Draw #32

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

#32

Summer 2016 $8.95 IN THE US

HOWARD PORTER Characters TM & © DC Comics.

IN A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN

JAMAL IGLE IN THE MOLLY DANGER ZONE

PLUS! REGULAR COLUMNIST

JERRY ORDWAY AND MIKE MANLEY AND BRET BLEVINS’

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82658 00048

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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! #23

DRAW! #24

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

DRAW! #20

DRAW! #21

DRAW! #22

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

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

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

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DRAW! #25

DRAW! #26

DRAW! #27

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!

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!

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

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

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Comics History.

DRAW! #28

DRAW! #29

DRAW! #30

DRAW! #31

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.

DAVE DORMAN demonstrates his painting techniques for sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book cover, LeSEAN THOMAS (character designer and co-director of The Boondocks and Black Dynamite: The Animated Series) gives advice on today’s animation industry, new columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

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 editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

How-to demos & interviews with Philadelphia artists JG JONES (52, Final Crisis, Wanted, Batman and Robin) and KHOI PHAM (The Mighty Avengers, The Astonishing SpiderMan, The Mighty World of Marvel), JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews of art supplies, JERRY ORDWAY demos the “ORD-way” or drawing, and Comic Art Bootcamp by MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS! JG Jones cover! Mature readers only.

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

(84-page FULL-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 SUMMER 2016, VOL. 1, #32 Editor-in-Chief • Michael Manley Managing Editor and Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Front Cover • Howard Porter DRAW! Summer 2016, Vol. 1, No. 32 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 2015 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 ©2016 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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HOWARD PORTER

Mike Manley talks with the Justice League 3000 artist about his digital process and the future of comics

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RIGHT WAY, WRONG WAY—ORDWAY!

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JAMAL IGLE

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comic art bootcamp

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The crusty Critic

Jerry discusses the art of the sketch cover

Mike Manley enters the Molly Danger zone for a chat on guiding your own destiny

This issue's installment: Plusing your ideas

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

Jamar Nicholas reviews the tools of the trade.

This issue: Chameleon Color Tones pens

www.twomorrows.com

DRAW! SUMMER 2016

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-ING AHEAD

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t’s Crunch Time! Much like the battle call of the Fantastic Four’s Thing, I am calling on you DRAW! faithful to get out the call to your local comic shop to carry the magazine. It’s no secret that publishing in general, but especially newspapers and magazines, have been hit hard with the digital wave that has washed over the globe, and DRAW! is not immune to the effects of this. We have an app and digital editions, but we need copies of the magazine on the shelves for the new readers, the casual readers, and the future aspiring artists to grab. Most retailers unfortunately don’t order any copies of DRAW!, and that is making the future of this mag a bit more cloudy with each issue. Every issue sold counts to us, as it means we have a new loyal reader. So any support you can give us by getting your local retailer to get even two or three copies on their shelves will greatly help us here to keep the magazine going long into the future.

As usual big thanks go out to my main men, Eric, John, and regular columnists Bret, Jerry, and my Philly brother-in-arms, Jamar. It was great getting to talk with both Jamal and Howard about their processes and how the digital age has really affected the way they both work, and how there are great new pathways to connect with readers that circumvent the traditional direct market. New lessons for the next generation as well as the older ones!

As always I look forward to your feedback, comments, and requests. Go DRAW! something!

Best,

NEXT ISSUE IN NOVEMBER! Draw! #33 (80 FULL-COLOR pages, $8.95) gets down to the nitty-gritty of superstar artist (and Eisner & Emmy Award winner) Bill Sienkiewicz! From Electra: Assassin and the groundbreaking Stray Toasters, to movie work on The Unforgiven, The Dark Knight, and the Jimi Hendrix tribute book Voodoo Child, Bill pulls back the curtain to show his amazing creative process. Next, Draw! takes you to the The Watts Atelier Of The Arts! In today's highly competitive world of illustration and concept design—and skyrocketing school tuitions—founder Jeffery Watts has been running one of the best ateliers for training, where students gain the skills they need to get the jobs they want. Plus regular columnists Jerry Ordway and Jamar Nicholas, and Comic Art Bootcamp by Bret Blevins and Draw! editor Mike Manley, round out this comprehensive issue. NOTE: May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; suggested for Mature Readers Only.

PRE-ORDER Now at:

www.twomorrows.com 2

DRAW! SUMMER 2016

HOWARD PORTER

in a LEAGUE of his own Interview conducted by Mike Manley and transcribed by Sean Dulaney DRAW!: Are you working this weekend?

HOWARD PORTER: Every weekend. Unless, of course, things aren’t going badly. How about you?

DRAW!: Yeah. The weekends are pretty rough right now because I just picked up The Phantom.

HP: I saw that. Congratulations.

DRAW!: Thank you. On top of that, I’m also doing the Judge Parker strip, so I’m a busy boy.

HP: That’s a good thing for sure.

DRAW!: Exactly. I’ll still have to dig up somebody to do my backgrounds. [laughter] So what are you working on right now? I guess DC has sort of relaunched everything?

HP: Yes. I was doing Superman, and then Rebirth happened, so everything got switched around. They asked me to do a couple of different things, but I chose to do Scooby Apocalypse with Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis.

DRAW!: That’s part of the Hanna-Barbera relaunch?

HP: Yeah, I’m not sure what they are calling it. You’re right, it’s Hanna-Barbera. There’s a name for the line I think but it but I don’t remember what it’s called.

DRAW!: Yeah, it’s good. Good for the bank.

HP: Absolutely. And someday you won’t have to be such a busy boy.

DRAW!: Is this just a limited thing?

HP: Isn’t everything limited? [chuckles] Everything’s temporary in this business. It’s an ongoing title, but there’s no telling how long it will go, so you have to enjoy it while you can.

DRAW!: [chuckles] Because I’ll be dead!

HP: [laughter] And then you’ll cut your hours in half.

DRAW!: This is a re-imagining of the characters. They’re doing Johnny Quest and bringing back the Herculoids….

DRAW! SUMMER 2016

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This two-page spread from Justice League 3001 #1 started with a loose thumbnail (not shown), which Howard then tightened in a rough (above). Howard printed the rough out and, using a light box, penciled the drawing on paper (top right). After scanning the finished pencils, Howard added gray tones as a sort of color guide (see previous page), over which Hi-Fi then put the final touches (right).

Justice League 3001 © DC Comics.

They’re bringing back Dick Dastardly and Muttley and Penelope Pitstop.

HP: That’d be a tough one to re-imagine and have it not be... silly. [laughter] DRAW!: Really? You can’t have, like, Fast and Furious/ Wacky Races? Get Jock to do it or something?

HP: [laughter] Right, right. Well, the Scooby-Doo thing is basically the same, but they have me drawing it more realistically, which messes with my mind. I was trying to draw Scooby as a realistic, anatomically correct Great Dane, but it doesn’t work so well. You can’t really have him emote properly, and he loses the charm that way.

DRAW!: No. Their eyes are too far apart, whereas ScoobyDoo’s eyes are together like a cartoon character.

HP: Yeah, kind of like my eyes.

DRAW!: So, what did you do? How did you go about doing that? I mean, I’m sure the people are the easiest.

HP: They are. They’re just realistic versions of the characters.

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DRAW!: You just draw Bob Denver for Shaggy, right?

HP: [laughs] Well, actually I didn’t design them. Jim Lee did, and I think he did a fantastic job. Shaggy looks more like a modern hipster—almost a handlebar mustache-and-beard type of thing.

DRAW!: I forget the comedian’s name who’s on Silicon Valley.

HP: Yeah! He would be a good one. I like him, he was in Deadpool also.

DRAW!: So you’re not basing them on the original inspiration, which is the old Dobie Gillis characters?

HP: They have similar elements to those original designs but with more modern day fashions, sort of.

DRAW!: Does Fred still have his ascot?

HP: [laughter] Yep. Keith sort of updated the characters themselves. Fred and Daphne have a ghost-hunter type show that’s failing, and they are wearing their TV show uniforms which have the ascots. They’re all separated, and the first issue is how they all get together, an origin story.

DRAW!: Is Daphne all hot now? Is she the “Ginger” to the “Mary Ann”?

HP: Yes, she is attractive, but not in a pin-up girl kind of way. Velma is, like, five feet tall and kind of looks like Natalie Portman in The Professional. She’s a petite lady but with large funky glasses and a turtle neck.

DRAW!: So Jim did the initial designs and you’re trying to work from his designs? Did you make yourself a model sheet?

HP: Exactly, Jim did the initial cover, and then I did turnarounds for them from that. It was a great way to go, as I was almost immediately comfortable drawing them on the actual pages. Otherwise, it usually takes me a few issues to get to the point where I don’t have to keep referring to design references.

DRAW!: Is the Mystery Machine still the Mystery Machine?

HP: [chuckles] No. Well, it is, but no, it’s not. It’s a liberated military vehicle instead of the VW van. The van wouldn’t have gotten them out of the situation they have landed in.

DRAW!: When you get the script and you’re drawing it, I imagine that the initial thing to pop into your mind is the cartoon, because that’s what you’re used to.

HP: Yes, exactly right. Which is why I think people don’t really know what to expect from the book right now. It’s hard not to think of them as the kids who pulled masks off of old evil dudes.

DRAW!: Is that what you were saying? It’s a bit more of a difficulty because you think, “Oh, wait a minute. I’m not doing that....”

HP: Yeah. My instinct is to do that, and I’m afraid people initially might be put off that it’s not the cartoony, fun feeling thing, but it’s more like The Walking Dead or something. [laughter] I mean, it’s fun and goofy too.

DRAW!: Well, even when they did those movies with the CGI, it was kind of creepy in a way.

HP: CGI is creepy. They still haven’t gotten it down perfectly.

No matter how realistic it looks, it just looks like an animated corpse to me. I think that phenomena is called “uncanny valley.” However in the Scooby-Doo movies, yeah, he was was the one animated character, a mix between cartoony and real, and it’s a bit unnerving.

DRAW!: Right, right. Because if he’s supposed to be kind of realistic, but then they design him kind of like the cartoon, then he really doesn’t look like a real Great Dane.

HP: Exactly. Which is the way I have settled on depicting him, sort of. He’s a bit more realistic, or less cartoony anyway.

DRAW!: When you were doing Justice League 3000, were you still doing traditional pencils or were you doing digital pencils?

HP: On that—and I still almost do it this way—I would do thumbnails on the computer in a page template, and then go over them and do a tight rough still in the computer—just flesh it all out. And then I would print it out on a full-size board, and then light box that, tightly pencil it, and ink parts of it. Finally, scan it in and finish it in the computer. Now I’m skipping the part where I print it out and do it on paper. I just do it all in the computer.

One of Howard’s turnaround boards (right) based on Jim Lee’s initial cover image for Scooby Apocalypse #1 (above).

Scooby-Doo and all related characters © Hanna-Barbera.

DRAW! SUMMER 2016

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DRAW!: Are you using Manga Studio or Photoshop?

HP: I hear Manga Studio is better for what we do. You get crisper brush lines that look like you’re doing it analog, but I’m all Photoshop.

DRAW!: I was just talking to someone the other day, saying the brushes in Manga Studio were better than the brushes in Photoshop, because you can mess around with them more and they look more like a quill or brush or whatever you’re trying to do.

HP: I tried it for a bit. I didn’t care for it at the time because when you would draw a line there was a lag, a few moments before the line would catch up to your hand movement. I don’t know why or how, but it would reformat the line or smooth it out or whatever. There was a lag between your actual drawing and the final, where as in Photoshop it is immediate.

DRAW!: That’s interesting. I take it you’re working on the Cintiq?

HP: Yes, currently the 24HD. I would love the 27HD, but thankfully they seem to last quite a while, so it will have to wait.

DRAW!: I’m wondering if it’s a program compatibility or processor speed issue, because I have heard that before.

I’ve experienced some of that myself.

Not so much now, because the computers are all so much faster. The processors are way faster. But Blevins also uses Storyboard Pro and a couple other programs, and sometimes with the Cintiq there was that thing between where the tip of your stylus was and...

HP: Yeah. It’s a little off.

I don’t want anything to look like it was done by a machine. I want it to look done all by hand, very organic and loose.

DRAW!: Why is that? Is it because you’ve done more digital stuff and you find that you want it to have the feel of traditional, or...?

HP: I don’t know. I just think as I got older I began to appreciate the looseness and the beauty of the organic nature of things, the life in lines that have flaws. I appreciate that more. I don’t like rulers and templates.

DRAW!: Al Williamson didn’t usually use a ruler. He would use a ruler when penciling, but he would ink almost everything freehand, and it had a little extra life to it. Especially when he was inking guys like Romita Jr., or Mignola... especially when he was inking Bret, because Bret was more in his wheelhouse. A lot of those classical strip guys, which is where all of our styles come out of, didn’t ink everything with a ruler. They didn’t make everything perfect, but then guys like Sinnott—everything’s perfect.

Or Terry Austin—everything’s perfect.

HP: And I like those guys a lot. I used to be so obsessed with making everything look mechanical and perfect, like when you do those tapers to fade from white to black. Those Sinnott feather lines.

But with me every one had to be evenly spaced triangles that met up perfectly and stuff. I was so into that graphic look.

And now….

DRAW!: That slows you down, too. [makes noise like a printer] You’re like a 3-D printer or something.

HP: Oh, maybe that’s why I was always under the deadline gun! Now I understand that’s taking away from the importance of the drawing. The precision becomes the focal point, whereas it should just be the drawing.

DRAW!: Does that slow you down?

Do you find, like, “I’m making a line...

No, I’m making a line... making a line... Digital sketch for Howard’s cover of this Okay! That’s the one I want!” issue of DRAW! (top), which incorporates HP: That was the problem with Manga the pencils from an unused Justice League DRAW!: I remember the first couple Studio back when I tried it. It would—I 3001 cover idea, and an unused sketch for times I saw an original, especially by don’t know the word for it. It would try a Justice League 3001 cover (bottom). somebody like Sinnott whose work to smooth out your line, so if you drew Justice League 3001 © DC Comics. appears even more perfect due to the something a little bit squiggly it would make it straighter. reproduction. But you could see there was a looseness to it. It Like if you were doing a Joe Sinnott line or something, which wasn’t like a machine did it. I remember seeing some Terry is great unless you didn’t intend for that. I didn’t like that. Austin pages for the first time where he inked over Bret’s Early on I liked my work to, I don’t know why, look like it stuff. Everything’s really super-perfect, but because he was was done by a machine—very mechanical and precise. Now inking someone like Bret, who is very organic, it actually

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DRAW! SUMMER 2016

Artwork for a variant cover for Justice League of America #1: the initial cover sketch (left), the layout (lower left), and finished pencils (below).

Justice League and all related characters © DC Comics.

brought out another quality in his work that wasn’t there as much when he was inking somebody like John Byrne.

HP: Yeah, I didn’t see originals till much later, so perhaps that’s why I felt the need to draw it as tight as the reduced printed pages.

DRAW!: So, you would say whatever little imperfections are something that is more like your personality, I suppose.

HP: Exactly, and there sure are a lot of those in my actual personality.

DRAW!: I remember when Ande Parks still lived here in Philly and we shared a studio sometimes as he inked. I remember your stuff was so cleanly penciled. It was so very

precise. I would imagine working that way must also be very labor intensive.

HP: It is. I was putting in way too many steps, but I suppose I needed to do that to get to where I am now. I would do a really tight layout, which really could have almost been the final page, I would then trace that off and make it look almost inked. That will end up making things stiffer unless you are lucky to have someone like Ande who has so much life to his line and can keep it loose but still looking tight.

DRAW!: Were you doing a full-size layout or a small layout?

HP: Small. Like 8.5" x 11".

DRAW!: Wow. You would just blow it up and exact it?

DRAW! SUMMER 2016

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Inks for the variant cover for Justice League of America #1.

Justice League and all related characters © DC Comics.

was such a totally different way of working compared to the Marvel and DC stuff.

HP: Now there was a guy who didn’t worry about the deadlines, as far as I know. It was all about doing the best work in the most artistic way he could, instead of the way we have to get X-amount done each week any way we can.

DRAW!: I interviewed him once, around 2000, I think, at a science-fiction convention here in Philadelphia, and I remember him saying something like, he felt a lot of the American styles were sort of a Frankenstein’s monster. Where it’s a bunch of people cobbling together the art. This guy does the hand, and this guy stitches this thing.

HP: Like an unholy production line kind of approach?

DRAW!: Yeah. And I think they’re more like the old cartoonists used to be in America, where a lot of those guys still had assistants to do backgrounds and stuff, but Chester Gould was more about Chester Gould on Dick Tracy, and Raymond was more about Raymond. It wasn’t like, “Well, we’ll get someone to do breakdowns, and then we’ve got to find someone in the Philippines who can render really well....” But you get different aesthetics, you get different combinations of things by actually doing that sometimes, which arrives at something you probably wouldn’t have any other way.

HP: Right, sometimes you are better for it; the contrasting styles and approaches can be very interesting. Have you seen those old videos on YouTube, maybe it was a French program, where they would have Moebius and Buscema draw their interpretations of a specific thing? I think Romita was on there too.

HP: Yes, I’d do a rough, and then a line drawing over that rough, then flip it and trace that line drawing to correct it.

Then I would darken it up, take a Sharpie and spot all the blacks. Then I’d blow that up and trace it.

DRAW!: Wow. Did you find working that way, as you went through each step, that you enjoyed it less? Or did you enjoy perfecting it more because that’s where you were at the time?

HP: I loved everything about it, I was crazy about it. I had no thought as to how long it took. I just enjoyed the process, and I was obsessed.

DRAW!: In general, from my experience knowing artists who’ve worked for a long time, most tend to start tighter and work towards being looser.

HP: That’s it. That’s the goal, to have the final look like it was easy for you and not a painful process.

DRAW!: I mean, some guys like Joe Kubert are always kinda loose, you know? But I think he did get looser. Neal Adams is looser now than he used to be in a way, I think. It’s just... you don’t sweat the details, I guess. Or maybe you reprioritize what was important to you. I think also, for me, seeing a lot of the European guys, especially people like Moebius—that

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DRAW!: Yeah, I’ve seen a bunch of those recently.

HP: That was pretty great. For us it’s like witnessing an old master painting.

DRAW!: They were sort of like chalk talks. Buscema used to do those at Marvel back in the day.

HP: We need more of those kinds of things now. DC has started to do artist workshops, and I think that’s a great thing.

DRAW!: Do you imagine yourself going back to paper at some point? If you were doing something, say, a more personal project? Or do you find the technology—and you’ve been doing this a while—is more organic to you?

HP: I’m so used to this now... I’m not doing it for speed or anything. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think it looked better than what I was able to do another way. I think it’s improved my work for a lot or reasons. But eventually I’d like to paint something with real paint. I do miss getting my hands dirty.

DRAW!: You mean like a full-color comic, or just do illustrations, or...?

HP: Well, ultimately I’d like to paint landscapes or N.C. Wyeth type things if I am ever able to retire. Just paintings for myself, for the enjoyment of doing it and not for any other

reason. But, yeah, I’d like to do a watercolor sequential story or something like that before I close up shop.

Finished inks with gray tones for the variant cover for Justice League of America #1.

Justice League and all related characters © DC Comics.

DRAW!: How does it affect you, physically, doing so much digitally?

Because I know people who it bothers their eyes after a while. Do you find there to be any difference that way? Do you have an arm for your Cintiq so you can rotate it?

HP: No, you can’t rotate the version of Cintiq I am using. You can angle it like a drawing board, and you can virtually rotate the screen, but not physically.

DRAW!: Do you find there is a physical difference in working in a digital way?

HP: Aside from the tactile feeling of the paper, not at all, because the majority of the time I was working on a very bright light table anyway.

DRAW!: So you were always staring into the light.

HP: Always. Don’t they always tell you to go to the light when you die?

I have been there for the last couple of decades. But the thing that gets me now is sitting for so long. I’ve got problems with my lower back.

Apparently it’s not good to sit 15–16 hours a day.

DRAW!: [sarcastic tone] Really?! [laughter] HP: I have to get up and move around every hour or so.

DRAW!: You also need a good chair. The most expensive thing in your studio should be your chair.

HP: I don’t have that great of a chair. Maybe that’s my problem. I shouldn’t be sitting on toadstools.

DRAW!: I was talking to my buddy Scott Cohn. He bought a “gamer’s chair.”

HP: I’ve seen those. They are pretty awesome.

DRAW!: I guess he really loves it. I need to buy a new chair, between my cat attacking it, and everyday wear and tear.

HP: I’ve seen where they make office chairs out of car seats, like a BMW seat, and they’re like really expensive. Boy, that’d be a good write-off. [laughter]

DRAW!: What about migration, crashes...?

HP: [laughs] Oh yeah. That still happens. I’ve been using Macs for quite a while, and they have never crashed, that is until this latest one I’ve gotten. It’s been freezing up here and there the past few months.

DRAW!: What are you working with?

HP: It’s an iMac, the Retina 5K deal.

DRAW!: Do you think it’s locking up because of a software issue, or do you think it’s a hardware issue?

HP: From the brief googling I did—because it just happened

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two days ago where I lost three hours of work—it possibly has to do with the graphics card they’re using. I think it’s a graphics problem because I can hear the hard drive still working. I can just barely hear the fan going under the sounds of my weeping over the work I have lost.

DRAW!: I generally like Apple products, and I have a MacBook Pro which is now considered to be “grandpa’s machine.”

I still have my 1994 G4 laptop, and it still works. So when my recent one crapped out on me, I was at least able to get my emails, and I could work on my old version of Photoshop.

The new stuff is just not built as well. You do pay a price for working digitally, because I’ve had the same thing happen where you’re working—in fact it happened last night where I was lettering this strip, and it said, “Nooo! I want to be a bad computer.” Every once in a while I’ll get these conflicts. I think it’s a conflict between Photoshop and probably Mozilla, which I think hogs a lot of memory, where I won’t be able to move anything in Photoshop. I end up having to quit Photoshop, and sometimes when I restart it, the file—and I’m constantly saving—you’re saving but it isn’t really saving kind of a thing?

HP: It will give you a recovered version if you’re lucky. If it crashes it seems to do that, but I guess if you hard reboot it you are out of luck.

something you don’t want to redo, save it. But yes, I’ve lost a whole page, and there have been many pages since that I wish I’d lost. I never tell the editor about those things though, because they’ll just think it’s an excuse even if it really happened. So I just keep that to myself and forge ahead with the aid of coffee and Advil.

DRAW!: What about storage and migration of your files?

How do you deal with all that?

HP: I had an Airport Extreme Time Machine thing, and for whatever reason that randomly died with all my backed-up stuff on there, all my original files for half a year of that Justice League stuff. I wasn’t able to recover that. So now I have a new one of those along with an additional external drive, so I have three copies of it. Just in case.

DRAW!: So how do you compensate? I mean, I can’t lose three hours’ worth of work.

HP: Well, what I did was, it was frozen, and I was able to use my phone to take a picture, thanks to my pal Ron for that tip. About twothirds of the page was frozen on the screen, and I used the image from the phone to trace over.

There was a lot of swearing.

DRAW!: Do you have Time Machine running?

HP: I do. It wouldn’t go back at that point, and I had just backed up two or three hours before.

DRAW!: So when it crashed, whatever....

HP: It was gone, disappearing into the ether along with my sanity.

DRAW!: You’re on a deadline, and you’re adding on a quarter-day’s work. Do you feel if you were doing it traditionally you would be going slower?

HP: Definitely, and also, doing it traditionally, I’ve spilt ink across the page or ripped it or whatever. So each method hosts its own set of hair-pulling hazards and pitfalls. Early on when I was painting digitally on Shazam!, I lost a whole page—an entire day’s work that I didn’t save. That’s when I learned you have to save it every few minutes. Whenever you do

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Pencils for Justice League of America 3001.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

DRAW!: You don’t save to the cloud, or somewhere off-site?

HP: I should, I guess. But no, I’ve kept the three hard drives.

DRAW!: What hardware are you running in your studio now?

HP: I just have the one 5K Retina iMac, a 24HD Cintiq, and that external drive. I don’t know what it is... a 3TB drive from the Apple store, G-RAID or something.

DRAW!: And what’s your scanner?

HP: Nothing fancy. It’s a Mustek. It worked with a Mac at the time, and now it’s not working after the last OS upgrade.

So it’s now used as a cat bed.

DRAW!: I’ve got one of those Brother “all-in-one” with the scanner and the fax, and that worked pretty well. The old

scanner I had can still run off the scanner dock on my G4, but it is so slow—especially if you’re scanning at 600 dpi or above. I keep it around just in case, but scanners are so much cheaper now.

HP: Do you remember when they first came out? They were hand-held and you had to put them in a template that you dragged across the paper to keep it in line.

DRAW!: I bought my first scanner in, I guess, 1994, and it actually still runs. The problem was that I had to use Silverfish, or whatever it was, as a third-party driver because they stopped updating the driver for it. One of the things I didn’t realize then is that you can buy a product, but it might actually be at the end of that product’s life when the company will no longer be making any software for it. I think I went to OS 9, and I had to find a third-party that made the driver for it. Buying a scanner now is not so bad, but it was pretty expensive 15 years ago to get a 12" x 18".

HP: Yeah, thousands of dollars, but now a couple hundred bucks at Staples or Office Max. DRAW!: What was the last all-paper job you did?

HP: Where I had an inker and everything? [whistles as he thinks] It was Superman Beyond, and John Livesay inked me on the actual boards.

From what he tells me, most people seem to be doing the blue line printed boards these days.

DRAW!: And what about art sales? Is that something you consider important? Because I hear now the penciler will sell their pencils, and the inker will make one printout of the digitally inked page to sell.

HP: That seems... shady. “I swear it’s the only one.” [laughter] DRAW!: “Yeah, that other page? We changed the face on that other one to make it unique.” [laughter] But are you concerned about selling your originals?

HP: No, not really. I never really was that big on that anyhow. I just give them over to Spencer [Beck of The Artist’s Choice], and he does whatever he does with them. I’m not too concerned with that. I don’t do shows or anything.

I feel that I have been paid for the art once, and that’s good enough for me. I don’t have any sentimental attachment to the finished pages.

Inks for Justice League of America 3001.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

DRAW!: The other thing that I’d say is probably very different now, I think the colorists have in a way replaced the inkers as far as the impact of the artwork. I mean, to me sometimes it’s almost too much.

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Final inks and tones for Justice League of America 3001.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

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HP: When it’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it’s not.

DRAW!: So you’re really having to zoom in quite a bit then?

HP: Yeah, I guess. 20% I think it is. I had a teacher in school tell me that Norman Rockwell said, “Don’t even try to draw a face smaller than two inches high or paint a face smaller than a certain size.” So I have been zooming in on the small faces and figures. My old hands don’t work that well any more, so that way helps out quite a bit.

DRAW!: When I did the Convergence stuff, the person I picked to do the color was the person who did the least rendering. I don’t want the coloring to compete with the drawing, so I don’t want the colorist trying to render the form.

Because most artists don’t draw that well. They may have a great sense of color and know how to put all kinds of fancy stuff in the program, but then they destroy the form because I actually go against the light, you know? Are you making color notes? Because they were doing a lot of work on that Justice League stuff.

HP: No color notes or anything. I was fortunate to have clicked with the Hi-Fi [Coloring] guys, I cannot say enough good things about them.

The pages always look better after they have their way with them. They are very talented. What I do is, I do grayscale, so it’s almost like an ink wash. It’s not really evident in the final, but I’ll put in tones to indicate form, like on the planes on the face, under the eyebrow, or whatever.

They’ll take cues from that and push things even further. They’re terrific artists themselves, so they would be Sketch (left) and layout (right) for the cover of Batman: Arkham Knight #11. able to do it themselves in their own Batman © DC Comics. way anyway, but it’s a way to convey my thoughts more eas- DRAW!: I suppose for him that was true. His originals are ily. So that’s the way that works. And where you might write mostly very large. Do you lay out all of the book first and then notes that say, “I want this as a color hold,” in the old days, go back and do each page? Or do you just do it page-by-page?

I’ll drop the lines out myself so they’re faint grays, and they’ll HP: Over the weekend I’ll rough out what I’ll hopefully get turn that to a color. done through the week: five pages or so. It’s a fairly tight layout, and then each day I’ll try to get a page done. If I work the DRAW!: Are you giving them layered files then? weekend and long days I’ll get about five or six pages done, but HP: Occasionally I’ll leave things not flattened—textures I recently tried to cut back my hours. and stuff—so they can have that be one color, but it’s not totally layered. Just some elements that would make it easier DRAW!: Why? Why do you want to cut back your hours? for them to color that way.

C’mon! Cut your legs off. You don’t need those.

HP: Well, you start losing people in your life you wish you’d DRAW!: Are you doing your digital original the same spent more time with, and I don’t want that to happen again. size—10" x 15" on an 11" x 17" template, or are you doing it That kind of thing. You don’t want to have the “could have smaller, but raising the dpi? should have” list growing too long.

HP: It’s the standard page template they gave me. It’s print size, but they do it at 400 or 600 dpi. But I don’t draw it at that DRAW!: Yeah. One of the hardest things is having that balsize. I’ll zoom in. ance, because art is like a sponge, and there’re just so many man-hours that you have to put in to do it. I mean, even a DRAW!: So you don’t draw it at 11" x 17"? crappy rush job is still hundreds and hundreds of hours of work.

HP: On the monitor it’s roughly 11" x 17", and occasionally I’m always battling that myself. It’s also bad for your head just I’ll zoom in more to do small things. being in your studio all the time and never doing anything else.

HP: Right. The worst, most severe punishment you can give DRAW!: But if you were to reduce it to its actual dimensions? a prisoner is to put them into solitary confinement, and that’s HP: It would be printed page-sized, yeah. what we’re doing to ourselves.

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Pencils (below) and inks (right) for the cover of Batman: Arkham Knight #11.

Batman © DC Comics.

DRAW!: Right. One of the things I observed from working in animation—even though when I worked in animation I worked out of my studio, just because I did everything freelance or long distance—is animators get up, go to their cars, ride the train, or whatever, and go into the studio, and they’re in a social environment, whereas 99% of cartoonists do not do that. That’s why I think Leonard Starr and Stan Drake and a lot of those guys shared studios. I used to share my studio with people like Ande when he lived here, my buddy John Heebink, Ricardo Villigran.... I think that’s one of the reasons why Al Williamson liked having me and Bret share his studio, because otherwise... I could think back where there was probably a week where I wouldn’t see anybody. You see the mailman out the window. You hear the mail come in. “There’s a person!”

HP: What’s the longest you’ve gone without leaving the house? My record is two weeks, and that was in the early ’90s when I was starting out.

DRAW!: I can say it probably was about a week. I had enough food or whatever. That’s been a while, because I went back to school, and I’m teaching. I’m out of the house at least one day a week to teach a class. But I’ve also come to realize it’s very important to have that balance. I used to do the typical

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deadline thing where the longer the deadline burned, the later I would stay up. And then I would get up later and later and later until I burst through the finish line, and I’d be spent. Last night I knocked off about 1:00 a.m. and I slept until 8:30 today, because I found it’s be better for me to sleep.

HP: You’re more productive in the end, when you take the breaks and recharge.

DRAW!: Right, I’ll work faster. One of the things I try to explain to the students it that, you can deprive yourself of sleep when you’re young—and I’m actually a champion at being able to function on four hours of sleep—but you will actually do better if you do go to sleep and give your brain a rest. It’s sort of like dumping the garbage, the RAM of your brain, and when you get back up, you can go full-speed.

HP: You can do better work. You’ll be more motivated and inspired, and will want to work.

DRAW!: Al would sometimes work late if he was on a bad deadline, but he would usually knock off by dinner time, and he would go home and have dinner with his family. Occasionally he’d come back in the evening if Daredevil was running late. But he didn’t do that very often, and I know a lot of the older guys did not do that either. Compare that to anima-

tion guys who are going into a studio where at a certain time you knock off, because they are not going to pay you overtime.

HP: Yep. Overtime, what’s that like?

DRAW!: Didn’t you used to share a studio with Ron Garney?

HP: We had a studio in the early 2000s, and it was great. Now we Facetime pretty much every day as we’re working—so we don’t go insane and can talk as we’re working, but we don’t have to pay the rent and other expenses a studio would require.

DRAW!: So you’re really not talking, you’re just staring at each other’s heads? You silently look down on the top of Ron’s head. [laughter] HP: No, no, we’re talking or singing opera music. We’ll put on music or a podcast and discuss how we are trapped in our cells as our fleeting lives vanish before our very eyes.

DRAW!: So you have a virtual friendship.

HP: [laughs] Yes, we aren’t entirely sure we exist outside of the matrix.

DRAW!: Do you miss actually having the studio?

HP: I do very much. Not so much for the working part, because we still have that now, but being able to go out for lunch, the bookstore, or catching a movie—the physical, non-virtual things. Getting out of the house and being with real non-CGI people was nice, and great for my state of mind.

DRAW!: You say you don’t do Finished inks and tones for the cover of Batman: Arkham Knight #11. conventions. Do you have a fear of Batman © DC Comics. cosplay?

HP: But I’ll do them when I stop working so much… I think.

HP: [laughs] There’s not any one reason why I don’t do them any more, just a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is, if I’m DRAW!: Well, you’re basically a monthly guy, right? You’re going to take time off, I want to spend it with my family and doing a monthly book. friends. And while I enjoy meeting people and stuff, that’s HP: Yeah, as much as that is possible. Someday I hope to more drawing and that’s working to me. On the weekend I slow things down and get to take my time a bit more. I doubt would like to see my sister and nieces and nephews, family that will ever happen though. and friends, because I don’t take that many days off.

DRAW!: Will you do Scooby Apocalypse until that’s over, or DRAW!: I can totally understand that. do you think you’ll do six issues and jump? Because in the old

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Layout (above) and pencils (right) for page 9 of Justice League 3001 #9.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

days, people would get on a book and you wouldn’t want to give that thing up, but it seems like now, if you’re on a book, they don’t want you to do more than six issues.

HP: I have no plans on leaving the book, other than missing issues to keep the schedule on track. I absolutely love working with this team. They have made the last few years the most enjoyable of my career. I have heard some conspiracy theorist type of guy say that the companies don’t want it to get to where the artists had so much power like back when the Image guys started their company, so they don’t keep them around long enough to build that up. But to counter that theory, there are still people who have or have had long runs on books since then. Also there are people who say we didn’t land on the moon and that Elvis is still alive.

DRAW!: Well, there’re very few guys left like John Romita, Jr., who’s a machine, who can do one or two books a month.

Guys now don’t do that many pages and don’t do that long of a run. I think one of the positives of Image was that it focused on the artists and it gave the artists their due as creators in a way that was sort of denied by the publishers. But then I’ve heard because of that, the editorial slant is to put the writers ahead of artists to avoid that ever happening again. It’s just sort of the overall philosophy. But I don’t know. The business

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is much smaller now than it was in the ’90s for one. And I don’t know of any artists at all that have the same drawing power in the way that artists used to have.

HP: Right, that does seem to be the way these days. Writers get most of the accolades. I figure that is because they are the ones most able to talk about and push their own work.

That’s their skill, the use of the written or spoken word and that can be created much quicker than our scribbles. The big hype machines and Top Ten lists that could make or break us back then don’t exist anymore. Other than internet and social media, and that stuff turns over so fast now—news and how information spreads. A thing that’s hot one month is gone in the blink of an eye.

DRAW!: Well, you know, the bulk of my career as a cartoonist did not have the internet. That can have a really positive effect, but it can also have a very negative effect on you.

Maybe you don’t want to read that stuff.

HP: Some of it’s not good. But they seem to be much kinder than they were at the start, I think.

Inks for page 9 of Justice League 3001 #9. The first pass (left) focuses on outlines and solid blacks, the second (right) on details and shading.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

DRAW!: Well, I’ve always thought of cartoonists as being the lowest rung on the ladder of celebrity.

HP: Yes. Most certainly, a few steps below viral video kids snorting hot pepper sauce. [laughter] DRAW!: People can’t go to Tom Cruise directly, “You know what? You suck! All your films suck and blah, blah, blah,” but they can go to some forum or on Facebook, and they can go to your page or your fan page and go, “You suck!” That’s very different. I think it makes you develop a thicker skin.

HP: For sure, there’s not much you can say that would hurt me now. [laughter] I’ve got no ego left, the internet crushed it in the early 2000s, late ’90s. I’m not saying I don’t get down, but usually that’s from my own criticism, and honestly the over the top hate I read online makes me laugh now.

DRAW!: Do you use other things like SketchUp or other drafting programs for perspectives or buildings or cars?

HP: I have tried SketchUp and a couple different 3-D programs for perspective on certain things. It can really be an asset if have to draw something specific in a unique position, like the Chrysler Building or something. But I’d rather just

draw it; it’s faster than trying to get the angle correct in the software and make it fit into a panel or page.

DRAW!: Really? Like you can’t get the feeling you want, or can’t get the angle?

HP: Well, the difference between a photograph and a drawing is a photograph never looks right when you just trace it. It can be great as a jumping off point but can stick out like a sore thumb if you are too literal.

DRAW!: I think that’s a really interesting point. The other day someone posted a link to some anime/manga website where there were jillions and jillions of backgrounds. “Oh, here’s a street scene! Here’s a car! Here’s a bunch of trees!” and you could just cut and paste. You would never have to draw a background. I think for the greatest cartoonists, the top-tier guys, perspective is something that is very personal.

You can tell a Gene Colan drawing just from part of the drawing because of the way he used distortion and perspective.

It became a personal statement. It wasn’t just, “I’m drawing one-point perspective and mapping everything out.” They knew it so well, it was actually an expressive tool in their

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shop, and skewed and transformed them to fit into the planes of the structure. Then I drew over that to loosen it up, but even then, in the end it felt a bit dead and sterile to me when it was done. It was an experiment. Maybe if I hand-drew the window textures that would work better. I will have to give that a try someday.

DRAW!: One of the most interesting things to me is how people use something that’s one of the primary factors of drawing. Objects in space is the use of perspective. You can look at a guy like Kirby, who never put down a vanishing point in his entire life. [laughter] HP: Right, right. For him it’s all part of the composition and making everything fit in there. If you ever tried to draw anatomically correct or use proper perspective, it just wouldn’t work at all. But it all works perfectly in his magical world.

Final inks and tones for page 9 of Justice League 3001 #9.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

arsenal. There’s a lot of feeling in a Gene Colan drawing, and he used to take a lot of photos. And Al Williamson did too. He literally had stacks of photos, and he used to use the old Polaroid camera. Do you feel when you’re using something like SketchUp you can’t get the feeling you want, sort of?

HP: I can never make it fit into my composition, not that I haven’t tried. I have tried to use it for getting the shapes into perspective. Recently I drew over the shapes of a building in perspective, then I created all these window textures in Photo-

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DRAW!: Right. I was looking at a Kirby Collector the other day, and there was a bunch of the war stuff he did, The Losers. And there was a scene of soldiers marching across a field. It’s definitely perspective, and it sort of reminded me of a famous battle painting by Howard Pyle of the Confederate Army marching across a field, so maybe he subconsciously was thinking of something like that. But all of his drawing had such an amazing amount of distortion, yet was convincing within his way of constructing and drawing everything.

So, you sort of feel like if you started with a street scene with a car, and you set up the perspective, and then you had to fit your...

HP: It’s always going to be a little off. Starting with that element and working backwards, you will end up stuck trying to fit things in. But hey, he made it work perfectly for him.

DRAW!: You couldn’t take the distortion tool and sphere-ize or whatever...?

HP: I haven’t thought to try that yet. I will do that to fit a specific sign or texture that needs to be in there—draw the majority of it and transform elements to fit into that. I don’t

Howard’s glorious cityscape panorama for a two-page spread in Justice League 3000 #3.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

mind placing textures or text in, but I really don’t want to be tracing off too much stuff. I should enjoy what I’m doing, and it’s laborious to do that—tedious.

DRAW!: I went to the Lux Con, a science-fiction convention in Allentown. I had gone a couple of years before and walked through and there was a lot of nice stuff there, but one of the things I noticed about modern science-fiction illustrators, as opposed to people from, say, pre-1970, the stuff looks more similar—the tech and the space, and even the color choices, are much more similar than the artists of the previous generation. You could take 25 random stills from the last 25 sciencefiction movies—Harry Potter, Star Wars, whatever—they look very similar. They look like they were designed by three people.

HP: Where they de-saturate everything and then pull up a certain color. Everything is shades of blues and grey and everything feels like it’s night or a cloudy day.

DRAW!: Right, right. And when I look at Frazetta, just a little piece of his drawing is totally him. You can tell. It has his

personality. Or Corben or Moebius—there’s such a personality. Like the way Ditko would draw a hand grabbing a doorknob. I’m looking at a lot of guys who are doing superhero stuff today, and they’ll get a photo of Times Square, and they will draw it, and it will be very accurate. But to me, it’s never as exciting as Jack Kirby’s version of New York, which came from looking at New York, living in New York, and then coming up with his way of abstracting all that amazing amount of detail that you see. He boiled it down. His New York looks like nobody else’s New York, but it still convinced you as a reader that it was New York. Are you thinking in that way when you’re using the tech? Does it give you the “poetry” you want?

HP: Yeah, I guess my poetry is dirty pipes and scummy walls. But really it’s just for just selfish reasons. Drawing is an escape, and I lose myself drawing backgrounds.... As a kid, my dad would bring home giant rolls of paper, and we’d roll them out on the floor and I would just go and create worlds for hours on end. That’s kind of what I’m really enjoying doing now. That’s the fun for me. The world is a character in the story and should be developed with the same attention as your

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heroes. I enjoy creating the world to escape to, and I guess if I wanted to escape into a real world, I would just pull up a photograph and stare at that for nine hours…. I don’t know what the heck I’m saying here. [laughter] DRAW!: We’re all drawing comics. We’re all telling stories.

But there’s a reason why you’re interested in doing....

HP: Right. For a while it was just, “Get it done.” And that would be the way I might do it. But if I’m going to sit and do it all my life, I want to have fun doing it.

DRAW!: So what is the most fun aspect?

HP: What do I enjoy the most about drawing comic books?

It’s that: the escapism. Creating the world that I can lose myself in for the day. The story, the acting, how is this character’s expression going to look, trying it out myself and then drawing it, creating the “movie.” We’re set designers, lighting people, costume designers, and actors all in one.

DRAW!: True. So, is the act of drawing or the act of laying out the most interesting part for you?

HP: Right, the visualization, the laying out and putting the puzzle pieces together, that’s fun. The directing. The stuff in your head, that’s fun. I guess the stuff I like the least is the tedious stuff at the end—

Layouts (above) and pencils (right) for page 11 of Justice League 3001 #9.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

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the noodling, textures, and all that. I don’t dislike it, it’s just the least fun, and I can go autopilot on that stuff.

DRAW!: The cleaning up, you mean?

HP: Yeah, that’s not fun. But I mean the rendering and textures. I’ve been kind of leaning towards going more and more without it, leaving things more open. Now, with the way the color is, you don’t really need so much rendering.

DRAW!: True. One of the things I notice is sometimes you can put in a lot of rendering, but then if the colorist oversaturates it, it competes with your drawing. Then it destroys, to me, the sense of lighting.

HP: Right, the only way you can be sure your lighting will remain yours is if you do a high contrast thing with lots of blacks. But I am doing the opposite, because the guys I work with are so great I think I wouldn’t be giving them enough room to shine. Also, I know what negative space is and the beauty of all that, but I get so into drawing that I fill everything, so I have to keep in mind the difference between “detail” and

textures. I try to leave the textures up to the colors, and the details are my responsibility.

DRAW!: So, detail would be, like, Spider-Man’s webbing.

But then, how much do you render the form of the leg, the turning of the typical comic book rendering? Do you want to render less?

HP: Precisely. I do more holding lines in the grey where you won’t even see it because it’s going to be turned to color.

Whereas before I would try to take the Kevin Nowlan approach and do the lighting myself, but I have only a fraction of his skill. I wanted to be him for a long time. [laughter] His kind of lighting, I love that stuff.

DRAW!: So did everybody else in the ’90s. Everybody wanted to be Kevin Nowlan.

HP: I still do. [laughter] DRAW!: Well, even Kevin’s stuff has changed, I think, compared to what he was doing. He also did stuff that was simpler. I like that stuff a lot. So we can say Kevin, but who else were your biggest influences?

HP: John Byrne, he came in at the right time in my life. Right when I became obsessed with comics he was really popular.

But through him I discovered others. I was like, “Who does this guy like?” I like to go back and figure out who artists learned from, so Kirby, Neal Adams, and those guys. If I think back, what really got me into drawing comics was Mad magazine when I was very young. Wally Wood and Mort Drucker and....

DRAW!: Did you have those little paperback reprints?

HP: I did have them, yeah. I loved that stuff. Maybe that’s why I love to put so much detail in the background. I love Mort Drucker and Wally Wood—there’d always be a separate story going on in their backgrounds.

DRAW!: Oh yeah! Or Bill Elder. There were all kinds of little things that were happening.

HP: Yes! I love that stuff. I mean, on top of their awesome drawing abilities.

DRAW!: Right, right. It’s funny how Mad is sort of forgotten now. Because when Mad was coming out in the beginning, there was nothing else like it. Now, there’re a lot of other things like Mad—Howard Stern, everything is sort of...

HP: Okay, you’re not talking just comics, but in general? Like subject matter and irreverence.

DRAW!: Yeah, I think the world caught up to Mad. I don’t think that, artistically, we will probably ever be able to top that great stuff, because there almost isn’t an environment for that now. But, yeah, Mort Drucker is one of my favorites.

HP: And Jack Davis, wow.

Inks (above) and finished inks and tones (next page) for Justice League 3001 #9, page 11.

Justice League 3001 and all related characters © DC Comics.

DRAW!: Yeah. So much good stuff. Those guys actually are better than people think.

Humor is never given much respect.

HP: There aren’t that many Oscars given to comedies, at least not on purpose.

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DRAW!: Right. But there’s nobody like Mort Drucker now. I mean, that guy is still so, so great. So you were reading Mad as a kid?

HP: Oh yeah. They always seemed to be, probably because of deadline reasons and so forth, a step above your mainstream 25-cent comics that you were getting on the rack. Maybe because of the washes and all that stuff. And I also liked the Conan magazines, and Creepy, and Eerie.

DRAW!: I loved those old Warren magazines. I still have all my super-dogeared copies from when I was buying them as a teen. When Heavy Metal started coming out, seeing that stuff was like— HP: “Comics can look like this?!”

DRAW!: I still remember my dad seeing the first couple of Heavy Metals, and it was when Richard Corben had “Den” in there.

My dad was like, “What’s with this naked guy running around?” [laughter] HP: And you’re like, “Yeah. But look how well it’s drawn.”

DRAW!: I didn’t care that the guy was naked, just that it was really awesome stuff. I guess I realize now that my parents were actually pretty liberal. People now would be, “Oh my God!” HP: Right. “I need to go to my safe room.” [laughter] DRAW!: Do you read many comics today?

HP: I think you have to for professional reasons, but unfortunately, I don’t. I do try to, and my enthusiasm level is much higher when I do. I guess it’s sort of like working out if you’re an athlete. You have Scooby and Shaggy hang out in Howard’s finished inks and tones for Scooby Apocalypse #1, to keep looking at the books to see what’s page 5. The grayed out lines of Scooby’s emoji “dialogue” will be made blue by the colorist. going on, but now, at the end of the day, I Scooby-Doo and all related characters © Hanna-Barbera. don’t want to have anything to do with comics until the next but around there. So I did borrow some of that kind of stuff.

I liked it and everyone was of doing it, but maybe we didn’t morning. know what made it work for them, why they were doing that DRAW!: You were influenced by Mad. What about once kind of rendering, but those guys did and it was great. So I you got into the business? We haven’t really talked about the was doing that, and when I started on JLA, I just threw that out the window and tried to go really clean—with the thick “Secret Origins of Howard Porter.”

HP: [laughs] Yeah, it was Mad, and then it was John Byrne holding lines and such. Kind of the opposite way from the and X-Men, and then FF. And then Frank Miller was doing Image style.

Daredevil, and I was into that. But then Michal Golden just made me go crazy with his stuff—Avengers Annual #10. That DRAW!: You went to art school, right? grabbed me, so I was really into him for a long while. But then HP: I did. I went to a small college in Connecticut called when I got in, that was around Image time. A little before that, Paier College of Art.

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DRAW!: He was working with Dick Giordano, right?

HP: Yes, he was, and teaching a cartooning class there. I hung up some goofy werewolf drawings around the school and someone brought them to him. Then I met with him, and I remember being quite star struck. I started doing backgrounds with him and Dick.

DRAW!: This was when you were living in Connecticut?

HP: Yes. I lived more north, and it was about an hour’s drive to Dick’s house. I would have to drop off pages and leave them, because he was gone during the day work at DC. I’d drive down 60 miles one day, drive home, do a ton of pages overnight, and then drive all the way back the next day. That seemed pretty far for me at that age, but I could do that now in my sleep. [laughter] DRAW!: Well, that’s how a lot of guys used to get their lettering done on the strips. There were a couple of guys who would do all the lettering, and they would drive around and pick up pages from this guy and that guy, and bring them back when they were done.

HP: Yep. I would have done anything to work in comics. And I did, well, almost everything….

DRAW!: What years were this?

HP: I think that it was late ’87, maybe ’88 when I started. I started with him, and then from him I started helping out other guys.

Local guys… Mike DeCarlo, Steve Montano, and Bob Smith.

DRAW!: Did you get to do backgrounds on anything really cool?

Inks and tones for a preview image of “Sugar and Spike” from Legends of Tomorrow.

HP: [laughs] I did so much. Back then those All characters © DC Comics. guys were each doing two books a month. So I would do six books a month. Bob was doing The Demon and DRAW!: And what kind of art school was that?

HP: They have Interior Design, Graphic Design, Photogra- Robin, and I did backgrounds on a lot of that. Steve Montano was doing Guardians of the Galaxy and some Fantastic Four phy, Illustration, and Fine Art. I took Illustration. book. I think he was doing Doc Savage with a Kubert when I first started with him.

DRAW!: Did you have any old-time illustrators teaching?

HP: Well, sure they were older, everyone’s older when you are 17. They weren’t illustrators that I knew of beforehand, DRAW!: Did you make Xerox’s of the pencils? Did you not that I knew of many, but they were so great and very tal- study them? ented. I had a great figure painting teacher who did portraits HP: Oh yeah. They would teach me, obviously, because they for a lot of politicians. He could draw as well as anyone. I also wanted me to do better backgrounds, but they enjoyed showhad a teacher who was an illustrator for National Geographic ing me the craft. I would bring work in, and they would criwho specialized in egg tempura. He was incredible. Actually, tique it. I learned more about comics that way than I did in that’s how I met Frank McLaughlin and got into doing back- college, because in college, comics were frowned upon. Other than the drawing in sketchbooks, I only drew four complete grounds around 1987, I think.

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pages the whole time in college, and they were like, “Don’t do this. This is crap.”

DRAW!: Really?

HP: Yes. But I’m glad they forced me to learn other stuff.

DRAW!: Do you think they were saying it was crap because they thought it was crap, or they were bitter, or…?

HP: They just didn’t think it was “Art” I guess. I do remember my figure-painting instructor liked the Jerry Ordway stuff I brought in—how could you not like it—but the other stuff he didn’t like. I don’t think it was bitterness at all, I just think they felt it was not the level of traditional portraits or paperback novel covers. At that time people hadn’t realized that comics were as sophisticated as they are.

DRAW!: There was a difference between comic books and comic strips, though, because there were people that were like, “You like comic books? You’re a moron.” But if you liked comic strips….

HP: You mean like Mickey Mouse?

DRAW!: If you were doing comic strips, that was big money. It was a celebrity kind of thing.

HP: Right! Those guys were on talk shows and Johnny Carson back in the day. They were celebrities—the Dennis the Menace guy, Hank Ketcham.

DRAW!: Before TV, and even during the beginning of TV, these artists were as famous as any celebrity you could name. And people bought newspapers for the comic strips. “I’m not going to buy the Gazette.

I’m going to buy the Examiner because it has Terry

The petite Dr. Velma Dinkley (who’s quite the techie in this take on the Scooby-Doo gang) as envisioned in Howard’s turnaround board (left) and finished inks and tones for page one of Scooby Apocalypse #1.

Scooby-Doo and all related characters © Hanna-Barbera

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and the Pirates.” It’s very hard for people to understand now how important that stuff was back 50, 60, 70 years ago.

HP: And now newspapers are nearly gone… but web comics are pretty big.

DRAW!: It used to be that some of my students would know Zits or Calvin & Hobbes. But the newer ones, the ones that are 14, 15, aren’t really into that stuff now. I think that we’ve reached a generation where their parents don’t read newspapers. Their parents don’t bring home newspapers, therefore they’re not exposed to the comic strips.

HP: Now, you’re doing Judge Parker? That’s syndicated in the newspapers, so that still exists.

DRAW!: Yeah, and I’ll meet older people, and I’ll say, “Judge Parker,” and they’ll go, “Oh! Judge Parker!” More people will know The Phantom because it’s super-popular all over the world. When I announced I was doing it, my dad was very excited because he was a huge Phantom fan as a kid.

I think we’ve gotten to the point where comic books are acceptable, because most of the people we know grew up reading comic books. It’s the rise of geek culture to become mainstream culture. All that stuff you used to be made fun of, or was thought of as being bad….

HP: Now it’s nostalgia and bringing in major revenue in theaters and merchandise.

Layout and inks for page 20 of Superman #8.

Superman © DC Comics.

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DRAW!: Yeah. You’ve got people who are our age, in their 50s, who grew up reading that stuff. So for them, it’s, “I’ve always liked Star Trek.” I saw so many people my age who were just so excited about Star Wars.

HP: But I think I’ve hit the age where I’m not excited about Star Wars. [laughter] I realized some things are better left as a memory. If you go back and watch it, it’s not as good as the replay in your mind. You should leave it as a memory where Luke isn’t whining so much and the muppets look real.

DRAW!: That’s true with some things. I mean, I still like Star Wars, but there’s MeTV, where they run all those old shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space.

Those were huge shows when I was a kid. I can still watch Lost in Space. It’s pretty hokey, but….

HP: But that’s what’s good about it. Now you can enjoy that for an entirely different reason. It’s so silly, whereas before it seemed so cool.

DRAW!: Right. But Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is just so awful, because they didn’t do the camp in the way Lost in Space decided to become campy. Some of the shows are, like, “What’s going on? Why is Admiral Nelson getting in a diving bell and turning into a werewolf?”

HP: I haven’t gone back and watched that but now I really want to. I like diving bells and werewolves. If you put those two together I may just explode.

DRAW!: To me, one of the things that does not wear well at all is Space Ghost. I loved that show when I was six, and you watch them now, and the music is great, the voice acting is great, some of the drawing is… okay. The model sheets that Toth did were great, but a lot of that drawing is not up to snuff.

And the stories just make no sense whatsoever—they’re barely a story.

HP: But as a child that’s all you need.

Comics were initially intended for children, and then those children grew up and still read them. So they made the comics more adult and serious which can lose the charming, fun nature of it.

HP: That’s why I like working with Keith Giffen, because he’ll make fun of his comics as he’s doing them. He’ll have a good story and all that, but they’re guys in capes and underwear in serious situations. You can’t take it too seriously. It’s just a comic book.

DRAW!: A lot of the Golden Age generation, as serious as those guys were as practitioners of their craft, I don’t think they took it as seriously at a certain point. They took drawing and storytelling and all that stuff seriously, but I don’t think they took the stuff beyond a certain point any more seriously than

DRAW!: Yeah. My biggest criticism probably of the films is that— HP: The films—that’s where I was going.

DRAW!: I think the Marvel films, even though they are a bit too tech-y for me, when I watch them, I feel like I’m watching a Marvel comic. It has that… sense of humor that the Marvel stuff always had, which the DC stuff never really had. Because that was Stan—that was his personality. “We’re having fun, but we’re in on the joke with you.” Whereas the DC movies, there’s nothing fun about Batman. The world is grim. Your parents are dead.

And then with Superman….

HP: I like those movies, but yeah, it’d be good if they poked a little more fun at themselves and gave us something to smile about. If you walk into a courtroom wearing a cape and a skin-tight suit, there is going to be at least one remark from the wise-ass angsty kid in the corner about your shiny work boots.

DRAW!: Yeah. I think that’s why I like The Incredibles so much. I feel like it really has all the good things about comics.

Finished inks and tones for page 20 of Superman #8.

Superman © DC Comics.

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HP: Probably, yes. I’m a goofy guy too, I love stand up comedians. But really that’s just me, an awkward fellow with a face perfect for an artist who never has to leave the house.

DRAW!: Well, that’s good.

HP: I’ve taken it seriously, you know.

I’ve drawn the way I thought I should draw a comic book, and it didn’t come out as well as me just drawing in a way that was natural.

DRAW!: What do you mean by that?

HP: I felt you had to do certain things—a guy flying out at you in that standard pose, fists extended, one knee forward and the other leg back. I felt there was a checklist of things I had to put in to make it a “comic book.”

DRAW!: What was your original checklist of things you felt that you had to put in?

HP: Oh, like if a hero is standing heroically, he’s got to put his hands on his hips like we always see. I thought it had to be a certain way, the stereotypical go-to poses and panels. I felt locked into that for a long time, if that makes any sense.

DRAW!: Well, yeah. Did you also feel that you always had to have a grim face or whatever?

HP: Yeah, yeah. Teeth gritted, or the heroes have to be grouped up. Other than a football team, who runs around grouped up in ball of people coming at you? I’ve never seen it. [laughter] They’d have to be grouped up and coming at you through rubble while posing with backs arched or something Guy Gardner and Firestorm emote in page 3 of Justice League 3001 #5. like that on a cover. I would lose my Firestorm, Guy Gardner © DC Comics. mind asking myself why are they comyou would take a Saturday morning matinee serial. Because if ing through the rubble? Are they mad at walls? you push it beyond a certain point, it collapses. It becomes kind of ridiculous.

DRAW!: When I look at the stuff online, it’s basically just HP: Have those emotional beats, but then have some levity. dudes standing and looking at you. If there’s a group, everyone is “Vogue-ing.” It could be an ad for The X-Files, an ad DRAW!: Right. That’s one of the things I see in your work, for Fast & Furious 7, but it’s always a bunch of dudes and a is that there’s a sense of humor. couple of chicks standing and looking you, and it tells you HP: Thank you! nothing about the Molten Man melting Iron Man’s armor and he’s going to die, like the old comic covers did, which were DRAW!: Do you think that’s coming through from your much more dramatic. route of being influenced by Mad and things like that?

HP: Yeah, there was a story being told with those, as if it

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was like a giant panel pulled from that issue. It can drive you insane after doing 40 covers of the Justice League just coming at you. You just start going, “Why? Why are they coming at you while trying to look very attractive and angry all at once?”

DRAW!: Do you feel that happens because the publishers are consciously not trying to do stuff that looks like it might have been done in, say, 1980? Which I find weird, because most of the people left who read comics, that’s the stuff they love.

They love John Byrne’s X-Men, but Marvel would never do a cover now like “Days of Future Past.” It would just be all of them standing together, looking at you.

HP: I think you hit the nail on the head. There have been times I was told to not have it look like an old classic cover. But maybe it’s just like fashion, someone does something that is well-received so other people replicate it until something new comes along. Maybe people feel that it has to look a certain way—like I was saying with the checklist. I don’t know.

DRAW!: So there’s a modern checklist?

HP: Right! At DC I know they like to have certain elements shown on the cover, not a hard and fast set of rules but a good recipe to use. You should show the hero using their powers and being threatened or threatening, and a sense of environment. However, contradictory to this whole conversation, on Justice League 3000 we did a lot pastiches of classic ’70s books thanks to Giffen.

This cover for Batman: Arkham Knight #10 avoids the typical “coming at you” character pose.

Batman © DC Comics.

DRAW!: They want the hero using their powers?

HP: Yeah. They want the hero to be engaged—something happening and their powers being used…. Generally they give me an idea. They’ll say, “How about we have this happen?”— a hand holding a cell phone being crushed or whatever. Then I’ll do three rough takes on it. Or if I’m doing it with Keith, we’ll talk it out on the phone and do one.

DRAW!: How do you work out trying to convince them to pick the cover that you want to draw?

HP: [laughter] Right. They’ll always pick the one you least like, so don’t send that one in. Or try to make them all something you would like to draw.

DRAW!: My trick was to always take the one that I liked, and draw that one better. And they’re like, “Wow! This is a nice drawing!” See. HP: Yep. that works. Or wait until the day it’s due and turn in just the one. That way there is no time for more!

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The Right Way, The Wrong Way, and The

OrdWay !

The art of thebySketch Cover Jerry Ordway

Caricature by Rachel Ordway

A

somewhat new niche has developed in the past few years, where publishers offer a blank “sketch cover,” a special variant for certain comic book titles. The first few sketch covers published did not have a great drawing surface, even though they were intended to be drawn on. The best tool you could use on them was a Sharpie brand marker. Lately though, publishers have seemed to standardize them with a heavierweight drawing paper that wraps the regular published version of the comic book. These are pretty decent to work on with a pencil, quill pen, marker, or even a brush and India ink.

If you want to draw only on the front cover side, it’s not too difficult to fold the comic interior out of the way so you could use a light box to trace a preliminary drawing onto the surface.

If you wish to draw on both the front and back cover, as I will show in my sample here, then it is much easier to carefully open and remove the staples on the comic, in order to separate the sketch cover paper. Save the staples and the rest of the comic for reassembly later.

I approach a sketch cover blank differently in my studio than I would at a comic book convention. At a comic con, I will lightly sketch directly on the cover with pencil, and finish with Pitt brand marker pen and brush. In the comfort of my studio, I like to do a separate layout, or prelim, first. I will start by composing the scene on layout paper to lock down an image, which I then transfer to the actual comic cover paper via tracing through my light box. This eliminates a lot of sketch lines and erasing that can degrade the final drawing surface, which is especially important when using color and markers later on.

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I used this older Jerry Robinson Joker cover from Detective Comics (left) as my inspiration for the new piece. I am a huge fan of Robinson’s Batman work, and many of his covers were iconic images. (above and top of next page) On my layout paper, I sketched a horizontal composition, which would fill both the front and back cover on the comic. I took pains to balance where the Joker’s head would fall, as I didn’t want the face bisected by the crease on the cover. I roughed in the drawing in pencil, and then refined the drawing with a fine point marker. Marker is easier to see through the lightbox than a pencil line, and makes for easier tracing.

Batman, Robin, Joker © DC Comics.

This stage went smoothly, though I needed to find reference for the Joker’s weapons. I could have faked the guns, but I like the extra detail found in a prop or photo.

As a comic book artist, I need to draw guns a lot, so I am always on the lookout for decent toy cap gun replicas to use for reference. As opposed to a single reference photo, a replica prop can be drawn from any angle, which is pretty handy. The “gun” I’m using here was purchased many years ago at a toy store in a simpler time, when replicas looked real, down to color. It has come in handy many times, though it’s important to realize it is not scaled for an adult hand size. You’ll need to draw it bigger so it doesn’t look like a toy! I hold it in position and draw it with the other hand. No need to take a picture.

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As I begin to trace the layout onto the finished board, I have a pic of the original Detective Comics cover to refer to on my iPad. A tablet is a great viewer for reference culled from a web search. I’d guess in the few years I’ve had one, I’ve saved a lot of money that would have been spent on printer ink and paper.

At this stage, I have lightly penciled the image, tracing from the layout, and have started inking the image with a Hunt #102 crow quill pen tip, dipped into Pelikan (yellow label) drawing ink. I keep my line pretty thin, without any heavy areas of ink applied. The Copic markers will do the heavy lifting in the color phase. From past experience, the markers can smear the India ink if the ink is applied too heavily. It’s helpful to let this stage sit and dry for an hour or so before touching the drawing with markers.

Batman, Robin, Joker © DC Comics.

I started with the purple of the Joker first, because it is the dominant color on the piece. I try to color in basic shapes, to imply the shadows and give the piece a little depth. Next I used a lighter shade of purple on the coat, with minimal blending of the two tones. With any marker, especially Copic brand, it is best to lay in color quickly, because it minimizes drying lines between strokes. When the area is too large to lay it all in before the strokes start drying, try to embrace those wedge shapes as a design element! It also helps if you can keep them all going in the same direction, whether vertically or horizontally. It looks better than crossing strokes all over the place.

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It’s easy to forget which marker you just used if you put them back in the stand each time, so I leave the ones I am using out within easy reach. I had three values of purple I was working with, and as I started coloring the foreground, I kept going back to the purple areas to adjust the contrasts.

Batman, Robin, Joker © DC Comics.

After the basic colors are laid in, I am ready to fill in the black areas, which will give the drawing some “punch.”

The background is mostly black, so I leave the Joker’s hair till the end, after the black background is drawn in. Use the thick wedge tip to apply the black boldly, and the brush or fine point tip only to get a clean edge around the figures. That’s what is great about these markers­­—they have either a brush tip or a fine point on one end, and a thicker chisel tip on the opposite end. The chisel tip makes filling in large areas go pretty fast.

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My daughter introduced me to this Signo Uni-ball white ink pen, which is just great for adding speed lines, stars, or key lighting on a tonal drawing.

They are similar to a paint pen, but with the small tip of a roller ball type pen. I love them! They’re great for corrections as well, because the line is thin and easy to control.

From start to finish, this one took approximately three hours. For me, these are a fun excuse to work in color, without having to haul out my watercolors and paints! Markers are also a great layering media, as you can overlay colors on top of each other, much like you’d do working in Photoshop.

Batman, Robin, Joker © DC Comics.

My drawing is finished at this stage, so I’ll need to reassemble the cover onto the rest of the comic, carefully replacing the staples at the centerfold. Before I re-bind it, I make a full-sized scan for my files while it is flat.

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

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jAMAL IGLE

into the MOLLY DANGER ZONE Interview conducted by Mike Manley and transcribed by Sean Dulaney DRAW!: You bumped into my buddy Jamar recently at a show. Was it in Brooklyn or something?

Jamal Igle: It was in Harlem at the Black Comic Book Festival.

DRAW!: How was that as an event?

JI: It was insane. I went last year, and it was nowhere near as crowded as it was this year, and they actually had twice the amount of space. They are quickly outgrowing the Schomburg Library, so they are going to have to figure out something for next year.

DRAW!: This is happening at every convention: they’re growing and growing and outgrowing their spaces.

JI: Absolutely. The idea of comic books in the public sphere has sort of been re-energized. I think it’s not really so much we’re bringing new people in. We’re bringing back the lapsed Catholics of the comic book world. [laughter] But I also think you have to give Marvel a lot of credit for this. The Marvel movies have really done a lot to put the idea of superheroes back into kids’ heads. My daughter is almost eight, and the boys in her class are all about the Marvel superheroes.

DRAW!: I teach a high school illustration class, and now you get kids who just know the characters from the movies. It’s a different fan.

JI: I would agree with that. I used to teach at the Art Students League, and a lot of the students I had in my class were people who were either just getting into the Marvel stuff because of

the movies, or they were heavy into manga and anime. And I could definitely see that anime was… not really waning….

DRAW!: It’s “normal” now.

JI: Yeah. More mainstream.

DRAW!: I was having a talk with my students, giving them a little history of manga and anime, and saying, “Japanese artists were influenced by the Americans like Disney and the old comic strip artists. So you’re being influenced by [American artists], but as seen through their cultural lens.”

JI: Right, exactly. When I was in high school, the big thing was stuff like Appleseed and Macross—Akira especially. Katsuhiro Otomo was huge with the guys I went to art school with. That started to seep its way into what a lot of the guys were doing back in the ’90s.

I went to the High School of Art and Design. You’ve met [comic book artist] Buzz, right?

DRAW!: Yes. JI: Buzz was the guy running our [school] comic book club, and he had a hook-up. It was a place in Manhattan that used to import videotapes from Japan and rent them out to people. So we got to see Akira, Macross, Project A-Ko. We got to see Bubblegum Crisis before most people had even heard of this stuff.

DRAW!: Would you say that was a big influence on you at the time?

JI: I don’t know that it was. I think from everything I was exposed to at the time, the two Japanese artists that had the biggest influence on me were [Katsuhiro] Otomo with Akira and Masamune Shrirow with Appleseed, because there was

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Layouts for pages 7 and 8 of Molly Danger Book 1. After sketching and scanning, Jamal digitally places his photo reference directly into the panels of the layout.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

such an illustrative quality to their work that I was immediately attracted to. I was already a huge fan of guys like Steve Rude, Jerry Ordway, José Luis García-López, and Dave Stevens. I was always more drawn to the illustrative side of comics, so those two artists in particular just sort of fell into my wheelhouse, because of the level of detail, and how lush their work was.

DRAW!: I like all different kinds of cartooning styles, but Otomo is probably the guy that, his work—except for the faces—is the most naturalistic in a way.

JI: I would agree. There’s much more of a cartoony quality to his faces, but the amount of actual raw emotion that he’s able to pull out of that cartooniness just works so well with the rest of his style.

DRAW!: I’ve always thought he was akin to Moebius from that standpoint. Because Moebius did stuff that was a lot more cartoony, and then he could do stuff that was more straight.

But his straightest stuff had a bit of cartooniness to it.

JI: That’s true. There are parts of Blueberry that definitely have a comedic bent to it. I don’t know if that was intentional, or if it was just something that came out, but it was definitely there.

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DRAW!: So you were more influenced by the manga artists than the cartoons, per se?

JI: Yeah. And even now there’s sort of a disconnect for me with the cartoons as opposed to the actual manga. I think that that’s just my prejudice when it comes to illustration in general. I learned to respect more cartoony styles as I got older, but when I was in my formative years, I sort of eschewed the Disney, super-cartoony looking styles in almost a snobbish way.

DRAW!: Like it wasn’t serious enough?

JI: Yeah. I definitely thought it wasn’t serious. I had a very purist point of view when it came to illustration and figure work. I’ll give you the perfect example. I hated Jack Kirby’s work for decades.

DRAW!: There was no access point for you?

JI: No. My access point actually wasn’t any of the Marvel work. It was Fighting American. I got a copy of the Fighting American hardcover collection, and I was just like, “This can’t possibly be the same guy.” But then it forced me to look at Kirby’s later Marvel work, and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. Because I realized the Kirby that everybody loved was the guy who was already 20 years into his career and had figured out the formula.

Pencils for page 7 of Molly Danger. Molly’s facial expressiong in panel 1 has been changed to be more dramatic. And the rotation of the helicopter blades has been been changed to make for a better composition.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

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Page 7 inks by Juan Castro, and colors by Romulo Fajardo.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

DRAW!: Kirby was what, 40 or 41 when he started Fantastic Four? He was approaching middle age already.

JI: He had figured it out. I look at Kirby’s later work—the Fantastic Four stuff, the Fourth World stuff—and now I appreciate everything he did. Because this was a guy who figured out how to get the most power out of minimalism. And he was able to convey lines and convey ideas and blow people away. It took me years [to realize it]. I would get into arguments with people, because the first thing I had ever seen of Kirby was the Super Powers mini-series.

DRAW!: Where you can see his decline in health, or maybe his eyesight, actually affect the drawings, and sometimes they looked like they were skewed, like there was optical distortion. Gene Colan’s work was like that towards the end, and I think that was because he was having issues with his eyesight.

JI: It was kind of the same thing with Jim Aparo. And if the later stuff is your entry point, after they’re older and they’re in failing health, or whatever their personal circumstances….

Towards the end of Aparo’s life, he did this Flash story for DC [a 14-page story in Flash: Born to Run, 1997]. I was working there at the time, and I was hearing rumors around the office where they were saying, “We’re trying to get him something but nobody wants to work with him.”

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DRAW!: It was probably hard for guys like him and Curt Swan and Gil Kane. Mike Carlin was one of the few guys who would give Gil Kane work towards the end, because things had really changed, and they would say, “Put Kevin Nowlan on Gil Kane, and we’ll make it look more like Kevin Nowlan and less like Gil Kane.” And it’s like, “You can’t make Gil Kane look like anyone but Gil Kane.” [laughter] If you’re coming into Kirby now, and you’re a fan of anime or of Jim Lee or some artist like that, for some people it’s very hard to find an access point. I always loved Frank Robbins from the very beginning, but I know people who absolutely hated Frank Robbins’ stuff. But now, being older, they love Frank Robbins’ stuff.

JI: I think for certain things you grow to appreciate them. I’ll give you a perfect example. I had to grow to appreciate Alex Toth. I didn’t get what he was doing. For a very long time I sort of dismissed him as, “Oh, he’s the guy who designed the Super Friends. I don’t want to have anything to do with that.”

DRAW!: Were you seeing his character designs? Were you aware of the Zorro material or any of that other stuff?

JI: I saw reprints of that stuff later, and that was the stuff that really turned me around. Part of what really did it was when Steve Rude was doing that Space Ghost special back in

the ’80s, and they had this whole article about his influences. I think it was either Comics Journal or Comics Interview, but they did this whole thing on how he was trying to be faithful to what Toth was doing, and how that was sort of bleeding into the work he was doing on Nexus, and I started to see those connections. And they were sort of the same connections I saw between Doug Wildey and Dave Stevens and Al Williamson and Frazetta and everything else. Once I started making those connections, I started to appreciate Toth.

And then I started to go backwards and get into The Fox and the Zorro stuff and everything else.

DRAW!: Were you in college at the time?

JI: No, I was in high school. I went to Art and Design in ’86 and graduated in ’90.

DRAW!: So by the time you got to SVA, you were appreciating the more cartoony…?

JI: I was starting to make that turn. [laughter] I was definitely starting to make that turn by that point.

DRAW!: That’s interesting. When you’re young you have those things you like or you don’t. I always liked the older stuff, even as a kid. When people would go crazy over John Byrne, I was like, “I’d rather look at Neal Adams.”

JI: But again, that’s the thing. Me being 14 in 1986, John Byrne was it. That was all that anybody I knew Our hero, Molly Danger! Molly is visually based on Jamal’s daughter, Catie. Pencils for Molly talked about, so for a while it was either Danger book 1, page 5 splash.

Byrne or Art Adams doing Longshot Molly Danger © Jamal Igle when he came on the scene and started JI: It wasn’t a longbox, just a cardboard box, and my mother doing the X-Men annuals. And then Alan Davis. never explained to me exactly where she got these from. But DRAW!: What about Golden? Did you ever like Michael there was a bunch of comics in a box in the closet and there were a bunch of old Archies, and the Avengers Annual— Golden?

JI: I liked Michael Golden, but I had not seen anything regularly. It was very weird because I’d seen the Avengers Annual DRAW!: So you probably weren’t feeling the Archies? years before. For some reason it ended up in my house. There [laughter] was a box in the closet, and I still don’t know where it came JI: For a while that was the only thing I was allowed to read—the Archie digest. So, yeah. But from the beginning, from. both of my parents were actually very supportive. My mom DRAW!: You don’t know what magic fairy delivered the and dad broke up, and my dad was into art and filmmaking, Michael Golden annual to your longbox in your closet. acting, and everything. It was first or second grade—my mother, when we moved into our new apartment, did a mural [laughter]

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In 2015, Jamal wrote and drew an eight-page short story titled, “We Regret to Inform You,” which he published on NoiseTrade, a “pay-what-you want” website where the music and books are free for download, and tips are suggested. You can find the entire story at: http://books.noisetrade.com/ jamaligle/we-regret-to-inform-you. Here and on the next page is some of the photo reference Jamal gathered for the story, and page 1 of the story. The story involves an alien invasion during the 1940s, so there’s a 1940s housewife and house, a young Lucille Ball (bottom left), and 1940s-era RAF uniforms.

We Regret to Inform © Jamal Igle. All photos © their respective owners.

on my wall based on the John Romita shot from the SpiderMan newspaper strip. The one where he’s crawling towards the camera. She did a painted mural of that on my bedroom wall. Thinking back on it now, that’s not something most parents would think to do.

DRAW!: Were you thinking as a kid that you wanted to do comics, or this didn’t happen until later?

JI: I always sort of had that inkling that I wanted to do something with comics. The first movie I ever remember seeing was Superman: The Movie. My grandfather took me to see Superman when I was five years old. We got there late, and we walked in just as Lex Luthor is getting the hypersonic message to Superman at the Daily Planet. He’s like, “I’ve got bombs planted around the city. No one else can hear this, Superman. People will die.” And he leaps out of the Daily Planet building and transforms into Superman, and I grabbed my grandfather’s arm and said, “I want to do that.” [laughter] From that time on, superheroes and comics became so present in my life. And it always seemed like there was something comic book related going on, or somebody was giving me comics. When I was in the fifth grade, there was a girl in my class, and I guess her dad or uncle worked at a printer or something. I forget exactly how he got them, but she would give me all these comics because she didn’t read superhero stuff. She would come to school with a plastic bag with 20 or 30 books, and just give them to me. And that went on for a year or so. I was probably in the seventh grade, and we were making mini-comics and doing our own stuff….

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DRAW!: Did you have buddies you were doing it with?

JI: Yeah. I was disruptive as a kid. I was the kid who would be drawing comics in class underneath the desk because I finished my work.

DRAW!: You were a real cartoonist. [laughter] You were bucking the trend early.

JI: Oh yeah. I was hardcore. And I got in trouble for it a lot, not just because I was doing them, but because I needed some alone time to do them. So I would go underneath my desk, which would prompt everybody else to come over to my desk to see what I was doing. [laughter] One of my really close friends, Clifford Charles, who has been working as a cinematographer with Spike Lee for decades, would write. I would draw. Or I would write and he would draw, and his method of drawing was to take mimeograph paper or carbon copy paper, and trace the figures from the comics—just copy them into panels. He’d get an old copy of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. [laughter] DRAW!: So he would mix and match, then?

JI: Yeah, he would mix and match, and I would be designing characters. We had a whole line of superheroes.

And I would hang out with my friend Glester. We didn’t go to school together, but on the weekends and on Saturdays, between making up our own characters and trying to do comics or arguing about them—because I was a DC fan and he was a Marvel fan. “Who’s tougher? The Justice League or the X-Men?” [laughter]

DRAW!: You grew up in New York and could actually go to the offices of Marvel and DC. JI: But I didn’t know that at the time. That was the thing. What happened was, I tested and went to the High School of Art and Design, which was at the time the only school around that had an actual comic book and cartooning program. I was testing for LaGuardia Music and Art because I was also an actor and singer, and I was testing for the art program at Art and Design as well. I went to the Music and Art test, and I had to make a choice because the singing test was the same time as the illustration test. I was in between a rock and a hard place. “What am I going to do? What do I really want to do?” So I took the art test at LaGuardia, but I went and did the illustration and cartooning test at Art and Design and decided I wanted to go to Art and Design. That’s where I met Buzz and a couple of other guys, like Jurial Kaiton, who wound up doing some comics stuff in the late ’80s and ’90s. He’s around, I just haven’t seen him.

But Buzz and I hung out, and then we found out that there was a Marvel tour. So we cut school to go on the tour. [laughs] DRAW!: That was at the 575 [Madison Avenue]?

JI: This was when they were at 387 Park Avenue South. So, we cut school to go and take the Marvel tour, me and my buddy Keith, and I was blown away. It was like, “Oh my God! This is like a real office. There’s the Bullpen! This is real! You could actually make a living working in comics!” [laughter] That was the moment that it hit me that I could actually make a go of it. I was focused before, but I became laser-focused after that.

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and said, “Don’t come back until you’ve read every page.” And I did.

More photo reference for “We Regret to Inform,” this time photos of British Spitfire fighter planes and 1940s-era pilot uniforms.

We Regret to Inform © Jamal Igle. All photos © their respective owners.

DRAW!: As R. Lee Ermey would say, “You was born again hard!”

JI: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, man. Just everything I could possibly do. I scooped up as many anatomy books as I could find. Any information I could get on sequential storytelling.

The guy who used to teach the cartooning program at Art and Design was a guy by the name of Charles Ferguson. He was a commercial illustrator. A lot of the teachers who were at Art and Design were fine artists or commercial illustrators— either guys who were still working in the business or had retired and decided to go into teaching—and Ferguson ran the Junior/Senior cartooning program. As a freshman, I found out where the class was, and during lunch period I went to him with my sketchbook in hand. I stood in front of him and said, “Mr. Ferguson, my name is Jamal Igle. I think I’m ready for your class.” And he went through the sketchbook, page by page. Closed it. And then ripped me a new hole.

DRAW!: [laughs] At least he didn’t go through page-bypage ripping you and the pages at the same time.

JI: No, but he did one of the smartest things—and I’ve actually done this for my students. Not the ripping. I’m much nicer about it than he was at the time. But he went to a cabinet and took out a copy of Dynamic Anatomy, handed it to me,

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DRAW!: I feel sorry he gave you that Hogarth book.

I hate it. Whenever I have a student who comes in with it, I say, “Throw that book away.” [laughter] JI: It works for what it is. It works for basic instruction.

It’s sort of like Bridgman in that regard, that it works.

If you take it as the Bible truth, then you’re going to be in trouble. But you take it for what it is, as a primer to get you where you need to go, then it’s fine.

DRAW!: I’m sure you look at it now and go, “What the heck is he talking about?” [laughter] The thing is, the drawings are so slick, and when you’re young, anything slick like that is very convincing. You go, “It’s an art book. This guy must know all of this stuff.” I mean, he was a good artist, but there is a lot of BS in those books.

JI: There’s a lot of BS in a lot of art books. There really is.

But we’re all just trying to figure this stuff out on a daily basis.

DRAW!: Did you find out about the [Andrew] Loomis books or anything like that?

JI: Oh yeah. I found out about the Loomis books. Parts of the Loomis books were floating around in various stages of photocopies. [laughter] I did not know anybody who had an original. I actually stumbled onto one at one point. I stumbled upon one of the “Famous Artists Course” books. The thin ones they used to sell in art supply stores.

DRAW!: Oh, right! Where they would take excerpts from the books?

JI: Right. I actually stumbled on that around the early ’90s, and had that for a while.

DRAW!: Now you can get all the Loomis stuff. It took me years to find it all originally. My grandfather gave me his copy of Fun with a Pencil when I was ten or eleven years old that he had from the ’40s. That helped me quite a bit. But I tell all my students you can go online and download all of them as PDFs for free. Plus you can buy those great new reprints of them.

Pages 2 and 3 of “We Regret to Inform.”

We Regret to Inform © Jamal Igle

JI: I’ve got the reprint of Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth.

It’s fun to look at actually. He’s very good at breaking down his process, and I think that’s something that a lot of art students need to be told when they’re looking at other artists.

That everybody’s process is an individual means to an end.

I don’t think that gets emphasized enough with a lot of art teachers. When I was teaching, one of the things that I used to hold very dear was that I never judged style. It wasn’t about judging style, because everybody is an individual. My concentration was on how to tell a story.

DRAW!: And storytelling, if you’re really good at it, you can do so many things: comics, animation, kids’ books, illustration…. I mean, they have storyboard artists on all those reality shows. They have to take that stuff and turn it into a story.

JI: Very true.

DRAW!: Your first real cartooning class was with that teacher?

JI: It was with that teacher, Charles Ferguson. Actually, even before I was officially in his class, I would go to him all the time with questions. He made himself open and available to me for years, even before I actually took his class. Once I took his class, it really ramped up from there.

DRAW!: When you took the Hogarth book home, and you went back to him the next week and said, “I read it,” did he give you something else and sort of set you on a path? Did he give you little assignments before you were in the class?

JI: It wasn’t that he was giving me assignments. I read the Hogarth book and took it back to him, and then he lent me a photo book on foreshortening. And then we would talk about how you would apply that to comics and why certain things are done a certain way.

Again, it was an art school. I was taking life drawing classes. I was taking graphic design classes. I was taking all these different classes that we were trying to apply one methodology to another. So when it came to the comic book stuff, a lot of that stuff was me and my friends still geeking around after school trying to develop our own comic book characters. Actually, there was a competition between my group of friends and another group of guys who were also trying to do their own comics. So there was sort of this nerd/comic gang fight going on in the halls. [laughter] DRAW!: Would you do up the stuff, and then print them and have somebody judge them?

JI: We printed them up, and a lot of it was very weird. A lot of

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Page 21 of Molly Danger begins with the layout (left), but given the complicated crowd scene surrounding the statue of Molly, Jamal only draws the statue on the initial layout in order to make sure the statue is done properly. The crowd is drawn on a separate sheet of paper (above) and then copied and pasted into place after the layout has been scanned. The results are shown in the panel below.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

the stuff wasn’t printed. There was this one guy, Khalid, who had this one comic he was doing, but he did it in one of those black hardcover sketchbooks. He had this 300-page narrative going on that, if you wanted to read it, you had to borrow his book. [laughter] But meanwhile, me and my guys would do our comics and go to this copy shop over on 57th and 5th that used to be downstairs from where FAO Schwarz used to be on 59th Street where we could go downstairs and make our copies, staple them. We’d try to sell them but would end up handing them out to people. [laughter] But, you know, we had the whole learning experience of trying to work in teams, and we had a guys who were just writing. A guy who just penciled or penciled and inked. It was more about the competition aspect of it than anything else.

DRAW!: But it was a good, healthy, friendly competition, I’m sure, right?

JI: It was. It was. It was good, friendly, healthy competition until it wasn’t. [laughter] It occasionally got personal. It didn’t end friendships, but… I’ll put it this way. The friendships that came out of that are, in a lot of cases, longstanding friendships. The guys that I hung out with in high school and did comics with are still friends of mine, and I still see them on a regular basis, even though one works in advertis-

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ing. Another one was an attorney for a while, then became a school teacher. Now he’s an attorney again and writes comics on the side. Other guys got out of the comics industry completely but still are fans, but they are still really tight friends.

The lines are still very much delineated between us.

DRAW!: Was this material that you took up to DC to try and get the internship or…?

JI: No, the internship actually came out of a program they had called the City Schools Objective Internship Program, and you had to put together a portfolio and you had to interview. DC was actually the second of three interviews I was supposed to do. The first interview was at Marvel and… it was okay.

DRAW!: Who did you interview with?

JI: It was somebody in production. The only thing I remember about that is that was the first time I met Bryan Hitch. He had flown to the States and was there—this was before he started on She-Hulk. He was skinny, black leather jacket and long blonde hair, glasses…. [laughter] He had the total late ’80s/early ’90s comic book uniform. [laughs] The second interview I did was at DC, and that was with Shelley Eiber when she was still there in production. I met Fred Rizz there and Bob Rozakis. My third interview was supposed to be at King Features, but Shelley had asked me to call her. I’d called my mom to let her know that I was running

And here is the finished crowd shot as shown in the inks (by Juan Castro) for page 21, panel 2 of Molly Danger book 1.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

late, and she said, “You got a call from someone at DC. They want to call them.” So I’m in a telephone booth in Manhattan, and I called Shelley. And she’s like, “Do you have any other interviews going on?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an interview at King Features.”

“No, you don’t.”

And I’m thinking, “Oh no. I did something wrong. What did I do?” And she said, “We want you to be our intern.” And I was ecstatic. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how excited I was.

DRAW!: You were more excited with that than anything that had been in your life up to that point probably.

JI: Absolutely. In retrospect, I think the big difference was Marvel’s offices were very corporate… everything was very clean. Glass doors….

DRAW!: Yeah, the Marvel offices, at least the ones I remember at Park Avenue, didn’t look like a place that made comics.

DC looked like a place that made comics.

JI: You walked into Production and people were yelling at each other, there’s stuff all over the place… [laughter] There were stacks of books falling off of paper cutters. I looked around and I was like, “I’m home.”

DRAW!: You get to know people, you’re sliding them samples of your work, you’re seeing how things are actually being done. I’m sure that was an education.

JI: Oh, it was. Because this was 1989–1990. The biggest book at that time was Justice League. I spent so much time in Andy Helfer’s office it was sick and insane. He was the king. He would walk in at one in the afternoon, and the music would go on, and his office would be filled with cigarette

smoke. Everybody was hanging out in there.

I would work with Bob Greenberger in the morning and then go into Andy’s office for a little while, then I would spend the rest of the day in Production. Albert DeGuzman was there, and Bob LeRose taught me coloring. I was shooting covers in the darkroom. Steven Bové was there, and Jerry Acerno was there. Jerry actually taught me to ink with a brush. It was probably the most well-rounded education you could have in a six-month period.

DRAW!: Were you learning more there than you actually were in school?

JI: The way that the program worked was, I was at DC four days a week. Then on Fridays I had to report to school. So I was at DC most of the time.

But the first comics work I got at DC actually came about in a roundabout way, because I finished my internship and went to SVA. I dropped out of SVA. I went to Canada for six months.

DRAW!: Why did you drop out?

JI: It was a combination of not agreeing with Jack Endewelt over the direction I wanted to take things, because by the time I got to SVA, I had been in art school for most of my life. Even before high school, I was in specialized art programs. I started taking art classes when I was eight, so ten years of art school before I even hit a college-level program. Foundation year and sophomore year actually bored me because I didn’t feel there was anything they could teach me that I hadn’t already learned at that point.

DRAW!: You felt like it was too remedial and you wanted to jump ahead?

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JI: Exactly. I was begging. I was begging the office, “Is there something I can do? Work study. Anything. Is there anything I can do to get in a more advanced class?” And they were just adamant that they wanted me to go through the system. I got so frustrated by that, I had to leave.

DRAW!: You couldn’t test out of it is what you’re saying.

JI: Exactly. So I just said, “This isn’t for me. I’m not going to learn what I need to learn.” And again, more my stubbornness than anything else, but it sort of worked out the way it did.

So I went up to Toronto for six months, just hanging out, smoking pot. [laughter] Whatever. Passing out fliers on the street for money. Working under the table because I was an illegal immigrant in Canada. [laughter] I came back to New York and got a job at Jim Hanley’s Universe [comic shop]. I was sharing a two-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side with five other guys.

DRAW!: I’m sure it was like being in the Army or something.

JI: We certainly did the whole bivouac thing. One guy was paying the bulk of the rent, so he had his own room, and the rest of us—it was like The Monkees. We had two bunk beds in one bedroom with four guys. It was a nice apartment. The apartment itself was a six-room apartment with a balcony overlooking the Lower East Side. But we got a lot of really odd looks coming in and out of that building. [laughter] DRAW!: Were you making samples and taking them around?

JI: I was making samples and I was taking them around. I would do a set of samples, make 50 copies, and send them to every editor I could find an address for in the entire industry.

I sent stuff to First. I sent stuff to Caliber. I sent stuff to Marvel. And it had been years since I had gone to a convention.

So I went to one of Fred Greenberg’s old shows at the Javits Center very early on. That was the first convention that I had gone to, and really didn’t know anybody aside from the few people I knew from DC. That was the first time I met Bernie Wrightson. I was waiting on line for the Marvel review, and I was getting up to the line, and this guy steps up in front of me and I hand him my portfolio, and he says “Hey, how’s it going?” “Hi, how are you?” I look at his badge and it says “Bernie Wrightson.” He just stepped in and decided he wanted to do a portfolio review. [laughter] So he’s looking through my portfolio, and he looks at me and goes, “How old are you?”

“I’m 21.”

And he puts it down, and he puts his head down, and he’s shaking his head, saying “You are too young to be this good.” And I was just like, “Thankyouthankyou,” and I walked away thinking, “Bernie Wrightson likes my work! Bernie Wrightson likes my work!”

DRAW!: But he didn’t say, “Go see this person,” or—?

JI: No, not at that time. If he did, I was so flabbergasted at that point that I couldn’t think straight. [laughter] The second convention I went to was the show out in Nassau at the Nassau Coliseum where I met Larry Stroman, and I ended up doing some work for Larry Stroman for a while.

And then the third convention—

One of Jamal’s Kickstarter goals offered the chance to appear in the book, and you can see the photos of those backers in this layout for page 23 of Molly Danger book 1.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

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DRAW!: Larry was living in Detroit, right?

JI: I’m mixing up a story. I didn’t meet Larry until later. There was a second show I went to, but I didn’t meet Larry at that show.

I did actually wind up doing work for Larry when he was back in New York and he was doing the Axis Comics stuff, but that was

The inks for page 23 of Molly Danger book 1. Jamal has changed the clothing of the Kickstarter backers in panel one, but with the panel 3 photo ref, he went a step further and sometimes changed faces and hairstyles as well.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

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Page 5 of “We Regret to Inform,” along with the crab photo reference for the mollusc-like aliens’ war machine.

We Regret to Inform © Jamal Igle. All photos © their respective owners.

later. I was supposed to take over the book W, and did, like, half an issue, and then the entire company went belly up.

DRAW!: That’s often what happens.

Your first breaks are always with something where the pooch has been screwed, you know what I mean?

JI: Oh yeah. We haven’t even gotten to that story yet. This is where I was leading to. So, I go to another convention at the Javits Center.

This was when Milestone was first getting started. I had seen some pages in a copy of Comic Shop News and decided to do some samples based off that. So I did a three-page set of Static samples. I went to the show and went over to the Milestone booth. And again, I don’t know anybody at this point.

DRAW!: So you hadn’t meet Denys [Cowan], or any of those guys? Or Michael [Davis]?

JI: I met Dwayne [McDuffie] at the booth at that show. That was the first time I met Dwayne. And I showed Dwayne my stuff, and he was like, “Where did you see this?”

“I saw it in Comic Shop News.”

“And you figured out he has electromagnetic powers from a story in CSN?”

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I said, “Yeah. It kind of made sense that he was flying on a trash can lid.” It was that one opening shot that John Paul Leon did, where he’s just sort of hovering there with electromagnetic energy coming out. So Dwayne gave me his card and invited me to the office.

And then I went to another booth for this company called Majestic Entertainment that Fred Schiller and Merilee Woch were in charge of, and I showed them the same samples.

They wanted me to do samples based on their characters, and I agreed to do it, but they wanted me to do three pages of samples in 24 hours.

DRAW!: Was this a challenging thing for you to do back then?

JI: It was a very challenging thing, because at that point I had not done work that quickly, and I had a full time job at

the time. So, I came home and I had set my mind I was going to do this. Keep in mind, they didn’t give me a script. They faxed me a couple character designs for this character called “Legacy,” and I basically had to make something up. So I went downstairs, because there used to be a grocery store in the building where I was living, and bought a bunch of Hostess Cup Cakes and two bottles of Jolt Cola.

DRAW!: Then strapped them to your chest? [laughter] JI: Basically, yes! [laughter] That was my rocket fuel! I got the sample pages done. And they were horrible. I look back on that and they were just… they were baaaaad. But I did it. I made photocopies and faxed them back to them because there wasn’t enough time to actually send the pages to them. And then I went and worked a full shift. And I had been up for about… 30–35 hours.

else, it was one of those collectible card comics as well. The parent company they were working with was a sports card company. So they decided they were going to do this collectible card comic.

I do the first issue and get it done. It’s out the door. And in between everything that’s going on, Fred left the company and Paul Jenkins became the editor-in-chief. So I worked with Paul for a little bit. Then they decided they wanted to redesign the character. They had gotten Walter McDaniel to come on and do covers. The character was originally a skinny little kid, and then I get this cover from Walter and he’s all ’roided out and beefy. It’s like, “Wow. This is a big change between issues. I don’t know if we’ll get away with this.” [laughs] And Paul is trying to figure out how to get all this stuff done.

DRAW!: So you were at the point where you’re almost starting to see the little trails after everything?

JI: Oh, I was dead on my feet the entire time. But they gave me the job, and that was the first comics job that I ever got. It wasn’t on Legacy, because that was being drawn by Dan Lawlis. It was for a book called Flashpoint that was being written by Jim Higgins, who has done indie comics stuff and teaches comics writing and creative writing at SoCal. But that was his first writing gig and my first art gig.

The whole premise of this universe was there was this great hero who was dying and decided his prodigy, this character Legacy, wasn’t going to be enough. So he had a lottery, and the winners of this lottery were all given superpowers. [laughs] Flashpoint was this teenage Puerto Rican kid from Staten Island who is fighting superpowered drug dealers. It was very… you know, “early ’90s.” Lots of baggy pants. [laughter] Plus he had to have Starlight night vision goggles.

DRAW!: So he looked like something out of a bad late-night Cinemax movie?

JI: Pretty much. I really went out of my way to try to make him look as cool as possible, but they wanted him to have this costume with this armless vest, like a jean jacket thing.

DRAW!: The very thing no one who ever had superpowers would ever wear.

JI: Exactly. And on top of everything

Page 11 of Molly Danger book 1. Inks by Juan Castro, and color by Romulo Fajardo.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

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DRAW!: Which is not too bad. I think my first job at Marvel I made $75 or something like that.

JI: There’s no way I should have been making that kind of money.

DRAW!: Well, it’s one thing to make it. It’s another thing to take it. They could’ve been paying you $1,000 a page, right?

JI: [laughter] This is true. Very, very true. The checks cleared for a while.

DRAW!: A lot of people go through stuff like that. I went through that at First. I had friends who were owed tens of thousands of dollars from First.

And one of the things I tell the young artists all the time is once they owe you one check, they’re behind. The likelihood they will ever catch up and pay you is almost zero. Because usually that means they’re going south, and the freelancers are never paid. They will pay the electric company before they pay you, because they’ll need the lights on to move their stuff out the door.

JI: I’ve been fairly lucky over the years that, other than that initial thing with Majestic, I haven’t had too many instances of having to deal with a company on that level.

DRAW!: This is a good point to jump into you doing all the Kickstarters, because one of the things that is different now is how the internet and places like Kickstarter get people to fund the projects. You had a Kickstarter for Molly Danger, and now you’re involved with a new Kickstarter for Black. And I remember reading not too long ago you saying you weren’t going to be doing anything but creator-owned projects.

JI: Yeah. Last year around New York Comic Con, Jamal had a long run as penciler on Supergirl. Above is Supergirl #50, page 3.

I had a conversation with Terry Moore, because he Supergirl © DC Comics seems to be very successful at promoting Rachel In the meantime, the parent company they were working with Rising, Echo, and Strangers in Paradise, and having those embezzled all the money from the company. be the things that carry him through more than anything else.

And the thing that he said to me was his philosophy was to DRAW!: So suddenly nobody has money to do anything— always make the creation more important than the creator. I print books or pay freelancers…? was surprised that I had not heard anyone put it to me like JI: Exactly. Paul called me up and was like, “Don’t do any- that before. thing until you hear back from me.” And he calls me up the next day. “Okay, here’s the deal. The company is folding, and DRAW!: When I came in, it was characters first, then the we can’t find your artwork.” creators became big. Then you had Image. And then the editorial policy came that creators will never be bigger than the DRAW!: Wow! Did you eventually get the artwork back? characters ever again. We’ll never promote them because that Have you ever seen it for sale? backfires on us as a publisher.

JI: No, never. I would be surprised if anybody would ever JI: Right. And pursuing creator-owned for the most part over make the connection that I actually did it because it’s so dif- the last few years has been cathartic and healthy for me perferent than even the work I would do a little later. sonally. I’ve rediscovered my voice as a writer because of I worked for Majestic for six months, and I was making it. It was something I had kind of put to the side because I $175 a page to do pencils on my first gig. was concentrating on being “King Penciler.” [laughter] That

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was the goal for a while. Now I feel like I need to make my business the creation, the production. It’s more important for me to get my ideas out there than to promote myself necessarily.

Although that is a part of it.

DRAW!: But people also think of you differently. You’re sort of like a factory for yourself.

One of the things that happens in comics is you tend to be typecast, so you’re the guy who pencils Avengers-type stuff, or you’re gritty, or you do humor. I mean, people never used to think I could do humorous stuff until I started self-publishing, which then led me to doing animation and everything else. When Marvel was doing What Th—?!, I was submitting samples, and it was like, “Yeah, but you do classic superhero stuff. You don’t do that kind of stuff.”

JI: It was the same way for me when I first got into the business. I was the “team guy.” Or I was the “new hero guy.” So they’d put me on Green Lantern or Teen Titans. Something kid related or younger hero related. Then, after Firestorm, I felt like I had turned the corner, but I was still being typecast in that idea of, “He’s really good with young heroes.” When I got on Supergirl, then it became, “All he can draw is girls.”

DRAW!: After you talked to Terry Moore, you’re thinking that you should really just concentrate on building a brand for yourself, right?

JI: Well, yeah. But branding myself was something that has never been an issue for me. I do have a marketing background as well. That was always something that was very important to me all through my career, because it was impressed on me by guys like Larry Stroman that you had to Jamal’s splash page for Supergirl #50, page 3, inks by Jon Sibal. have an identity within the business. But having Supergirl © DC Comics been on contract at DC for so long, I was only being seen as a DC guy. When I first decided to take Molly up with type 2 diabetes.

Danger to Kickstarter, I really had to have a heart-to-heart JI: Exactly. I was hypertensive. I was pre-diabetic. I was 325 with myself and decide whether or not I was just going to pounds. keep trying to stay afloat as a freelancer and keep leaning in that direction, or actually take these ideas I’ve had in my head DRAW!: At my heaviest I was 320-something. No one tells for, at that point, decades, and try to do something with them. you about that other aspect of how the business can actually kill you—the stress.

DRAW!: And by this point you’re also married and have a JI: And the thing was, towards the end I was miserable. My kid. So you’re also thinking, “I’ve got to make my monthly wife and my assistant at the time could see it on a daily basis.

I was, like, angry and disappointed that things had not worked nut here.”

JI: Exactly. You’ve got to make your monthly nut, but you’ve out the way that I wanted them to. The last couple of years at also got to—here’s the thing: Doing monthly comics was kill- DC, I was pitching stories because I really wanted to make the ing me. Towards the end of my time at DC, I was miserable. I transition to writing, and nothing I was pitching was even getting considered. And then there were some behind-the-scenes was overweight. I was sleeping four hours a night. things with various projects that I was up for, but something DRAW!: Which will make you overweight because it throws happened and I wasn’t going to get it, but they were going to your hormones off and everything else. It’s really easy to wind assign me to something else.

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My contract at the time with DC basically said I could take as much or as little work as I could fit in. So you’ve got a guy who was drawing five to six pages a week and helping out on multiple other things that were running late. And after years and years of that, it was really taking its toll. So, everything I’ve been doing over the last four years has been to be happy ultimately. And my happiness is built around doing my own thing. Writing and drawing and getting involved with projects that, had you come to me years ago I would have said no to, because it just seemed too silly or too weird or not something that I would naturally want to do. That’s how I wound up doing Kiss for IDW. [laughs] They sent me the pitch which was, “We want you draw Kiss the band, but dressed like the Untouchables.” It was like, “Okay.” [laughter] DRAW!: Being under contract gives you this false sense of security. But I know other people who have been under contract who wound up getting screwed in the long run, because, “Well, we don’t have anything for you,” or, “Your rate is too high,” or whatever. “You’re not special anymore because we know we have you. So we’re not going to give you the ‘A’

project. We’re going to give that to the person we really want, who we think is more special than you. Even though you’ve been putting out the fires every single month like a good guy.”

JI: Oh, I was definitely there. One of the things they do, and you’ve probably been through this too, is they give you the “sell” that you’re “part of the family.” “We’re always gonna look out for you. You’re a lifer. You’re one of us.” You hear that enough over the years, over and over again, you start to believe it.

DRAW!: I know. I’m under contract at King Features for doing the Judge Parker strip, but that’s like “X” amount of money a week or year to produce the strip, so it’s a “contract” contract. We give you this much money, you produce 365 strips a year. Where at DC or Marvel, it’s “X” amount of money for “X” amount of pages, but I’ve known guys who got upside-down in their contract where they couldn’t get enough work to offset what they were being paid and end up owing the company money. I know that happened to a couple of people.

JI: Oh God. That’s horrible. Luckily, I never got in that position. I also knew a couple of guys who were under contract who had a minimum of work that they needed to do per year, and they just weren’t capable of doing any more than that, just because they were that slow.

DRAW!: Right. So, because of this, you started thinking.

What gave you the idea to do the Kickstarter?

JI: I hadn’t even heard of Kickstarter until another friend of mine had approached me about doing a project with him. He wanted to go to Kickstarter initially with a webcomic project he wanted to do and wanted me to be the artist of. He told me about the website and I went and checked it out and looked at what everybody else was doing, and I was like, “I can do this. I don’t need to team up with another writer. I could write something and do this Kickstarter. If it succeeds, it succeeds.”

For a couple of days I was thinking, “What can I do?

Should I do something new? Something original?” But Molly Danger kept popping up in my head. Part of that was because I had a treatment for Molly that I had written for another publisher that never got picked up. So it was already there. It was like she was waiting for me to come and get her. It was funny, because I had told a couple of friends of mine I was going to do this Kickstarter for Molly Danger, and they said, “You’re going to a Kickstarter for a kids’ superhero character? You should do something else.”

Jamal’s inks for the cover of Kiss #1B. Color (next page) by Romulo Fajardo.

Kiss © Kiss Catalog, Ltd.

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DRAW!: Something gritty and mean, right?

JI: Yeah! “Something with a little more sex appeal.” Again, you get classified. You get typecast as being that type of artist. It’s hard to shake that perception of you being that. But I knew, just like I know now, that if anything was going to happen, Molly was going to be the vehicle for that. So I did the Molly Kickstarter. I spent six months putting together the first campaign because I wanted to make sure I had everything tight and ready to go.

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DRAW!: That included getting your video done….

JI: Getting the video done, setting up interviews with podcasters that I knew, with blogs and websites… One of the things I kept reading over and over again in my research was you have to treat a Kickstarter campaign like any other marketing campaign. You have to hit the ground running. You have to be on top of it. And I actually spent that time before I launched the campaign rebuilding all of my online social networks, rebuilding my presence online, because I kind of had let it wane a little bit even though I was still active on Facebook and Twitter. But I really amped it up at that point, because I was building towards launching this campaign and I wanted it to have the maximum amount of exposure as I possibly could.

It’s different now. The same things apply in terms of outreach, but there’s so much more and better mainstream presence for Kickstarter now than there was even four years ago.

DRAW!: Well, it’s a proven thing now. Many people have gone through and gone back. One thing is to produce the material. The other thing is how do you distribute the book?

JI: Again, that’s one of the things that changed. I ended up having to do all that by hand because there wasn’t anyone doing Kickstarter fulfillment at that point.

DRAW!: Now they have a Kickstarter fulfillment?

JI: There are many companies that do fulfillment for Kickstarter.

DRAW!: So you ship your books to them and give them the list and they ship it out?

JI: Exactly. Even Amazon will do Kickstarter fulfillment.

DRAW!: Did you have to figure that into your fee?

JI: I did. But the one thing I did not count on was the postage rates. International shipping rates doubled between the time the Kickstarter was funded and I actually shipped the books. So that ended up killing the buffer I had in my funding. I actually ended up spending an extra $10,000 of my own money to ship books to backers.

DRAW!: Did you lose money or did you break even?

JI: I broke even.

DRAW!: I suppose on your first project, if you could produce it, make a living, deliver your product to people and everybody’s happy, and walk away, then even if you don’t have a giant pile of doubloons to launch yourself into like Scrooge McDuck…

JI: [laughs] Exactly. But the upside is I have product. And it’s evergreen and I’m able to keep selling it. I still have copies of the book that I’m able to sell. It’s not a lot, you know, but I was also able to use those books as an incentive for the next Kickstarter. And the book is still available through Action Lab.

Jamal’s pencils for Kiss #1, page 22.

Kiss © Kiss Catalog, Ltd.

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DRAW!: That’s the other thing. Did you incorporate Action Lab for that purpose, or was that done before?

JI: That was before I launched the Kickstarter. I knew I wanted to partner up with

a publisher, and Action Lab had just gotten started around the time I did the first Kickstarter and I was actually a backer of their first Kickstarter. The thing is, I knew Dave Dwonch, who is the president of the company now. I knew Chad Cicconi. I knew Shawn Gabborin, who is the editor of the allages imprint. He’s also working with Full Moon and handling the writing on Puppet Master, overseeing all that stuff. I knew those guys before there was even a company. So once they put the company together and I saw what they were doing, I went to them and said, “I’ve got this Kickstarter that I’m doing. I want to work with you guys to publish.” I felt that had I had taken Molly to Image, it wouldn’t have gotten the same….

DRAW!: The attention that you would want for that type of project?

JI: Right. Part of the reason to take it to Action Lab was Free Comic Book Day that year. It gave me a much bigger platform, because I knew I was not going to get a Free Comic Book Day book if I went to any other publisher. And it was successful. We sold 42,000 copies for Free Comic Book Day of the Molly Danger/Princeless book. That gave us a perfect launching pad to get Molly into people’s consciousnesses.

DRAW!: The other thing is the technical side of producing all of this stuff now falls more on you. Did it change your process and your way of working in order to make this smoother in some ways?

JI: No. I did what any smart person in my position would do.

I hired an editor, I hired an inker, I hired a colorist, and I hired a letterer. [laughter] Because I knew I would not be able to do all that stuff. I could have done it, but not in the timeframe I was shooting for. So I hired people I knew.

DRAW!: Going forward would you do the same thing, or would you take on more things yourself?

JI: No. Going forward, I’m definitely going to be working with the same people. But not just because of Molly Danger, but because I’m going to be working on Black at the same time. That means I’m going to have to bring on even more people to help me get everything done. Keep in mind, I’m also the vice-president of marketing for Action Lab. So I have a very full schedule.

DRAW!: How do you break your day up? Do you do certain things certain days?

JI: Certain days. Most of the PR stuff gets broken up around the week. I have an assistant that helps me with that. I usually end up doing some stuff on the weekends as far as public relations, but during the day, it depends on the day. I’ll be writing one day. I’ll be drawing another day. I’ll be doing breakdowns for something else or if I have a freelance project going on at the same time. I’ll pick up my daughter in the afternoons and make sure she is fed and bathed and ready for school the next day.

DRAW!: Some artists are night people, some artists are day

Jamal’s inks for the cover of Kiss #2.

Kiss © Kiss Catalog, Ltd.

people. Some artists get up and read and futz around the studio from 8:00 a.m., and at three o’clock in the afternoon they start working. It sounds like you have to be very smart about how you’re going to have to be able to do this.

JI: Yeah, when I started I was a night person for years. I would stay up until two, three, four o’clock in the morning on a regular basis. Nowadays I wake up around 5:00 a.m. and I’m usually in bed around 11:00 p.m. I’ll get up. I’ll work out. I’ll take Katie off to school. Around 9:00 a.m. I’m on the desk either answering emails or putting together emails or doing something on Facebook or Twitter. I’ll do that for maybe an hour or two, depending on what needs to be done.

And then the rest of the day is creative from, I’d say 11:00 to 5:00–5:30. You know, whatever I can get done during that time. It depends on any given day. And some days I’ll come back to it after everybody has gone to bed, but I have a much more set schedule these days than I used to.

DRAW!: Do you find it works better for you now? Do you get more work done?

JI: I get more work done in the long run. It’s just been healthier for me, both mentally and physically. It’s just been much healthier for me.

DRAW!: Has your physical drawing, the way you create your work, changed? Are you more digital?

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Layouts for Molly Danger book 1, pages 27 and 28.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

JI: It depends on the project. I just finished a project that I did layouts by hand on paper, brought them into and tightened them up in Manga Studio. Molly Danger I’m going to be drawing by hand and scanning them to send to Juan [Castro] so he can print them out on blueline and ink them.

DRAW!: Do you like to have a physical original? I can work digitally, I do work digitally, but I still prefer to have an original I can sell later on.

JI: I’m still very much an analog in that regard. I’ve got the equipment. I color digitally now. I ink digitally occasionally.

I’ll do some things digitally, but I’m like you in that I like having that artwork, that page at the end of the day. Even if I’m just penciling something that has to be scanned and sent.

The inker I’ve been working with the last couple of years actually lives in Tijuana. But he’s such a good inker, I don’t really mind. And it’s good for him because he’s been able to sell his inked pages. I have all the Molly Danger pencils, and I’m not planning on selling them.

DRAW!: So you alter your process depending on the job.

The stuff you’re going to be doing for Black, are you going to do like Molly Danger?

JI: That’s going to be by hand. Definitely by hand. Because

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it’s a more modest style book, I just feel like that’s more the approach I should take with it—just to do it by hand and have that tactile feeling. Because you never know what’s going to come out as you’re working on pages. I’m just getting the handle on working in Manga Studio. I think there’s a slickness to Manga Studio that’s good, but it’s not the same.

DRAW!: They probably need a Klaus Janson setting.

JI: No, not at all. [laughs] It ends up being much... cleaner.

I like working on a paper with a tooth to it. I work on 500 Series vellum Strathmore Bristol. I like drawing on that stuff.

I like feeling the drag of the pencil across the paper. I like tring to figure out how to not let my sable hair brush split on me. [laughter] DRAW!: I did a series of Star Wars books last year, and they wanted everything inked digitally. And when you’re dealing with a book like that, it has gazillions of notes, “Move this eye. Move this foot. Tilt this stormtrooper.” If you were doing that traditionally, you would go insane with paste-overs.

JI: Absolutely. And in that regard, that’s definitely the advantage of working digitally. But again, at least with this stuff, I’m the final arbiter of whether it looks good or not. I don’t have to worry about anyone else’s nitpicks.

DRAW!: One of the things I see on social media is some black artists feel that they don’t get as much love as they would like from the black community.

Do you feel that people are coming up to you because you’re a black artist and they’re looking up to you because they’re black and thinking, “Wow. You made it. Can I get some advice from you?” or are people coming up because they just like your work?

JI: There’re definitely people who are coming to me because I’m a black artist and I’m a visible presence. Which I thank them for, because I wouldn’t have that presence if they weren’t picking up my work. And then there are those people, again, like you were saying, who are just fans of my work. I’ve run into more than a few people who didn’t know I was black even though my name is Jamal. [laughs] But I’ve also had the opposite, too. I’ve had other black artists dismiss me because they see me as “selling out” for whatever reason.

DRAW!: Is this like the band they knew from the local bar who got their record contract and now, “You suck!”?

JI: Well, no. It’s not even that. It’s a more personal thing. Because you’ve got like, the “Hotep brothers” where everything is “super-black”—like, “If it’s not from the motherland, it’s not worth anything.”

DRAW!: It’s not political enough for them, and that way it’s not about life?

JI: Yeah. Or I’m not. Because I don’t carry that line, you know? That’s not how I was raised. You look at me, and my Juan Castro’s inks over Jamal’s pencils for Molly Danger book 1, page 27. wife is white and French—from Paris.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle My daughter is mixed race. I don’t have a discernible accent of any kind. I rarely ever use slang. If I do, it’s nerd slang more than anything else. I JI: I absolutely agree with you. And I agree with that idea.

I think that’s part of a bigger thing. Right now we’re in the don’t fit the stereotype that they want me to fit into.

I was trying to have a conversation on Facebook, and this throes culturally of growing pains, where everybody is lookguy goes, “Oh, you need to get outta here and go back to talk ing for their own validation and representation, and they feel to your white friends. We know how you do.” And it’s like, like they have more of a voice. They want to get their position and their ideas out there where the world should see, where “Okay….” they should be acceptable. And I’m like that too. I am cerDRAW!: At least in the current internet culture, that seems tainly very vocal in my opinions, much to my mother’s occato be a running dialogue I see fairly often. Maybe I’m wrong, sional chagrin. [laughter] Although she does find me very but I always felt with cartooning, it’s sort of colorless. As a entertaining from what I’ve been told. kid, I had no idea Jack Kirby was a Jew, or Keith Pollard was black, or Ron Wilson. Either you liked the art, or you liked the DRAW!: There seems to be these different arguments out there. You’ve got “Black Cartoonists Matter,” and you’ve story, or you didn’t.

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in what is ultimately a very narrow window. And they are all trying to squeeze through this window at the same time to try and explode out into the world.

And it’s very difficult for a lot of people, myself included in some ways, to know what is acceptable, what isn’t acceptable, what should be mainstream, what should not be mainstream. Is it even alright to judge what is mainstream? Because it changes on a moment to moment basis.

DRAW!: Today’s indie band is tomorrow’s Coldplay. And three years from now, Steven Spielberg could be making a Molly Danger movie, right?

JI: [laughs] That’d be nice.

DRAW!: Then that changes everything.

JI: It’s sort of like when Eastman and Laird first started doing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was an underground cult thing that you had to be really into comics to know about. The moment it got on TV and they started making toys, it became something completely different in a lot of people’s eyes. The people who were fans of the Turtles before, suddenly abandoned it because it wasn’t cool anymore. It wasn’t theirs anymore.

Then you have, from the black comic book community, these people trying to define themselves—two terms I hate— as “blerds” and “bleeks”—black nerds and black geeks. I don’t feel like you really need to put a qualifier on it. You’re a nerd. Get over it.

DRAW!: What would the difference be between a nerd and a blerd?

JI: I have no idea! I don’t think there is Juan Castro’s inks over Jamal’s pencils for Molly Danger book 1, page 28.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle one. The only difference is I think Ben Sisko is the greatest [Star Trek] captain got The Mary Sue [website] with the feminists really push- of all time. But that’s just me. ing their political agenda. Since “nerd culture” is mainstream culture now, you’re getting all these other arguments that are DRAW!: But I’m sure there are white fans who feel that way. building off of that, where before, nerd culture didn’t separate JI: Oh sure. There’re absolutely white fans that feel that into those layers like that. way. But I don’t feel I need that qualifier. But there are those JI: I think they did, but there always was that blanket of, people who do. There are a lot of people who feel like they “You guys are not accepted because you’re nerds, not because need to call themselves a blerd or a bleek. You can’t just be you’re a black guy into comics or woman who is into comics a cosplayer, you’re a black cosplayer. It’s kind of obvious or a gay person who’s into comics or a trans person who’s you’re black and you’re doing cosplay. into comics.” The same thing is happening in television. The But then you have the backlash from people who aren’t same thing is happening in film. The same thing is happening black against the blerds, because they feel like, “These are in music in a lot of ways. Again, you have all these disparate our things. You don’t have the right to attach yourself to our voices that are all reaching out and trying to find their place things.”

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DRAW!: They are what I call the “babymen”—the people who feel like you can never change anything. They don’t like change. They always like to eat Kraft macaroni and cheese, and they’ll never eat mom’s homemade macaroni and cheese.

JI: Absolutely. It’s the exact reason Applebee’s is still in business. No matter how horrible the food is, it’s something people know, and they are going to get it the exact same way wherever they go.

DRAW!: Would you say most of the fans of your work, who have been following you for a while, are following you just because they like your work, and it’s not necessarily, “I want to support you because…”?

JI: I think the bulk of the people who follow my work follow it because they either like what I did on Firestorm, or Nightwing, or Supergirl, or Zatanna, and it really is across the spectrum.

There are a few who follow me because I’m a black artist, a black writer, black producer, and because I’m trying to do my own thing. I think that is a much smaller part of the equation in my case. The fact is I have such a long association with the comic book industry at this point. You know, I’ve been working in comics since I was 17 years old. In some way, shape, or form, I’ve been drawing comics.

People have been consciously aware of my work since, probably, New Warriors around 2000. And I had been doing independent stuff before that, and even incidental stuff and Marvel and DC before that. So there’s a long-standing relationship.

sort of like they’re pre-approved. Because they can say, “Oh, now I’m working for Blizzard,” or whatever, and they can bring their fanbase.

JI: It’s like in the old days with “Byrne’s Faithful 50,000.”

Whenever John would go to a new book, he would automatically bring 50,000 people with him. [laughter] DRAW!: Yeah. I don’t think anyone has those numbers anymore. But the thing is, you don’t have to have 50,000 people anymore. You can have 10,000 fans and that’d be pretty fantastic.

JI: I look at guys like Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray who are just putting out book after book after book through their company, and just raising the money to get them printed and done through Kickstarter, and they’ve been doing it pretty regularly for the last few years. They are just generating idea after idea and taking it directly to the consumer. And I think that’s the biggest advantage of Kickstarter. You have that platform. And in a lot of ways, it’s kind of like market research

DRAW!: Are you finding that that’s what the bulk of your Kickstarter support is? People who’ve been fans for a while?

JI: It was definitely that. Particularly a lot of people who supported what Sterling [Gates] and I were doing on Supergirl are supporting what I’m doing now.

DRAW!: Ultimately, I think that’s the goal of what all authors want to do. You want to be able to get to the point you’re always getting new people, but you’re carrying people. And I think that’s something that’s very different now. We could never even imagine a Kickstarter when we started out. The path on which you got in and the path on which I got in, those paths don’t even exist anymore.

JI: This is true. But they also have different paths.

You can do a webcomic, have it become really popular, and have that be your in. You’ve got DeviantArt. You’ve got Tumblr. There are a lot of guys who get into the business just by posting fan art they do.

DRAW!: Exactly. Was it that guy “Cheeks” [Sean Galloway] who got hired for doing Spider-Man stuff?

He was posting on the old Drawing Board forum, and people liked his stuff. People are getting hired to work as illustrators for game companies based on having a lot of followers on Twitter and Tumblr. It’s

Supergirl #56, page 7, with inks by Jon Sibal.

Supergirl © DC Comics

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when you think about it. Because you’re putting this idea out there, and you’re trying to see if it has legs. That was the biggest thing for me in doing the first Molly Danger Kickstarter, is that it told me there was an audience for the idea I had.

DRAW!: And now you feel that when you go forward you have your version of Byrne’s 50,000 people you can take with you from project to project?

JI: No. Because it’s still an individual thing. I think it ultimately depends on the combination of what the project is and what the stakes are. With Black it’s been really, really huge…

Much bigger than I think any of us ever expected it was going to end up being. Because we wound up funding the project initially in four days, and I think we’re at over $80,000 now.

DRAW!: Does that allow you to do more than you originally planned? Like, you can do more books?

JI: It’s being discussed. It’s not a finite story, but the first six issues are sort of a self-contained story before we move onto the next arc. One of the things it allows us to do is add an extra 20 pages of content to the final fight scene. That was one of our stretch goals. So we’ll be doing that. [laughs] Other than that, we just need to see what else we can do. [Ed. note: The final total pledged was $91,973 with 2,775 backers.]

DRAW!: Are you going to do the same order fulfillment process you did on Molly Danger so you don’t have to go through Diamond or anybody else?

JI: Absolutely. We’ve already hired a fulfillment service that we’re going to be working with, so the logistics of that are already set up. Now it’s all about producing content.

DRAW!: You have the cost of printing, then the cost of the order fulfillment. Is that better or worse than Diamond and the 61% or whatever they would take?

JI: Oh, it’s nowhere near that. [laughter] I can tell you that right now. It’s not even close. It’s a fraction of that actually. So it actually works out better for us, because we’re doing it independently. Because we got more backers than we were initially counting on.

Originally we were only going to print 1,000 books, so this actually decreases our printing costs because we’re printing more copies. The bulk shipping will be a little bit more expensive, but it sort of evens out. Again, we were shooting for $30,000 and we’re over $80,000.

So, we’ll see. As with anything, there’s the potential that anything can happen at this point, so it’s nice to have that buffer built in.

DRAW!: Do you guys also have to have an accountant?

JI: Oh yeah. I mean, luckily, everyone involved is a professional. Kwanza Osajyefo is a former DC editor. Sara Litt is a former DC editor. Tim Smith is a professional artist who works for Marvel. And then you’ve got Khary [Randolph] who’s worked in comics for 13–14 years. Then you’ve got me, who’s done pretty much everything at this point.

Jamal’s pencils for Molly Danger book 1, page 42.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

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DRAW!: How far along with the work are you with the new Kickstarter?

JI: We haven’t officially started yet. I think they wanted to make sure the money was in place first. [laughter] I’m going to be starting on Black in April.

DRAW!: And then you’re going to do another Molly Danger, right?

JI: Yes. Actually I’m working on Molly Danger this month.

I just finished a script and I’m waiting to get it back from my editor. And as soon as I get my script back, I’m going to start penciling pages. But I also did the Actionverse crossover with Molly first, and then the Princeless story that I just finished working on. So, I’m jumping back on Molly while doing a couple of other things with the Black Kickstarter. It’s a typical week at Jamal’s.

DRAW!: Are there five things you would advise the 17-yearold or 20-year-old version of you today, that you would say, “These are things I would take into account…?”

JI: If I were looking at the 17-year-old me? “Don’t be so cocky. Because you’re not that good.” [laughs] “You’ll get there. But you’re not that good yet. So don’t be so cocky, and take your time. Stop being in a rush to prove everybody wrong.”

That was a big thing for me. One of the things I’ve found over the years of talking with young artists especially, is that they’re in such a rush to get out into the world and prove how awesome they are, that they don’t think it through. They don’t think their work through. They don’t think how they approach their work through. Not just the actual work itself, but how they interact with other creators.

DRAW!: The great thing about social media and the internet is it’s so easy to have access and conversations with people, but your etiquette with other people, your professional etiquette towards other people….

JI: I would absolutely agree. And I think it’s even more magnified because, let’s be honest, the comics industry is filled with social retards. It’s a bunch of people who were outcasts in high school— DRAW!: [in Jerry Lewis voice] Glabin!

JI: [laughter] I’m right there too. The good thing about not solely working in the comic book industry and having to work in an actual office environment was I actually had to learn how to comport myself in a professional manner in a professional environment. Not everyone has that opportunity. And the thing about social media, like you said, the great thing is you have this reach you probably would not have had even ten years ago. But that reach is sort of like when your buddies tell you how awesome you are. You only know what your buddies are saying. So when all of your buddies are telling you how awesome you are, you don’t have a realistic gauge as to what you’re actually capable of.

DRAW!: People liking you on DeviantArt doesn’t necessarily translate into the real world.

Jamal’s pencils for Molly Danger book 1, page 42.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

JI: Exactly. So my advice is always try to be patient. Because being creative is a journey. You’re always growing and changing and evolving. I’m still growing, changing, and evolving, learning these things on an hourly basis.

Another thing that I think I would say to the younger me is, “Have faith in yourself.” One of the things about being creative, being an artist, being a writer, whatever, is we beat ourselves up more than anybody else could possibly beat us up.

I know I do. I torture myself sometimes. Even now. My wife will come home, and if I’m in a funk, she can feel it. She can feel the disturbance in the Force the moment she walks in the room. [laughter] “Uh-oh. What website were you reading?”

DRAW!: Well, the first rule of the internet is it hates everything. [laughter] I hadn’t done a mainstream book in a little while, and then I did some of that [DC] Convergence stuff. And then you read people either thought it was great or they thought I was the worst artist who ever walked the face of the earth. If I was 20, I probably would have been really depressed.

JI: I’m going to be 44 this year, and I still get depressed when stuff like that happens. Because it doesn’t matter, I could have a thousand people telling me I’m awesome, and then that one guy.

DRAW!: Who’s just never gonna love you, man. It doesn’t matter. You could draw his favorite character in a cheesecake pose. You’re never gonna be Frank Cho to that guy, buddy.

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have now where they can just in two seconds— JI: But again, that goes with everyone having that voice. Everybody thinking they need that validation. Even in a minor way. Feeling like they have importance because they’re upset.

They’re upset about something and they’re gonna let you know. And even if you don’t personally pay attention to it, everyone around you is gonna know who the hell they are! Because they pissed you off, or they think they pissed you off.

DRAW!: Some people like to argue.

Do you try to avoid wasting your time on things like that?

JI: I will get into conversations. I will get into arguments about any subject except my work, because then it becomes petty. And then it becomes personal. And I would rather spend my time discussing social justice or politics or entertainment or something stupid that Kim Kardashian did than ever try to argue with somebody over something I feel is such a deep part of me.

Jamal’s pencils for Molly Danger book 1, page 10.

Molly Danger © Jamal Igle

JI: And there’s nothing you can do about it. So try not to beat yourself up. Now that’s harder to say to people because it’s a very personal thing.

DRAW!: No, we all want to be loved, man. Everybody wants to be scratched. The worst comic book out there, someone spent hundreds of hours working on it.

JI: And nobody sets out to do a bad comic. It just happens sometimes.

DRAW!: And part of it is subjective. So you have to have pretty thick skin. In the old days you had to sit down and write a letter, lick the stamp, take it to the mailbox, and mail it. You still had people that were cranks, but not the way you

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DRAW!: So you’re not going to argue about whether what you’re doing is a reflection of blerd culture or something like that?

JI: Yeah. Because I can’t have that argument. And the reason I can’t have that argument is that I will never be able to represent what everybody else thinks I should represent—either as a person or creator. Because I am an individual. I occasionally get crap from people about Molly Danger because she’s not black.

DRAW!: “If you drew her as black, she would be cool.”

JI: Right. But then you would have another segment of people who would say, “Why did you make her black? Do you have some kind of agenda?” I don’t have an agenda. My only agenda is telling the best possible story I can tell with a character I love. I can get into the nuts and bolts of it. I can get into the idea that if you look at Molly, that’s my daughter. That is Catie. Facially, that is Catie. Those are her expressions. She is very much a part of that character. But I don’t feel like I need to make those justifications. A few years ago, I might have. At one time I had been approached by someone who had that complaint and I didn’t answer them immediately. It didn’t escalate very much. They just assumed I was high hatting them and blowing them off. I wasn’t blowing them off.

I just didn’t know how to answer. And I talked to my wife and I talked to my mom, and when I talked to my mom she just put it in the best way she could that I could think about it. Which was, “That’s just not how you were raised.”

DRAW!: I come from a multi-ethnic family, so I’m very familiar with all those arguments.

But when you come from a mixed race family there’s that hot potato of choosing one side or the other. And then if you pick one side, then you obviously must be denying or ignoring the other side. Whatever. And to try to address that with a comic book ends up being kind of silly anyway.

JI: It does. I think it’s a little bit different with Black, because there’s a very particular story that we’re trying to tell, and it’s not what people think it is.

DRAW!: Right. But you’re talking about that as part of the subject from the beginning.

JI: Exactly. We’re not sugar coating it. It’s not an allegory. We’re addressing an aspect of racial inequality in a very direct way.

DRAW!: Do you think it would be different if you had black female creators involved, as opposed only the black male creators involved?

JI: In what regard?

DRAW!: I will say I am woefully ignorant if there are black female comics artists who do superheroes. But that doesn’t seem to be something that most of the young women I know are interested in.

JI: There are a few who have done it. But again, The finished page for Molly Danger book 1, page 10. you could say that about female comic artists in Molly Danger © Jamal Igle general. A lot of the women I know who work in comics just aren’t interested in doing superheroes on a reg- JI: I’m actually all for it. I would love to see more female ular basis. Some are. Like you have Becky Cloonan writing creators involved. I would love to see more female pencilers Punisher now. You’ve got Amanda Conner working on a lot working in the industry. I would like to see a lot more creators of stuff. Jan Duursema, Sara Pichelli, Rachel Stott, Fiona Sta- across the spectrum bringing their individual experiences and ples, Tess Fowler and others. They appear to be the outliers new stories into the industry as opposed to just wanting to rather than the norm. So I don’t know if it would really make work at a bigger company. I would rather see those creators a difference if we had a female artist working on Black as branch out and bring something new to the table that you well. I don’t think it would change the general tenor of what wouldn’t normally see. And I think that’s the biggest part of we’re doing. I think it would have a different look. It would it is that we need more new material. In general, we have to have a different aesthetic. It might be better. It might not be get past just the brand management aspect of comics, and of as good. That’s not really for me to judge. But I don’t think it course the creative aspect of it. would affect the way the story is being told.

DRAW!: Well, it seems you guys are blazing the trail with DRAW!: I just find that to be now much more in the wind. that sort of thought process, and that idea of not being depenYou see this a lot in social media. Bringing more female cre- dant on the Big Two to decide if it’s financially interators into the mainstream. If you have Wonder Woman written esting for them to do something like that. by a woman, or….

JI: [laughs] Oh yeah. Trust me, I know.

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B

by Bret Blevins & Mike Manley

C

Darkhawk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

A

Plus+ing

Your Ideas

M

eeting and mentoring many artists between my teaching, guest speaking, lecturing, and conventions, one of the questions that I am asked the most by younger artists—some just starting out or already gaining footholds and involved in all sections of the entertainment business (comics, animation, illustration)—is, “How do I make my work better?” Quickly followed by: “How do I make my work cooler?” and, “Is there a shortcut of some kind to making my work stand out, or have a style?

The truth is there are no short cuts in art, as much as we all would like there to be, but nope—honest, consistent practice is the only way. You will end up with a style no matter what as a natural part or growing and expressing yourself.

There are no tricks like the click-bait ads that promise to burn away unwanted belly fat in ten days. In art there are no quick patches, but knowledge gained can have a fast effect on your process. Building skills takes practice and devotion, which should bring with it the growing skillset we all want.

Like the smith in his forge working his steel, where each plunge in the furnace and folding makes the metal stronger, or the martial artist who builds up her skills and gains each belt based on skills she mastered with the previous one.

Developing your art is an organic process, thus one artist’s abilities and advantages (perceived or not) may be another artist’s weaknesses, and one artist’s natural way of solving problems doesn’t always work for another artist. We are not all equal or start equal distances from the goal.

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This is a personality issue in my experience, not always a technical one. An artist’s personality type has a lot to do with their progress in so far as their ability to work hard and sacrifice, and to get over disappointments or frustrations and go at it again.

That said, having done as much work as I have in my career in such a wide variety of styles and subject matter, I have come up with some strategies that seem to work for me, and which I can employ across the board in any job that requires composition as the key element.

Composition affects drawing: the complexity, the shapes, clarity, mood, and the perspective. Theses are the most important factors to start with and are the most important to me. The composition must work beyond the prejudices of any personal style or school of drawing. It’s more “thinking” about what works pictorially for the whole image than about the anatomy of an arm or style of crosshatching. The young artist often trumps these fundamentals with worrying about style first.

It all starts right as you begin to put something down on paper—the “conversion stage” as I like to call it. This is where you take an idea—a script page, a description of an event, a cover image, etc.—and turn it into a drawing and storytelling composition. A script or a description, no matter how well it is written or expressed, is still a very abstract thing until it’s put down on paper, whether in a comic, a storyboard, or an illustration. It’s very open to interpretation, and that interpretation starts with the roughest of scribbles or thumbnails which give it flesh,

Darkhawk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

as it were, on paper. That interpretation is based on the mind, personality, skills, and imagination of each individual artist.

With a cover, you have to take several factors into account, like the logo and other cover dressing (any copy, banners, UPC codes, etc.), and eye flow or direction. In general, if there is action on the cover it should lead the eye from left to right, as this is the direction way we read. In essence, this also visually leads the reader to open the book.

My first three cover thumbs for Darkhawk #5 (see top of previous page) had Darkhawk facing off against Evilhawk, who we introduced in that issue as a new main adversary. The fight took place in the Museum of Natural History in New York City, and this allowed me to play with the idea of having the T. rex skeleton on the cover.

I should mention, at the time I did these thumbnails, the way Marvel was structured, I would suggest a cover for a book by doing three cover concepts I would draw up and fax to the editor so we could talk them over. The covers were also run by John Romita, who was still the art director at the time, for final approval as well. But before I submitted any designs to Marvel, I would go through a self-editing/design process on the covers, starting with a series of thumbnails, then doing up the final sketch.

This is what I call the “Plusing Stage” of a concept, idea, drawing, or design. You might ask what this “plusing” means

exactly. In short it is the stage in your design process where you look at your design or sketch and ask yourself, “How can I possibly make this idea better?” Here are some questions to ask yourself: • Is the image too average looking?

• Are the poses clear but boring?

• Is the composition too even or equal?

• Do the figures and other elements overlap well?

• Is the image confusing?

• Is it too obvious?

• Will the image entertain and/or grab the reader?

• Does the image “sell” the idea?

To answer any or all of these questions requires more sketching to prove whether the first sketch was sound or not. I will often take the camera for a spin through the drawing. I’ll try reversing the shot, lowering or raising the POV, and pushing the perspective, which changes the shapes in the composition. I’m always conscious of not simply accepting an idea, but exploring it to see if it works or if I can improve it—“plus it”—in any way.

Sometimes you get stuck and just spin your wheels, and sometimes you decide the newer sketch is better. Sometimes after many sketches, you may decide you like your first idea best. But the worst is when you like one version and the editor likes another of the sketches submitted. That is always tough, but part of being a commercial artist is accepting that the client is always right. Luckily that hasn’t happened to me more than once or twice.

Above are the two final cover ideas I submitted to the editor, taking even one more pass here.

At left is the final cover to the issue.

My core idea was as simple as two arrows clashing together. I still like the one with the T. rex and think it works, but the editor chose the other design, which shows off the character more—which considering this was a new book I am sure was his thinking.

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At right are two cover roughs I did for Deathlok #14. They both work, but upon consideration I felt that the first one, while clear, was also a bit even, which made it look less like Deathlok was in danger. The second was good as well, but I think the chosen sketch was better, as we get a full shot of ’Lok, and the monster seems much more of a threat, thus “plusing” the idea (which many a good comic cover uses to sell a book) that the character might die or be critically hurt or defeated.

Below is the final cover for the book, based on the chosen sketch. Now the monster looms over Deathlok, making him dominate compositionally.

There were a lot of possibilities for the cover of Darkhawk #4 with a storyline that had Darkhawk in a jail, which you can see in the first sketch (next page, bottom left). But after talking over the idea more, I did a series of cover sketches (next page, bottom right) which resulted in the finished cover shown below.

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l Characters, Inc.

Darkhawk © Marve

Deathlok © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Darkhawk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In this sketch for Darkhawk #1 (left), I initially went for more of a Will Eisner feel, with the figure of Darkhawk looming over the city. But maybe the idea was confused by having two figures of Darkhawk here on the first issue’s cove, so instead we went with Darkhawk right in the middle of the action fighting the bad guys.

Simpler, clearer, and more dynamic.

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Darkhawk © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Superman © DC Comics

Darkhawk #17 was a much more complicated cover due to all of the figures on it.

This first cover sketch (right) I really liked, especially having DH being carried off— my tip of the hat to one of my favorite Superman covers by Nick Cardy (above).

This version (left) had Chris Powell out of the suit and walking with the regular civilians, plus the elements of the guns in the foreground. But the final cover (right) was a much simpler toe-to-toe (or claw-to-rock) face-off.

As you can see, I went to the well more than once for most of the covers, and sometimes abandoned or changed the idea entirely to “plus it.”

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is a jargon term that essentially means: inten- tor’s instructions), but the artwork presented here reflects my “Plusing” sifying, enhancing, clarifying—in short, improving the own aesthetic preferences. Before discussing the pieces, I concept or image in some way.

That directive obviously covers a wide range. In various instances it means different things, requiring varied approaches and solutions. It may indicate that more boldness, impact, or clarity is called for, or more sensitivity and subtlety, more information or less, more (or less) humor or more (or less) drama. The problems are virtually limitless, and are specific to the task at hand.

For the purposes of this article, we are going to concentrate primarily on the basic concept of graphic appeal, tailored to each example’s subject. Choices made are always influenced by personal taste (or sometimes a client’s or art direc-

feel I should address those preferences. Regular readers of DRAW! will know that we often enthuse over illustration from the past. This is because the fundamental principles of good design and storytelling were more broadly valued and implemented in the past, and are typically easier to see and decipher as teaching examples.

Certainly there is excellent work being produced today, but unfortunately there is also a great deal of indifferent or pedestrian illustration all around us. Part of the reason is economic, as it is much cheaper to digitally manipulate stock photography or other found imagery than to hire a highly skilled, creative, problem-solving artist.

I gathered a few unimpressive modern-era book covers (see above) at random to show you what I mean. These covers are not very imaginative, suggest almost nothing about the contents of the book, and the integration of the images with the type is bland. Below is a set of older covers, again chosen at random. In each case there is much more imagination, mood, technical skill, and careful, clear, and effective integration with the type.

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Here are a couple of comparisons of the same title: The newer image (left) is not only uninspired and boring, the color is unappealing—garish and too busily textured. The symmetrical design is static and dull, and it is not clear at first glance what is depicted within the interior frame, partially because of the small size and partially because the illustration itself is weak in composition and clarity. By contrast the older image (right) is crystal clear, the concept of a burning human figure clothed in (or perhaps made of) printed matter is much more eloquently evocative of the content. The overlapping transparent and cleanly shaped block type harmonizes with the line art and is also much easier to read.

The newer version (left) is clear enough, but again, pedestrian in concept. The overexposed photograph of actor Leo McKern, with its superimposed off-register echo in a lighter blue, is a jejune cheap solution that suggests none of the humor and wit of the content.

The older edition (right) is much more entertaining with a skilled and witty caricatured rendering of three of the actors from the television adaptations set in a symmetrical frame that suggests the orthodoxy of the courtroom. The clothing and wigs of the two male figures tell us they are British barristers, and the humorous facial expressions of all three indicate the nature of the entertainment within the book.

These observations are not intended to suggest that there is always one unequivocally preferably solution. Here are a couple of comparisons of the same subject, both excellent in completely different ways: The first version, by Marc Simont, (left) is moody and evocative, suggesting both mystery and humor. The hand-drawn gothic-styled type tells us the fairy tale/ fable nature of the story, and the simple clean border harmonizes with the art nicely because of an intelligent color choice.

The second version, by Ronald Searle, (right) is much more whimsical and suggestive of farce, but just as effective in its way. The lettering agrees with the artwork perfectly. Imagine the typefaces switched in these two examples, and you can easily see in each case how effectively the type contributes to an overall harmony of effect.

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In the above set of paperback covers, most now nearly 50 years old, there are eight examples of clever, effective integration of illustration and type design, all depicting one of the most common commercial subjects: the alluring idealized woman.

The attitudes of the material are painfully dated (to say the least!) but the aesthetic and technical problem-solving by a master of this genre, Robert McGinnis, is excellent. Study these and notice how effectively the color and shapes of the type are aligned and integrated with the shapes and colors of the artwor—all different, all harmonized with tasteful variety and easy-to-read clarity. The silly, hackneyed subject matter aside, today it is rare to see this kind of eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing drawing and painting skill combined with clear, clean, and carefully composed overall design.

All the elements of these images are elegantly silhouetted to read instantly as crisp, interesting, and beautifully balanced shapes that attract the eye with appealing composition and color.

In this alternate, single color variation of an image, the clarity of McGinnis’ design is even more boldly evident.

This shows how an essentially strong and well composed design is amenable to a variety of treatments, without losing its strength.

These are great examples of “plussing” the most banal and cliched subject matter.

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This scene of the weird other-dimensional character Sleepwalker walking a dog in Brooklyn is the first page of a comic book story. What could be more (literally) pedestrian than walking a dog? The obvious and undeniably clear depiction would be along the lines of the two sketches at right, one shot from the front, and one shot from the side.

Both of these sketches above are perfectly workable. The information is crystal clear, and the silhouettes and shapes are nicely arranged and balanced, if symmetrical and somewhat static. If nicely drawn, lit, and rendered, they would be serviceable, and depending on the tone of the story and subsequent events, one of these compositions might be the perfect choice. The original version dates from the hyper ’90s, and so I chose the design at left.

Placing the camera near the ground to the left of the dog and exaggerating the steep perspective of the figures and backgrounds with a carefully controlled skewing effect adds much more movement to the scene. The sweeping diagonals cutting into each other create energetic tension in the shapes and silhouettes. This is one way to “plus” an image.

Sleepwalker © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Batman © DC Comics

Panel 5: Here Batman is experiencing an exaggerated flashback of his parent’s murder. The huge head of horrified young Bruce Wayne is reliving the memory as it’s played out before him, almost as if he’s being forced to watch it again.

Sleepwalker © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Panel 6: The distraught Batman has collapsed, flailing down to the floor and clutching his head in wild desperation. The burst of visual “angst” shapes around his head is echoed by the radiating lines of his cape and the floorboards to create a “burst “ effect that creates a sense of exploding imagery, and simultaneously leads the eye toward the key part of the image, his face.

The problem with this Sleepwalker cover was to show the character completely losing his mind, almost in a psychedelic frenzy. The zany distortions in his eyes and the disturbed expression would have communicated this, but in addition, actually having him rip his own head apart is a classic example of “plussing”!

Another important aspect of this image is the layout of the panels themselves. The tilted angle of the vertical borders create a left to right falling movement in conjunction with the arching horizontal border than grows slightly wider as it travels toward the right side of the page, serving as a visual thrust to slam Batman into the ground. Imagine the same interior panel compositions set into an evenly spaced six-panel grid. The effect would be quite diminished—or “unplussed.”

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In these two working versions of a Bettie Page splash, the idea was “plussed” pretty far along in the process.

The first image (left), showing the Hollywood sign and the figure’s hands holding the clapboard displaying the credits, actually went beyond this pencil rendering, and was fully inked before it was rejected in favor of the second image with Bettie atop the tiger skin. Again, both of these work fine, but the second is simpler, more direct, and conveys more about the story that follows. The pose is better, forms a much stronger silhouette, and in attitude is more characteristic of Bettie, and she is bigger in the composition.

The arrangement of the type is also more agreeable and doesn’t compete for attention with the figure to the same degree.

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The description for this cover scene was a horde of flying heroes descending on the three characters (also heroes) standing atop Blue Beetle’s ship that is floating among the embattled ruins of a modern city.

The natural first thought would be something like the rough layout on the left.

This view shows the very complicated scene clearly enough, but has many problems. The central figures standing on the ship are too small to have any impact, and all the flying figures are shown mostly from the rear, or in the case of the uppermost figure, at an awkward under-view angle. Overall the entire busy composition is more of a map than a dramatic scene.

So I had to put my thinking cap on, beginning with the intention of trying to make the lead characters of the book larger and more dominant in the composition, and facing the camera if possible. But how was that possible, as the attackers facing the opposite direction also must be shown…?

All characters © DC Comics

The only way was to have them all facing the same way, which led to the idea of showing the attacking characters in a reflection. I decided the interior of the book would embellish the setting, I just needed to stage enough of it to set the scene convincingly.

So I included the top of the ship, with enough of the “eyes” visible to make it recognizable to readers familiar with it, directed the camera upwards to make our beleaguered trio look as heroic as possible, and also moved as close to them as possible, which happily also enlarged the reflections behind them. I blasted away the upper part of the building to convey the destruction, and set about fitting in as many of the flying characters as I could make read clearly in the available space.

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This is a case study showing the necessity of searching all the means available to you in order to find your solution. If this scene took place in a desert, or a small town, or in the past before shiny glass-faced skyscrapers existed, I couldn’t have solved my staging problem this way. I would have had to find some other approach and “plus” it as best I could.

All characters © DC Comics

The broad subject of “plussing” has really only been hinted at in this brief article. There are many ways to enhance an image: dramatic lighting, rendering technique, striking use of color, the endless variety of possible composition approaches. But I hope these examples suggest methods for making your pictures as expressive and effective as they can be!

Good luck and have fun!

See you next time, Mike and Bret

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All characters © DC Comics

UNDER REVIEW

H

ello again to all and sundry! Welcome, once again to the last rest stop on your way to the art shop, your friendly neighborhood Crusty Critic has swung back into town to save you supply shop shock and assuage your fears with some good ol’ fashioned art tool advice.

One of the best things to happen in years has been the prevalence of social media. Yes, it’s not new, per se, but now almost everyone has some form of it—how far we have come to have the internet in our pockets! This is great for networking and finding out about product that normally you’d never have the ability to know about!

Technology has even spilled into the use of art supplies and the act of mark-making. This critic has spent past articles ruminating about art tech and tools, software and styli, but we always come back to the old chestnuts, a tool in hand solving problems on paper.

This issue, your crusty compatriot has received samples from a new British company, Chameleon Art Products, of a new marker that tries to solve the problem a lot of artists on a budget want to solve: How can you get the biggest stretch out of a set of tools without going broke?

Their answer: Chameleon Color Tones pens (there’s a demo video you can check out on their website at http://www. chameleonpens.com/). The pens are available online and also through brick-and-mortar retailers, but the best price I found was through Amazon.com.

THE “CRUSTY CRITIQUE” SYSTEM

These product reviews will be judged under my trusty ‘beret’ scale from a one-beret score (not worth the time/money/ effort) to five berets (a crusty success! Buy it immediately or buy as much as you can carry). Let’s get to it!

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KARMA CHAMELEON (PENS)!

WHAT IS IT?

The Chameleon range of markers (though they are marketed as pens, which they indeed are, considering markers by definition are a type of pen) are alcohol-based in the spirit of Copic brand markers, which allow the artist to effectively use a small number of colors to replicate a different range of results by diluting the markers’ color and creating fades that build up to a strong tone. Imagine using the art technique of water colors but with markers! It’s a bit complicated to explain, but that’s my crusty cross to bear here. Let’s continue.

WHAT DOES IT DO?

The very nice blokes over at Chameleon responded to my crusty query for samples a while ago, after I saw a demo online of these markers at work, and sent me their 22 Pen Deluxe Set to try out.

The markers feature a double-ended design which is now an industry standard. Each marker houses a fine and medium fiber-edged tip on either side of the tool, and inside the cap, there is a white felt-tipped brush-pen styled device, which is filled with alcohol to my crusty guess. The magic of this marker system happens when you take your marker and lock the cap down, effectively making the alcohol and color marker tips “kiss,” which then begins to draw the color out of your marker, leaving you with a temporary loss of pigment. After this, you begin to color, and voila—your “watered down” pigment creates a fade on your surface. If you lay down your mark while the color builds back up as the original color ink fights its way back into the tip, the result is a color wash— light color to dark.

Sounds cool right? It is, really, and the set is gorgeous.

I’d give the Chameleon Color Tones a four-and-a-half-beret score just for the packaging alone, but you don’t buy markers

because the tool looks cool, you need to use it, and it needs to execute.

WHAT’S IT COST?

The Chameleon deluxe set comes with 22 pens—a run of hot, warm, and cool colors, a colorless blender, and a “liner” pen. The liner pen is effectively a black medium-sized marker which they call the Pigment Detail Pen, which performed better than the markers in the box in making satisfying lines.

What a crusty conundrum.

This 22-pen set is a decent price point at an average USD range between $80–100, which might sound high, but I’m thinking a huge marketing idea behind the markers was for this to become a Copic-killer. Copic markers are really expensive, so a product that could effectively stop you from dumping 300 bucks on several markers when the Chameleon could replicate the same results for a third of the price sounds grand, but alas.

Chameleon also offers smaller five-marker sets in toned themes which generally retail for $21.00.

DOES IT WORK?

This is where the bad news comes in. The secret in the sauce here is that the Chameleon pens are a great idea, but require way too much work for many pros to bother with.

Right out of the gate, the construction of the tools themselves are solid—the soft plastic chamber feels good in the hand, and is a little thicker than a Prisma marker, which gives you the feeling that you’re getting a lot of ink and mileage out of the tool. But the act of marker to surface isn’t very satisfying—the nibs feel cheap and kind of scratch across the paper, instead of the juicy, ink-filled drop that you get from a Chartpak marker. The worst part in using the markers is that your alcohol-filled fade doesn’t last long at all. It’s supremely frustrating. Imagine having a huge surface to cover and you’ll be pulling your hair out, because the Chameleon will not get that job done. I feel like this gimmick is better utilized for small spaces in an image.

The next part of the frustration is that, for a lighter fade, you need to make the marker and applicator kiss for a longer period. YouTube reviewers and a card included with the marker set suggests making the nibs connect for ranges up to 38 seconds for a really light color to less for a darker color, and as most of the readers of DRAW! know, the professional cartoonist is always looking for quality efficiency and longevity in a product. Waiting at my drafting table while touching marker points together to create a tone would require a level of patience I don’t have. It simply doesn’t work for me.

WHO’S IT FOR?

It’s sad to report that this set leaves a lot to be desired for the professional cartoonist. As a hobbyist, I could easily see purchasing this set and an armful of those very popular adult coloring books and creating a perfect gift for a friend who likes to craft or dabble, but for a cartoonist in the trenches on deadline, doing commission work, or at a con coloring

The Chameleon color Tones 22 Pen Deluxe Set.

sketches for waiting fans, these tools are way too finicky to be practical.

CRUSTY CRITIC SCORE: I really wanted to love this set of markers, and don’t think that it’s a complete failure. For a young person interested in coloring or for a lazy Sunday afternoon on the veranda with a glass of red and some friends, sure, these markers could be a lot of fun. But I would not recommend these markers for professionals who are control freaks in their work. The margin of error in getting the tone you want is high with these, and for those who enjoy the results you get from a set of high-end markers like the Copic line would be better off sticking with those. I believe I got an earlier version of this product line, though, so I wouldn’t be against trying them again.

That’s it for my product review for this issue. I’d love to hear what you think! As always, with everything I review, YMMV—Your Mileage May Vary. What didn’t work for me, you may love, so tell me about it! I’m on Twitter @jamarnicholas. Let’s tweet!

Until next time, stay Crusty!

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From Detroit to Deathlok, we cover the career of artist RICH BUCKLER: Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Black Panther, Ka-Zar, Dracula, Morbius, a zillion Marvel covers— Batman, Hawkman, and other DC stars— Creepy and Eerie horror—and that’s just in the first half of the 1970s! Plus Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, FCA, and comics expert HAMES WARE on fabulous Golden Age artist RAFAEL ASTARITA!

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DON GLUT discusses his early years as comic book writer for Marvel, Warren, and Gold Key, with art by SANTOS, MAROTO, CHAN, NEBRES, KUPPERBERG, TUSKA, TRIMPE, SAL BUSCEMA, and others! Also, SAL AMENDOLA and ROY THOMAS on the 1970s professional Academy of Comic Book Arts, founded by STAN LEE and CARMINE INFANTINO! Plus Mr. Monster, FCA, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARK CARLSON documents 1940s-50s ACE COMICS (with super-heroes Magno & Davey, Lash Lightning, The Raven, Unknown Soldier, Captain Courageous, Vulcan, and others)! Art by KURTZMAN, MOONEY, BERG, L.B. COLE, PALAIS, and more. Plus: RICHARD ARNDT’s interview with BILL HARRIS (1960s-70s editor of Gold Key and King Comics), FCA, Comic Crypt, and Comic Fandom Archive.

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“Eighties Ladies!” MILLER & SIENKIEWICZ’s Elektra: Assassin, Dazzler, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Lady Quark, DAN MISHKIN’s Wonder Woman, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS and ADAM KUBERT’s Jezebel Jade, Somerset Holmes, and a look back at Marvel’s Dakota North! Featuring the work of BRUCE JONES, JOHN ROMITA JR., ROGER STERN, and many more, plus a previously unpublished cover by SIENKIEWICZ.

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“Bronze Age Halloween!” The Swamp Thing revival of 1982, Swamp Thing in Hollywood, Phantom Stranger team-ups, KUPPERBERG & MIGNOLA’s Phantom Stranger miniseries, DC’s The Witching Hour, the Living Mummy, and an index of Marvel’s 1970s’ horror anthologies! Featuring the work of RICH BUCKLER, ANDY MANGELS, VAL MAYERIK, MARTIN PASKO, MICHAEL USLAN, THOMAS YEATES, and more. YEATES cover.

“All-Captains Issue!” Bronze Age histories of Shazam! (Captain Marvel) and Captain MarVell, Captain Carrot, Captain Storm and the Losers, Captain Universe, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Featuring C. C. BECK, PAT BRODERICK, JACK KIRBY, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, DON NEWTON, BOB OKSNER, SCOTT SHAW!, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, and more.

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“Bronze Age Adaptations!” The Shadow, Korak: Son of Tarzan, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Worlds Unknown, and Marvel’s 1980s movie adaptations. Plus: PAUL KUPPERBERG surveys prose adaptations of comics! With work by JACK KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL, FRANK ROBBINS, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, FRANK THORNE, MICHAEL USLAN, and sporting an alternate Kaluta cover produced for DC’s Shadow series!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #68

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MICHAEL W. KALUTA feature interview covering his early fans days THE SHADOW, STARSTRUCK, the STUDIO, and Vertigo cover work! Plus RAMONA FRADON talks about her 65+ years in the comic book business on AQUAMAN, METAMORPHO, SUPER-FRIENDS, and SPONGEBOB! Also JAY LYNCH reveals the WACKY PACK MEN who created the Topps trading cards that influenced an entire generation!

Comprehensive KELLEY JONES interview, from early years as Marvel inker to presentday greatness at DC depicting BATMAN, DEADMAN, and SWAMP THING (chockful of rarely-seen artwork)! Plus WILL MURRAY examines the nefarious legacy of Batman co-creator BOB KANE in an investigation into tragic ghosts and rapacious greed. We also look at RAINA TELGEMEIER and her magnificent army of devotees, and more!

KEY KIRBY CHARACTERS! We go decadeby-decade to examine pivotal characters Jack created throughout his career (including some that might surprise you)! Plus there’s a look at what would’ve happened if Kirby had never left Marvel Comics for DC, how Jack’s work has been repackaged over the decades, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, and galleries of unseen Kirby pencil art!

KIRBY’S PARTNERS! Cap/Falcon/Bucky, Sandman & Sandy, Orion & Lightray, Johnny & Ben, Dingbats, Newsboys, plus features on JOE SIMON, MIKE ROYER, CHIC STONE, DICK AYERS, JOE SINNOTT, MIKE THIBODEAUX — even ROZ KIRBY! Also, BATTLE FOR A 3-D WORLD, the 2016 Comic-Con Kirby Tribute Panel, MARK EVANIER, and galleries of Kirby pencil art! Cover inked by JOE SINNOTT!

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