALL 2014 $8.95 IN THE US

The Professional “How-To” Magazine on Comics, Cartooning and Animation

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AND MIKE MANLEY AND BRET BLEVINS’

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DRAW! (edited by MIKE MANLEY) is the professional “HOW-TO” magazine on comics, cartooning, and animation. Each issue features in-depth INTERVIEWS and DEMOS from top pros on all aspects of graphic storytelling, as well as such skills as layout, penciling, inking, lettering, coloring, Photoshop techniques, plus web guides, tips, tricks, and a handy reference source—this magazine has it all!

NOTE: Some issues contain nudity for figure drawing instruction.

INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS.

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

DRAW! #20

DRAW! #21

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

DRAW! #19

An in-depth interview and tutorial with Scott Pilgrim’s creator and artist BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY on how he creates the acclaimed series, plus learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS creates the fabulous work on his series. Also, more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Features an in-depth interview and demo

by R.M. GUERA (the artist of Vertigo’s Scalped), behind-the-scenes in the Batcave with 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 gives a demo and interview, pro inker and ROUGH STUFF editor BOB McLEOD offers a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, JAMAR NICHOLAS’ “Crusty Critic” column reveals the best art supplies and tool tech, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP gets your penciling in shape, plus Web links, reviews, and more!

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(84-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

DRAW! #22

DRAW! #23

DRAW! #24

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, comic and book reviews, and more!

Urban Barbarian DAN PANOSIAN talks shop about his gritty, design-inspired 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, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. 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!

PATRICK OLIFFE interview and demo, career of AL WILLIAMSON examined by ANGELO TORRES, BRET BLEVINS, MARK SCHULTZ, TOM YEATES, ALEX ROSS, RICK VEITCH, and others, 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!

GLEN ORBIK demos how he creates his painted noir paperback and comic covers, ROBERT VALLEY discusses animating “The Beatles: Rock Band” music video and Tron: Uprising, plus Comic Art Bootcamp on “Dramatic Lighting” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies, BOB McCLOUD gives a Rough Critique of a newcomer’s work, and more!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows.

A New Day For Comics Fans!

DRAW! #25

DRAW! #26

DRAW! #27

DRAW! #28

LEE WEEKS (Daredevil, Incredible Hulk) gives insight into the artform, YILDIRAY ÇINAR (Noble Causes, Fury of the Firestorms) interview and demo, inker JOE RUBINSTEIN shows how he works, “Comic Art Bootcamp” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, “Rough Critique” of a newcomer by BOB McLEOD, “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies and software!

JOE JUSKO shows how he creates his amazing fantasy art, JAMAR NICHOLAS interviews artist JIMM RUGG (Street Angel, Afrodisiac, The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Janes in Love, One Model Nation, and The Guild), new regular contributor JERRY ORDWAY on his behind-the-scenes working process, Comic Art Bootcamp with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, reviews of artist materials, and more!

Top comics cover artist DAVE JOHNSON demos his creative process, STEPHEN SILVER shows how he designs characters for top animated series, plus new columnist JERRY ORDWAY presents “The Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the ORDWAY!”, “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies, and hit “Comic Art Bootcamp” with Draw editor MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS!

FAREL DALRYMPLE shows how he produces Meathaus and Pop Gun War, director and storyboard/comics artist DAVE BULLOCK dissects his own work, columnist JERRY ORDWAY draws on his years of experience to show readers the Ord-way of creating comics, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

(84-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING WWW.DRAW-MAGAZINE.BLOGSPOT.COM FALL 2014, VOL. 1, #29 Editor-in-Chief • Michael Manley Managing Editor and Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Front Cover • Dave Dorman DRAW! FALL 2014, Vol. 1, No. 29 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.

DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet, Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2014 by their respective contributors. Views expressed here by contributors and interviewees are not necessarily those of Action Planet, Inc., TwoMorrows Publishing, or its editors 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 ©2014 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,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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DAVE DORMAN

The master illustrator wields his brush like a Jedi master as he demos his unique process

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comic art bootcamp This month’s installment: Concept & Design

44

LESEAN THOMAS

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RIGHT WAY, WRONG WAY—ORDWAY!

Jamar Nicholas interviews the renaissance man of animation

Challengers of the Collaboration

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. 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. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE 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 within our Apps and at

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DRAW! FALL 2014

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-ING AHEAD

he Force is strong with this issue! I was so happy to finally get to interview Dave Dorman and cover his process on his fantastic illustrations. Dave has been at the top of the game doing illustration for 30 years, and it was great to talk about how things were in the beginning compared to how they are now, as technology changes the face of illustration faster and faster.

A big hat off to my publisher, John Morrow, and my main man Eric NolenWeathington for making this issue look great. Kudos to my regular contributors Bret Blevins and Jerry Ordway for their articles and Jamar Nicholas for his great interview with LeSean Thomas on his career in comics and animation. By the time this issue reaches the U.S. shore from our printer in China, the first few leaves of Autumn will be falling and the fall con season will be upon us. I’ll be attending both the Locust Moon Comics Festival in Philly and the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. I attended my first comic convention in seven years this past summer, the Wizard World con in Philly, thanks to my buddy and former Darkhawk writer and Marvel editor, Danny Fingeroth.

It was a fun time. It had been so long since I last trod the floor of a con. I did enjoy it a lot more than the last few shows I attended seven years ago, but did notice that fandom has changed in my time off the grid. It seems that everybody wants and is buying and selling prints as opposed to original art or books. I suppose we are seeing the continuation of the crowd broadening out into a general entertainment audience with TV and movies being dominant and comics almost being a subculture within that. The upshot for us artists, though, is that there still is a heavy demand for good art from all comers—comics, games, films, and more. So take out you pencils and paper (traditional or tra-digital), and get to drawing!

Best,

NEXT ISSUE IN JANUARY! DRAW! (80 FULL-COLOR pages, $8.95), the professional “how-to” magazine on comics and animation, crosses the 30-issue mark with a great set of interviews and demos from today's top comics creators! We start with an interview with Eisner and Harvey Award-winning artist CHRIS SAMNEE (Daredevil, Batman, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Captain America), the creator who's on everyone's radar with his current Daredevil work. Then we kick the can over to comics veteran JACKSON GUICE (Captain America, Superman, Ruse, Thor) to talk about his creative process and his new series Winter World. PLUS: "The Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the ORDWAY!" with new columnist Jerry Ordway, and "Comic Art Bootcamp" by Draw editor Mike Manley and Bret Blevins! NOTE: May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; suggested for Mature Readers Only.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: Four issues US: $34 Standard, $41 First Class, $11.80 Digital Only Outside the US: Canada: $43, Elsewhere: $52 Surface, $141 Airmail SUBSCRIBE NOW At: www.twomorrows.com

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interview conducted by Mike Manley and transcribed by Jon Knutson

At this moment in our very own galaxy…

Draw!: So, what are you working on today?

Dave Dorman: Today, I’ve got some juggling on a couple of things. I’m putting together a small art book for San Diego, featuring some of my Aliens and Predator artwork. It’s all production work—just gathering the art, putting it together, getting it ready for the printer, and sending it out tomorrow. I’m also laying out a comic book story, a 20-page comic that’s going to also be available at San Diego, featuring some characters from my Wasted Lands graphic novel project. The comic book is called Red Tide, and it’s a prequel to a three-issue series we’re going to do in the fall.

ave Dorman is an Eisner Award-winner, an Inkpot Award-winner, and a favorite among Star Wars fans—including George Lucas himself! He’s worked on practically every major science-fiction, fantasy, and horror licensed property at one point or another, and he’s learned a thing or two about slinging oil paint. So gather ’round, young Draw!: And are you publishing this yourself? padawans, as the master teaches us the ways of the DD: Yeah, I’m doing the whole thing myself. I have a writing partner, Mike Bawden, who’s doing the scripting, but I’m Illustrator.

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(left) Dave: “‘The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan’” was commissioned for a book on fantastical places. From the start I wanted to do something different for this piece. The first was not to show Khan from the front. The piece is about the pleasure dome, not him. But I wanted it to exude strength and eroticism. This is the pencil art for the 20" x 30" painting.” (right) Dave: “After I transfer the drawing I begin the oil underpainting, adding textures in the paint by pulling the paint form the board and using the transparency of the oils and white of the board to add depth to the background.”

The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan © Dave Dorman

plotting it and doing all of the artwork and production, and sending it off to the printer. I’m laying out the pages right now so I can start on the pencil work tomorrow. I’m also juggling a couple of logistic things for San Diego, and intending to go to Austin for the Capital City Convention—I’m working on that. So basically, partial art, partial business.

Draw!: Is that a fairly typical day for you, to have the business side, and then the art side?

DD: No, that usually happens maybe two or three times a month. Most of my actual work time is penciling, drawing, sketching, preparing the artwork—that type of thing. This type of book production stuff comes up occasionally, I’d say maybe three or four times a year. Mostly around this time, in the late spring/early summer, getting ready for San Diego and the convention season. I look to have new product out for when I attend the shows. So, that’s usually when this type of thing happens. But my regular work day would be get up,

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check my email, see if anybody’s ordered anything, answer fans’ questions, and then get to drawing, whether it’s drawing preliminary roughs, doing a layout, getting a painting ready, or actually sitting down and laying paint on the board.

Draw!: Do you have a fixed schedule, as far as you’re usually up by a certain time, to work by a certain time, or do you sort of roll with the deadlines?

DD: It’s rolling with the deadlines. I have a son in elementary school, so during the school year, it’s getting him up and off to school, and that’s the start of the day. It used to be, before we had Jack, our son, I’d get up and basically just start working, and then take a break for lunch or whatever. If there are some errands or things to be done around the house, then come back and just work again until it’s time to go to bed. But with my son it changes—good changes—the whole day, and as a matter of fact, I had to adjust the schedule to fit family life. So I work a little bit more at night, when everyone’s gone to bed, and the house is quiet.

(left) Dave: “Two more layers of underpainting give me a solid base to work from.” (right) Dave: “I begin rendering the details, this time mostly in oils as I want to be able to blend parts of them back into the background while it is still wet.”

The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan © Dave Dorman

Draw!: I take it you don’t pull too many all-nighters anymore, unless it’s an extreme deadline?

DD: Unless it’s a very extreme deadline, I don’t pull an allnighter. Yeah, I find that pulling all-nighters causes a lot of anxiety, obviously, because you know you’re running late, so I just basically try my best to stay on schedule, make sure that I know when the deadline’s going to hit. After 30 years in the business, I’m pretty good at approximating how long any particular piece is going to take, so I know that if it’s going to be close to a deadline, I need to work another hour or two at night to make sure I can hit those deadlines. I’m getting a little bit too old to pull those all-nighters.

Draw!: [laughs] Yeah. The other thing is I know sometimes when you push the all-nighter, you also run the risk of making a mistake that takes you actually longer to go back and correct, where if you just stop and get a little rest, you would actually move much faster, and you would avoid...

DD: Sure. You just don’t want to compromise the integrity of the art. You don’t want to send anything out of the studio

that you’re not happy with. If I haven’t learned my lessons through the years in the industry now, I’m never going to learn. I learned very early on it’s better to paint when you’re rested then when you’re falling asleep and ending up with a forehead covered in oil paint from dropping on the drawing board while you’re snoring away.

Draw!: Do you give yourself time after you’ve finished a job to get away from it to look at it before you send it out, or does that really just depend on how hot the deadline is?

DD: Exactly, it depends on how close the deadline is. Usually, I would take a day or two to let it set, so that I can turn away from it, and then come back with a fresh eye and make sure that it’s exactly what I wanted, whether additional detail needs to be made, or colors need to be adjusted, or something to make it just a little bit tighter, and a little bit more of what the client expects. Obviously, some of the things now, with the digital technology, I can sort of paint to a point, and then not have to worry about maybe shifting a color a little bit, or doing a little bit darker tonal thing on the page. I can just

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(above) Dave: “I adjust some of the background to reflect the cherry blossom coloring and detailing I will be adding in the next step. I have intentionally left a lot of the background less detailed, as I will be covering it up in the next step.” (next page) Dave: “With the painted art finished, I scan it in and have a digital copy. At this point I add the cherry blossoms digitally, layering them from back to front to help give a depth in them and also to the painting itself.”

The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan © Dave Dorman

scan it in and do that digitally very quickly without having to repaint an area, or lay on an overcoat of transparent paint to go change that tone. I can do it in the computer a little bit easier, so the digital thing has made it easier on the back end of the painting.

Draw!: I remember reading—it was in the last year or so— on Facebook, you were asking people about scanners. I guess the pulse was about digital painting, and how that was a big deal for some of your clients, like they wanted you to do the art because they like your work, but then thought that you were digital, but you aren’t digital.

DD: It just started out as an interest in digital work because, I’d say about 15 years ago, I started encountering a lot of young guys who were coming out of school who knew my work, and wanted to talk to me about work. Most of these

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young artists were traditional painters, but they were also educated in digital mediums. So, I started talking with them, and experiencing what digital was doing. I really hadn’t thought about incorporating digital at all into my repertoire of media until three or four years ago. This was, like I say, back around the late 1990s/early 2000s, and digital “started raising its ugly head.” [laughter] I started experiencing it more and more, and I started playing with it on my artwork, because at that time, I was already scanning my artwork into digital files for the publishers, rather than me having to send my original artwork to them, since they were going to digitize them anyway. It’d gotten to the point where I just wanted a large format scanner to scan my pieces in, and send them to the publisher. Then I started learning about little tweaks that could be made to the pieces.

It was a slow learning process for me, as far as after-image digital manipulation was concerned. But I never thought that I would have to create an image from a blank canvas to a fully rendered piece digitally, because in my world—and I think, in most artists’ worlds—the image is what speaks for the artist. The image is what is. It doesn’t matter how you got there, it doesn’t matter what medium you use, as long as the image is good, it’s what the client wants, and they can use it for whatever they have their purposes for. Then, about three or four years ago, I got a couple of calls in a row—and if this would’ve happened maybe two or years separate, I wouldn’t have made too much of it, but it happened within like a month or two of each other. I got two calls from two companies.

Both art directors liked my work quite a bit, and wanted to hire me to do these projects. These were two separate companies. And we got into the conversation with my art, and what they wanted, what they expected from me, and the first art director said, “Okay, so you’re working digitally, so we can get these digital files.” And I said, “No, I’m working traditionally and scan my work in and give you digital files.” He said, “Oh, so you don’t work digitally?” I said, “No, I don’t.” He said, “Well, we’re really looking for a digital artist for this project.”

And I really didn’t know what to say at this point, because the art speaks for itself.

Draw!: And once you scan it in, it’s digital anyway, so what difference would it make, right?

DD: Well, yeah! Exactly! And that was my interpretation of things. But, this happened, and then almost the exact same thing happened about a month later, and I lost the second job because I wasn’t doing my artwork in a digital fashion, from a blank piece to a finished piece. So, I started thinking about this, and it occurred to me, in talking with a lot of artists nowadays, probably about a third of the artists I know are strictly digital artists; they don’t do traditional art at all, and have never done traditional art. We have a generation—or probably two generations now—of artists who have never really put pencil to paper to any extent, or put paint on board to any extent. The whole creative process is through the computer!

So, they don’t really grasp that traditional art is just as viable as digital art.

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(right) Dave: “Rail. My first stab at a long form continuous panel story—a 48-page graphic novel. A daunting challenge for someone who only had a meager few ten-page or less stories under his belt until then. But I soldiered through and had a great experience with it. That was in 2001. In 2014 I got the chance to remaster the story for a republishing. The graphic novel and many more stories are republished in The Wasted Lands Omnibus, now available.

Here is my original layout for page 22, a fight scene between Edge, the hero of the story, and his frightening, relentless attacker. I felt crowded on this page so I eliminated the last panel and gave the dramatic center panel more room.” (far right) Dave: “The revised layout to my satisfaction.”

Wasted Lands © Dave Dorman

Draw!: And digital art is actually a program that’s imitating traditional art, to whatever degree of success the digital program can.

DD: Right. It’s a tool. It’s a tool just like pencils or brushes and pen and ink. It’s just a tool to create the final image. However—and this is just my opinion from talking to digital artists and traditional artists over the years—I believe that not only do we have maybe one or two generations of young artists who have never painted traditionally, we have one or two generations of art directors who have never done that. So they don’t understand the process. They think that traditional art takes a long time to do, it takes a long time to dry, and it’s not flexible as far as making changes. And that is just baloney. [laughter]

Dave: “The finished pencil art on vellum tracing paper.”

Wasted Lands © Dave Dorman

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Draw!: It seems very odd, because at all the big art schools, like Art Center or SVA, they do the traditional stuff and the “tradigital” stuff, so I find it very odd that people would be so unaware of the fact that, like you said, it’s a different medium, but once you scan an image in, you can manipulate it, take it into Photoshop, do whatever you wanted to, it wouldn’t make any difference.

DD: That is exactly right. I got almost to the point of arguing with these art directors, which is not a real positive thing to do. When you’re a commercial artist, you don’t want to be alienating your potential clients, but you know, it got to the point where I was almost going to say, “Have a digital artist do a piece, I’ll do the same piece, and see who gets done faster and puts it into your email quicker.” I have been doing this for 30 years. I can paint the painting, if need be, in a day and a half or two days, have it dry, have it scanned, have it in the art director’s hand. It’s just learning the techniques, learning what needs to be done, what you can leave out, what you can do to make a piece fully rendered without having to spend a

week on it. Ideally, with deadlines, I like to have a week per painting. But there’re some deadlines where I need to turn it over quick, and I can turn it over just as quickly.

Draw!: And you can even do it like Frazetta, and put it in the oven and bake it! [laughs] DD: Bake it?

Draw!: Bake your painting, if you need to to speed the drying! Kidding of course.

DD: We’ll get into how I get my pieces done quickly later in the interview. I can finish a painting, actually putting oil paint on a board, and have it literally dry and ready to scan in an hour. These are just techniques I’ve learned over the years. But the digital thing? It’s lost me a couple of jobs, so what I did, a year ago or so, I started asking on Facebook and through some social media things, “Guys who are doing digital stuff, give me some tips. What do I need to know? What programs do I need to know?” I played with Wacom tablets, and the eye-hand thing where you’re drawing somewhere but you’re having to look elsewhere just didn’t do it for me. Then they invented this Cin-

tiq, which is the tablet that you’re actually painting on so you can see where you’re painting, so it’s more natural. I did eventually get a Cintiq. I have one in the studio here. It’s been sitting here for two months, and I haven’t touched it yet. [laughter] Draw!: Did you get the arm for it, so you can move it around?

DD: It’s on a platform that sort of tilts. It gives me everything I would need. But it’s a process of learning a whole new tool, and I’m an old dog. I can still learn some new tricks, but it’s going to take me a little bit longer to learn those new tricks.

Draw!: And you don’t want to have to learn it on a deadline.

DD: Well, that’s exactly right. So, I just need two or three weeks to sit and play with it, and see what it can do, talk to some friends. Jon Foster, a very good friend of mine, I’ve known him since he was one of those young kids coming out of school, doing both traditional and digital, and he’s been a very big help for me with information and how to approach digital work, even taking partially done traditional paintings and scanning them in and finishing them in digital. Guys like Jon are very helpful, and have been, and I’m looking forward

(left) Dave: “Original inks for page 22 on 11" x 17" Bristol board. I ink with a Hunt bowl tip dip pen and Black Magic ink.” (right) Dave: “I painted the color in the old blue line style, meaning the painted color is on a separate board and the black line art is mechanically placed on top of the colored art. In this case the color was scanned and then married to the black line art in Photoshop.

Wasted Lands © Dave Dorman

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Dave: “Move ahead 13 years.... I have decided to finally revisit my Rail graphic novel and this time finish the five-novel series left undone those many years back. However, I have kept working on the world of Wasted Lands and Rail and have made a few minor and some major changes—one of the most visual is that I redesigned the bad guys’ motorbikes. Below is my new design for the Hollow Men bikes. I knew it was a complicated design and I would have problems with perspectives on it, so I contacted my good friend and 3-D designer Dave Taylor and asked him to render me a bike in 3-D so I could maneuver the image for proper drawing.”

(bottom left) “Dave Taylor’s initial rendering of the bike. An amazing job that my life so much easier!” (left and right) “Making the changes in the bike panels on a separate page of Bristol. I took this into Photoshop and merged the new art onto the old page.”

Wasted Lands © Dave Dorman

to gaining more information as I move into the digital. As a commercial artist, I can’t lose work because I can’t work in a particular medium.

eye, to the layman who’s looking at the packaging of a product or a movie poster, these technicians are faking it and bringing down the overall quality of what commercial art should be.

Draw!: If you think back to the ’50s, when modern art really started affecting illustration, you had that whole generation, Bernie Fuchs, Bob Peak, and all those guys messing around and working on different ways to try to be more modern. That’s kind of what killed Leyendecker’s career. He did fantastic work, but his work looked like a certain era. But if you told someone it was digital, they might not be able to tell it wasn’t digital! They’d just say, “Oh, yeah, these are all digital,” because in the end you’re not supposed to be able to tell, for the most part, if it’s digital or “tradigital.”

DD: Let me just bring up something else that’s really bitten my butt over the last ten years, and I’m sure that your butt has some bite marks on it too—so have a lot of traditional artists— which is the commonality of programs that are able to produce styles and techniques with the click of a button. They get into the hands of people who now, because it makes “art” easy, we have these people taking away jobs from trained, talented commercial artists, and that itself is a product of this digital world. I call these artists “technicians,” because they’re not artists. They know the programs, and they can fake art, and to the untrained

Draw!: I agree. Part of my thesis for my Master’s touched on some of that. You really see it if you go into a Barnes & Noble and look at the paperback covers. They’re all photos that somebody is tweaking in Painter or Photoshop. They’re putting filters on it to make it look like an illustration, but it’s actually just a photograph that they doctored up.

DD: Right, and that’s what makes them technicians and not artists. They can do that quickly. They can go to an online stock photo house, get a photo, somebody else’s magic little sparkles in the background, then go to another photo stock and buy a castle, and then put them together in Photoshop, and make some colors over it, and add some fancy type, and there’s your book cover.

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Draw!: I was in the supermarket the other day, and I went past where they have their pathetic rack of books, and there was a bunch of whatever the current Tom Clancy kind of thing is, and it looked like a photo of the White House with some helicopters they’d popped in, and they put some filters on it, and they smudged it, and blurred it, and then you leave

a lot of room for the type. But there were a ton of them executed that way, and there was not one single image that was done in a traditional sense. They’re doing romance stuff, and they’re trying to make it look like Pino painted it, but it’s all done with models.... It seems to me the only reason they must be doing that is because they can hire people out of college, and people outside of the States, and get that done really, really cheaply, so they don’t have to pay Pino five grand, or whatever he used to get, to paint that paperback cover.

DD: I’m sure that’s exactly what it is, and it’s really disappointing, and it lowers the expectations of the consumers.

Draw!: True.

DD: When I do a cover, whether it’s a comic or book or game cover, I’m always looking at the competition. I’m seeing what they’re doing, and then I’m taking a step sideways and doing something different, so I know when my cover is on the stands next to all these other covers, my cover has some element that’s going to make it stand out against everything else.

But when you go down to the bookstore now, every cover looks the same. It’s some guy with a building in a background, and something flying, and it’s sort of all monotone-ish. Just hit me in the head with a hammer now.

Draw!: I follow the Muddy Colors blog, and I’ve been to the IlluXCon a couple of times— it’s now in Allentown, which is actually closer to me. You see a lot of artists that are doing digital stuff... I know it works well in Hollywood for games, because you can do things with comps very quickly, and so part of it is that the commercial business says, “This is what we need, so we need you to do it this way,” but Dave: “This is the final inked page for the revised graphic novel. You can see I filled I think a lot of this actually started because as out some of the other panels’ backgrounds as well, not intending to leave as much soon as they could start cutting costs, they did, white space in the coloring as I did in the original printing.” but also because that entire generation of edi- Wasted Lands © Dave Dorman tors, and people who work for the magazines, who work for the slicks, have basically passed away or retired, Peak movie poster on it, but you’ve got this other movie poster so you have people coming in now who don’t have the aes- on it, so I don’t want to rent it now.” thetic values to judge whether this is a good digital painting, or DD: Newspapers started running photographs in the late 1800s this is a really bad digital painting. It’s just like, “I need a cover. and early 1900s instead of drawings, and then for 20 years, phoI have a budget of $500, bang!” So you’re right, it does affect tography was the big thing. Then in the ’20s, art really took off what you see every day from menus, magazines, covers, post- again, and from the ’20s to the ’40s, art was really big in books ers.... Most movie posters, if you go to RedBox, they all look and magazines. And then in the ’40s and ’50s, it was photolike they were done by the same three people. I think it dulls graphs again, and then in the ’60s, people like Bernie Fuchs people’s imagination or appreciation, because the consumer and Mark English and Bob Peak started to do these artsy ads can only consume what they’re given. If they give you good, and illustrations, and then that ran for a number of years. And you consume good; if they give you enh, you consume enh. It’s now we’re sort of getting into the digital thing, we’re going not like you can say, “Well, I would rent this if you put the Bob back to manipulating photographs as art, and I’m hoping that

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we’ll cycle through again, where people will find traditional art again that gives the image a little bit more life than just taking photographs and manipulating them, and comparing them to what has been done in the recent past couple of years. I have hope that this isn’t going to be the end of all things. [laughs]

interest in my lifetime in people actually learning to do the traditional skills, despite the fact that we’ve all slid over to the digital realm, which is very easy, and seductive, and fast, and cost-effective. There are more people now interested in learning how to draw the figure, how to sculpt the figure, how to paint the figure. And I think that will eventually turn things Draw!: I think you’re right. I’m 52, and I can say, hav- around, because when I was in school for the first time, they ing graduated from school, that there has never been a higher weren’t really interested in that. It was not cool. This was in 1980, and now, there’re all these ateliers—Three Kicks, and all these places—opening up where people really learn how to do the traditional stuff, which is great if you want to do the digital stuff, because at least you understand the foundations upon which everything is based. I mean, an elbow is an elbow; good color and good design is good color and good design. The three-value system from Howard Pyle works digitally or traditionally. But of course, if you don’t know about the three-value system, it doesn’t matter whether you’re working traditionally or digitally.

DD: It’s all the basics of the creation of a good piece of art. That’s why, when I say technicians are producing these pieces, they don’t understand that, they haven’t learned the basics.

They’ve learned how to work the tool, rather than starting from understanding what makes a piece of art what it is. So, that’s really a frustration.

Let me give you a quick anecdote on the positive aspects of this: I did a computer sort of art convention or gathering that Massive Black put on about four years ago in Dallas called Reverie. They asked me to come down and give a talk about traditional art, and I was there along with maybe three or four other guests they had there talking about traditional art— most of the other guests were digital artists. It was a four-day weekend event. I got there, and all I was prepared to do was to do a slide show and talk about the elements of traditional still being valid, and how you can create as good a work traditionally as you can digitally... and most of these Dave: “The revised page 22. New black line work, new coloring, and new lettering. With 13 kids were teenagers to their early 20s. years more experience at comics storytelling I was able to incorporate those many years into making Rail closer to the what it should have been back then. Color-wise, making the I’m 55; I had just crossed over 50 page (and scene) more color- and tone-consistent, as I would do throughout the whole book, back then, so this was two generations making it a much more satisfying read. And artistically making it more cohesive a volume. younger than me. So, I’m at the show, and I’m talking to these kids, and they Wasted Lands © Dave Dorman

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(left) Dave: “I have wanted to do a Captain Nemo painting for years.

I decided, to do the scope of the character justice, the project should be a triptych—one panel Nemo, another the giant squid engulfing the Nautilus, and the third being the divers in the underwater forest. I have finally painted Nemo, but the other two are still drawings yet to be finished. (below) Dave: “The finished pencil of Captain Nemo before transferring it to the canvas. 16" x 40" oil and acrylic on canvas.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

know my work, because they’re fans of Aliens and Star Wars and Predator and Indiana Jones and Batman, so they’ve seen my work. I started talking with them, and a lot of them did have questions about traditional art! So I got to thinking. It was a Thursday-Friday-Saturday-and-Sunday gathering, so on Friday, I talked to the guys who were running the show, and I said, “I have a lot of people asking about my technique. Would it be possible to do a demonstration?” I hadn’t even prepared anything, but it had just gotten to the point where I thought it would be good to show what I can do traditionally in the same amount of time that they do digital work. So basically, they said, “Okay, just go down to the art store, buy your stuff, bring it back. We’ll take care of all the expenses. Just do what you want.”

So I bought some canvas, I bought some paint, I bought some brushes—I wasn’t prepared—and I set up an easel, and I started a painting on Friday afternoon. I had it finished by Sunday, and it was just amazing for these kids to come into this room and see me working, and see how fast this piece was progressing from blank canvas to something fully realized. And I think it impressed upon them that traditional was very valid. I had a lot of kids amazed and sort of built my value as an artist up a little bit more to myself, knowing that I could impress upon these kids that digital is not the be-all and end-all.

Draw!: Well, that’s a great story, and a great illustration of the fact that you have people who’ve come up and just never been exposed to the traditional ways. So, you’re doing some continuity now.

DD: Right. Well, I grew up reading comics as a kid, and that’s really what spurred on my interest in art. I’ve always been a comics fan since I was a kid. As a matter of fact, I did go to the Joe Kubert School to learn how to draw comics, and to learn how to tell stories and to get better at doing that. Either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I was more comfortable doing single images that tell a story rather than continuous panels. I found it very frustrating to do continuous panels at that point in my career because I was looking at each panel as sort of a single image by itself at five or six panels a page for 24 pages. That was to me a very daunting and scary thought to try to do as an artist. I felt more comfortable doing one large image to tell a story.

I really learned a lot at the Kubert School. Joe and I had a very long discussion at the end of the year I was there about where I should go. You know, Joe was a great guy, and he started the school, and I think he is one of the few men in this industry that wanted to continue this form of storytelling because it is a

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very vital form of storytelling, and he was one of the best at doing it. So I was so fortunate in being able to meet him and know him for the year I was at the school, and then continue to know him for the rest of his life. He is probably the biggest influence on the direction of my career that I’ve had. It was sad to see him pass a little while ago.

Draw!: Yeah, you would think that he would live forever.

He was such a dynamic personality in his physical sense and everything.

DD: I’m very grateful for the time I had as his student and beyond as his friend and peer. But he put me on that direction, to go into the single image. So, I started to concentrate on painting right after the school, and that’s where my career has led. But that’s not to say that I did not have an interest in comics. Obviously, more than half of my career has been doing covers for comics, because I love the medium. But I really wasn’t able to contribute in any type of real significant form, because I wasn’t really doing comics.

And then, at one point, about the late 1990s, I decided, “I’ll give it a try.” So I created this world that I call The Wasted Lands. It was an offshoot of a computer game that I was hired to create part of—sort of a creator’s universe game. There were five artists that created several parts of this game, and they incorporated all the parts into one video game. I created this world, and from that, I expanded into what I call my Wasted Lands Universe, and I decided to do a 48-page graphic novel in more of the European style of their graphic albums, because it’s sort of a science fiction/western story. It’s not a superhero thing. It inspired me to produce something that I felt I could do at that time. And so I just jumped right into it. It was called Rail. It was published by Image in 2001, I believe. I did the whole thing except the actual scriptwriting (written by my long time writing partner Del Stone Jr.). I plotted it, I did the artwork, I colored it, I did the cover. I did most of the production on it. So, I sort of got it out of my system.

Actually, I was very happy with it. I felt that I contributed to the medium that I loved and worked in for 25 years, and I felt very comfortable with it. But unfortunately, we had some problems with the company—contract problems and financial problems and such—so I just sort of let it lie. But since 2001, I’ve done various small continuous panel projects—ten pages here, eight pages there, various things. Some things tied in with my Wasted Lands storyline, some didn’t. I was able to tell the stories I wanted. But it hasn’t really been that significant an amount of continuous panel work, because I’m just not as comfortable with it as most comic book artists are. I’m not a comic artist, but it’s in my blood; it’s a medium that I love.

Dave: “After transferring the pencil and fixing it with a light coating of spray fix, I begin the background layer in oils.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

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Draw!: Is that because you feel like you want to treat each panel as more like a very complete illustration, as opposed to saying, “Well, I can leave the backgrounds out here.” Part of the thing in comics is—Joe is actually a great example, because his work was never as detail specific as Russ Heath’s drawings. Joe would draw stories about tanks, but he’d never draw every nut and bolt like Russ Heath, you know what I

mean? Russ Heath was much more of an illustrator, in a way, than Joe was.

DD: Joe was a storyteller. He indicated a lot of things in his art rather than detailed them, because he wanted to tell the story rather than get involved in the nuts and bolts of the art. And that’s just every artist’s way of telling their stories.

That’s all well and good. And yes, one of the things I found was I was tending to draw each panel as a little painting.

One panel that tells a whole story, and the next panel tells a whole story, and then the next panel.... I wouldn’t have one panel lead into the other to tell just a portion of the story, and then move the story along. So, that was really my problem in envisioning how to tell a story in continuous panel form.

Draw!: Have you changed in your approach? Do you feel like you can now go more towards the storytelling and less towards complete illustration?

DD: Now I’m a much more experienced artist, and I understand what I’m drawing much more than when I was back in the Kubert School days. Having read another 20 years’ worth of comics, and having talked significantly with other creators who draw comics for a living, I have a greater understanding of what is needed in the continuous panel art to tell a story. So, I have to balance that with what I am capable of, as far as being an artist goes, to be able to tell the story that I want to tell.

One of the things that I have learned—I learned this through talking to Chris Moeller and Scott Hampton—was that I can create a comic page by not having to create a comic page. I can break it down into what panels I want, but I can draw the panels separately, and then bring them together in Photoshop and build a page.

Draw!: So one of your issues was actually creating an actual, physical comic page where all the panels are laid out on the same page.

DD: Mentally, if I did that, and I drew each panel, and then looked at it and thought about inking it or painting it—depending on how they want the finish to be—I knew that I would have to start on one panel, finish it, and move to the next panel and finish it, then to the next panel and finish it. So, basically, I would look at the page and see one panel finished, one-sixth of the page is finished. But over my career, when I get to a point of finishing a painting, I take a break, I take a day or two off and refresh my mind and come back and start whatever project I’m going to do next with a fresh eye. So when I’m looking at a page of continuous panels, and I finish one panel, and see five panels aren’t finished, I look and say, “Really? I’ve got to do five more of these things?” [laughter] Draw!: And there’s also Hal Foster’s way of doing a page, which is sort of a hybrid between illustration and comics, because sometimes there is movement between panels, but then sometimes it’s five or six different illustrations with the narration. There are a lot of different ways to approach it, depending on your personality. Joe really had, like Kirby had, that storytelling personality.

Dave: “Once the initial background layer is dry, I come back into it and begin a second layer, filling in any unpainted areas and beginning to define details in oils.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

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(left) Dave: “After the oils have dried, I begin to define the details with acrylics, using the oil underpainting as my starting point. Then building up the opaque acrylics. (above) Close up of the acrylic paint defining the details of Nemo's weather-worn face.

Artwork © Dave Dorman

DD: There are guys like Joe and Kirby that look at a page, and know exactly where they want to go from panel one to the end panel, and make that last panel make you want to turn the page to see what’s going on next. And then they just put the pencil to paper and, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—and that’s a natural talent. For me, that’s not a natural talent.

Draw!: How do you approach it now? Do you do a thumbnail of your whole story, then arrange it later?

DD: What I do is, I do a thumbnail on sticky notes, and I just lay out the whole page in very sketchy form—the proportions of the panels, what story I want to say on each page—making sure each page works, from coming in to it to going to the end, and then having you have that little finger, so you want to turn the page. I do a thumbnail like that, and then I’ll enlarge it a little bit, and I’ll start refining the storytelling just a little bit more. If I need to add another panel or two, I’ll figure out where I can do that. If I can take away a panel and tell the same story, I would prefer to have fewer, larger panels than to have a lot of smaller panels. That’s just the illustrator in me; that’s the person who wants to just do one piece of art. These roughs would be on an 8½" x 11" sheet of paper. Then I take that and blow it up to 11" x 17", and then I start drawing each panel separately. I get a piece of Bristol board, and lightbox my layout sketch onto the Bristol board for one panel. I do that for each of the panels

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on the page. So if I have four panels on the page, I’ll have four separate pieces of Bristol board, each with one drawing on it.

I’m able to look at one drawing at a time, because I have it worked out and know what the story is doing, without having to look at the other panels on the page.

Draw!: It’s a mental thing. That’s your rhythm. Every artist sort of has a rhythm, a way that’s comfortable for them to work. I suppose if you’d been doing multi-panel continuity all the time, it would just be part of your natural rhythm, but you’re used to focusing on each image.

DD: Exactly, I’m used to focusing on one image at a time.

I’ve found that—and Chris Moeller told me this directly. I saw a bunch of originals on his table at one of the shows, and I said, “What are these from?” He said, “These are panels for one of the graphic novels.” I said, “Why did you cut up your pages?” He said, “I didn’t cut up my pages. I did the panels separately, then brought them into Photoshop and built my pages.” That really stuck in my head. I don’t know what his thought behind that was, because I’ve seen him work on full pages with six or seven panels, so I know he does that in more of a traditional fashion too. But for me, that really hit me as a way I could do continuous panels, and not have to think of it as a continuous panel page, but as individual pieces I could build into a page once I’m done.

Draw!: Well, it’s very interesting that you’re talking about this, because in my experience as a teacher, there are sort of two brains: There’s the storytelling brain, and there’s the illustrator brain. And having taught a lot of different students, I usually find people squarely fit into one camp or the other.

There’s a lot of people who can do a beautiful illustration, and you give them continuity and the train kind of goes off the track, because they have a hard time prioritizing things, I think, because they like to finish each illustration. And then you have other people that are not as strong as draftsmen, but they really have the ability to tell a story.

DD: I can understand that now from where I am artistically, as far as storytelling and continuity. I can very much understand that.

Draw!: When you’re working on Star Wars, or you’re working on Predator, or working on anything like that, I did some Tron stuff a couple of years back and the amount of reference that they sent me was insane! I had four gigs’ worth of reference. Do you think that also affects your approach?

Because you come from the illustration mindset, where it’s, “Okay, I’ve done my comp, I’ve got my layout, that’s approved, now I’m going to get whatever reference I need.”

Certain artists, depending upon their style, they have the reference, but they can kind of fudge it.

DD: Well, for me, it depends on what the project is. Certainly, I’ve built my career on licensed work, so the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Alien, Predator, Batman, whatever I was working on at that point in my career, was very reference-based material, because one of the aspects of doing that is the client wants the material to look like the original. So, for me, that was a challenge, to be able to give them likenesses, give them characters that were easily recognizable within milliseconds of looking at the artwork, where you could tell who it was, you could see it was the actor portraying this character, you could see it was this creature he saw in the film. Those are very reference-heavy pieces. That doesn’t negate the fact that there’s a lot of creativity involved with that. Many people tend to think that if you use reference, you’re just basically painting a photograph.

Draw!: If only it were that easy! [laughter] DD: Yeah!

Draw!: If only it was that easy, then everybody would be Norman Rockwell. You’d just take a picture and....

DD: The challenge is to make that piece of artwork unique, make it viable, make it dynamic, make it something that people want to look at for more than a second. Commercial art is still a piece of advertising. It’s something that the viewer needs to get caught by as they’re looking over a magazine rack, or a stack of books in Barnes & Noble. It needs to have something that will make that eye scan over that rack and stop at that particular piece. So there is a challenge, a very hard challenge most of the time, to take these licensed characters, these reference-heavy things, and create an original piece of artwork that

Dave: “I continue to define the piece in acrylics with an occasional wash of oils to even out any tonal problems.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

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still looks like what it’s supposed to. I’ve built my career on that, and I have no problem telling anyone I use reference, even for my comic book line stuff, the continuous panel stuff. I will shoot reference, because I tend to want to draw more realistically. I can draw out of my head, I can do exaggeration, I can do stylized work, but that’s not my particular style; my particular style is more of a realistic style. If I need to shoot reference for the tilt of the head, if I don’t think I can render the exact angle I want it to be, or in the case of wrinkles in clothes, I’ll grab a friend of mine, have him come over, and pose for me.

Draw!: In illustration that’s built into your natural way you work, but most guys in comics don’t really do a lot of that. I mean, it was very common in the strips. I used to share a studio with Al Williamson, and he used to shoot himself constantly. In his Art-O-Graph room, he had mountains and mountains of photos he’d shot of himself. He used to use old “photo romansos,” the old photo magazines where they’d do photo comics, and the great thing about that is, you’d have some old guy, and then you’d have every single angle, because it was staged like a comic!

Comic strip guys did that, but most comic book guys—outside of maybe [Neal] Adams and [Russ] Heath, Gene Colan a little bit—didn’t do that. They sort of made it up as they went.

DD: That was just their working method. Taking reference, taking photographs, collecting reference, working from roughs is just a little more time-consuming. I don’t do comics as a living,

(above) Detail of the tight work on Nemo's face. (left) Dave: “The last touch on the art was taking a sepia marker and drawing the map tattoo on Nemo’s hand. A subtle detail that makes a huge statement of who he is.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

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(left) Dave: “An absolutely fun project fell into my hands when I was asked to do a tribute to the amazing Winsor McCay and his creation Little Nemo. I have been a fan of Mccay’s since I don’t know how long. His controlled pen line work was a great inspiration to me in my own pen work. So I jumped at the chance to say “thank you” to one of the great illustrators of the 20th century. This piece is the small rough idea for my Nemo vignette.” (right) Dave: “I took my rough into the computer to do a quick color comp to guide me in my thoughts—even though later I wound up throwing it out!”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

I do commercial artwork as a living, so the time that I spend when I do continuous panel stuff, I don’t have need to worry about a deadline. I don’t have to crank out 30 pages in a month.

I don’t have to worry about whether a panel looks right or not to be able to finish the page. I can take the time to make sure that panel looks right, because I don’t have a deadline. I’m drawing for me. If I end up doing one of my strips for, say, Dave Elliott wanted for Monster Massacre, something like that, I have a deadline, but I make sure it’s a long enough deadline for me.

If I’m doing twelve pages, I have three or four months to do twelve pages. So, I can take the time to make each panel right, taking photo reference, or looking for photo reference on the Internet, or whatever, to make sure that what I’m rendering is what I want. But your average comic guy can do that, your average comic artist can render a comic book every two months, that’s a lot of work. It’s not a habit any more, like the old strip guys used to do, doing seven strips in a couple of days.

Draw!: Well, almost every single one of those guys had a background assistant. Leonard Starr had Tex Blaisdell. I know Blaisdell used to do backgrounds for other guys. I collect that

stuff, because I love the classic strips. Al had Carlos Garzon help him on Star Wars, because just drawing C-3PO, there’s no way you can do him fast! [laughter] Or R2-D2, those things are so tech-heavy. Even trying to simplify something like the Millennium Falcon is work to simplify something complex.

DD: Right, I agree with you 100%. It just depends on the artist, but you find very few of that type of artist working in the medium today.

Draw!: Well, there’re only a few continuity strips left. One of them I do, Judge Parker, and I was looking at some of my Leonard Starr originals the other day, thinking about how they were printed about five times larger than my strip, and also it doesn’t pay me enough money to afford a guy who’s lettering, or hire a guy to say, “Here’s a reference, go draw those cars and trucks. I’ll lay it out, but then I’ll give it to somebody else.” Even in the old days of illustration, part of your pay that was built in was the model fee! The guys, they would go to the same photographer. That’s why everybody says Steve Holland was on every single paperback cover!

DD: He was the go-to guy!

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Draw!: And it’s funny, because sometimes he’d be multiple characters in a single illustration. Do you have your version of Steve Holland you go to?

DD: When I was living in Florida, I had a friend of mine, Phil Burnett, who was in the military. I was doing G.I. Joe, I worked with Hasbro Toys from ’86 to the early ’90s, doing G.I. Joe designs and artwork for them, and Phil was almost all of the characters I did for G.I. Joe. I did about a 120 characters for them, and he posed for nearly every single one of those. Then he posed for The Rocketeer when I did the Rocketeer cover for Dave Stevens, and he was Batman... yeah, he was my go-to guy for about ten years. He was a really good guy, a big fan of comics, and a fan of mine. He was willing to do anything. He got into character, and it was a lot of fun to work with him. I don’t

have a go-to guy now. Basically I’m shooting reference mostly for light and shadow, clothing wrinkles, small things that the mind... you can’t remember every detail, every little piece.

Draw!: But if you needed a model, how would you go about doing that now? Say you were doing a project, and you needed a big black guy and a little Asian guy, and a standard G.I. Joe guy. Do you go to an agency? Do you put an ad in Craigslist? How do you get a model?

DD: I just do it the old-fashioned way: I call a friend, I say, “Do you have a friend who looks like this?” I live about 40 miles outside of Chicago, so to call an agency in Chicago, there’s a drive in, paying them an hourly fee. I’m looking at losing a full day of work, probably a couple hundred dollars in modeling fees, just having to deal with all the minutia of something like that.

In my career, I’ve hired models for maybe three or four projects, but mostly it’s friends. I get them to come over, and I sort of approximate the costuming I need. I did a couple of Doc Savage paintings for the comics, and some for the Doc Savage Club, and so I got a white longsleeved dress shirt, and I ripped it up, and wrinkled it up, and put it under the bed for a week, and got these nice pressed wrinkles that Steve Holland had for the book covers, and I put that on my model so I had all the wrinkles and the form. When I get to the drawing part of it, that’s the creative part. Certainly, doing the reference and getting the layouts and all the preliminary stuff is fun, but you get to the actual drawing of the piece, and that’s where the creativity flows.

That’s where you start building the world that you’re going to paint. So the reference material I take isn’t necessarily the big black guy, or the small Asian guy, it’s someone who I approximate the size of what I need, and I can change the color and the features of the white guy to look like a black guy, or Asian, or Indian, or whatever I need in the drawing.

[James] Bama used to do that with his models, and most artists could do that as well.

So, yeah, I just get friends to come over, spend an hour taking a bunch of shots, and then I print them out, Dave: “I laid out my story in exactly the way McCay did, to keep his influence consistent: 16" x or, now, with the computer, I can 21" pencil on double-thick illustration board.” just run through them, and I do my Artwork © Dave Dorman drawing. The drawing I do, there’s a

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fully-rendered pencil drawing of what the painting will be, so I know what all of my elements are going to be, I know what my characters are going to look like exactly, it has lighting, it has very minute details of what I’m going to put in, and then once I pencil all that, I transfer it to the board and paint.

Draw!: Exactly, it’s like saying “mimeograph” or something. They’ll go, “What the heck is that?”

DD: I mean, even artists today don’t know what graphite paper is. They’re still scribbling on a piece of white paper, and turning it over and doing a drawing, rather than just going down and buying a roll of graphite paper.

So, I take my printed out copy and trace the whole drawing onto the board I’m going to paint on. I have my original pencil drawing to the side, so I’m not tracing over that. I’m keeping that pristine, tracing the copy onto the board, so I can throw away the copy when it’s done, and then have the drawing on my board, ready to paint. Then I can make some changes, I can tighten up some lines, or add anything I want to it before I actually start throwing the paint on.

Draw!: Do you make a transfer sheet and trace it off? Do you project it on an Art-O-Graph?

DD: For the transfer, what I used to do was make a photocopy in the old days. Before the real computer technology, I had a full-size photocopier, so I could enlarge up to 200% and make the piece smaller down to 50%, so I could adjust what I needed for the size of whatever I was working on. With the computer, it’s just easy to scan it in, make it the size I want in Photoshop, and just print it out.

So, in today’s technology I do my drawing the full size of what I’m going to paint. If it’s a 14" x 20" painting for a comic book or paperback cover, I’ll do the drawing that size on vellum tracing paper. I’ll start with one layer of tracing paper, and I’ll just build the composition. I build it in what I call donut shapes, just round shapes for figures, squares for buildings, whatever shapes are going to fit into the composition. Then I’ll put another piece of tracing paper over that, and with the photo reference, I’ll start adding details, do the photo rough, I’ll put another piece of tracing paper over that, I’ll start finishing it, and usually by the fourth piece of tracing paper, I have a fully-rendered pencil drawing ready to go. In talking with some digital artists, it’s pretty much the same thing they do with layers in Photoshop and Painter. They start with roughs and start putting layers on top of layers.

So, my traditional way of doing this for 30 years is something they’ve learned to do digitally as well. I get my finished drawing on the vellum tracing paper, and I’ll scan that into the computer, and then I’ll print it out from my printer at the same size I’m going to paint it. Instead of doing a photocopy, I can just print it out on my printer in the same office. I take that, I go into the studio, and I use graphite paper, which is just pencil on one side so you can do a tracing.

They say it’s like carbon paper, but Dave: “Because I am know primarily as a painter, I was asked by the publisher to include a this generation doesn’t know what painted element in the page. So I left that panel penciled as I inked the rest.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman carbon paper is! [laughter]

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Dave: “I decided to make the drama panel the painted one. It is an oils wash and acrylic opaques with marker and colored pencil detailing. After setting my color palette with the painted panel, I see my original color rough does not work and I end up making it a warmer tone than I had planned. No problem, just adjust my eye to the new tones and run with it. The rest of the page colors were done digitally to finish the page for printing.”

Artwork © Dave Dorman

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Dave: “‘Lord Vader's Persuasion of the Outer Worlds to Join the Empire’—the first of what has become my favorite type of Star Wars art to paint: images that have not been filmed but are asked for whenever I attend shows. So many had asked for a painting of Darth Vader in battle leading his troops, I could not resist! This is my rough work, showing my pencil comp above on my drawing table and a full-sized enlargement of it for me to begin my layouts. The size of the piece will eventually be 20" x 36".”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

Draw!: And you’re painting in oil, right, or mostly in oil?

Or do you paint in acrylic as well?

DD: For about 20 years, I painted exclusively in oils, and I got very comfortable with that. Actually I got overly comfortable, so I started challenging myself. I was always uncomfortable with acrylics, because I taught myself how to paint in oils, so I was very used to the drying time that oils take, whether I put it on thin and it could dry quickly, or put it on thick and it dries more slowly. But acrylics were always a problem for me, because they dry very quickly. I was never comfortable with them because I couldn’t blend them like I did with oils, and I couldn’t lay in big areas of acrylic, because by the time I’d start in one corner and lay in the big area, by the time I got to the other corner, the first area would be dry, and then I’d have to paint over it, and it would start looking lumpy, and blah, blah. That’s why I had all sorts of problems with that.

But about 10 years ago, I started playing with acrylics, and I found that there’s a certain point in my painting technique after I’ve laid down the oils and done my underpainting and started with the detail, when I got a lot of the fine detail, I was laying in

strokes of color, and not really manipulating them very much. I was just refining details and things. I thought, maybe I could do this with acrylics. So I just shifted that fine detail painting with oils to using acrylics, and painting acrylics on top of the oils.

I found out that it was working very well, because I could get the same look to what I was doing and it would dry very, very quickly, so I could move through the details, the end part of the painting, faster, because it would dry quickly, and I could move on to finish it and send it off to the publisher.

Draw!: You’re doing acrylic over oil?

DD: Yeah, [laughs] and that has gotten that same exact questionable tone from everybody I’ve talked to, because it’s something that I taught myself, and I’ve never met an artist that does this.

Draw!: Because it’s usually the opposite way.

DD: Exactly, because the acrylic is porous, and the oil tends not to be, so when you paint acrylic first, the oil can stick to it very well, but when you paint the oil first, if you don’t know

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Dave: “After shooting my reference, including members of the 501st Midwest Garrison in all their Imperial uniforms and armor, I begin my layout on vellum tracing paper the same size as I will be painting.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

how to do it, it’ll create a waterproof barrier, and acrylic is a water-based paint, so it will not adhere to the painting. But over the time I was experimenting, I found a way that I could paint the oil—and I usually paint it very thin. That’s been my technique almost throughout my career: I tend to paint very thin. In the ’80s, when people would look at my originals, they would ask me what type of airbrush I used. I’d say, “It’s not airbrush. It’s traditional brush techniques. I just paint very thin and work to brush the brushstrokes out of it,” because to me, brushstrokes just intimidate what the detail’s going to be.

Draw!: Oil can look like wash on paper, so I could see how, if there was some tooth to the paper, like you didn’t have a huge, thick impasto of oil, maybe you could go back over it with acrylic. Have you found, over time, that any of your paintings are peeling up? Are you having any problems?

DD: I’ve had no problems with peeling at all. The trick to that is not to do that impasto technique! You paint thin. Like I said, I tend to paint fairly thin, even when I have opaque oils. But the tooth of the gesso—because I’m painting on gesso illustration board—does come through enough of the oil paint that it gives something for the acrylic to stick on. Now, if I paint the oil too thick, I do run into that problem, where the acrylic will bead up. So I’ve learned through my own technique and experimentation how thick to be able to lay the paint on, and still have that tooth flow through the acrylic. Parts of the painting where I’ll want to have a nice, thick texture to the paint, that I know I won’t have to deal with the acrylic, I can go in and I can lay in the paint very heavy. But the detail

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parts, I just go ahead and leave it thinner. The paint can still be opaque. It doesn’t have to be a watercolor style paint, but it’s still thin enough that when I’m ready to apply the acrylic, it has that tooth to stick to.

Draw!: Do you ever go back over the painting and put a final seal on it? Do you varnish your stuff, or is it unvarnished?

DD: It’s usually unvarnished. However, I’ve noticed that over the years, because the acrylics tend to dry in a matte finish, and the oils tend to dry in a more semi-gloss or glossy look to that, I will put on a thin coat of varnish just to even out the whole piece, so you don’t see that border between the matte and the gloss of the paint. I very rarely do an archival finish of varnish or whatever. When I’m finished with the painting, I tend to be finished. I just never really thought of it as the finishing touch, like the Masters do. It’s a commercial piece of art, it speaks for itself, and maybe I’m just tired after I put on that final coat. [laughter] I just leave it as it is. I very rarely put anything on it. Some of the very large canvas pieces I’ve done, I’ve put on maybe a couple of coats of varnish, just to give it that sort of gleam, because when you’re hanging in a gallery, people expect it to look a little bit sharper, I guess.

But for the illustrations, no, I really don’t do much of anything after I lay on the last couple of brushstrokes of paint.

Draw!: You’ve gone and bought your Cintiq and everything. Do you think you’re going to try imitating this way of working by starting with importing your drawing and painting over your drawing?

Dave: “The finished pencil drawing with all the elements and all the characters exactly where I want them.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

DD: Certainly, that’s the most comfortable technique for me, because that’s the way I have taught myself over the years.

Draw!: That might be an even better way, if you could paint over your drawing. You do your drawing, and then you transfer, then you basically do your final painting looking at your drawing, or looking at your drawing and your reference, and there’s always some juice in that original drawing that you never ever quite get back. If you have a drawing you’re working on the top of, do you think that might speed things up, or you don’t know yet?

DD: I don’t know yet, because I haven’t had that experience.

In talking with some of the digital guys, they’ll do their quick drawing, save it in case if they want to come back to it, but then they’ll start painting right on top of it with the digital, and it just sort of free-flows from there, which is not something I can really do that much with traditional paints, which is why I do a very tight drawing before I get to the painting, so I know exactly what I’m going to be putting down, and I’m not having to clean up or wipe away areas and restart things.

There’s usually very little mistake in that. But with digital, I certainly know if you make a mistake, it’s fairly easy to eliminate it, go back and fix it right there, without any mess.

Draw!: Do you foresee a point in which you might give up doing the traditional, or do you just like doing that too much?

DD: No, I don’t think I’ll ever exchange digital for traditional. Doing this for so long, it’s become part of my nature, and my being. I like to go into the studio. I like to smell the paints.

I like to get my hands dirty. I don’t paint with the brushes all the time. I’m using the fingers, I’m using dirty cloth, I’m building the texture and the feel and the atmosphere of the

studio, which is something that I’ve lived with for most of my life, and it’s something that gives me pleasure. To try to achieve that, that sort of nirvana, in something as sterile as a computer, I don’t think I’ll ever get that much pleasure out of it. The creation of the image, maybe, but not the environment of creating that image.

Draw!: I started teaching a visual development class this past year, and one of the things that I would tell to the students is that, to me, the glass nature of painting digitally tends to make everything the feel same. I can be making something that’s supposed to be oil paint or pastel, but I don’t have the specific tactile sense from using a pastel from my hand. When I’m working with a tablet, everything feels the same. It says it’s this, but it feels the same as anything else! There is a certain aesthetic that you get from training, from working with the traditional mediums that now, if you go to the digital, you take with you which I think can inform your aesthetic, even your sense memory of what it feels like to do a wash like this, or whatever.

Going back to what we were talking about before, I assume LucasFilm doesn’t care how you give them the art, they just want your work, right? They’re not saying, “Oh, you need to have this digital now.”

DD: No, pretty much everybody that I have dealt with during the course of my career has just looked for the image as the final product of what they’re hiring me for. There have been companies that I’ve been doing art for various purposes, Hasbro being one of them, they’ve wanted the originals as part of the commission, so I’ve adjusted the price in working with them to cover the purchase of the original, but in general, as a commercial artist, the clients just want the image. They don’t

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Dave: “I then transfer a copy of the pencil drawing onto my gessoed illustration board. Next I spray-fix it lightly so the pencil does not smear into the paint. Above the art on my drawing table you can see a small color digital comp I made to make sure I do not lose focus on the tones in such a large, detailed piece.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

care how the image is done, they just want to make sure that image represents their project in the best and most imaginative way. That’s what I give them.

Draw!: So, going forward, you don’t really foresee there being a difference, as long as they’re just getting what they want, right?

DD: That’s pretty much it, yeah. I don’t see a period where I’ll stop doing traditional painting as a finish for my clients in exchange for digital painting, because I’ll start arguing with them right from the start. I’m to the point where I’m not afraid to argue with art directors anymore. But I can see some use for digital in my repertoire of mediums to use, and when I get comfortable in learning what I need to with digital, I’ll start incorporating that more into the commercial aspects of my work, but for me, you can’t just stop using 30 years of experience in a particular medium just because a new medium’s popped up. It’s incorporating what you need to incorporate at a particular time to get the job done, and making enough money to put food and clothes on the table.

Draw!: I know for some guys, when they went from Photoshop 7 to other versions of Photoshop, they didn’t like the ways the interface was rearranged, and you’re always reliant upon the people who are making that particular program to

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continue to not move the palettes around, or change the way the brush performs, or whatever.

DD: That would be like me going to Dick Blick and buying a certain brush for a couple of years, and then suddenly that same brush is not the same brush because it has different hairs in it! And so, you’re laying down different strokes, or the paint isn’t as fluid. That would be very frustrating, and for me having that change happen every couple of years, I would find it very frustrating as well. I don’t know how to approach that, because right now I don’t know what version of Photoshop I’m using, but once I start doing it, and they start putting out new versions, it would be like having to learn that new tool over again. I don’t know if I’d be comfortable with that.

That is certainly one of the negative marks towards moving to digital, because you’re at the whim of the designers, whereas with traditional, you don’t have to worry about that at all. You want to hear a really funny story about that?

Draw!: Sure.

DD: [laughs] Years and years and years ago, during the mid- to late ’80s or early ’90s, I would buy regular tubes of paint, and at this point, Liquitex was just putting out oil paints. Each particular brand of paint had a way of making their paints. Some had heavy pigment, and not so much linseed oil; some had a good mixture; some paints were a little bit more transparent than

Dave: “Laying in my background in oils, defining my space and distance in the piece, and silhouetting elements for dramatic purposes.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

others; some were thicker. So I would just buy whatever paint I felt comfortable with from whatever brand. However, Liquitex oils had a certain palette of colors that was very rich and vibrant in intensity, so I would buy a few of these colors, because I couldn’t mix them myself; they were very pure. Even if I sort of lessened them with some linseed oil or turpentine to make them more transparent, the color would still be very vibrant. I became sort of addicted to these colors, and I would use them quite frequently because of the intensity.

One day, I went down to the art store, and I was looking for a particular purple that Liquitex put out, and they didn’t have any. So I went, “Oh, okay, I’ll just go to another store.”

And that other store didn’t have any. As I went through stores in my local area, there were less and less Liquitex oil paints available. So, I started asking, “Why aren’t you carrying it?”

Their response was, “Our distributor just isn’t carrying them anymore.” I got really frustrated, because I loved those colors. [laughs] So I called Liquitex, and I said, “My local stores aren’t carrying your oil paint tubes anymore. Is there a way I can order them from you directly?” And the lady said, “Oh, you know, I’m really sorry about that, but our oil paint factory burnt down, and we’re not going to rebuild it, so we just stopped making oil paint.” [laughter] And my jaw dropped, I just really completely stopped, and fell on the floor, and said,

“What am I going to do?” I had a couple of tubes of this color, and I just looked at them sadly, and said, “Once these tubes are gone, they’re going to be gone.”

Draw!: You’d have to start driving around the country, hoarding all the paints, going to all the art stores....

DD: Well, we’re getting to that! [laughs] I started looking at more expensive tubes, and some of the European paints tend to be a little bit richer because they’re made in more of a traditional fashion, but I just didn’t find the intensity of the colors. They were nice paints, but they weren’t what I was really looking for. So, what I did was, yes, I got on the Internet and I started looking for big art stores, and I just started calling around, and I said, “Look, do you have any Liquitex oil paints sitting in the back in a box somewhere?” And literally, I ended up buying probably 40 tubes of the stuff. Eventually, I did find some places that had them available, and I just said, “Send me all you have, and charge it to my credit card.” I think there were five colors I’d used, so I ended up with just a whole bunch of tubes of color that I would never be able to get again. I know one store sent me a box of them, and they were all hard; I have no idea where they stored them. But they took my money, sent me the tubes, and they were all just rock solid. But you know, I have those tubes sitting in my studio

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(left) Dave: “More oil underpainting. Note the continual use of the reference shots above the art.” (below) Dave: “I start with the main subject of the art and begin detailing from there. At this point I shift to acrylics for the detailing. It helps move the art along quickly as they do dry much faster than oils, yet give me the same look as I would have gotten with oils in the same areas.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

now, and every now and then, I look at them and think, “Yeah, that was a pretty smart thing to do, looking back on it.”

You get used to something, and one day it’s gone, and you just have to work around it.

Fortunately, I was able to work around it in a very positive fashion. But, one of the things that came out of it was, I was able to look at some of those tubes of expensive paint, and I tend to be very frugal in my purchases of paint. It’s from when I was younger and didn’t have a lot of money, and just was buying what I could afford.

So, I’ve found some of those paints are actually very good quality paints, very brilliant paints, so I don’t mind paying $14 or $20 for a tube occasionally. You know, a tube of paint can last me 15 years.

Draw!: And certain colors are much more intense, so they tend to last even longer.

DD: Yeah, I still have paints from 20 years ago sitting in my drawer—ones I don’t use a lot. One of my slide show demonstrations, I show a picture of my palette, with one quarter sitting on the palette, and my daubs of paint to show what I use. For painting I have ten daubs of paint no bigger than a quarter that I can do the whole painting with and not have to reset my palette.

People are just amazed at that. When you look at my paintings, they’re very flat, there’s not a lot of texture in the paint, and that’s just my technique that I taught myself over the years.

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Draw!: Everybody sort of uses the same stuff, but everybody uses it in a different and personal way. I’ve never heard of another artist, for instance, doing acrylic over oil.

Everybody usually uses oil over acrylic, but I went to one of the IlluXCons, and somebody had done big print-outs where I think they were doing something that was digital, and then they did oil painting on top of the digital printout, so people do all kinds of combinations! You’d never think to work that way.

(above) Dave: “The whole piece, as I march on like Vader’s troops, moving ever forward until the battle is finished.

Details now in acrylics, some marker, and colored pencil for definition. (right) Dave: “Detail on a few stormtroopers showing the build up of the acrylic paint on top of the oil underpaint.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

DD: Yeah. Want to hear another funny paint story? Do you know an artist named Doug Klauba? He’s an artist here in Chicago. He’s done a lot of commercial work, but he’s done some comic covers for Moonstone, like The Phantom and Flash Gordon. He’s a good friend of mine, and he uses acrylics quite a bit in his art. He was over to the house and we were talking about my approach of doing acrylics over oils, and he wanted to learn a little bit more about that, so I showed him my paintings, and how I lay down the paint and make sure it’s thin enough that the acrylics can hold onto it. He was suitably impressed, which most people are when they see how I do it.

So we started talking about paint, and I said, “What kind of paints are you using?” He said, “I’m buying these Liquitex bottles and tubes, and....” I know what those things cost, because I’ve been down to the store looking at them as well, and you’re looking at about $4, $5, $6, $7 for a tube of standard paint, and you can go up to $12 or $15 for deluxe, depending on what you want. Every artist tends to be a little conscious economically with their materials, and I said, “Doug, do you know what I use?” And he said, “No.” I said, “Do you know where Michaels is?” That’s a certain discount art store. Do you have those there?

Draw!: Oh, sure, we have Michaels and A.C. Moore.

DD: Yeah, and Hobby Lobby’s basically the same thing. So, I said, “What I do is, I go into Michaels into the craft section— not the art section, the craft section—and they have these little bottles of craft acrylics for, like, 99 cents, and they have hundreds of color variations, and it’s just liquid acrylic. It’s really not that different from the Liquitex or Winsor & Newton or whatever, so I go and I pay $20 for 20 bottles of acrylic paint, and that’s what I use! It’s the same thing, just a little more liquified. But for what I’m doing, this is exactly what I need.”

Draw!: The binder they use is already a little thinner.

DD: Correct. Still, it’s giving you that opaqueness, and the quick drying time that a tube of acrylic will give.

Draw!: But it’s not as thin as the stuff that will go through an airbrush.

DD: Correct. He was very impressed with my frugality on buying acrylics that I work with. You know, I’ve never had a problem with them. They don’t peel....

Draw!: They don’t fade?

DD: Not that I have noticed, it looks great, it stands up against the oils. As a matter of fact, people can’t tell if I’m detailing in oil or detailing in acrylic.

Draw!: This is actually very good.

DD: Real quick, to finish this oil and acrylic thing, do you know where the Gnomon Workshop is? They’re out in California, they teach digital art?

Draw!: Yes, I do, yes.

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DD: Yeah, a couple of years ago, they had me come out and do a demonstration that they put on DVD about how I do oil underneath acrylic, so if people go to Amazon or the Gnomon website, they can look for the Illustration Techniques with Dave Dorman set. They decided to release a set showing my prep and completion of the pencil drawing as the first DVD, and the second DVD was taking that pencil drawing and rendering all the way through to completion with all my techniques with oils, acrylics, markers, color pencil—everything that I throw into the mixer, and it comes out as a semblance of painting. [laughs] Draw!: Do you do much personal work, or are you just mostly doing illustration?

DD: I’m pretty much still doing illustration. You know, I’ll take that back. The past couple of years, I’ve really been doing

a lot of my own work. I’m still doing some work for LucasFilm and some of my other clients, for Dungeons & Dragons and things like that. I’ve actually been working on my own project, The Wasted Lands, reworking the graphic novel and doing some new material, and to follow up with that, the new book will be out for San Diego, called The Wasted Lands Omnibus.

It’s 152 pages, which features the original graphic novel Rail that I recolored in the computer, I relettered, I added some new artwork to it, and it’s a totally different look to it. It amazes me how much I’ve learned since publishing the original graphic novel back in 2001 with the computer technology, which was really fun to work with. I learned a lot recoloring those pages.

I’ve been doing some gallery paintings and some large pieces for myself. After 30 years of working for other people, I made a conscious decision over the past year and a half or two years to start working on my own stuff, and things that will hopefully be able to generate interest in the graphic novel series. I have a couple of games based on my material coming out as well, a card game, a board game, and some other things.

So I’ve been able to work for myself, creating for myself without having somebody looking over my shoulder, as an editor or a publisher, saying, “We want something different.” That’s been something I’ve been approaching for many, many years, and I’m finally getting that opportunity.

Draw!: I think that’s really important. The way the commercial work is spinning now, I think if you just work for other people, it’s really to your detriment, because there are so few places now where there’s any kind of real loyalty. George Lucas was a personal fan of Al Williamson, so if you’re lucky that the big dog likes your stuff, you can suffer a few less bite marks on your ass. But ten years ago, you could not image that Disney would own Marvel and Star Wars.

DD: That’s very true.

(above) Dave: “Another detail shot as I lay in more detail, keeping in mind the visual depth and stacking of elements to give the proper effect of this image elements fading back to the distance from the viewer.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

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Draw!: You could not imagine a time where fewer and fewer places own more and more of everything that you like, and that’s never in the long run a good thing for artists, because these big corporations don’t really care about you.

They don’t hate you, but they also

don’t care about you. If you work for them, it works out great, such—not to go into anything with great expectations. I go fine. If it doesn’t and they decide, “We’re going to move to in with just the work in mind, and take it for what it is. So, China to paint this thing,” they’re not doing it out of a con- even though I’ve lived with Star Wars for most of my life, scious maliciousness, but they’re also not being conscious and I’ve worked with LucasFilm for almost 25 years, and Star about how it might affect you in the long run. I also think that Wars has been a very big part of my life, both personally and you have to work on your own stuff, especially after a certain professionally—my son loves Star Wars; it’s a real big deal in point in your career, just to wean yourself, too! I think that’s my house—my hope is that they make a fun film, that it’s exreally important, to wean from the commercial work. citing, it’s state-of-the-art, it’s a good story, good characters.

DD: Yeah, I would kind of agree with that. I look back on the time during the mid-’80s to about the late ’90s when I was working with a number of clients, LucasFilm and Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, and these were all relationships that were built on mutual admiration and trust and respect. Eventually, it ended up as a very friendly relationship. You could call up the art director and editors and chat for a little bit, and share life, not just talking about a piece of work. You don’t get that nowadays. It’s very... I hate to say it tends to be very cold, but that’s certainly the way it feels in that editorial aspect. The peers that I’d get to meet at shows, conventions, and spend time with Dave: “Another step closer to finish. Detail keeps tightening.” is very valued, because it’s very Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd. heartwarming, and that might not be the technical word, but you feel very comfortable, a lot That’s what makes entertainment what it should be, if it’s Star warmer when your peers are able to discuss the art, and show Wars or any other movie. I’m hoping that it will be as exciting what you have and what you’re doing, and where you’re go- for this generation of kids as the original Star Wars was for ing. You could do that years ago with art directors and editors, me when I was 17 and went into a theater and saw it. It has a and now you can’t. Everything’s very business-oriented; ev- lot of baggage to go along with it, and I’m not sure where Diserything’s email oriented. There’s no longer a more personal ney is going to take that baggage, but I’m looking forward to relationship with people that you deal with to a greater ex- a good movie. I have no expectations that it’s going to be any tent. I feel a bit lost without that, and I think that’s one of the better or any worse than the other six, I just want it to be a fun other reasons that I’ve taken to do my own pieces, because it two, two and a half hours of moviemaking. That’s my hope. used to be you’d get some excitement from your editor, art director. “We’re really happy with the way you did this. Let’s Draw!: That’s my hope too. If they can make it have the look forward to the next one.” Now, you do the work and get spirit, especially of the first two films, then they will be very the check, that’s all the communication you get. The pleasure successful for the long run. But if it ends up having the spirit I’m deriving from doing my own work is that I don’t have to of the last couple, visually there’s a lot of cool stuff, but you please anyone but myself, and I’m challenging myself, and I don’t really care about the characters. I think that’s what prothink I’m doing the best work of my career right now in gen- pels you through the last three, is you still have that fondness eral. I’m very happy with where I am right now. for the characters from the first three.

DD: Yeah, I can understand that too. In looking at the preDraw!: Just to cap it off here, are you excited for the new quels as three parts of a single story now, I can see what Lucas Star Wars stuff? How do you feel about it? was trying to do, and I actually enjoy the movies now more DD: You know, I was a fan of Star Wars before I became a than when I saw them in the theaters when they were released. professional artist, and I’ll always be a fan at heart of com- I also think it’s a generational thing. My son could care less ics in both the comics medium and the film medium, and about the live-action movies. He’s been watching Clone Wars I’ve learned over the years—especially in working with the since he was four years old! He likes Clone Wars, and that’s licensed product, working with the movie companies, and Star Wars to him.

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Dave: “Finished art including the last elements—Vader’s lightsaber and blaster bolts flying through the fight.”

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

Draw!: I suppose it’s the age you’re exposed to things.

DD: To Lucas’ benefit, I think he sees that in Disney. Disney has built a reputation of understanding generation after generation, and keeping things fresh with updating storylines, advancing the technology of filmmaking and their amusement parks, and LucasFilms has done that with its films. With our generation it’s the first three, and two generations later with the prequels, and in-between that, letting Dark Horse put out books, the paperback novels, the toys, all of that was in that sort of in-between generation. And then six or seven years later, after the prequels, Clone Wars comes out, which gets little kids excited. So, I think it’s a good fit, LucasFilm and Disney, and they’ve been working together before, obviously, with the Indiana Jones Experience and Star Tours in the parks, so it’s not like they’re coming in not knowing how it works. I have a big feeling it’s going to be a fun movie, and I think we have to look at it like how we experienced the films in our generation. I’m looking forward to doing more Star Wars artwork as the years go by, and adding a whole new group of characters.

Draw!: I’d imagine they’re keeping it all tight-tight, but do they work ahead a year with licensing and all that stuff?

DD: Yeah, it’s still early in the licensing end of things. We’re still 18 months out from the films, so we’re not going to start getting licensing stuff going until probably late this year. I have my fingers in the pie on that, and I’m looking forward to doing that. I think the big thing is Marvel taking over the comic book license from Dark Horse, and right now very few people know what Marvel is doing with the storylines, and how they’re going to package the books. Obviously, they’re doing it with Disney, so Disney might have a large say in how Marvel packages

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them. We don’t know if they’re going to go on a different look than Dark Horse did. I don’t know if I’ll still be involved in the comic end of things. I hope that I still will be, because I’d love to get the work, but they could take a different tack completely with the material. A lot of us in the comics industry that have done Star Wars art for 25 years, we’re very interested in seeing what Marvel’s going to do with that material.

Draw!: From what I was reading, they’re still deciding what is and what is not canon now—all that other stuff you were talking about that came out between the films.

DD: There’s a lot of stuff going on with the Expanded Universe and other material that resulted from that time. You know, I can see both sides of it, and I really don’t have an answer that I can give to how I feel about it, because I just understand both sides.

I’m a fan as well as a realist, and it would be sad to see them throw away 25 years of hard, creative work because Disney and Marvel want to go in a completely different direction, but from a business standpoint, that’s their choice to do, and maybe they won’t. I kind of think what they’ll end up doing is keeping some elements from the Expanded Universe, and incorporating those into what’s going on. I think most of what we’ve worked on in the past 25 years is just going to be “Earth-2.”

Draw!: I’m sure they’re going to say, “Some of the stuff works,” and, “I shouldn’t have approved that story.” Some of the stuff is going to drop out. I was just wondering in general how you felt about the new Star Wars.

DD: I’m very much looking forward to it. It is very exciting, and I’m definitely going to be first in line! [laughter]

&

Design C

by Mike Manley and Bret Blevins

oncept Art is an ever growing field that today plays an important role in every film, television program, video game, and yes—comic book. Look at the recent Marvel movies as an example. The core visuals are built on the visual language and designs of the great Marvel artists, but especially Jack Kirby and the hundreds of comics he drew in his teaming with Stan Lee during the prime Marvel period.

The initial character and concept designs for the Marvel Universe are chiefly the result of this visual dynamo, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, whose work fuels the fantasy designs of the 21st century.

Every cartoon I have worked on has contained as part of the design pack a style guide for backgrounds and character designs, etc. It is essential in the early parts of the development of a show to get everybody on the same visual wavelength. You can’t have the dozens of artists working on the cartoon running in every different direction, and in the movies and video games you now sometimes have hundreds if not thousands of artists spread across the globe working on the same project.

In the very earliest stages of the design and concept process of a movie or video game, the artists, art directors, and people in charge of visual development pull together style boards to help create the visual talking points that lead to the building blocks that form these new universes. Ralph McQuarrie’s concept illustrations for Star Wars (1977) are probably the best example of the way modern filmmaking employs the use of this concept of creating a grand visual narrative in the preproduction story stage.

Some companies may even go further, as Disney did with Mulan, by sending the development team to a location— in Mulan’s case, China—to One of Kirby’s concepts that’s become a major visual backbone of Marvel’s do research, to draw, sketch, 21st century movies is the S.H.I.E.L.D. and take pictures for authenhelicarrier seen in its original design ticity. In the case of Mulan, a (left) and the Avengers and Captain very important story and herAmerica movie version (above). oine in Chinese culture, DisS.H.I.E.L.D. © Marvel Characters, Inc. ney wanted to get the visual The Avengers © Marvel Studios. details correct.

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(above) Star Wars is a massively influential film that has spun out culturally, and its world was built on the “style boards” of Flash Gordon and the comics and sci-fi movies that influenced and thrilled George Lucas as a child. C-3PO is just one example of a major character in Star Wars that came from a visual inspiration or style board from another source. In C-3PO’s case, it was Maria, the robotic woman from Fritz Lang’s silent movie classic Metropolis (1927), which sparked the initial idea. (top right) One of Ralph McQuarrie’s first Star Wars concept illustrations featuring one of his original designs for C-3PO. (right) C-3PO in the final form we have all grown to love.

Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

Building Your Style Board

A great way to start developing your ideas, no matter the medium, is to start by spending time building what are called style boards or inspiration boards. Graphic designers and fashion artists employ these collections—almost a visual collage of images, textures, fabrics, texts, etc.—to create an overall “style” in which to visually illustrate the work they want to create. Interior designers will employ this as a way to show a client how the new interiors will look. Pinterest is basically a web-based style board. It’s often hard to just pull ideas out of the either. Even the great Jack Kirby, who was ten times as imaginative as the normal artist, would find inspiration for some of his fantastic machinery from household objects like his wife’s hairdryer. Even the most fantastic designs are better if they are based on something real.

To start making your style board, I suggest you spend some time being sort of a detective for your project. Think about the who, where, why, what, and when of your ideas. Write these notes down and review them, make lists. You can break things down into figures, backgrounds, interiors, exteriors, etc. Once you have these lists, you can then start hunting down your visual reference. Google is of course a fantastic resource and search engine, but knowing how to ask for something in more than one way is also essential. I still recommend going to your local library and asking for help to research your list of ideas.

There is more and more on the Internet every day, but not everything is online, and there are many, many research books and references that line the shelves of your local library.

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Organization

The next step, once you have your pile of visual information, is to start organizing it into folders that then you can use to build your style boards. Once you have the folder filled, it’s a snap to make a series of collage boards for the different subjects for your project:

Here’s another collage board example (right) I put together from some of the thousand of photos in my photo library. I can organize these pictures to give me reference to pull from for designs like the animation background here (below). I can also use them along with books I have on art deco architecture to do concept designs like these I did for Batman Beyond (bottom).

Batman Beyond © DC Comics

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T

he artwork presented here tracks the development stages of promotional material for a project created and written by my son Timothy, and executive produced by Renie Sweeney. It will a fantasy graphic novel called Epoch. I don’t want to spell out too much before the project is finished, but there are Fairie elements and characters alongside humans and futuristic technology.

I began by trying to find the proper look and attitude for the main characters. In the following pages, Tim’s original descriptions are accompanied by some of the sketches I made to find a workable design that I liked.

Belas the Hobgoblin Goblins are shorter than humans and very skinny/lanky—they have skinny arms and legs with slightly enlarged, webbed hands and feet, and large heads with large eyes. Goblins have rubbery, amphibian-type skin—they like damp, dark places. Goblins’ skin coloring varies from muted, desert-toad tones to wild, poisonarrow frog coloring. Belas being a hobgoblin/half-human, he’s a mix of human and goblin qualities.

Belas is pretty for a goblinoid—a less attractive Hob probably wouldn't be hired by a posh Elven corporation. He's proportioned like a human, and has human-looking hands. Belas has no hair— few Hobs do. Being chief of security for a billion-dollar company, Belas has an admirable military background, and comports himself in a military fashion. Being a distinguished veteran and chief of security, Belas dresses more like his high-ranking Elven employers than the other security grunts.

For Belas’ acting, he has something to prove, as do most goblinoids. Goblins have been outsiders throughout history—elves and humans and dwarves historically shunned them, orcs periodically enslaved them. As such, goblin culture revolves around ideas like self-sufficiency and guile.

ART NOTES: The descriptions were so clear I had a handle on Belas quickly—only a few sketches nailed him down—then my mind obviously wandered to the setting, as you can see on this sheet.

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Tia Hollow Tia’s human, about 5' 7", thin and athletic. She has violet/purple irises, as she’s an eighth elf. Tia has short hair; it’s a dark shade, maybe an organic color or maybe dyed—maybe her hair changes color often. You choose. Tia’s stealth-suit is concrete-grey and “aesthetically padded.” She carries a few small, flexible tools. The stealth-suit has a hood because I like the shape—she needs a balaclava or mask or something to prevent her face being caught on camera—the more I think about it, the more I think her face-cover should have some kind of cheeky modification, like a stitched on scarecrow smiley-face or something. Tia moves like a leaf in the wind—the harder you swipe at her, the more she flits out of the way. Tia is an upbeat person, but as her criminal career implies, she has some baggage hidden beneath her cheeky exterior. When not in stealth gear, Tia dresses in comfortable, notparticularly stylish clothes. When she dresses sexily, it’s usually for work-related purposes.

ART NOTES: I was unusually lucky here.

Tia is based on my lovely friend Claire Louge (right). I wish every character design was this easy!

Tia’s attitude was pretty clear at the beginning. I did a rough sketch and costume suggestion (left), Tim drew his costume ideas over the sketch (figure at far right) and Tia was done.

Epoch © Bret Blevins Productions LLC

Tarkus The majority of orcs live in poverty in the modern world—their inherent characteristics as a species put them at odds with the culture of personal compromise and bureaucracy. Many orcs end up in organized crime—orcs are smart enough to handle money and conduct business, they just don’t have patience for non-violent conflict resolution. Tarkus moonlights as a Dragon follower, but his “day job” is being an enforcer for an orcish street gang/clan.

Tarkus, like most orcs, is about 7 feet tall. Orcs’ skin is colored in earthy tones, from off-white to dark green to brown to black. Some have tuskteeth that jut out from their upper or lower jaw, some don’t. I’ve yet to find any ref on the Internet for orcs that I’m happy with, maybe you can come up with something better. Orcs are usually “built,” but Tarkus is REAL muscled. Orcs are fond of tattoos—in the old days they kept your honor and clan beyond question, even after death. Tarkus has tattoos identifying his membership, rank and job in his gang/clan.

Tarkus is either bald, or has hair done in some kind of gang or clan style. I imagine him being shirtless, wearing cargo, maybe military-surplus pants held up with studded suspenders and great big head-stompin’ boots. Tarkus wears studded leather bracers and heavy-duty rings on his fingers. Tarkus has no cybernetic parts—neural implants can be a disadvantage in his business, and he can’t afford cybernetic organ replacements that’d make him physically stronger. Tarkus wields a pipe wrench that’s been modified into a crude mace—I imagine the wrench clamp clasped around a ramshackle piece of custom-welded metal that completes the mace, maybe tangled around with barbed wire, and spraypainted with Tarkus’ clan’s symbol. Maybe the wrench handle is wrapped with electrical tape to make a more ergonomic grip.

For acting, Tarkus is frustrated, angry, and not very bright. His whole life has been a sequence of bitter disappointments, watching prissy elves, weakling humans and puny dwarves get stronger and richer while he and his people get more scattered, disenfranchised and demonized. Once inside Sylvan Genomics, Tarkus acts out on his desire to smash the Elves and their trappings of social superiority.

ART NOTES: Tarkus required a bit more searching. I wanted something hulking, sullen, and potentially brutal, but eventually pulled back from the more extreme notions to allow for greater subtlety of acting. Again Tim nailed down the costume details (far right figure below).

Epoch © Bret Blevins Productions LLC

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CEO An elf. Elves are tall, slender, graceful humanoids with brightly-colored eyes and pointy ears. They’re pretty, but they’re also alien and often a little threatening. Elves come in skin colors ranging from light green to pale blue, through the spectrum of “normal” skin colors. Elves’ eyes come in whatever color you can think of, which contributes to their alien appearance.

I’d like to splice the familiar J.R.R. Tolkien elves with earlier Germanic elf mythology—so, our elves are tall and graceful and have a magic connection to nature, but they’re also cruel, superior, as comfortable in the dark as in the light, and nearly incapable of empathy toward non-elves. At some point I’d like to write a conversation between some characters about how in the “old days,” elves would snatch children and whisk them away into the darkness of their forest citadels—in the “old days,” elf princes would happily serve a human or orcish “piglet” at banquet, a gruesome meal eaten with finest silver, crystal glass, elegant conversation and the most tasteful furnishings.

The CEO can be a man or woman, I’m not particular there. The only specifics I have in mind are that the CEO has extensive neural implants, which may result in an unusual haircut/style, and that he/she should have clothes that look like they cost more than you make in a year, a combination of elven robes and corporate chic.

For acting, the CEO is rich person who’s always been rich and always will be. He/she isn’t intimidated by the Dragon punks—they’re just maggots so far as the CEO is concerned. At the time of our story, the CEO has been infected with Siren, though. Elves are all about ego—their natural gifts allow them to keep their feeling of superiority despite any odds. For elves, Siren crushes the ego—it provides too panoramic a view of time and space for them to maintain their self-importance. So, the CEO is grappling with an implosion of identity, which leads to all kinds of strange expressions/behaviors. I guess it wouldn’t be a good idea to be overly explicit about it, but the CEO should seem slightly “off” the whole time.

ART NOTES: For some reason I could see this character very clearly right away. She was there from this first doodle.

There were other incidental character roughs done as well, but these characters—plus a dragon—were the elements of the first promotional image. I needed a logo so I began doodling, first filling a page with aimless unimaginative notions, then deciding I would work backward: I’d sketch out a composition for the entire scene, then let the logo design grow organically out of that. You see here how it developed, and I found a good working idea for the logo.

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Epoch © Bret Blevins Productions LLC

It didn't take too long to work out the final logo.

Epoch © Bret Blevins Productions LLC

Once I began working on the final layout for the promotional image, it became obvious that the dragon’s eye needed to be peering through the open center of the letter "O", but it took many tries to arrange everything to my (temporary, as you’ll see) satisfaction. I was after a certain relaxed, yet ready-to-spring-into-motion feel in Tia’s pose, which took quite a few attempts.

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Epoch © Bret Blevins Productions LLC

I took this version (top left) all the way through inking—black lines with gray washes. And I even made it through the first pass of flat underlay color (top middle) before I realized the piece was too static. I needed to show Tia in action, so I began again (top right). This time I completed the color (left). The final color image was set into a cover design with type (below).

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Epoch © Bret Blevins Productions LLC

Now I was ready to proceed with the interior illustrations of the small preview book we were planning. First I did a very small set of thumbnails (left) for the layout of the entire book. The book consisted of pencil drawings with short commentary written by Timothy, giving a brief introduction to the project.

Here are a few of the pages (below).

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Pertinent information and a small spot illustration on the back cover (right), and the booklet is off to the printer.

The process of arriving at suitable designs required many more sketches than there is room to include here, but even more important, many hours of thinking. It's rare that the best solutions come with no effort, no false starts and no reworking/refining. When they do it's a stroke of good fortune, be grateful for your luck and keep working on the tougher challenges. The rewards are worth it!

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Boom! Goes the Dynamite

an interview with

Interview conducted by Jamar Nicholas and transcribed by Jon Knutson JAMAR NICHOLAS: Tell me a little bit about when you were in grade school. Were you a decent student, or were you distracted from always thinking about drawing?

LeSean Thomas: I was always really distracted as a kid. It wasn’t that I didn’t have good grades, or that I didn’t do well in school, I just wasn’t interested. I wasn’t one of those kids that would do everything I was told. Any chance I got to draw, I would, so that got me in a lot of trouble. I got in trouble more for being mischievous, for not doing what I was told, than anything else. My friends didn’t help at all either, because they were mischievous too. And we didn’t do anything bad.

We didn’t do anything super-crazy. It was primarily, “Okay, LeSean should be studying pages 247 to 263,” and you pull the textbook back, and I wouldn’t be reading, I’d be drawing.

The other thing too, looking back, a lot of my teachers, as nice as they were, didn’t live in my neighborhood, so for me, there was a disconnect with the teachers I had. I knew they were important because they were white, they were somebody to be listened to and respected, but I didn’t understand why I never really related to them much. The only teacher I really related to was my art teacher, Mr. Light, and ironically, it wasn’t because

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of art—because I actually hated that class. It was just the way he treated me, and the way he would talk to me in a language I understood, if that makes any sense. He made things fun for me, he made things interesting, and it made me want to learn what I was learning in his class. And I felt like, in my other classes, there wasn’t a lot of interaction. It was, “Sit down, be quiet, read these pages.” And I didn’t know who these people were. As a kid, I was like, “Who are you? I’ll be with you eight hours a day, and then I’ll go to the real world when class is up.”

I wasn’t too interested in my teachers per se, and I think it had an effect on my behavior in class.

JN: I think that’s interesting. Being a teacher and knowing a lot of teachers, I don’t think a lot of teachers really think that hard about the students and where they’re really coming from, and how they interact with the teachers. It’s either you’re good or you’re not good, or you’re a problem or one of the good kids.

LT: I think that’s just a by-product of our system, and I don’t want to get too deep into that, just lightly touch on that. I think it’s indicative of the culture at that time—this was the ’80s. A lot of the teachers that I had were very young, and I never really thought about them being young people, because I was so young myself. But these people were in their mid-20s, late 20s,

30s. Some of them had been there for a very long time, so obviously they were much older. My principal, Mr. Raggio, was actually in his mid-60s; he was an old dude. They didn’t come from my world; they spoke a different language than I did. It’s not a knock on them, I just felt like... it doesn’t seem like it’s changed that much today from then, but teachers, to me, were just there to get their paycheck. They weren’t paid very well. They weren’t from the neighborhood. They were from nicer neighborhoods, a lot of them, and they came to the projects in the South Bronx from 152nd between 10th and Union. They’ve got Pirus, they’ve got Latin Kings—this is dangerous, B! This is the crack era. It was just get in, get out. “I don’t have time to get to know you. This is what you have to learn. Oh, you’re not learning this? There’s something wrong with you.

You can’t learn, so you need to go to Special Ed class.” And it’s dumb!

The system was set up to leave people behind. If you judge a person by their ability to do something that may not be in their personality or learning curve to do, and then you automatically categorize them as not being able to learn, or as inadequate, or damaged goods... I never really adhered to that.

Everybody learns differently. Some people are more hands-on, other people can just read something and get it, and then other people, you kind of need to repeat it to them a bunch of times. Everyone is different. What’s that Einstein saying? “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” That statement is profound to me, and it correlates to a lot of these children, and I think that part of it is a cultural thing. You have a lot of teachers that are not from that culture, who are not speaking that language.

The other thing is there aren’t a lot of African-American males teaching, either. Especially in my community, growing up, there weren’t a lot of African-American males. There were a lot of broken families, a lot of single-mom homes, and there weren’t a lot of black male teachers. A lot of people don’t know this about me, but after I wrapped up working on Lizzie McGuire as an assistant animator in New York City—this was before I started working on Arkanium for Dreamwave and started doing some freelance for Warner Brothers—I took some time off. I taught at a charter school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, not too far from my apartment. I had a brownstone I lived in across the street from Boys and Girls High School, Fulton Street Subway Station.

They used to have the African-American Arts Festival there in Fulton Park.

I lived right across the street from that, and there was a really dope charter school right down the block from me, and I taught in an afterschool program. I didn’t have a teacher’s license, but I think my girlfriend at the time had hipped me to their looking for some extra help for afterschool, and I was like, “Oh, why not? It’ll be a cool opportunity.” So I taught there for about a year, and the whole school was run by black parents! It was crazy, and I was one of the only brothers there, you know what I mean? They had a lot of young moms, single moms, so they see a handsome 6' 3" black man handling their kids, they’re like, “Oh my God, this is what’s up!”

There was a need for that, a male... I didn’t have that in my school. I think that was another reason why I felt the need to act up. It could’ve been some kind of subconscious plea, like I needed a man to put me in shape every day, because my dad was around when my mom got divorced, but he was only around at really, really important times. He wasn’t there every day. I don’t know, I think I said a lot just now, but I think it’s all tying in to a point of... because I didn’t have that attention, I used that as an opportunity to act up. It could’ve been a plea for help or attention, but just thinking about that now, for the first time in many years, I think I kind of sum it up to that.

JN: All those things tie together in weird ways, when you look back at them all. I’m sure you weren’t a “bad kid.”

LeSean’s boards from Adult Swim’s cult hit animated series Black Dynamite.

Black Dynamite © Black Dynamite, LLC

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LT: Not at all. No, I wasn’t bad, I was just bad by behavioral standards. “Oh, you’re not listening, so you’re a bad kid.” When I wasn’t in school, what was I doing? I was staying out of trouble. I didn’t like going outside at a certain point—there were drugs out there. I knew not to stay around drugs. I didn’t stay around drug dealers. I was a pretty good kid, I was just mischievous. I was like any other kid, “Okay, what happens if I say no? Let’s see what happens.”

Black Dynamite © Black Dynamite, LLC

JN: You’ve done some amazing stuff in your career, and you’re still young. You speak different languages, and you’ve been all over the world, but your background is not the narrative you’re using to go through your life. You just do your thing. I know some cats who are kind of like, “Look, this is where I came from.

You don’t have to be like these other people. You can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” and that’s kind of like a calling card for them. And one thing I’ve always dug about you is that you’re where you came from, and that’s kind of your backstory, but that’s not the narrative that you lead your life by.

LT: There was a period in my life where I was really angry in my early to mid20s. My mother passed away in 2000, and that was a big deal for me. My mom was really young when she passed away. She was 42, and I was 24 at the time, so I didn’t really handle it well, and I was really angry. I wasn’t angry to the point where I was getting arrested, or hurting people, I was just really... angsty. And at the time that happened, I’d gotten more in tune with my heritage, and I was questioning things, and learning things about African history, and African diaspora, and it was just a time when I was angry at white people, just angry all the time.

And I had no reason to be! Because there were things I could do to better my situation, but at the time, it just felt better to me to blame somebody. And I was on that trip where, “I’m from the streets, I’ve seen some f’ed up stuff, and life is hard.” It wasn’t like, “I’m from the streets. I’m a thug. We were really poor, and I pulled myself up by the bootstraps. You really need to be that too.”

But when I got older, I started traveling more, and I started seeing the world, and I was like, “Man! I’m actually pretty privileged!” My first experience with real poverty—I’m not talking the projects, because we’ve got running water, we’ve got a roof over our head, the government’s giving us money every month, and what have you. I went to Ocho Rios in Jamaica. I went to Montego Bay with my girlfriend when I was about 20, and it was the first time I’d seen real poverty, black poverty. These were shanty towns. It just blew me away. I think it was the first time that I got humbled, and I started to see that everybody’s pretty much the same. We’re all trying to live, and be with our families, and keep a roof over our head. That was actually my first glimpse of, “It’s not all that bad.”

If you just paint your world as being Planet South Bronx, just your block, yeah, that’s pretty f’ed up at that time period, but you step outside and start to see the real world, and you start to travel, and you start to see other people live and be much happier with so much less... it just really changed my perspective.

It allowed me to go from a position of just using my past as some kind of prop to stand on and have a soap box to then be like, “Yeah, that’s where I come from, and I’ll never forget that, but there’s so much more I can add to my story, add to my chapter.”

I think it was even more prevalent when I went to South Korea. I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Thailand, I’ve been to China, to parts of Europe—London, Paris, Rome. I’ve traveled a decent amount—not a whole lot, but enough to say that I’ve traveled—and it wasn’t until I went to Korea where I actually had to live there and learn the language that I got really, really humble. It really humbled me. Because it’s one thing to visit somewhere and go, “I could live here.” Well, of course you could, if you lived there for three or four weeks, and you’re not working, and you’re on vacation! “I could live here!” But when you get down to it, could you really live there? Could you get up every morning and deal with traffic and people and trying to buy groceries and doing

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basic stuff when you don’t know the language?

And office politics, what are people saying behind your back if you don’t know the language?

They have certain images of Americans, and you don’t want to be the representation of what they view about Americans, or African-Americans to another extent. It was a completely different experience for me.

I don’t know, there’s just so much else worth talking about. People are always surprised when they talk to me, they go, “Oh, you grew up in the Bronx? That sucked!” But I get where that comes from, and I usually get that “Oh!” from other African-Americans. It’s not something that is constantly on my mind. For me, it’s like, “Okay, what am I going to do this year? Where am I going to go next year? What am I trying to accomplish?”

JN: That was a great answer. I remember when I was younger, I never really wanted to go to anywhere. “What do I want to go anywhere for?

The pizza spot’s up the street. Why do I have to get on a plane?” And that kind of messed me up for a long time! [laughter] Did you ever go through anything like that, or were you always excited about traveling?

LT: My mom was really, really active in our lives when we were children, and I don’t give her enough credit. My mom was very active in what we were exposed to, as best as she could.

We were on welfare and she had two jobs on the low light. She was getting it! My mom was really about the hustle, and she used to take us to the... I don’t know if you’re familiar with any programs in New York City. There was a program way back in the day called “The Fresh Air Fund.” Do you remember the Fresh Air Fund?

JN: No, but I’m sure there’s something like it in Philly. What was it about?

LT: I’m pretty sure there is. The Fresh Air Fund was basically a two-weeks-long summer camp.

I’m not talking about a daycare where you’d go to a community center, and you had some kids from the projects look after you, and you’d go to the local public swimming pool and stuff like that, I’m talking about real daycare. I was 10, 9, 8 during this time period, and my mother used to enroll me and my brother and my baby sister— I think my baby brother wasn’t born yet—and we used to get on this big bus and drive way up north. It had to be Connecticut or somewhere, but it had heavy, deep woods. There were giant cabins with different daycares from different cities—huge groups of kids. And our counselors

A billboard advertising Black Dynamite. LeSean assembles his penciled sketches digitally, then digitally inks the piece. The main figure is inked and colored on a separate layer than the background.

Black Dynamite © Black Dynamite, LLC

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who looked after us were all black men, and we stayed in the woods! It was really crazy. And every morning, we’d get up, I’d pee around a tree or whatever, and we’d meet down by the hill, by the place we could wash our hands, a long sink with multiple faucets. We followed these grown men on these trails, and we’d walk for a good 20 minutes, half an hour, and we’d come up to this opening where there’s this giant mess hall, and all of these other camps from all of these different places would all join in this mess hall, just tables and tables.

So at a very early age, I was exposed to travel, and being open to leaving my neighborhood. My mother used to do stuff like that with us all the time. She’d take us to Summer Youth, we’d have to get jobs in the summer cleaning offices or community parks so we could make money to buy school clothes in September, and all that stuff.

My dad lived in Scotchtown, N.Y. He took me for the summer to stay with him for two weeks, and he was like, “Man, if you like it up here, you can stay.” And I was like, “Oh, snap!”

My brother had already been converted. He’d been there for a year. He had no intention of going back to the projects! When my dad told me that, I was like, “I could do this!” To much dismay, my mom was completely unhappy with it. She wasn’t trying to lose her second kid to my dad. But I moved upstate, and I lived up there for a year and a half. I went to a completely different high school, Pine Bush High School. I would

Artwork © LeSean Thomas

get up, get on the yellow cheese bus at 6:30 in the morning, ride for an hour and a half through rural New York—I mean rural New York, like cows and farms. We were two of 15 black kids in the school. So I missed my junior year in New York City, and I came back a senior, because... even though I had an 80 average, I was getting into fights and stuff. I was being bad, you know?

JN: Tell me about when you started going to your creative arts school in the city.

LT: I went to Ponce De Leon Elementary School, PS 161, across the street from our project building. I did kindergarten to sixth grade, graduated in ’86, and then in ’87, I went to IS 162, Intermediate School. It was like junior high school, and that was maybe ten blocks away from my place, but it was still in my neighborhood. Then, it was around that time in junior high school where I was trying to figure out what high school I wanted to go to, and there was only one high school I had on my mind—Art and Design High School. I don’t know how I knew about Art and Design High School, but I know my mom knew about it. I can never forget, on the day of my brother’s birthday in January, my mother took me to Art and Design High School, I took the art test, and I failed it. And it wasn’t because I couldn’t draw. I could actually draw, but the problem was I wasn’t prepared to draw on the spot.

JN: It wasn’t a bring your portfolio thing. They wanted you to do a dry run in front of them?

LT: Art and Design High School had a drawing test. They had me and I want to say ten or 15 other kids in the room. We were there for an hour, and we had to take these drawing tests! Like, “Draw a woman. Draw a duck.” It was weird! I can’t remember too much, but I remember me not doing a good job. Even at the time I was doing the test, I knew I was doing a bad job. I knew I was going to fail, and I think I gave up. I felt I could just get in and learn how to draw what I want. I didn’t know I would be told to draw something, and be tested on the spot.

JN: That sounds like a trick.

LT: I don’t know, it might’ve been a pretty good trick. It got me. I fell for it, man. I didn’t do well. I didn’t get into that school, and I’ll never forget how angry I was after I took the test. I was 13, and I was really upset that I didn’t do well, and as I was walking through the hallways of Art and Design High School, I could see the framed artwork of other high school students who did drawings of Wolverine and Spider-Man, and I was like, “Man! This is the school I want to go to! They let you draw Wolverine and Spider-Man? This is amazing!” I was so angry that I didn’t get into that school.

I’m really good friends with another illustrator named Joe Maduriera. You’re probably familiar with him. He’s a really popular comic book artist, and we’re really good friends now, and one of the things that connected us is we were both the same age, both from New York City—he’s from Queens, I’m from the South Bronx—and he went to Art and Design High School. When I found out about Joe when he first did

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Deadpool and all that, I found out he went to Art and Design High School.

I went to my mom and said, “See? See? I told you this was the school to go to!”

Anyway, my mom took me to that school to take the test, and I didn’t do well. And then, I don’t know if it was the same day, or later that week—it could’ve been the same day—we went to another school ten blocks down on 62nd Street, Julia Richman High School.

Julia Richman High LeSean in South Korea in a screen shot from his Seoul Sessions web video series.

School had this program Seoul Sessions © LeSean Thomas called Talent Unlimited— We had a teacher named Mr. Barnett, and he looked like TU. The program was for students in high school focusing on the arts, the humanities—illustration, dance, theater, drama, Santa Claus, but without the beard. He had a thick mustache chorus—so you had TU Art, TU Dance, TU Chorus, and TU and super-thick Coke bottles, and he had a bald head, but hair Drama. I remember Mos Def was in the TU Drama program around the side of his head. You can already picture him. He looked like Mr. McFeely from Mister Rogers but with a beer at Julia Richman High School, Dante Smith….

I’m not entirely sure how I got into Julia Richman High tummy. One of the nicest guys ever, just really, really dope.

School, but needless to say, I got into that school. It was my Now mind you, as a black kid, I developed a certain kind of mom who took me downtown to make sure I applied to these expectation with white teachers whenever I would meet them, schools that were art-related. I don’t know how my mom found and Mr. Barnett was a very passive art teacher. He taught very out about Julia Richman, because that was a really dope pro- slowly, and I would test him, because that was just part of my repertoire as kind of a low-key smartass. gram. Looking back, it was a really, really impressive school.

I don’t think I really appreciated the class and what I was JN: With you basically having culture shock every day to a being offered at the time like I did when I got older and was done with high school. But that class was actually pretty dope. point, what kind of student were you in high school?

LT: I was shy. There were only a select handful of TU Art stu- My friends would talk about how hard it was, and how it was dents that were picked for that class. I think there were some- for blacks, but Julie Richman’s limited program was pretty bawhere between 12 and 15 kids that were in TU Art. Many of nanas, man. I was very privileged to be in this program. I mean, obviously, my color theory would be much better if I actually them were girls I’m still friends with on Facebook.

At three o’clock after the regular classes, the TU students paid attention to color theory and painting equivalents in class, would have a special program. We’d stay until 6:30 in the but we did other really cool things. We had Saturday night classevening, and our art teacher would teach us things about acryl- es at Cooper Union. They would give us free city subway tokens ics, color, painting, color theory, figure drawing, anatomy, all to go to these classes on Saturdays, and there would be figure drawing classes, painting classes... this was all part of the deal. of this stuff.

I used to hate going to TU, because when I finally got to And I would just take that money and buy bagels. I never rehigh school, I was dealing with other things, like my self- ally went to those events. I just feel really uncomfortable being esteem, my personality. Girls started to like me, I started lik- around strangers, and having to travel on a Saturday... I wasn’t ing girls, and I just felt like TU was a hindrance to me. The going to blow my Saturday being in art class all day.

But the overall program was pretty extensive and pretty people in TU were people I didn’t really hang out with. My friends that I made were in my regular classes, so come three impressive. Which is strange, considering how violent the o’clock, they’d ask if I wanted to go to a movie afterwards, times were. It was a very reassuring program, very inviting, or stick around and play basketball, or go to Cathedral High and we had lots of guest artists come through. I think if I’d School which was ten blocks up around the corner from Art paid more attention in class, and taken some of those lessons, and Design High School. Cathedral High School was an all- I’d probably be a much better artist than I am now.

I always think back to what kind of artist I would have girls Catholic school. I’d be, “Oh, I can’t do it, man. I’ve got been had I really stuck with that program and actually gone to go to TU,” and after a while I just stopped going.

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moved upstate. I was the dude who would draw all of their characters for Dungeons & Dragons. I was doing that kind of stuff.

When I came back, I had a penchant for fashion at that point. It was being young, just turning 18, and being legal, and fake I.D.s, and all the clubs… that whole thing. I think it was towards the end of my senior year that I decided to take it seriously. The moment escapes me, but there was a catalyst in my life that made me like, “This is what I want to do. I want to do this art thing.” And when I turned 18 and I was doing the art thing heavy, that’s when I stopped going outside, and started going to comic book conventions, and I started discovering anime, and I started really, really focusing on my art. I got a drafting table for the first time in my room. This was a big deal for me.

JN: That had to be a huge thing for you.

LT: That was a big deal, because up to that point, I was drawing on the floor with a lamp, or I would use a window as a lightbox. My brother and I didn’t value comics back then. We would rip out the pages and put them under looseleaf paper, and use the sunlight on the windows to trace drawings. So when I got a drafting table, it was just heavy, B. It was a big deal! “I’m a professional now!

What? Come outside? I’ve got my drafting table. I’ve got my Nintendo behind me. I’ve got my snacks. I’ve got comics.” [laughter] That was me! That happened!

It’s just so funny how it all turned out, but that’s when I really started taking it serious.

(above) Promo art for Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks. (right) Sean’s model sheet for Riley, one of the main characters in The Boondocks.

The Boondocks © Aaron McGruder

to an art college. Would I be the same individual?

Would I be doing the same things? I don’t know. But everything happens for a reason, and everything doesn’t happen for a reason. That was pretty much my experience with high school, as far as art school was concerned. Just that whole process, and dealing with peer pressure. Especially when I came back, because after I’d moved upstate, I wasn’t drawing at all.

JN: You put it down.

LT: I put it down. I mean, I did a couple of illustrations here and there for some of my friends in the neighborhood. All of my friends were white. There were no black kids when I

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JN: When I got into ninth grade, I remember being overwhelmed by, like you said, being on a subway going downtown, being around all these people I’d never imagined I’d be with in the same place, and then having to turn in decent artwork.

LT: It was mind-blowing, man, and it was even more weird for me that I started to have different perspectives of class and economy around that time, because to me, the Bronx was normal, and when I went to Manhattan, I was kind of like, “Man, I don’t want to go home. I like these tall buildings, and the fact that they have a 7-Eleven that has Slurpees. I’ve never seen anything like this before!” I discovered Forbidden Planet on 59th Street—a good ten-minute walk. They had two locations: the one on Union Square that kind of shifted around the same block area over the years, but there was another one on 59th between Second and Third Avenue. I used to live at that spot. The top level was classic art cover books, and figurines, and stuff like that, but downstairs was where they kept

the comics. Forbidden Planet was like headquarters for me for years. During my entire time in high school, Fridays was my ritual. Fridays I had my allowance, I had a leftover sandwich that was something my grandmother made that I didn’t like, and I would walk down with my homies, get a bag of chips, a Snapple, and we would walk on a Friday afternoon, the sun is about to set, cars busy, crazy tall New York buildings everywhere, and chill down there.

There were two guys—I forget their names. One was a black guy, one was a white guy, and we would just hang out there all day. This was during the X-Force craze. Image had just formed, I just discovered the Crow graphic novel, and I just found out about this artist Katsuhiro Otomo, these insane color comics called Akira from Marvel’s Epic imprint. This was a crazy time for me, just absorbing all of this exposure, and we used to hang out at that spot, and the guys who worked there were so cool to us! They’d let us put our bags back there, and we would just hang out, read comics, and chill, and complain about comics now being 65¢.

I used to hate going back home, because I knew I had to go back to the projects, I had to go back to the roach-infested hallways with crack vials, and I just wanted to stay with the white people in Manhattan, know what I mean? [laughter] It was clean and protected, and it had all of these books filled with cool drawings and color. Yeah, for me, it was jarring to have that dichotomy—the travel, worrying about getting off of the subway at night in the South Bronx where the Latinos were always shooting each other, and all these drug dealers, and drug busts.

That’s how I got exposed to comics, hanging out at the comic store. I wanted to draw comic books because, obviously, that was the thing that was nearest to me, that was the thing that I had access to, and could actually see and look through, and I knew that was something I wanted to do. I didn’t know if I wanted to do it professionally, I just looked at it as something I wanted to do some day, or thought I could do. I didn’t know at the time that animation was a career, because I didn’t see black people doing it! I always thought animation was something that came from Hollywood or from a foreign country. So for a long time, comics was the thing I wanted to do.

JN: The comics felt like it was more real because you could hold it?

LT: That was the logic. It was a tangible thing that I could touch and feel. I’m touching the comic book. I’m touching my pencil and paper. I could do this too! There wasn’t someone saying, “Hey, you can animate. Make a career of that!” No one was talking about that stuff. It was all just about comics and art, and being that I grew up with a lot of graffiti artists, and saw a lot of graffiti around me, I just felt like comics was the next logical thing to do. But at that time, I still didn’t see it as something I could do as a career, because I was too young.

By the time I became a junior in high school, that’s when I was familiar with comic book artists, the names.... By then, I’d built a little crew of friends who were also into that stuff, but I only had access to them when I came to Manhattan. Nobody

in my neighborhood was really into comics except this one guy who lived on the first floor. He introduced me to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but most of my friends were not really into comics like that. I had a couple of homies in my project buildings that I drew with, and my friend Manuel on the tenth floor, who I used to always visit his house because his parents would spoil me, he always had the hottest video game systems and games, and me and my brother would just hang out at his crib all the time, sometimes so late his mom would cook us dinner. And he had access to these Chinese comic books. I don’t know how he got them! You know what it was? I went down to Third Avenue, and I don’t know how they were selling them in the Latino community, but they had all these action figures that were characters from China, but they also came with these little black-and-white comic books. You remember Storm Warriors? It was a very popular Chinese comic book in the ’80s and ’90s. Those comics really got me into action comic books, and that’s when I got exposed to the difference between the stuff that guys like Rob Liefeld were doing and these Chinese comics that were just full of explosion drawings and burst cards and speed lines. When people would get hit, it would just look like a real punch, and the fights would last for 20 pages! That stuff really, really got me excited. “Man, this stuff is dope! Marvel and DC are cool, but it’s still posed illustrations and posturing, but this stuff is kinetic! These guys are moving!”

PRODUCTION REPORT

LT: Comics was my thing for a long time. What really changed it for me, I think, was reading the Akira comics.

Word got around that there was an animated movie called Akira, based off of the comic book. I wanted this Akira movie so bad that I saved up all my money—it was $29.99 for this VHS tape, and it was in a glass case at Forbidden Planet. I

Artwork © LeSean Thomas

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(above and next page top) Some of LeSean’s production work for Black Dynamite.

Black Dynamite © Black Dynamite, LLC

saved up all my money and got this joint. So excited! I got home, and I put the tape in, and you know what it was? It was Akira: The Production Report. It was the making of Akira. It was not the actual movie.

JN: Whoa!

LT: And I was so disappointed! I was like, “Who are these people talking? I thought this was a movie!” Have you seen it?

I’m sure it’s part of the Akira DVD, where Katsuhiro Otomo is talking—it was filmed in the ’80s—about how he made it, the storyboards, and they have the character breakdowns, and they show sections of the movie—about an hour-long special.

And I was so upset for a long time, but I was so thirsty to see this movie that I would watch this VHS just to see those clips of the movie.

What I was inadvertently doing was I was training myself to work at an animation studio. I would watch that VHS religiously, all the time, and I knew it by heart. It was Katsuhiro Otomo talking about how he started it as a comic book, and it showed him drawing the comic books, then it got big, and he talks about how he had to storyboard the entire movie himself, and he enlisted Koji Morimoto and all these other guys, and they’re going through every stage of the production of this movie. I watched that tape hundreds of times. I think that was the precursor to wanting to be in the studio environment, working with artists. The making of Akira was what got me to understanding that it was an actual job that people did. They’d spend lots of time at a table with computer monitors and just draw all day, making this movie. That happened around my junior year, or maybe my sophomore year in high school.

JN: When did you finally get your hands on the Akira movie?

LT: I don’t remember, but I know right around that time, the late ’80s, all these bootleg VHS tapes started popping up

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from China, where guys would get access to these movies and put them on VHS tapes, and they’d charge you 20 bucks, ten bucks a tape. That’s how I got into YuYu Hakusho, Dragonball Z, and all these other cartoons. There was a place called Octopus over on Lafayette Avenue, and there were two places in Chinatown where you could go downstairs, and there’d be an old Chinese lady selling them. I got exposed to everything—Flamo Recka, Berserk, Sorcerer’s Orphan, Bubblegum Crisis, everything—and I stopped looking at American cartoons; I stopped looking at Disney cartoons.

This was all I was watching.

JN: Did you ever get to the point where you were kind of disconnecting your other friends because your like list got really, really weird?

LT: In my neighborhood, yeah, because I became such a fan of these cartoons—some of them weren’t even subtitled, this is how far back I went. I was so mesmerized by the quality of this stuff. I couldn’t believe they were television shows! I’d watch these things over and over, and then after a while, you’d just know the songs. I love Bubblegum Crisis, the first series. It was ’80s synth/Japanese pop, and it was inspired by Blade Runner.

It was just really, really dope to me at the time. There was nothing else like it. I knew those songs by heart, that’s how much I loved Bubblegum Crisis. I got so infatuated with these cartoon shows with these insanely beautiful animated intros with these original songs, that I started looking down the recording artists of these songs, and that’s when I started getting exposed to Japanese soundtracks, buying the soundtrack for Bubblegum Crisis, or buying the soundtrack for Bastard, that kind of thing.

That’s when I started getting really, really like super-nerd hardcore, late ’80s/early ’90s, and then I started trying to incorporate that into my drawing style. By that point, my friends were not into the stuff that I was into.

JN: Do you consider yourself self-taught? I know most cartoonists who do this, especially in our age range, even if you went to art school, it’s not like people were really feeling cartoons then. They were actively against you.

LT: I’m not a fan of that term: “self-taught.” I used to wear it proudly on my sleeve. I used to equate that to not going to college. “I’m not going to college. I’m self-taught.” But the truth of the matter is, I learned from a lot of people. I’ve always had some kind of male figure in my life, some mentor or someone I sponged from, or someone I collaborated with at stages in my life, that I learned from. There was never a time where I was just doing stuff by myself. The one time I was doing stuff by myself was when I was putting things into practice. But I always made sure I had a circle of people around me, especially during those important formative years, that did what I did. And I copied a lot from Japanese animation. I copied a lot of cartoons. I copied a lot of comic book artists.

But there was a gentleman who played a key role in my development, and I don’t know why he did it. I was at this comic book convention—it had to have been ’96, ’95—and I met this gentleman. He was a soft-spoken dude, and I just thought he was a weird black dude, light-skinned. He looked mixed; he looked like a light-skinned Latino. And he was like, “Yo, man, so you have a portfolio?” I was in line, looking at showing my stuff...

I don’t know who was having a portfolio review. I was trying to get into comics at this point, and he was like, “Yo, man, your stuff’s really cool!” And I was like, “Thanks, man. What do you do? Are you a comic book artist?” He said, “Yeah, but not really. Do you want to see some of my stuff?” And I was like, “All right, cool.” And he showed me his portfolio, and it was like the dopest stuff I’d ever seen at the time! It was leaps beyond my understanding of anatomy and perspective. He just had it down.

I was just like, “Man, this stuff is dope! Can I have some copies of this?” It was just so dope! That was me. I was that dude that was like, “Dude, this is dope. Can I have some copies of this?” I just wanted to sponge from people, because I wasn’t in college.

That was just part of my personality. I would take this stuff and I would just hang it up on my walls when I got home.

His name was Alvin Williamson, and he was a student at Pratt, I later discovered. He was an illustration fine arts student at Pratt, and he was to me, at that time, at such a high level of drawing ability. He gave me his number, “Here’s my number, man. Yo, we should meet up some time and hang out.” And I’m like, “All right, cool.” And I thought he was kind of weird, that’s all, but we met up, and after a while, I started hanging out at his crib. He had an apartment. He was staying with his girlfriend, a woman who was much older than him! [laughter] He was an attractive dude, so I got it. He had his drafting table set up, and I would bring food, and we’d just be in his house for hours, just drawing. I would draw some stuff, and he would look at me and say, “Man, your stuff’s got so much pull and so much snap. Your anatomy’s wrong, but your energy... I’m trying to get that in my work!” That’s what he’d always say, and I didn’t get it. I was like, “Dude, if I could draw like you, I’d be working for Marvel right now,” I’d always say that to him.

He would just show me the basics of anatomy. He’d literally draw over my drawings, and fix things. Some of the drawings he would keep, because he’d be, “If I had your snap, I’d be drawing for Marvel right now!” That was his thing, you know?

It was a fascinating relationship. I think we were close friends for two and a half years. I got better around this guy.

I started copying his stuff, and he’d show me stuff. One time he sat me down and just broke down gradual growth; positive and negative space; the rule of threes, small, medium, and

Concept art from LeSean’s sketchbook Artwork © LeSean Thomas

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Artwork © LeSean Thomas

large; illustration theory—real stuff! And I still have these drawings. I have the sketchbook with those notes in it. They’re all jumbled and out of place, but when I look through it, I get teared up, because there are so many memories attached to that moment. This dude would sit down—and he was so well spoken, super-articulate, his vocabulary was crazy—and he would just talk to me in this calm voice, like, “Dude, your perspective is off. You need to understand juxtaposition, squash and stretch, and solid forms. You can’t break borders. Gutters represent time and space. The larger the gutters...” He was just breaking it down to me, like, “This guy’s a genius! No one ever explained it to me like that!” And he talked to me plainly in a way I wish my teachers in school would’ve talked to me! I just really understood where he was coming from.

Not only that, he could tell when I had a dumb look on my face, and, “All right, let me show you.” So, Alvin Williamson, I’ll never forget this guy. Just a really, really integral part of my growth at that point in my life.

I lost touch with him. I think there was a point where he wanted to do a comic book with me, and at that point in my life, I’d gotten so much older that I was just like, “I’m on my path. I’ve got my job downtown at the children’s accessories company.” I was just in a completely different space. I didn’t want to do comics any more. I wanted to create my own ideas and try to do cartoons. I can’t say we had a falling out, but we definitely lost touch. He left the city, he started a family, and life’s just like that. People come into your lives, and one minute they’re like the most important person to you, and then just like that, they’re just not there anymore. So when people ask me, “Are you self-taught?” unbeknownst to them, I have a

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quick flashback to this guy, Alvin. “Yeah, I am, but I had some help.” When people ask me, “Did you go to formal school?”

I say, “No, I didn’t go to formal school.” They say, “Damn, you’re self-taught!” And I’m like, “Yeah, I sponged from a lot of people. I learned from a lot of people.” When you ask me the question. “Am I self-taught?” I have to say I’m self-disciplined.

JN: Oh, I like that, I like that.

LT: Not self-taught, just self-disciplined. Because that was the one thing that no one could really take from me. You could say I’m wack and all that, but I’ll catch you in a few years, because I’m crazy about this stuff.

I used to envy kids who went to college, because my perception of college was just always dope! You had your dorm, you weren’t living with your parents, you had other people, you were getting booty, you were experimenting, you were doing all of these things, and I didn’t have that. I touched on this before, but even after I started getting paid professionally for the work for these licensing companies, and the work on these Flash animated cartoons, I still didn’t feel validated, because I didn’t have a degree in it. I always felt, “I don’t have anything if I don’t have a degree in it.” That was my mom’s mantra, “You need to get an education, a college degree, be educated.

You want to be good at something? Be the best at it.” That always stayed with me. So, I always had that kind of thing on my shoulder, up until I started working for Urban Box Office. After my mom passed away, I was like, “Can’t nobody tell me nothing. I’m doing stuff that kids in school are spending $120,000 to do. If I’m going to school, it’s going to be for something else.

I’m already in here.” That was kind of my logic.

Artwork © LeSean Thomas

I mean, Buzz Potamkin played a role in that when he kind of clowned me, saying, “Why you going to go to school when you are [already] doing it?” That was kind of the thing for me.

Here’s the producer of Cow and Chicken and Powerpuff Girls telling me, “Why are you going to school? You’re already here. You know how hard it is to get in here? Just run with it, and do your own thing! If you’re going to go to school, go to school for film directing or something else.”

JN: Yeah, flip it.

LT: Yeah, it really changed my perspective.

JN: It’s funny, because I’ve met a lot of different types of students, and some of them feel like being in school is going to open a door for them, and for a lot of people it does, or that they have to find validation in it. But then, a lot of them, when they graduate, they don’t even do it. They just kind of fall off, or whatever. Or they use the experience for something else.

LT: There’s a lot to be said about drive, and the people around you fuel that drive. It’s really hard doing it by yourself. It’s doable, but it’s much harder than being in a learning environment, where everyone’s there to do the same thing you’re doing, and everyone has the same aspirations you have, and it’s scheduled, and it’s in an organized fashion. And it’s in an institution where people are grooming you to do these things. The one thing I can take from not going to college is, one, the money. And two, I learned exactly what I wanted to learn as soon as I wanted to learn it. I didn’t take a bunch of prerequisites for stuff I didn’t want to do. And I’m not saying that’s the case for everybody, but more often than not, I hear people complaining, “I’m not

even doing what I want! I can’t do it until my third year,” or whatever. Maybe art history curriculum courses play a role in that. I’m not sure. I know that, for me, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was just fortunate enough to be allowed to do it right away. In that regard, I don’t really regret missing college.

The industry was my college, so to speak.

JN: We’ve started talking about working, and here it is on a Saturday, and you’re in the office.

LT: I’m working on [Black] Dynamite episode seven. I’m doing revisions on the animatic, so I’m actually drawing the entire time I’m talking to you.

You know, the easy stuff is easy to do. I guess what I’m really trying to say is all the shows that are easy to do are usually in their ninth season, when they really suck. [laughter] All the really good shows that are innovative and different and new always require going above and beyond the status quo, as far as conventional production, you know what I’m saying? The system, I’ve always thought, is based on the success of another production which is usually considerably lower in quality today. Any time you try to do something new, that means changing conventions, going against the grain. Doing the opposite of what’s been done before. In my past experience, studios are just not very receptive to that idea. It’s just the way it is, man.

You try to do something new, you’ve got to work more hours to make it really hit, so I’ll be in tomorrow, too.

JN: [laughs] Well, that was something I was going to ask you later, about work ethic and, you know, just dealing with different groups of people to make something happen. Do you find

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LeSean’s model sheet for Bushido Brown for The Boondocks.

The Boondocks © Aaron McGruder

that there are usually a couple of people who are really in it to just push the boundaries, and other people get dragged along?

LT: You know, that’s interesting. That topic comes up quite a lot, and I think I’ve gotten a different perspective on that, especially when I left the country for a couple of years to live in South Korea, having that experience, working late nights, 20-hour days with Korean animators, and the Korean production system. It’s a very interesting, symbiotic relationship between Korea and America when it comes to television animation production.

Every job, every place has those people, you know. There’s always the archetype, the person who has the vision and the dream and the hustle, and the aspirations to do something that’s never been done before. And then you have the person or the people who are hand-picked, who are about it, down for the cause. And then you have those people, like you mentioned, who are just kind of along for the ride. They see an opportunity—and it’s not to slight those types of people, I’ve just learned over the years that not everybody wants to be the boss, not everybody wants to tell stories. Some people are, in fact, just infatuated with drawing, and it doesn’t matter what project they work on.

Coming from New York City, it’s always been about the hustle for me, like every single day. Out in L.A., everything seems a little more laid back from my point of view by comparison. So if I see someone that good, I’m automatically assuming that they’re hustling the system. Yeah, they’re doing this stuff for this guy, but the real stuff [laughs] is on the side. They have to cut off a piece for them, because they can’t spend the rest of their lives making everybody else’s dreams come true. You can’t be this good and not have your own

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thing popping off, because logic would put you in that direction, you know what I’m saying? What I’ve learned is that there are guys who are super-talented, amazingly good, and they have no aspirations to do their own stuff, for a number of reasons. They don’t want to have to deal with the politics of the industry, they’re uncomfortable with the business aspect, or they just want to draw. And some people just don’t have a story to tell! Those are the types of people that I run into a lot.

But the reason I bring up the outsourcing aspect and the creative aspect is, in answer to your question, I’ve learned working with Korean animators... their culture is completely different. They’re really prideful in their work, but they’re extremely humble, in my experience—extremely humble. I’m not entirely sure where that comes from. It could be part of their culture; it could be a religious thing, a Buddhist thing. I don’t know what it is, but the type of drama I deal with, as far as talent is concerned in Korea, is nothing compared to the type of drama I deal with in Hollywood. In Hollywood, the system is established that if you’re really good, you can kind of be an asshole. It’s so prevalent that when you meet someone who’s really good, there’s a popular saying, “Man, he’s so good. Why isn’t he an asshole?” [laughter] “He should be an asshole!”

Because we expect that. We’ve enabled that behavior, which is pretty sad. And I run into that all the time in Hollywood. In fact, I had culture shock when I came back to working in Hollywood, because I was so used to working around immensely talented, creative monsters who could do everything—backgrounds, props, layout, key animation, in-between, color. They can do it all—storyboard, character design. And I come to the States, and there it’s so compartmentalized. There’s character design—you just do character design; you’re not good at

I don’t think that way. Guys like me ask questions, are not anything else. There’s people that do just storyboards. Some of these people actually behave like divas who are entitled. happy. I quit my job at Warner Brothers, pick up, leave the It’s mind-blowing to me! I look at this, and they take it for country [laughs] to create my own way, to build a level of granted, or they’re just very indifferent towards it. It’s just a experience that my peers don’t have. So when I come back, completely different type of culture that I’d been exposed to I am way more valuable then just being a set of hands, befor the last, you know, 700, 800 days in Korea. It’s just jarring cause now I’m in bed with producers and execs and studio for me. presidents overseas. I don’t need the networks to get access to So yeah, I run into that type of drama all the time, people studios overseas, I can just call them or fly over there myself. who are just there because they see an opportunity, or people That’s me. I open my mouth, and the guys who are used to who arrive at that position, and it’s like that’s it, they made it, the old ways just start rolling their eyes. I’m that kind of cat. they have nothing else to strive for. They’re happy to be here, they’re not trying to ruffle any feathers. Then you have guys JN: And that’s dangerous to a lot of people. like me, who are just loudmouths, outspoken, always having LT: In what sense? unpopular opinions, always questioning the structure of the system. “Why is it this way? How can we change this? How do we make this better?” I’ve always been the type of individual to want to know more than my peers.

You know what I mean?

Always try to do more.

Being in an environment where I can always learn.

You know, they have that saying, if you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room—unless you’re being paid obscene amounts of money, then it’s okay. But most of the time, LeSean shows his process in an episode of Seoul Sessions. it’s not really cool for me to Seoul Sessions © LeSean Thomas be the best guy in the room, you know what I’m saying? I want to be in a room where JN: Well, being somebody who can just go in and say, “Look, guys make me feel like I’m not that great, because they’re I see another way of doing this, and I have the credentials to that good. And that’s what I got when I was in Korea. I got make a change,” it bucks the status quo of people. “Look, surrounded by guys who are just on so many different levels, here’s a guy who can actually upend things that are happening producing and animating all of these amazing shorts on their around here.” That can be dangerous. own, and being in that circle and then coming to America and LT: Yeah, I can kind of see that. I’m not really upending anynot seeing that.... thing. That’s more of a projected fear. A lot has to happen for Pre-production is king here. No one thinks past pre-pro- certain things to be upended, but I follow you. duction. Now, people do, with the advent of Storyboard Pro, You know, I think a lot of it too is I’m not from Hollywood. and animatics, they try to do stuff in Flash, but no one’s re- My family is still on the East Coast. I’ve got to go to New York, ally trying to produce an animated short on their own and Atlanta, and Florida to see my family. I’m from New York, and then pitching it, or posting it online. People in this industry the stereotype about New Yorkers talking about how they’re are more trying to get compartmentalized jobs in the industry. from New York is very true! [laughs] You know, the hustle... it’s You talk to them about producing an animated short, and they all about hustle. Hollywood is very like that too, but it’s a very look at you like, “Wow, who will pay for it?” Like that’s not passive-aggressive kind of hustle, whereas New York is very worth busting your ass for, because it’s already in their mind- upfront, and I’m used to having my heart on my sleeve, speakset, expecting to do the lowest common denominator, the bare ing plainly—which is a dying art form—and just being honest! minimum. Okay, well, you’re surrounded with character de- Asking the right questions. And because I’m not in that circle. I signers and prop designers and storyboard guys. If I want to didn’t go to CalArts, I didn’t go to Art Center, I’m not part of this pitch an idea, I’m going to do that and sell it, no one thinks alumni clique of graduates. I’m from the outside. I came to Holabout animation, because they think animation is something lywood in a polarizing way. I came to Hollywood not only from that’s handled by the studios overseas, you know?

New York City, but I came to develop one of the most polarizing

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and groundbreaking animated television shows in history. I came from the outside...outside of that existing circle where everyone knew each other, so I felt like [an outsider]. I didn’t want to come off like I was trying to be with a certain clique or belong to a specific crew, and didn’t want to be identified as such either. The TV animation community is very small, so it can seem that way at at times. I just tried my best to find work and stay in my lane....

I’ve gotten my experience on Boondocks alone. It wasn’t until I branched out and started working at other studios that I started getting exposed to those other sets, those other cliques.

So, I’ve always felt like an outsider, even outside of my speaking my mind and speaking differently. That’s just been my whole theme since moving to L.A. And there are times when I’m conscious of it, and there are times when it’s a subconscious thing. My lens of how I view change, and changing status quo, and trying to do different things, comes from being from New York, and comes from bringing that kind of New York hustle, where it’s like, “Okay, I can’t get animation at the level of Young Justice or Korra because the networks are the guys who greenlight the shows, and finance the studios to produce it. So how do I get to the studios, because I want to produce this?”

That’s the way I think; that’s how I was raised.

Coming back to your question, when I work with people, I’m picking people specifically with those things in mind, and you’ll always run into people who have a problem with that.

And it’s not because they have a better idea, they just don’t want to be involved with things that are different.

JN: Did you ever go through a period of being frustrated with cats when you were still coming up, where you had all these bullets in your gun that you could fire off, but you were gun shy?

LT: All the time. I’ve never mentioned this before—and this is not a slight to any of my peers—but I’ve always felt, because I was heavily into anime—and I’m not saying that I just watch anime and I collect anime figures—this stuff is in my work, I draw it. I run into a lot of people who love anime, but it doesn’t reflect their work. They draw like Bruce Timm, or they draw like Glen Murakami, or Jeff Matsuda, or any standardized square jaw, square shoulder, or conservative American animation style that was popularized by Bruce Timm. I didn’t draw any of that stuff. And then on top of that, I was secretly harboring insecurities, because I always felt like, “Man, my first outlet was this incredibly socially irreverent show that looks like anime that’s starring all black people talking about black issues. All types of black people, not just one particular type.” When I got to Warner Brothers or Cartoon Network, I felt just out of fear—and I could’ve been wrong, but that’s just how I felt then—I needed to curb my behavior and my personality, because they didn’t know me. It was more important to just focus on being a hard worker, and not extending myself too much.

JN: Like being a “personality.”

LT: Yeah, more of a personality and not a person. And that’s how I felt at Warner Brothers to some extent... less of a degree at Warner Brothers than at Cartoon Network, I felt like I Another model sheets for The Boondocks. was less of a personality than an inThe Boondocks © Aaron McGruder dividual. And there weren’t a lot of When I told my old colleagues in ’08 and ’09 that I was go- African-Americans there that I could really feel comfortable, ing to move to Korea, they thought I was crazy! They thought, because animation in the United States is primarily white, “Oh, they don’t make any money over there.” They don’t. I got Asian, and Latino. There are not a lot of African-Americans paid pennies in Korea, but that wasn’t why I went there. I went in supervising director or producing positions. When you’re there to build those connections, those relationships with the around a society or culture where you’re not part of that, you animators, because I knew when I got back I was going to be know, you have to curb yourself. You have to behave and act making good money. I could put money to the side and reach in a certain way that people who have no experience with out to individual animators and directors and studio presidents people who look like you feel comfortable. So you walk that and say, “Hey, I’ve got two Gs here. I need some ink and paint. line, and you try to be conservative. It’s an interesting thing to I’ve got a couple of animators here. They’re charging $250. Cut deal with, and I felt frustrated, because I wanted to see more that, I’ve got $3,000. I want to produce 30 seconds of film.” So people who looked like me without feeling like I’m being racfor me, that’s just the way I see the world. ist. Does that make any sense?

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Cannon Busters promotional piece.

Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas

JN: Yeah, and it goes again back to high school, where you go into Manhattan around all these new people, and again, you just can’t go there and just work. You have all these other things going through your head. I’m sure you have experiences just coming into the door of a building, you know what I mean, that other people don’t have.

LT: Sure, and then at the same time, on a human level, why does that matter? So it’s back and forth. I don’t want to project all this blackness on all my white friends who don’t have deep and meaningful relationships with black people! Because they don’t! They’ve got relationships with black Americans, but they don’t have families that they eat dinner with, that they call up, that they hang out with. There are a lot of them that don’t have that. So do I play to the stereotype to make them feel familiar or comfortable, or just be myself, or just be quiet and let my work speak for me? Those are the questions that I asked myself throughout my entire career.

The only time I didn’t feel that way was when I went to Korea, which is the strangest thing, because American racism and Korean racism are not the same. In Korea, I’m just a foreigner. In America, I’m just another nigger. You know what I’m saying? When I got to Korea, all of these insecurities and armors that I’ve learned to suppress and wear, like being afraid of being accosted by a police officer, or wearing the wrong colors in my own neighborhood, or looking at a person too long leads to hostility, or racial profiling, or behaving a certain way to make my own friends feel comfortable, all of those things I learned to be a master at and navigate in America, because I didn’t have a choice. And in Korea those weren’t issues I had to deal with. I went from being LeSean Thomas, an African-American, to being Kobe Bryant and Barack Obama. That’s what they took from me when they saw me! That’s not a bad look, you know? People look at you and connect you with the leader of the free world, that’s much

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better than hip hop and Shaquille O’Neal—not to diss those guys; they’re my heroes too.

It’s really, really fascinating, all these things tying into how to fit in, not to make it a big deal, but to also be aware of it. It’s a very, very difficult thing to juggle. And that led to frustration. Whenever I didn’t see faces that looked like me, I was frustrated. I was like, “Man, that’s why Boondocks is such an important part of my career,” not only was I able to work with people who looked like me, but these were my homies. I’ve known Carl Jones for over ten years. We met in Greensboro, North Carolina, before this Hollywood stuff!

So working with Carl Jones, working with Aaron McGruder, working with Rodney Barnes, all the black writers and all the black talent—and these guys were the bosses in charge—that was new to me! It was the first time I was able to work on a show where not only was I comfortable being black, and that being okay without offending anyone—because for some reason, black culture pride is offensive compared to Asian culture pride, or Latino culture pride. [laughs] I learned a lot of history about African-Americans working on Boondocks, because of all the source material and due diligence we had to do to be able to tie all the commentary and jokes together. Being able to talk plainly about our history, and to draw and to design characters, and it’s in an anime style? That was gold for me. I was sad when that show ended! That was personal experience for me, you know? It shouldn’t be, but it is, because of the system, and America, and the way things are.

Yeah, when The Boondocks was wrapped up, I was frustrated. Even when we were doing The Boondocks I was frustrated. When we first started, we were preferring to hire African-American artists, because we knew this show was so offensive. We didn’t want to create any drama with people who didn’t understand the culture. We didn’t want there to be any issues. What we found out was, there just weren’t a lot of brothers and sisters in TV animation production who could produce at that level. We wanted, like, Samurai Champloo style drawing, and Samurai Champloo staging, and action sequences and that kind of stuff, and we couldn’t find people who could actually do whatever we needed like that. So we started asking questions like, “Why aren’t there more people of color? We know Bruce Smith, we know Dwayne McDuffie, but where are...?” So that kind of frustration, you know, I had to deal with.

More of LeSean’s boards for Black Dynamite.

Black Dynamite © Black Dynamite, LLC

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JN: After Boondocks was wrapping, or even while you were on it, did you have a lot of people approaching you for work? How did that change things as far as your career was concerned? Did you have to start turning things down, or considering what your next thing was, or just ignore that?

LT: Well, sure, I mean, naturally television is seasonal, so that’s a process that happens every year. When a show project ends, if you don’t get a pick-up before it ends, you’re planning your next move. I’m fortunate enough to be a character designer and a storyboard artist, so I can do both jobs. But The Boondocks was what it was. It was a polarizing show. It was a polarizing production across the board. The show had a reputation for many things, good and bad, and the show, at the time, was unlike any other show, so when I wrapped up my work on The Boondocks, no one was calling me saying, “Hey, we want to hire you.”

I met people within the industry who were nice enough to send my storyboard samples to different studios, and they saw that I was actually a good board artist, and they would give me job opportunities, and that’s how I got to it, but no one from Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon or Warner Brothers went, “Yo, we loved that black show with the offensive and brilliant commentary. We loved that style. You should come work on our show.” Boondocks was it, and that was all.

I wasn’t getting any looks from that, so I had to navigate the system and build other relationships while I was at Sony with other studios so that I could warm up. You know, you work your way around the system. No, I didn’t get any offers

because I was working on The Boondocks for other television productions. This show was not a show with people rushing to work on, because of its reputation.

I’m trying to just balance the wire and stay present and relevant in what it is I’m doing.

And I’m still learning, you know? I remember very early on, before the Internet became the way it is now, ten years ago, I was very apprehensive about promoting myself. There’s kind of a negative air to the artist promoting themselves for some reason. I don’t know where it originates, but there’s a very, very negative taboo connotation coming from an artist who promotes himself. It seems like the artists are, “Okay, you do work, and then if no one notices you, that’s your ass!” It’s your art; it’s not you. I was always the type of cat who was like, “No, man, I want to do interviews. I want to hype my stuff up. I want to get excited. I want people to see how enthusiastic I am about creating!” I wasn’t very vocal when The Boondocks started, and I won’t name any names, but there were people who were very unhappy with me... and there’s no particular reason. They never told me, because they didn’t confront me on it, but I’ve heard from people that people weren’t too pleased that I was very vocal and very excited about what it is I’m doing for a living and that kind of thing. They were just going, “Oh, he’s just talking too much. He’s whoring himself out,” that kind of mentality. This is before social media; this is before MySpace.

I was just like, “Yo! This is what I’m doing! Email me if you want to talk about comics!” That was my mindset. And look now, ten years later, that’s the standard. Now you can’t survive without interacting with your fanbase!

JN: You have an Internet presence, you have a fan presence, and then you have a professional presence with other artists and producers. You have all these different circles of people that have an idea of what’s really going on around you at the same time. So, when you’re doing your work, and then you’re kind of reporting back to your social media presence, does that ever get frustrating for you? Kind of feeling the comments from people on, say, Facebook that, “Yo, LeSean pulled it out, this is amazing,” and just separating it out from your actual work. Do things like that get in the way while you are working?

LT: I don’t think so. That’s a very good question. First of all, thank God for the Internet and social media, because this is really what it means to be an artist in my opinion. The social media is one of the best things to happen to artists. And now, more than any other time—at least, as long as I’ve been alive— is the best time to be an artist. Prior to being more involved in animation production, I was just producing. The environment I lived in, comic books and so on, allowed me to do an individual pin-up and put it out there, and people could react. I can do a comic book and people can react. But when I started working in animation production, the gaps of content coming out started to stretch, because I was putting in more time in animation. If I’m working on a television show, I’m going to be on that show for at least 12 to 15 months! That means I don’t have a lot of time to invest on the side. That’s when I started making art books. Because I felt like I still needed to maintain a presence out there by putting out compilations of new work, while I’m still able to do these seasons. Because for me, it’s a two-fold thing: I have a season released, and for the duration of those episodes airing, I have my window of hype and promotion, from interA still shot from LeSean’s upcoming Cannon Busters animated feature. acting with fan bases, to doing interCannon Busters © LeSean Thomas views, to even using the success of the show’s run to pitch show ideas, or to go to other studios while the show is doing well on the air. JN: That’s true.

When you’re doing illustrations and comic books, you don’t LT: No one knows who you are, no one cares, unless you’ve really need that. It just stands out there. What’s happening with got the backing of the small boys’ club pool of mainstream me is, it’s not frustrating, it’s just realizing that the audience for comics, where you’ve got the support of the publishers and illustration and comic books are still there with me, but there Previews and whatever hyping you up. You’ve got to put in are also fans of animation, so they watch what I make in televi- some work for people to be aware of your body of work and sion. Then you have people who watch the cartoon shows, but your comic book! So, I’m kind of glad it turned out that way, they’re not into the actual illustration side of it. And then you but it was never frustrating for me. I was just trying to figure have the Facebook side of it, which is more personal, people out, “I’m going to put this out to see how people react, and who are just following me because they know I worked on I’m going to study how people react to what I’m doing, and if Boondocks, but they may not be particularly interested in the that doesn’t work, I’m going to stop doing that and I’ll go do production aspect of it, because it can be pretty boring if you this.” And I’m still doing that! I just joined Tumblr last year, tell it plainly. So, I have these three levels of connection, where and I just joined Facebook. And I just joined Twitter.

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LT: Yeah, it’s all about edu-tainment. It’s anime this, anime that, comics this, comics that, W.E.B. Dubois. I’m very, very conscious about what it is I’m doing. I know people get turned off behind the idea of an agenda, but those are the things I like, and I’m slowly shedding the fear of expressing those things. Because for a while, I was very afraid to talk about those things, because people around me... it’s kind of like talking about someone’s religion, you know what I mean? It’s a very uncomfortable thing. Race is a very difficult thing to talk about without it becoming personal. People can’t talk about race intelligently, at least in my experience, at least not for very long before it degrades into name-calling, or, “This is the problem with black people,” that sort of thing. I’m very, very touchy about race, and those kinds of things. But those things are important to me, and these are real issues.

We do it through our animation, through Black Dynamite or The Boondocks, if you paid attention. We’re very, very particular about certain lessons. Even though Black Dynamite is a bit crazier and wackier, we still touch on those issues. So I’m conscious about what it is I’m Another model sheets for The Boondocks. putting out there.

The Boondocks © Aaron McGruder

JN: Are you conscious about what you’re putting on what type of media? Do you separate everything, like, “Facebook is going to be more of a personal side, Twitter I’m just going to hit them up with this, or Tumblr is more of this.” How are you doing that?

LT: I think when I started that was the idea. But now, I’m finding that the things I post on Tumblr get re-tweeted in Twitter. I did a hash tag search on my name the other day, just to see if people are talking about me, just to see if what I’m do-

ing is actually being recognized, and figure out how to study this marketing and gauge how people are reacting to what I’m doing. I’ve found out that my Tumblr posts, people share them on Twitter! Okay, cool, maybe that makes it okay if I can put something on Tumblr and post the same thing on Twitter, and now it’s starting to creep into my Facebook account, where the things I post on Facebook I’ll post on Tumblr. I also have an art group as well—only 3,000 members—where I post just strictly art and animation related stuff. News always goes on everything. It goes on my Twitter, and Tumblr, and Facebook. But if it’s important articles, or something about pro-blackness, or celebrating blackness, or black history, like “Did you know?” kind of stuff—I love that kind of stuff—I post a lot of that on my Tumblr, and sometimes I post it on my Facebook account. I’ve been posting that stuff the past few months, where I just post, “Did you know the inventor of the cartridge-based game console was a black guy from Queens?” or the first black opera singer who paved the way for black opera singers. That kind of stuff. Or the first 90-minute animated feature was directed by a woman in Germany! No one knows about things like that. I’m an advocate for feminism and cultural pride, but not in an intimidating way! [laughs] JN: It’s kind of like “edu-tainment.”

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JN: Going backwards a little bit, before what the Internet is now, you were part of Internet collectives, and things like that that don’t really exist the same way because of Facebook.

People are more personalized as opposed to being more like a crew of people. I remember when you were doing your Artxilla thing, and then there was Ledheavy, if I got that right.

LT: Yeah, Ledheavy was a crew that I wasn’t a part of, but I really liked those guys’ forums, so I was active on those forums.

JN: Message boards and things like that aren’t really the same as they used to be.

LT: Who needs a message board when you have Twitter, Tumblr, Pintrest, Vine, Instagram...? These things didn’t exist ten years ago. That was the only means for people to connect, was through those forums. Now people can post stuff in their own corner of the Internet for themselves.

JN: Do you think networking has changed at all since then?

Consider all the people you know just from when you started networking on the Internet versus now, where people come to you because of your name. Do you find it harder to connect with creatives now than before?

LT: In what sense?

A series of still shots from the pilot of LeSean’s upcoming Cannon Busters animated feature.

Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas

JN: Just that there are so many people out there that you’re aware of now. If you go to Deviant Art, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. Is there so much snow and static on a lot of these things, it’s harder for you to pick out voices these days?

LT: You know... not really. Deviant Art is something I still constantly look at. I try to be active on it, and you just never know when you’re going to find a new artist. I get people who hit me up all the time, but they’re not active professional artists. And now, with globalization and the world shrinking because of the Internet, I don’t even look at the States any more for talent. The guys I’m looking at are in Austria, Belgium, and Germany. Those are the guys I work with. I want to say in the last seven years, my major collaborators of color, in other projects in general, have been people from other countries. I haven’t done an American collaboration outside of television, in illustration, in a very long time. I used to do those things with Artxilla and stuff like that, but now I’ve started realizing that there are many great guys in France, and Europe, and Japan, and China, and I have access to them, so I hit up those guys and try to collaborate with them. Especially with Korea, Korea more recently I’ve probably done the most collaborating, finding individual animators with specific skills—some are good at action, some are good at acting—and just kind of reaching out to them from the States. I don’t really work with a lot of American guys. I don’t see it as static. I’m pretty conscious about who I reach out to, and who I try to work with.

JN: It seems like you travel a lot, but it also seems like you have all your ducks in a row. Are you a planner? How do you keep all the days straight?

LT: I don’t, man. I don’t know how I do this stuff. It’s kind of like, I would assume, having a child. You don’t really have a plan for your kids, really. You have a broad idea how the year’s going to turn out, but day to day, it’s impossible to plan. It’s kind of like whoever screams the loudest gets my attention. It’s usually in the form of deadlines. I’m being really good about it this year.

I’m turning down a lot of work, a lot of opportunities, because I’m focused on what I want to say, and how I want to say it and put it out there. I’ve got maybe four or five projects happening in various stages of production that will require my time. At any moment in the next month, I’m just working on that, and the next month I’m working on this, while I’m doing the television thing. So there isn’t an overall organizing aspect of it, that’s just how I’ve always worked. I’ve always worked like that, working on multiple things. Even as a kid, I would start a comic and not finish it, then start another because I had a great idea, then I’d go back and finish it, then finish this one. It’s kind of like keeping up with your bills. [laughter] I’m going to pay this one, but I’m going to let this one go a little bit; I’ll pay this one later.

JN: Whatever color the envelope is....

LT: Right, if it’s pink, you need to pay that! [laughter]

JUST DRAW

JN: Tell me about how you got into drawing comics, and doing some of the comic book projects you’ve worked on.

LT: Well, I tried to be a comic book artist, and I don’t think it worked out. I did a lot of samples for Marvel that got turned down, and I eventually crossed over into licensing art design, which led into the opportunities in Flash animation, which eventually led into animation. I got into animation before I got into comics. I did a couple of web cartoons back in the late ’90s, and then I did some independent Flash animation projects for some dotcoms right around the dotcom boom, and then I went into animation. Right after 9/11, I got into full animation working with an animator, Kevin Lofton. He was one of the animators on Lizzie McGuire, and I was an assistant animator on that TV show for about a year and a half. Then right when that wrapped up, I started doing some freelance storyboarding and design work for a couple of independent animated shorts that didn’t really go anywhere. Then I started finally sitting down with all of these years of animation production experience and said, “Okay, now it’s time for me to try and do a comic.”

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I started to come up with this idea for a comic book series—this was back in 2002, 2001—and I put some of the concepts on Pat Lee’s company Dreamwave Comics’ forums. Pat Lee saw them, and said, “Yo, this stuff looks great. Where are you from? I haven’t heard about you. We’d love to do something with this, but we’ve got a line of titles that need to come out prior to something like this, but I’d love to get your style on an original project I’m working on called Arkanium.” He pitched me that idea, and I was, “Okay.”

I had a contact with Chris Walker, a friend of mine at that time who was a talented colorist, and my one-time colleague Brandon Easton, and that was Brandon’s first gig. Pat Lee pitched the rough idea for Arkanium, and we fought to get Brandon on board, because we wanted to see what it would be like to have an all black creative team. That was my dream, a black penciler, a black colorist, black inker, black writer, let’s do it! And we did it! We convinced Pat Lee. I said, “I’ll do this as long as I get to work with Chris Walker. I want to pick my team. Brandon Easton’s got to ink it.” And Pat was like, “Whatever, your stuff is cool.” I sent the premise to Brandon Easton, and dude came up with the dopest concept ever! This was his first time. This dude is brilliant!

And we did it! And we were late, the book got late. That was just a bad experience, because it was a learning curve for me.

Prior to drawing comics, I always had a very scathing and unforgiving point of view on comic book artists, and that was because I wanted to be one so bad. I was kind of harboring jealousy, so I would just be like, “Yo, Pat Lee is dope, but Rob Liefeld is terrible.” Rob Liefeld was the go-to, you know what I mean? Just like, “Yo, he’s terrible. He can’t draw.” This is the same guy I worshipped when he did X-Force, right? I just thought it was easy—typical young kid stuff you say when you’re 23. “I can do this!” And I didn’t realize how incredibly hard it was to draw a comic every month! Really hard! Like really hard!

Backgrounds, characters, action, drawing... self-esteem, confidence, you know... I’d hype myself up so much to get this thing out. I gave it everything I wanted, and then I was like, “Issue one, pencils are due here,” and I’m like, “Oh my God, what am I going to do?”

JN: “What have I done?”

LT: “I have to draw this book! I don’t want to have to do this. This is crazy. How do I do this?” I was just straight-up punking out! I didn’t realize the enormity and responsibility I had!

JN: Did you just freeze up?

LT: I froze up pretty bad on that first issue of Arkanium, and then, I’ll never forget it, and I’ll always credit him for this, my homie, Keron Grant, I called him up, and was like, “Yo, man, what did you do when you did Iron Man back in those days, the crazy Iron Man. How did you draw all that?” And he was just like, “Man, I’m going to tell you like this, man: Just draw, man. Just draw.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s not really what I wanted, but all right.”

More stills from the pilot episode of Cannon Busters.

Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas

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JN: You were looking for the magic pill.

LT: Exactly, something to make my ego and self-esteem feel better. It wasn’t going to change my circumstances, I was probably still going to stare at a blank page for hours, but... he was like, “Just draw, that’s it.” I went, “All right, cool,” and I sat down, and I lost myself. Before I knew it, me and Brian were emailing each other, meeting up at Starbuck’s, playing with ideas and thumbnails and character designs

and stuff like that, and that was my first project, Arkanium.

JN: You’re really hard on yourself now, looking back at it. Did you just have a different idea of what you wanted when you...?

LT: I had no idea what I wanted.

I’d been dreaming about making my own comic for so long, and when it finally fell in my lap, I just kind of scatterbrained it. “Okay, now I want to do this, now I want to do that.” When you look at the book, it’s just all over the place.

I was breaking all kinds of 180° rules, panel mistakes, but I knew that as long as the energy was there, people would feel it, and that was the one thing I can really say about that book, is when you look at it, it’s just energy all over the place.

Hard to read energy, but energy.

It was an interesting time, and when the book was about to get cancelled.... You know, Arkanium was competing with a whole bunch of books at Dreamwave. First there were Transformers books, and then they released three titles at once: Fate of the Blade, Arkanium, and I don’t know if it was Dark Minds or Sandscape, but they released three titles when they originally launched their Dreamwave Comics imprint, and we were Phase One of that imprint. I just felt like Pat should’ve released one book at a time, released Arkanium first, or Fate of the Blade first, and after six months you see what happens, then you launch the second series, so that each book had a chance to shine on its own. I felt like we were competing for a lot of space.

But it wasn’t his fault, it was his first time running a comic book company too. We were all young at that time. Yeah, that was how I got in to comics, was through Pat Lee. Pat Lee was the only guy who believed in me. He saw my stuff—and I didn’t even have any pages; he just saw my concept designs.

He didn’t even know I was black. Pat Lee, real talk, was the only guy in comics doing associated color comics, you know what I mean? Dark Minds, Record of Lodoss War—which was Warlands, but I call it Record of Lodoss War because it was the clearest inspirational homage or whatever. He was the only guy interested in producing that associated, animated comic book style. He was the only one doing that really big.

Over the years, I’d talk to people about working on Arkanium, or Dreamwave, and they’d go into their “Dreamwave sucks” diatribe, and how messed up it was, and the messy politics behind Pat Lee and that stuff, but when I look at Pat Lee, I see a guy who gave me a shot. I didn’t deal with those issues.

I will forever be in gratitude to Pat Lee, because he was the

A wallpaper promo for Cannon Busters.

Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas

only guy who saw value in me when nobody at Marvel or DC gave a crap about my work. And I was drawing like Jim Lee.... Dude, I had batches of pages that were like nothing I would draw now! The one time I drew like me, Pat was like, “This is dope. I like this. Let’s do a comic.”

JN: Especially when you were younger, and you were trying to figure out just the right formula to gamble on, how hard was it for you to just let your own style shine, and stop trying to emulate somebody else’s stuff?

LT: It was right after I stopped pursuing comic books, and started getting gigs in animation—storyboards, character design—where that kind of dead line style was acceptable. It was mandatory! I started being in an environment where my dead line weight was important to the process. So, by the time I hopped into comics after being in animation for four or five years, I was just like, “This is me. I’ve already gotten my approval from the people who not only paid me to do this stuff, but paid me and forced me to stay in a clean line weight.” No one was telling me anything else. By this point, I said, “This is me. I’ve done this for five years. If I’m going to do a comic book, it’s going to look like a cartoon.”

JN: I was going through your Seoul Sessions YouTube videos, and those are really great man.

LT: Oh really? Thanks, man. I didn’t really watch those things. I put them out, I wasn’t expecting to get lots of responses. I was just happy that people sent back responses, and

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asked questions and stuff. That was my love letter to Akira: Production Report. That was my own behind the scenes inkling of animation, also doubling as a artist profile series, but also doubling as a “Here’s my own creation, and I’m actually making this in Korea.” And it served as therapy, because I was living in Korea for so long, if I wasn’t creating an activity out of this stuff I was doing by myself, I probably would’ve gone crazy. So, I really appreciate it that you saw this stuff, and thought it was good.

idea, but when you actually put it on paper, and you start to get other people involved, it starts to shift further and further away from the idea you originally had in your head.” And then your feelings get involved, your time and emotions get involved in that process, that it’s not close to what you want.

When I met Kim Kidoo, the animation director at JM Animation, one night, and I showed him my concept ideas for Cannon Busters, I was already familiar with his work—his clean lines, his character design style—because he’s a character designer and an animation director and a layout artist, all those things. When I met up with him, I’d already seen his drawings, and I was like, “Okay, this is probably going to be dope,” but the changes we make.... If I’m going to do this, it has to be completely new, but still have some of the remaining elements of the characters, so they’re identifiable.

Obviously, certain aspects of the character designs define their personalities. For example, the main character, Sandra, she’s African-American, she’s got the blonde hair, blue eyes, she’s wearing the blue outfit. How it was designed, however, was simplified not only for animation, but just because I wanted the characters to have a more universal appeal. When I draw them in the comic, I add all of this detail, and all this crazy stuff, but with animation, it’s still detailed, but there has to be a certain kind of appeal to it, so people can relate to it. So they can see the character and instantly like it. And that process took a while, because Kim More stills from LeSean’s Seoul Sessions.

Kidoo was working on Seoul Sessions © LeSean Thomas several animation projects, JN: No, it was really great, and I’ve watched them a couple and I was working on Warner Brothers direct-to-videos. I was of times. You only did five, and you were working on Cannon doing character and CG layout for DC Showcase Animated Busters in animated form. Do you want to talk about changing Shorts at the time with my animation director, Kim Sang-Jin. I was an assistant under him as a layout artist. So it took us the styles of something you created into a different format?

LT: One of the greats, Katsuhiro Otomo said, and I’m para- maybe five months to finalize the designs of the character bephrasing here, “When you have an idea, it’s so wonderful, it’s fore I got in touch with my buddy Fabian in Germany to color so exciting. You get so excited that you can actually do this them up and become the art director.

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Artwork © LeSean Thomas

That process was pretty much what I said about it in the Seoul Sessions—finding the balance between the declarative look of the characters, but also making them more appealing, simplified but in a way they look identifiable. And because the series never went beyond two issues, and I never finished the graphic novel, that also played a role in it. When people are seeing these characters for the first time, I can embellish it a little bit. And that was pretty much that, as far as simplifying it for animation.

JN: About your art books, I know you have a couple of them, right, two or three?

LT: Yeah, the first one, Nervous Breakdowns, I put out in 2006. And then two years later, I did a second one. It was a homage book called Midnight Marauder after the classic album Midnight Marauders. I even did the cover like the album cover, with all of my favorite luminary guys at the time. If you look at the faces on the cover, it’s Dave Johnson, Kano Kimanyen, Khary Randolph, Sanford Greene, and all of these guys, Skottie Young. I got all of these guys to take photos with headphones on to do this cover, because I felt the book was really a celebration of the concept of what it means to be up late at night working. All of those guys fit that description.

“What, are you crazy putting all these artists on the covers of your work?” But that’s kind of the reason I did it.

JN: I’m one of those people who totally get it.

LT: All right, I don’t have to explain this to you. I keep forgetting who I’m talking to, of course! But yeah, those guys were my Pharcyde, they were my heroes, those guys are from my generation. And those guys were the tent poles in a game I run now, Skottie Young, Khary Randolph, Sanford Greene, those guys are very dope guys, and they’re successful at doing what they do. I was very fortunate that I was able to get them on that cover. But yeah, I have the second book, and that sold out, because I only printed a thousand of them.

JN: Do you plan on doing more of those any time soon?

LT: I’m working on my third one right now. I’m trying to release it before Comic-Con. I’ve been working on that for the last year and a half. And this one is going to be called The Foreign Exchange. Obviously, a nod to the group The Foreign Exchange on the table, and also a nod to my recent years living in South Korea, and all the things I’ve developed as an artist, and all the artwork I’ve produced during that time period.

So, the book is going to be filled with lots of photos, from everything like the Ted Talks, Seoul Sessions, photos overseas in Korea, lots of graphic design, essays that I wrote when I was living in Korea—I had a diary with me—everything I heard from animation production to the difference between character designers and storyboard artists, the system, working in Korea versus working in America.... It’s going to be a collage, a personal book of artwork…. Have you ever seen Paul Pope’s art book?

JN: Yeah, I have that on a shelf.

LT: Not too different from that in terms of concept. We’re in the Tumbler/Facebook era, so I think I can get away with writing essays in my book now.

JN: Sure, why not?

LT: People will read it. I have a lot of that stuff. It’s going to be a two-book set. The first book is going to be primarily art, essays, sketches, concept designs from Boondocks. I always have a lot of unreleased stuff, which is part of the reason I haven’t been putting out a lot of original art lately, because I’ve been saving it all for my art book. And then the other book is going to be a continuity book, all of my storyboard work. It’s going to be in a slipcase and everything. I really want to do something special, because my last book sold out so well. Now you can’t get it for less than $200 on Amazon! It’s crazy, and I’m not getting a cut of that, so I’m kind of salty about that, selling my book for $189, and the retail price is $40.

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JN: You’re not a Kickstarter guy or anything like that?

LT: No, I’m not. I don’t have any aversion to it, I’m just doing my book the same way I did the second one, which is normal to me, the way anyone publishes a book. I’ve got a very good publisher who understands me, understands my brand. He understands what I’m doing, and the type of things I want to say. I’ve been really, really fortunate. I don’t do these things to make money. I’ll be really straight up on that. I don’t do these books to make lots of money. I do them to expand my brand, to stay relevant and to get them out to younger kids, and I just need to put something out there, and put the energy out there.

I feel that a better look from me, putting out an art book, a collection of work, something that people can hold in their hands.

People ask me, “Oh, are you going to do a PDF?” and I’m like, “Nah, I don’t want to do a PDF.” Because if I do a PDF, then everybody has access to it. Books are something I still hold dear. I do them about the stuff that I like, and I’m very blessed to be able to do that.

Sydney came out to visit me in 2010, and I gave her my camera, and I said, “Yo, let’s go find some art books,” because she’s an artist. She took the camera and followed me around Seoul to all my favorite animation art book and manga stores, and I was just talking to the camera, saying, “Yo, I go to this store for this. It’s dope for this.” We’re going through the art books, “This is my favorite anime book. ” Then I edited it, added some music, and put it on my website, and there’s a huge response! People were like, “Yo, here’s a black dude in Korea. How does he get the Akira Archives book? The One Piece book? I thought that was sold out! Where has he stolen that?” Really geeking out over that stuff.

I saw the response, and my homeboy Victor goes, “Yo, you really should do a mini-video diary, just you in the studio, going around showing different stuff,” and I was [draws deep breath], “Eh... no, man, I think that’s too forward.” I was still kind of in my introverted, “I don’t want to promote myself too much” kind of thing then. One day, I just started taking my camera with me JN: How long have you been documentand filming some stuff, and then it just kind of ing stuff, not even a organically happened. sketchbook, but just, “Hey, I need to save Next thing I knew, I had this,” or, “I need to a minute of video footage, being interviewed, take a picture of this”? talking about what it is LT: I think it started I do. And then, I had before I went to Korea. about two episodes in A few years ago, I used the can. I was working to do these one-minute on the third one when video diaries on my I discovered the webwebsite. I’d just get in front of the camera, site Creative Control, which is one of my faplan what I want to say, vorite websites. They promote what I want to More action from Cannon Busters. promote—it’s usually had directed some of Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas news-related or art-remy favorite videos I’d lated—and I’ll be like, “Hey, what’s up. It’s me... These draw- seen by that time, you know, Erykah Badu’s “Window Seat,” ings I did of so and so, this is why I did them,” or, “Yo, I’ve got and they did the current season of one of my favorite rappers, a convention coming up,” or whatever would happen. I think and so I reached out to these guys. They had all these little, I just started getting comfortable with that, just being in front very nicely edited webisodes of just random stuff! They had an of the camera, documenting that. And when I went to Korea, I episode where an artist is just talking to the camera. He’s walkactually started doing this thing called “What’s in your stash?” ing to his homie’s house who’s a DJ, and all these other artists where I’d come out and video record myself reviewing new at work, and, I don’t know, it’s just dope to me that you can see art books I’d bought, like storyboard books, or art books from the lives of these artists, and being regular on the camera, and animated shows. I’d just flip through them, explain to people presented in a really slick, positive way. what’s so dope about it or whatever. I did two of those, then I So, I reached out to them. “Yo, I don’t know if this is going did some art tutorials, and kind of put together a page, explain- to work, but I’m this animator. I worked on this show Booning the thumbnailing, and the response to those was pretty good. docks. I moved to Korea. I want to just kind of share my life So my boy Victor Newman—I call him my big brother; a working in this animation studio,” and those guys emailed brilliant compositor, brilliant animator, brilliant editor—lives me. I sent them the first two episodes, saying “I would love to in New York City, does a lot of commercial work, he goes, have you guys premiere this on Creative Control. I’ve looked “Yo, you should film what you’re doing over there.” I’d never at your website. I’ve seen every one of your videos”—they done anything like that before, and he goes, “Yo, you’ve got had hundreds of them. I said, “I think this would be a nice all these videos and things, you should just film something addition to what you guys are trying to do, because I don’t else.” So I go, “All right, cool,” and what I did was, my friend think anyone’s trying to do anything like this.” And the dude

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LeSean getting his Naruto Uzumaki on.

Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

emailed me back the same night, saying, “Yo, this stuff is crazy! Where did you do this? How did you get this going?

I don’t understand. This is the craziest thing ever, and you’re the Boondocks guy! Do you have any more?” I went, “Well, I’m working on the third one. I’m trying to do five or six.”

They were like, “We’ll totally represent this.”

I did a teaser trailer when the first two came out, and those two videos were what got the attention of the TEDx Organizers. They saw that and emailed me directly. “We saw those Seoul Session videos. Are you in Korea right now? Because you would be perfect for our fifth annual TEDx ‘Costs for Successful Failures.’” And I was like, “Uh... no.” My girl was like, “What are you, crazy?” And that’s how that went down.

After I finished the fifth episode, I was pulling my hair out the last month and a half, like, “What am I going to do next? I don’t know what I’m going to do next.” [laughs] I was thinking about maybe doing a behind-the-scenes on my art book, leading up to it, you know, build some hype for it, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do yet.

I’ve been that way in every company I’ve worked at, anyone will tell you who’s worked with me, whether it’s Sony or Warner Brothers or Cartoon Network.... Well, Nickelodeon’s different. I think Nickelodeon was the first job I worked at where I storyboarded everything digitally. You know, and that’s a while. I worked at Fox ADHD on Axe Cop as a director for the first episode, and I did that entire animatic completely in Flash. It was 11 minutes. But normally I prefer to just work with pencil and paper.

JN: What kind of set up do you have in your studio now?

LT: I am still just paper and pencil, man. Paper and graphite pencil. That’s it. I’ll use the Cintiq every once in a while for last-minute things, but everything I do is on paper. In fact,

JN: For the other people around you that use Cintiqs, do you find them not being able to figure you out? “Oh, you’re so analog. Why don’t you use this?” Or do they basically leave you alone to do what you want to do?

JN: And you use Col-Erase blue?

LT: No, I don’t. Because the things that I’m working on at all times during this production is revising drawings, revising storyboards, and a lot of that is with Post-Its and pencils and paper, that’s it. [laughs] I’m analog. There’s really no preference. I think the only time it’s a hassle is when people go, “Oh, man, I’ve got to scan this stuff in,” because I’ll do hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper. All the artwork in my artbook, it’s all done originally done in pencil and scanned in and colored.

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LT: I think it’s more of a surprise to the producers or the production managers on the shows. They’re like, “Hey, we’ve got a Cintiq for you.” “Oh, I don’t really need it.” Sometimes I won’t even say I don’t need it, I’ll just have it to watch anime on while I draw, you know? If the Cintiq runs out of power, I’m still going to be working; everyone else is going to be messed up, but I’m still going to be at it. [laughter] JN: Tell me about some of your major influences. I know you’re really heavy into certain types of anime and different directors, but anybody who really, really sticks in your head when you think about your style. What influences you?

LT: I would say Satoshi Kon. He passed away a couple of years ago. He’s probably a direct influence in my work. When it comes to storyboarding, when it comes to drawing, I think his work is probably the most prevalent in my shape usage and line economy.

He’s the guy I think of. There aren’t any American artists who influenced me, or have influenced my work. All the artists who influenced me are either European or Japanese. Yasuomi Umetsu, he’s the creator and director of Kite and Mezzo Forte. Satoshi Kon for Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress. And then there are secondaries, like Yoshiyuki Sadamoto—he was responsible for the designs of FLCL and Evangelion. That’s really it. We’re strictly talking about, when I’m drawing, those are the guys I’m looking at. Those are the guys who’ve directly influenced me, consistently influenced my work. I’m not really big on American artists who’ve influenced my work in comic books. There’re not many. But I can run down a list of dudes that I admire, guys I think are great.

JN: I was going to ask you a question about Otomo earlier, when you were getting into the [Marvel] Epic Akira volumes, did you see any type of disconnection or connection between the anime and the manga?

LT: No, I didn’t. I never even considered them to be the same thing.

You’ve got to remember that Akira was the first comic book that I had access to and touched and read regularly that spawned an animated movie that happens to be one of the greatest animated movies ever made. Know what I mean? That was the only time I had a direct connection. All these other animes that I’ve watched? A lot of them were inspired by mangas, but I never got a chance to own those mangas, because the manga wasn’t available in the late ’80s and ’90s. They weren’t licensed. So I always associated animation as this kind of far off thing. An echelon level of creativity, there’s a system, an institution, a college I need to go to get involved with it.

I never fathomed it as something that’s connected to something as tangible as comic books.

Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas

JN: Yeah, I totally understand what you’re saying. Are you interested in current things? Are you into Kill la Kill?

LT: Oh, without question. I’m sure you know Space Dandy premieres tonight. I’ve been waiting for it a long time. I’m watching Kill la Kill; I’m watching Attack on Titan; I’m watching, obviously, Space Dandy; I’m watching Ghost in the Shell: Arise, which is brilliant; and I’m actually waiting for the second episode of Little Witch Academia, by Studio Trigger, which did Kill la Kill. And that’s five animated series! I haven’t watched five animated car-

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toons at the same time since I was 22. That’s how consistently good these shows happen to be. Consistent anime shows? I left them for a good period of time. I kind of seguewayed into features only. It’s very rare to get those Champloos and those Bebops and those Space Dandys—those really unique, auteur animated shows, that don’t look like everything else. It’s been like that for a minute for some reason with Studio Trigger forming, Watanabe coming back, Attack on Titan coming out of nowhere. It’s just a really good time to be an anime fan. I could run down five projects for anyone who wants to get into anime now. They’re all good, they’re all unique, and they’re all popular, and that’s exciting.

Globalization has changed everything. You cannot have an ethnocentric point of view in animation production anymore.

Everyone’s doing it, and America is just not the spot any more, and that is awesome. Think about it. Could you have imagined 15, 20 years ago that almost every kid in America is infatuated with an animation style that had nothing to do with the United States’ history? Like, everyone’s into anime. That’s really, really a nice precursor to where everything’s going to go once China picks up, India picks up, once the Middle East.... Did you see that Emirates animated trailer they produced? Some Middle Eastern anime that they got made? Everyone’s doing it now, and it’s just a matter of time where America won’t be the hotspot anymore.

I think subscripJN: I can’t remember the last time antion-based programime’s been so across ming is really what’s the board dope. going to be the cataLT: And there’s lyst for all of it. I probably stuff we’re don’t have that menmissing out on! But tality anymore, cerright now, it’s cool tainly not after havthat we love Space ing lived in Korea Dandy, because evfor so long. I came eryone else likes it, back, and I was like, and that’s cool.

“Yo, I don’t use the word ‘outsourcing’ JN: Do you subscribe anymore,” it’s a colMore action from Cannon Busters. to Crunchy Roll, or lectively known dirty Cannon Busters © LeSean Thomas anything like that? word, and domestic LT: Yeah, on my Apple TV I’m subscribed to Crunchy Roll. animation tends to use the word outsourcing. It’s got this negative connotation, “Oh, it’s a bunch of kids making sneakers and shoelaces for 2¢ a week.” No, man, I’m going to KoJN: I just got into Crunchy Roll.

LT: Oh, man, that thing is addictive, dude! [laughter] You’ll rea because there’s no one here who can produce Legend of Korra, you feel me? Those guys are monsters. We’ve outbe watching anime all day! sourced stuff for so many years, crunched the numbers for so long, forced them to work so fast, with continually shrinking JN: I started watching Girls und Panzer.

LT: Oh, man, that stuff is crazy! But that stuff is so creative. budgets, that we can’t compete with them anymore, they’re It’s just visually creative and inventive. It’s the type of stuff I just too good! They’re way better than us! So, if I’m doing a wish we did more here. And I know it’s not going to happen. show like Legend of Korra or Black Dynamite or Boondocks, It’s just really cool to be able to see their point of view of ani- I’m not looking for guys here, because no one can really do mation. It’s always interesting. layout! I’m going to go to Korea, and it’s not an outsourcing thing, I’m collaborating with this studio, the same way DisJN: Good stuff’s not always going to come from here. I ney collaborates with Europe. It’s a collaboration if they send might have to find it somewhere else. work to France or Ireland, but it’s outsourcing if it goes to LT: Yeah, I was having a really interesting discussion with Korea? That’s just ethnocentricity to me; that’s racist. I don’t some students—I had a lecture at Pratt in Brooklyn about two agree with that. They’re just as good, if not better than us, and months ago, and that was like a full circle moment for me, be- if there’s a guy in Belgium who can animate a sequence that cause I actually got into deep arguments with fine arts majors looks like Akira, I’m calling that dude up, because that’s what in prep when I was 19. The “comic books are crap, fine art is I want in my show. I’m not going to say, “Oh, no one does that where it’s at,” whatever, and to be able to go back there and in the States, so I need to just deal with it.” Technology allow talk to some kids was really cool. I had a really cool lecture us to reach out to Japan, or Asians, and get different things, and that’s going to continue to change, and that’s really excitfor 32 kids.

The point I’m bringing up is that, there seemed to be this ing to me. whole Us versus Them thing that was happening, and I was just basically telling them, “You have to let go of that.” The Internet has changed the game now. The world is shrunken.

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The Right Way, The Wrong Way, and The

OrdWay !

Challengers of the Collaboration by Jerry Ordway

I

n this issue, I will go into detail about working with a collaborator on a comic, and the give and take necessary to accommodate each person’s vision of the story. In this instance, I was asked by Dan DiDio, one of the head honchos at DC Comics, to co-write and draw a “New 52” reintroduction of the classic DC comic Challengers of the Unknown with him. Dan knew I was a big fan of the Jack Kirby’s Challengers, but did not want a “retro” comic book here. This would be a new origin and setting for the existing characters.

We started by having a few conference calls with the editor, Wil Moss, where Dan outlined his basic premise of mixing the team’s origin in with Nanda Parbat, a mysterious land in the Himalayan mountains. This brought to mind James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon, and the great movie version directed by Frank Capra. (I later took the DVD and made some screen captures of the settings and the palace for visual reference.) By the end of the call, we had mapped out the five-issue story to our satisfaction, and I began writing longhand notes before typing my draft of the first-issue plot.

Somewhere after the first issue was plotted, I was informed that editorial had cut the story to three issues for scheduling reasons. This forced us to re-think our pacing, and ultimately forced storytelling restrictions on me as the penciller. This, along with other editorial edicts often Jerry’s handwritten plot notes. happen in the course of any project, and you need to be flexible, and think on your feet to make the best of things.

Part of being a professional is to do your best in any situation, and not to abandon a project when you don’t get your own way. Of course everyone has their own threshold for just how much they can take. I make no judgments.

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Jerry’s copy of Fairburn Faces & Heads: Ethnic & Character Types, part of the Fairburn System.

Fairburn System © Fairburn Publications Ltd.

After this we went back and forth, finetuning story elements, until I felt prepared to start working up breakdowns for the first three pages of continuity. The story would hit the ground running, with the characters and backstory filled in before their plane clips the mountain on page 3. It’s very tight, and I had a big cast to establish.

When I first start any assignment, I try to gather visual reference, especially character reference. I often go to a set of books I have called the Fairburn System and choose a set of model faces for a given character to remain consistent over the course of the project, and keep the art readable to the buyer.

You don’t want confusion as to which character is talking on a page. It helps the reader.

For Challengers I tried to match the Kirby visuals with distinctive reference. It’s often simple to take a TV series and scan through episodes, grabbing screen captures of an actress or actor from different angles. I can then combine as many heads of that person as will fit on a sheet of printer paper, and I have a sort of reference guide for June or Red or any of the Challengers. I don’t use these for likenesses, as direct models, just as a “type” to keep each character consistent.

I recommend it as a practice, so long as the reader doesn’t have a moment where they spot Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood in your comic! That would take them out of the reading experience, I believe.

Jerry gathered still shots of actor Mike Mazurki, who was usually cast as a thug or gangster, as photo reference for the Challengers’ Rocky. photos © respective owner(s)

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Once my characters are set, I often start a job by drawing tiny thumbnail images in the page margin of my plot or script (right). These are often undecipherable after a few days, even to me, but are my way of figuring out how much will fit on a page.

They’re building blocks, really. The blue scribbles lead me to the more thought-out prelims, which leads me to the pencil stage.

Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

The initial two pages of layouts or prelims shown below were done for my own purposes to work out the panel arrangements and allow me to enlarge and lightbox clean pencils in deference to the inker. I penciled the third page (bottom of next page) right on the drawing paper, as it was pretty straightforward, and didn’t need to do a separate prelim. The editor and I had chosen an inker, and it was my first time working with him, so I didn’t want him interpreting messy pencils. It always takes a bit for an inker to get the rhythm on a penciller in my experience. I need to get a comfort level for myself as well, so prelims can be the way into any project, but especially one with so much to stage, as on these pages.

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Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

Not long after JPEGs of these pages hit the editor’s inbox, I was told to stop work! I had clearly jumped the gun, wanting to get the drawing started, as the deadline countdown was ticking away. My collaborator and the editor wanted to fine-tune the sequence, and also wanted to see the entire issue drawn in layout form before proceeding to the pencil stage.

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After much back and forth about salvaging the work already done, it was decided I would be paid for them, and would redraw the sequence. Re-doing them showed that the plane crash could be done on a single page, dropping the sequence of its wing clipping the mountainside, allowing more room for set-up and character dynamics.

Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

By becoming a three-issue arc, it was important to establish June and “Ace” as being romantically involved on page one (left). The rest of the banter is there, pretty much intact, showing snapshots of the characters’ personalities. Another change was to illustrate, on page three (below), that only “Ace” sees the eyes in the sky in front of him and hears the voice in his head. The others think he is flying them into the side of a mountain! On page four (next page top), I was asked to redraw panel one, to remove any sense that “Ace” had shaken the vision and was trying to avoid the collision.

That pretty much removes any sympathy for him to my thinking. This illustrates the compromise you have to make in a co-writing situation. I also understood that to truncate our story, we had to lose character interactions and keep the plot moving forward. Compare this layout to the finished pencil page (next page bottom), and you’ll see how I always finetune elements. I felt that the straight-on angle of June was more dramatic than the side view in my revised layout.

Jerry’s revised preliminaries for pages 1–4 of DC Universe Presents: Challengers of the Unknown #6.

Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

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Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

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Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

This sequence where June, the main female character, dreams or prophesizes her torture and betrayal, was made cleaner and more frightening by focusing on her and “Ace” Morgan, the pilot. Again, the angle Dan, my co-writer, was stressing, is that the project was closer in tone to a Final Destination movie, with a price to be paid for the Challengers cheating death. Death would stalk them instead, in the form of “Ace.” The sequence was originally intended to fake out the reader as to whether or not it was really happening (top left). The revised layout (top right) makes it clear that it is a nightmare sequence.

To achieve the sort of odd distorted look, I took the drawing from the last panel of the original page five layout, and duplicated it in Photoshop multiple times. I used the “transform” tool to distort each panel differently, squeezing and pulling, until I liked the flow from top to bottom of the page. I did this to the layouts, and not the finished pencils for several reasons. The main reason was that, comics being line art, I didn’t want the pencil line thicknesses being distorted to thicks and thins, because that would undermine the storytelling to me. “Look! A cool Photoshop effect!” This is the same thinking that makes me dislike blur effects in the coloring stage of comics to denote high speed. It calls attention to the art in the wrong way. It’s line art, not a photo. With the Photoshopped layout to lightbox from, I had the ability to modify the distortions in instances where things were too extreme to read properly. Another reason for not doing this with the finished pencils was, at that point, I was under the impression that the inker would physically ink the pencils. Due to a change in the inking assignment, and time lost to revisions, this whole project was inked on bluelines from scans of my pencils.

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Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

For additional art examples and demos, I can be found at: http://ordstersrandomthoughts. blogspot.com As well as on Facebook at: https:// www.facebook.com/pages/Da-Ordster/ 163023617094533 And to find out more about Jerry’s storied career and see a ton of his artwork, check out Modern Masters Vol. 13: Jerry Ordway, available from TwoMorrows at www.twomorrows.com!

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Challengers of the Unkno wn © DC Comics

All in all, this project was very different from what I might have done on my own. I think Dan as a collaborator took me in different directions out of my comfort zone, but that’s never a bad thing. I find that working with others will always show a positive benefit in your own work. Cowriting or co-plotting can make you fight for your own ideas harder, and also throw light on ideas we have that can be better. It’s often difficult to see the plot holes without another eye on the work. Art, both in writing and drawing, is a lifelong learning experience. Collaboration is almost always a good thing in comics.

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #64

BACK ISSUE #77

BACK ISSUE #78

BACK ISSUE #79

BACK ISSUE #80

“When Comics Were Fun!” HEMBECK cover and gallery, Plastic Man, Blue Devil, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, VALENTINO’s normalman, Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, and the Batman/Dick Tracy team-up you didn’t see! Featuring MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PARIS CULLINS, RAMONA FRADON, ALAN KUPPERBERG, MISHKIN & COHN, STEVE SKEATES, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, and more!

“Weird Issue!” Batman’s Weirdest TeamUps, ORLANDO’s Weird Adventure Comics, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, DITKO’s Shade the Changing Man and Stalker, CHAYKIN’s Iron Wolf, CRUMB’s Weirdo, and STARLIN and WRIGHTSON’s The Weird! Featuring JIM APARO, LUIS DOMINGUEZ, MICHAEL FLEISHER, BOB HANEY, PAUL LEVITZ, and more. Batman and Deadman cover by ALAN CRADDOCK.

“Charlton Action Heroes in the Bronze Age!” DAVE GIBBONS on Charlton’s WATCHMEN connection, LEN WEIN and PARIS CULLINS’ Blue Beetle, CARY BATES and PAT BRODERICK’s Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, and a look at Blockbuster Weekly! Featuring MIKE COLLINS, GIORDANO, KUPPERBERG, ALAN MOORE, PAT MORISI, ALEX ROSS, and more. Cover by AL MILGROM.

“Flash and Green Lantern in the Bronze Age” (crossover with ALTER EGO #132)! In-depth spotlights of their 1970s and 1980s adventures, MARK WAID’s look at the Flash/GL team, and PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Lost GL Fillins. Bonus: DC’s New York Office Memories, and an interview with the winner of the 1979 Wonder Woman Contest. With BARR, BATES, GIBBONS, GRELL, INFANTINO, WEIN, and more. Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

ALTER EGO #131

ALTER EGO #132

ALTER EGO #133

SUPER-SOLDIERS! We declassify Captain America, Fighting American, Sgt. Fury, The Losers, Pvt. Strong, Boy Commandos, and a tribute to Simon & Kirby! PLUS: a Kirby interview about Captain America, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, key 1940s’50s events in Kirby’s career, unseen pencils and unused art from OMAC, SILVER STAR, CAPTAIN AMERICA (in the 1960s AND ‘70s), the LOSERS, & more! KIRBY cover!

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! Another potpourri issue with a comparison of Jack Kirby’s work vs. the design genius of ALEX TOTH, a lengthy Kirby interview, a look at Kirby’s work with WALLY WOOD, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, Jack’s COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

GERRY CONWAY interviewed about his work as star Marvel/DC writer in the early ‘70s (from the creation of The Punisher to the death of Gwen Stacy) with art by ROMITA, COLAN, KANE, PLOOG, BUSCEMA, MORROW, TUSKA, ADAMS, SEKOWSKY, the SEVERINS, and others!

Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

75 YEARS of THE FLASH and GREEN LANTERN (a crossover with BACK ISSUE #80)! INFANTINO, KANE, KUBERT, ELIAS, LAMPERT, HIBBARD, NODELL, HASEN, TOTH, REINMAN, SEKOWSKY, Golden Age JSA and Dr. Mid-Nite artist ARTHUR PEDDY’s stepson interviewed, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

Gentleman JIM MOONEY gets a featurelength spotlight, in an in-depth interview conducted by DR. JEFF McLAUGHLIN— never before published! Featuring plenty of rare and unseen MOONEY ART from Batman & Robin, Supergirl, Spider-Man, Legion of Super-Heroes, Tommy Tomorrow, and others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

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BRICKJOURNAL #32

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

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LEGO ARTISTRY with builder/photographer CHRIS McVEIGH; mosaic builders BRIAN KORTE, DAVE WARE and DAVE SHADDIX; and sculptors SEAN KENNEY (about his nature models) and ED DIMENT (about a full-size bus stop built with LEGO bricks)!

Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, MINDSTORMS building, and more!

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus writer/editor BRUCE JONES; 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre’s BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, “Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman” cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; Tales of the Zombie artist PABLO MARCOS speaks; Israeli cartoonist RUTU MODAN; plus an extensive essay on European Humor Comics!

We focus the radar on Daredevil artist CHRIS SAMNEE (Agents of Atlas, Batman, Avengers, Captain America) with a how-to interview, comics veteran JACKSON GUICE (Captain America, Superman, Ruse, Thor) talks about his creative process and his new series Winter World, columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Nov. 2014

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $8.95 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Dec. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships March 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Jan. 2015

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15

THE BEST IN COMICS & LEGO® PUBLICATIONS!

WHE % OR N YOU ONLDER INE!

1994--2014

FALL 2014 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!

NOW SHIPPING! (240-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $40.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • ISBN: 9781605490540

1965-69

JOHN WELLS covers the transformation of MARVEL COMICS into a pop phenomenon, Wally Wood’s TOWER COMICS, CHARLTON’s Action Heroes, the BATMAN TV SHOW, Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, and Denny O’Neil leading a youth wave in comics, GOLD KEY digests, the Archies and Josie & the Pussycats, and more! NOW SHIPPING!

Ambitious new series of FULLCOLOR HARDCOVERS documenting each decade of comic book history!

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490557

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The 1970s (NOW SHIPPING!)

JASON SACKS & KEITH DALLAS detail the emerging Bronze Age of comics: Relevance with Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’s GREEN LANTERN, Jack Kirby’s FOURTH WORLD saga, Comics Code revisions that opens the floodgates for monsters and the supernatural, Jenette Kahn’s arrival at DC and the subsequent DC IMPLOSION, the coming of Jim Shooter and the DIRECT MARKET, and more!

1960-64: (224-pages) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-045-8 1980s: (288-pages) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-046-5 COMING SOON: 1930s, 1940-44, 1945-49 and 1990s

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490564

MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1980s

DON HECK remains one of the legendary names in comics, considered an “artist’s artist,” respected by peers, and beloved by fans as the co-creator of IRON MAN, HAWKEYE, and BLACK WIDOW, and key artist on THE AVENGERS. Along with STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, and STEVE DITKO, Heck was an integral player in “The Marvel Age of Comics”, and a top-tier 1970s DC Comics artist. He finally gets his due in this heavily illustrated, full-color hardcover biography, which features meticulously researched and chronicled information on Don’s 40-year career, with personal recollections from surviving family, long-time friends, and industry legends, and rare interviews with Heck himself. It also features an unbiased analysis of sales on Don’s DC Comics titles, an extensive art gallery (including published, unpublished, and pencil artwork), a Foreword by STAN LEE, and an Afterword by BEAU SMITH. Written by JOHN COATES. (192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95

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C O M IC B O O K

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DON HECK: A WORK OF ART

The third volume in PIERRE COMTOIS’ heralded series covering the pop culture phenomenon on an issueby-issue basis! Following his 1960s and 1970s volumes, this new book looks at Marvel’s final historical phase, when the company moved into a darker era that has yet to run its course. It saw STAN LEE’s retreat to the West Coast, JIM SHOOTER’s rise and fall as editorin-chief, the twin triumphs of FRANK MILLER and JOHN BYRNE, the challenge of independent publishers, and the weakening hold of the COMICS CODE AUTHORITY that led to the company’s creative downfall—and ultimately the marginalization of the industry itself. Comics such as the Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-MEN, Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL, the NEW UNIVERSE, Roger Stern’s AVENGERS and SPIDER-MAN, the new wave of dark heroes such as WOLVERINE and the PUNISHER, and more are all covered, in the analytic detail—and often irreverent manner—readers have come to expect from the previous 1960s and 1970s volumes. However, the 1980s represented years of upheaval in the comics industry— with Marvel at the center of the storm—so expect a bumpy ride in the 1980s decade that marked the beginning of the end of Marvel comics as you knew them!

FEVER

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.95

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ALTER EGO (8 issues)

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR (4 issues w/Special)

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BRICKJOURNAL (6 issues)

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TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

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