Draw #9 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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FALL 2004 • VOL. 1, NO. 9

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Mike Manley

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ADVERTISE IN DRAW! See page 2 for ad rates and specifications. DRAW! FALL 2004, Vol. 1, No. 9 was produced by Action Planet Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Address is PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082. Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2004 by their respective contributors. Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if workfor-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in said artwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; and said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied. Batman,Superman are TM and © 2004 DC Comics • The Dazzler TM and © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. • PvP TM and © 2004 Scott Kurtz •The Thief of Time © 2004 Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. This entire issue is © 2004 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

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FROM THE EDITOR This issue of Draw! and the crossover with our sister magazine write Now! was more than a year in the planning and the making. And what could be more natural than a re-teaming of write Now! editor and old Darkhawk writer Danny Fingeroth and myself, I ask you? A DVD! Danny and I worked together back in halcyon days of the ’90s at Marvel on Darkhawk, with Danny on the writing and me on the art. When we both ended up working for the same publisher again some ten years later, both doing “how-to” magazines, it seemed like a great idea to combine the thrust of both of our mags to give the aspiring cartoonists and writers a complete overview of the creative process of a comic, from the script to the printed page, from the Pro perspective. Do a real in-depth coverage of our process. After some good give and take, Danny and I came up with our character The Thief of Time, and documented each step of the creative process which you can read about in write Now! #8 and in this issue of Draw! As Danny and I got underway and were working on The Thief of Time, preparing to have both issues of our magazines ready to premiere at this summer’s San Diego Comicon, I was contacted by Sputnik Studios from Toronto, Canada to see if I was interested in producing a “how-to” DVD. “Heck yes!” was my answer. A rapid series of e-mails and phone calls ensued between our publisher John Morrow, Danny, Sputnik and myself, and the deal was worked out. We would now produce a “how-to” DVD covering our process and filming me live as I drew. This also meant we had a very short time to do this in order to get everything done to debut the DVD in San Diego. As you know by now, Draw! #9 was delayed in order to produce the art for the DVD shoot and John and I decided it was best to concentrate on the DVD. Shane McCracken, Jeremy McCracken and cameraman Sevan Frank piled into their car and headed south to my studio here outside of Philadelphia to film the DVD. Danny came down for an afternoon to shoot our discussion on scripts and plotting for the DVD, as well. Over the next three days in the humid Philadelphia summer, the swell guys from Sputnik filmed over 40 hours of video here in my studio documenting my working process, and the result is the How to Draw Comics from Script to Print DVD. I’m really proud of how it turned out! But the race was not over yet. As the Sputnik crew headed back to Toronto and their editing suite, I still had to finish the rest of the art and do extra work on the lettering and coloring segments and some extra voiceovers, as well as finish the rest of the The Thief of Time comic which had to be held off till the filming was done. So now you hold in your hands the fruit of all of our labors: Draw! #9, the second part of the crossover with write Now!, containing the complete The Thief of Time comic inside. The DVD premiered with great success in San Diego and the Chicago Con, so much so we are already planning several more DVDs on drawing featuring some of your favorite Draw! contributors. I also want to say thanks to this issue’s contributors Tom Bancroft, Rob Corley, and Scott Kurtz, who was interviewed by new Draw! interviewer and fellow Philly cartoonist Jamar Nicholas. Be sure to check our Jamar’s weekly web strip Detective Boogaloo— Hip Hop Cop on moviepoopshoot.com. Big thanks to Alberto Ruiz, Ande Parks, my pal Bret Blevins, and to my brother Dave and his friend Antony Bell for doing the music on the DVD, and of course to Danny and John. A tip of the hat to Ryan D’Angelo for redesigning the Draw! website, and of course you the readers and supporters of Draw! magazine. See you in February!

Mike Manley, Editor

E-mail: mike@drawmagazine.com Website: www.drawmagazine.com Snail mail: PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082

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TALKING THIEF OF TIME Danny and Mike discuss the creative process

PART 2

PART 2 What follows is the conclusion of the conversation between Write Now! editor Danny Fingeroth and myself (begun in Write Now! #8) outlining how we came up with our Thief of Time character. We discuss what issues we were dealing with as we tried to make something original yet not completely unfamiliar, mixing genres to come up with new takes on well-traveled archetypes. Combined with the notes and e-mails printed in Write Now! #8 we pick up on the conversation in this issue as we conclude the discussion of our creative process. Danny and I had a lot of open, honest, back and forth discussion, which is essential to the creative and collaborative process. —Mike Manley [SPOILER WARNING: Details of Thief of Time are discussed here. It’d be impossible to not do so when discussing the creation of a new character.]

ABOVE: This was the original penciled version of the cover to the Thief of Time comic. In the beginning I was thinking of this as being maybe a comic in a slightly more humorous vein. I later repenciled the figure of Heather Brascomb after Danny Fingeroth (my co-creator and writer) defined the characters and the feel of the series more. We decided against a humorous or more cartoony feel in favor of a more straight-forward adventure. RIGHT: My initial quick sketches or drawings of the character. The first image that popped into my mind was a female thief being chased across the rooftops of some European city, pursued by ninjas. These were done quickly directly with a brush and ink, and it ended up being the gem of the idea that became the cover image. I flopped the direction of the sketch to read better for the cover.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 3

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MIKE MANLEY that we have to put a limit on Heather’s time travel abilities. Otherwise there’s no problem the person can’t solve by simply saying, “Well, I’ll go back five minutes before that event happened.” Danny Fingeroth: That’s right. We had this discussion about how time travel stories can become incredibly complicated, and the question always comes back to, “if you can travel through time, why not just keep going back in time until you get it right?” That’s actually the premise of Groundhog Day, I suppose, which is in a way a time travel story.

ABOVE: The final penciled version of the cover for The Thief of Time. On this page and the next page are some of Mike’s rough sketches and designs for the thief’s costume and appearance. This is the second half of the Write Now!/DRAW! crossover conversation phone discussion between Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. The first half ran in Write Now #8.

Mike Manley: In creating a drama, be it comics or a movie, etc., it’s probable all the paths that you’re going to walk dramatically have been walked by someone before. So, all you can do is try to put a little spin on the ball. There’s been a zillion stories about pirates, or about private eyes, or guys flying through outer space, starship captains, and super-heroes. Nothing is really going to end up being completely unique. I mean, you hope your idea is fresh, but in genre fiction most ideas have probably been tried now. So with Thief, my concern, visually, was try to do something that’s interesting for the reader and that’s fun for me to draw. A story, that even if it’s time travel, not a unique idea certainly, has something that’s a little different in some way. Some kind of hook. In one of the conversations we had we discussed 4 DRAW! • FALL 2004

MM: We initially said, okay, it’s going to be a thief, and we decided we’ll make the thief a female character. Then we talked a little bit about the movie Entrapment, which was about a burglar, and looked at the elements that worked in that, and then we started talking about time travel. I actually went on the Internet and spent some time reading up on time travel. Some scientists believe there is a possibility, depending upon faster-thanlight drives or going the speed of light, that it is possible to do some form of time travel. There are others who believe there’s time travel possibilities via wormholes, or black holes. There’re a lot of different theories on it. So even though this is a fantasy, you still want to be able to have a layer in it that has some basis in science, so that at least you have some foundation on which to build a fantasy construct. DF: There was one logistical problem we came up with what I think is an elegant solution for. I was having our heroine have to literally travel to different parts of the globe by jet or something, to then go back in time so she would end up in that part of

COMICS the world when she time-traveled. And you came up with the pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo (and I mean that in a good way) about some kind of global positioning thing, where she could end up coming out in the correct geographical spot, which simplified things nicely. MM: Well, I figured since the Earth moves through time and space, and since she’s going to jump through time, the time-vest she wears would have to have some ability, maybe in conjunction with some machine, computer program, a guy working the machine back at the home base, tracking her in relationship to the Earth, so that you can say, “When I’m going through time to April 14, 1876, at 3:00 AM,” you would know exactly where the Earth would be in order to do that, or else you’d pop into space, because the Earth might be on the other side of the sun. DF: This new version of the plot felt more organic to me. Does it work better for you? MM: It does. And we were also trying to decide if the key time travel scene in her first story would take her to ancient Greece or medieval Japan. DF: In this case, I think it’s more what you’re in the mood to draw. The story point would be similar in either case, so it’s what’s more fun for Mike to do artwise? MM: So I settled on ancient Japan, because, for me, ancient Japan and samurai or are going to be more fun to draw. I went through step-by-step, reading the plot and wrote down what Heather’s key motivation is. The fact that she’s try-

MIKE MANLEY

ing to find her father, who invented this timevest that she wears, and he’s lost in the time stream. She wants somehow, to locate her father in the time stream and basically save him. And then we had a big, long talk about how there had to be some reason why she couldn’t just pop in two seconds before he turned the vest on and got himself lost in time, why didn’t she just do that? All of this is in my mind when I’m reading your plot that you just sent, which was really good. I was thinking, what if the dad’s time vest was damaged and maybe there was something wrong with it initially, a design flaw maybe, so that he keeps skipping through time like a stone thrown across a lake, and every time that he pops into a different time, he sends out a slight “ripple.” And that slight ripple maybe subtly affects time after that. So he’s sending out slight ripples in time, that are generated by the suit “punching holes” through time. And, since it’s a random thing and her brother Henry’s helping her track her father down, I was just thinking, maybe Henry’s job could be to track where his father goes when he’s using the vest. To see if there’s a pattern to the jumps in time that their father’s making as he skips through time, trying to triangulate where Dad will be next, so that he can say, “Well, we think that, based on this algorithm that I’m running”—some chaos theory computer program—“we predict our father will appear in 1776 in Malta,” or something like that. DF: Yeah. From The Time Machine to The Terminator to Back to the Future, to just about any time travel story, I think you just have to establish the rules of time travel and figure the audience will be willing to go along for the ride as long as the story points are compelling enough to make them want to. Otherwise, you go into territory where you’re trying so hard to explain how and why DRAW! • FALL 2004 5

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MIKE MANLEY wrong, she could really screw something up.

Some character studies of Heather that explore her personality and stylistic approach.

DF: You know, this goes back to our original discussion, the way that you even said, “Why doesn’t she go back a week and invest in whatever stock went up the following week? Why would she have to be a thief?” Which is why I put the message for the father in there. Because we’re back to that same thing, why go to such elaborate means just to generate money if you can know how future financial markets are going to turn out? MM: Well, here’s the other plot idea I had in relating to the father. Maybe via his skipping through time, he’s sort of set himself up financially or science-wise. Maybe he’s trapped, maybe there’s some reason why he can’t take the vest off, maybe it’s bonded to his skin, whatever. So he’s always going to have to jump through time. DF: Because if he takes off the vest, he loses any hope of ever getting back to his home time.

of something that’s impossible in the first place, that you end up sabotaging your story. Let’s face it, what do people remember about Back to the Future? The time-traveling DeLorean and the fact that Michael J. Fox had to make sure his parents got together so that he would be born, which, when you think about it, he must already have succeeded, or else how could we be watching a movie about his character in the first place? But you don’t think about that as you watch the movie. You just take the filmmakers’ and characters’ words for it that what they’re trying to achieve—the McGuffin, as Hitchcock called it—is important. MM: Sure, the more logically you set it up, the more chance the reader or viewer will buy into it. DF: Agreed. MM: I did think, at the end, in our story, having the father show up was kind of a cool thing. Now, we could have some reason that that happened, we’ll to work that out, because we have a limited amount of space with the initial comic. DF: That was definitely going to be the cliffhanger. Because, as you were just saying, he pops in and out of time. There could be a pattern to it, but one that maybe they haven’t quite figured out. Now, does he want to be rescued? That’s another issue. MM: Basically, the main thing for me as an artist working on the story with you was to figure out logical parameters within this fantasy construct so if this person can travel through time, they can’t just simply solve every problem they encounter by just going, “Oh, well, I’ll just dial back before that happened, ding, problem solved!” So there should be some reason that every time they actually go into the time stream, there’s a real possibility that if they do something wrong, they could really screw up the present. I think it would be a good thing to have it set up at the beginning that there was a real consequence every time Heather jumped through time, and if she did something 6 DRAW! • FALL 2004

MM: Right. And maybe he hasn’t been able to fix it because he doesn’t have the 2004 technology to repair the vest. Or maybe he’s working on it, it’s going to take him a while in the past to gather the materials he needs to fix the vest or something. Like a stone skipping through time, so you never know where the next skip will send you. DF: He has to triangulate where he’s going to be. So now the question still comes up, why is she stealing stuff in the past, if it’s not to find clues for him? If she’s on an assignment from the Emperor of Japan, that’s one thing, that specific favor, or maybe he has something she needs. MM: That’s a cool idea. Maybe she’s trying to track him, so maybe by stealing this mask from the past and delivering it to the emperor of Japan in the future, he gives her some photograph or some information about where her father was in Japan at some point.

BELOW: My thumbnail breakdowns. This is where it all starts as I sketch out thumbnails based on Danny’s plot. These will go through a refining process but I want to get the visual images in my head down as quickly as they occur.

COMICS An early character sketch of Henry, Heather’s brother.

DF: On another topic, we need to figure out what her “moral compass” is. There’s a lot of things that heroes don’t do, and we don’t feel bad about them because they’re not rubbed in our faces, but even if she’s not a classical super-hero, even if she’s not out to save the world, but just is out to find her dad— and I think it would be nice if she had some altruistic characteristics—but if she’s going into a sinking ship, takes the money, and goes, “Oh, I’d love to save you guys, but I can’t mess with history. Bye!” “Glub, glub.” [laughs]

MM: Well, see, I think that that is a lot more interesting. If you know for a fact that you pop into time in Chicago, and there’s a fire, and there’s a baby, and that baby is trapped in the fire, do you save that baby, or do you not save that baby? Because if you save that baby, the kid might grow up to be Adolf Hitler? Maybe they did that once. Maybe she did save somebody, and later on it caused something really bad to happen because she altered the course of somebody else’s life in the time stream? DF: I guess the question then becomes, for us, do we make that something that happened to her, or does she learn it on-panel in one of our stories? MM: Going over the notes that you had with your plot, I thought that there was the perfect place to do that, to say, “Remember what happened that time you went to Malta?” DF: Maybe that’s what set her dad off bouncing around the time stream was trying to do something that would change history in a certain way. MM: Right. And you have the sequence on page four where she’s talking to Henry, and they have that discussion on page four and page five. And I would think that would be a good time for him to say, “Remember what happened in Malta?” We don’t have to say what that Malta thing is, you sort of leave it like the McGuffin in Hitchcock. You leave the gun there, and then you come back in the next story, where we have the space, and can elaborate on it. You know that’s what Stan Lee would do, Stan would have the little thing there, “Remember the last time you tried to save somebody, Chicago disappeared!” [laughs]

MIKE MANLEY

that’s one thing I want to build up more of. MM: For me, the easiest thing is saying, “She’s 20, she’s hot, she’s Asian, she’s smart, she’s got a wicked sense of humor, and she likes to collect crickets.” It’s easy to say that. It’s a lot harder to work out the logistics, and more importantly, to work out the logistics of the story and the universe, and then it’s easier to deal with the type of person she is. That’s the easiest part of this. DF: I think you can look at it the other way, too. If you know what kind of a person she is, that dictates the choices she makes, which is what the story is, how this person reacts under pressure. For me, that’s what generates the most interesting stories, because they make sure you have a story that could only happen to the protagonist you’re creating. But you need both—a compelling character who also does cool stuff that makes sense. MM: Definitely. For instance, if saving somebody in the past causes some horrible thing to possibly happen in the future, and she’s a moral person, then it would have to really affect her if she jumped into the past and there was a fire going and she could save somebody, and she’s forced to not do it. That would really screw with you. DF: That’s a great crucible of her personality and of her values. MM: Right. So her strength of character is defined by the fact that she has to have the strength of character to not do what her natural impulse would be—to, for instance, pull a burning baby from a fire. Let’s say you were going to time travel, and you could go back to the Titanic and steal the jewels that were on the Titanic, because they’re all going to be lost anyway, so if you took all the stuff that was in the safe, you’re not affecting anybody because you can go sell that stuff, or melt it down and make gold bars, or whatever. But if you saved somebody from the Titanic, that may irrevocably alter the future. DF: But if you didn’t, what kind of horrible person would you be, to walk past people you knew were doomed, but not do anything to save them because you knew there would likely be consequences that were far worse? That could even be part of why her dad doesn’t want to be rescued. Maybe dad thinks he’s on the verge of figuring out a way to alter events without negative consequences, but Heather and Henry don’t believe it’s possible. So everybody concerned believes passionately that they’re doing the right thing—which is what dramatic conflict is all about.

This concludes Danny’s and my discussion about the collaborative process on the Thief of Time, I hope it gave you a window into the world of our creative process. —Mike

DF: We haven’t really spoken too much about her personality. She seems somewhat impulsive, she seems pretty creative, but DRAW! • FALL 2004 7

MY PROCESS, THE SCRIPT TO PRINT—BY MIKE MANLEY B

STEP 1) THE THUMBNAIL

OK, This is where it all begins for me visually—the the most important step of the job and the most creative. As I read Danny’s plot, (figure A) ideas start to bubble up, and visually explode in my mind like popcorn in the microwave. I start to frantically draw down these images, scene fragments, right away. My goal is to get my first impressions down fast. Once I have these thumbnails down, I start to refine them. Sometimes I get clear ideas right away of what I want to draw, or how I want to play a scene or lay out a page. Other times I get these visual bits or panels in little “chunks’ and then have to work to link them together. Through years of doing so many comics and storyboards I find that my first impressions are almost always the best. Sometimes I refine ideas, only to go back to the original. This part of the job is liquid. Ideas or panels come and go. In fact, one should always be open to a new idea that may improve the story at any time, right up until the job is out the door to the printer. REFERENCE One of the first steps for me upon reading the script is making a list of reference I’ll need. The next step is to surf onto Google, which is a great source for reference on the web. It may take a little time, but you can find a lot of good useable reference. You may have to get creative with your search, but like the Dark Knight Detective I was able to find all the reference for the ninja castle, rooftop scenes, ninjas, etc., without leaving my studio. And I’ll go on record here as saying there is no such thing as too much reference. Better to have more than you need. Unfortunately due to copyright reasons I am not able to reprint the images I got from my search. But 8 DRAW! • FALL 2004

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if you start searching for Noh masks, ninjas, and french rooftops on Google, I bet you’ll come along the same reference I did. figure (B) These are the thumbnails that were my first draft at breaking down Danny’s plot visually. Danny and I are working in what has be come to called the “Marvel Style” of plotting and scripting. In the “Marvel Style” the writer provides a plot, but little or no dialogue, often leaving the number of panels per page or even how long a scene plays out up to the artist. The writer then scripts the pages either from the artist’s breakdowns or full pencils. In this style the artist controls the pacing more, unlike a full script, where the writer is the first to control the pacing of the story by breaking each page down into specific panels as well as providing all the dialogue and captions. Since we have worked Marvel Style before while producing Darkhawk for Marvel, Danny and I both felt comfortable working as we did in the past. I prefer plots in comics as it gives me a lot more freedom, especially on super-hero or action comics. figure (C) My second pass on the rough layout. I was initially thinking more cinematically, slowly moving into the ninja castle and into an inner chamber the Thief time-jumps into. The idea was to slowly build up to a reveal of her. Since I have been doing storyboards a lot in the last eight plus years on shows like Batman, Superman and Samurai Jack and recently Fairly Odd Parents, this has really reinforced and honed my cinematic storytelling skills and the motto, “tell the story.” The problem I ran into quickly in this case was space, or the lack thereof. Since this is only an eight-page comic with one page comprising the cover, I really had only seven pages to tell this story, introduce the heroine, the thrilling conflict and the cliffhanger. Not a lot of space, especially when I need to get some nice action scenes in there as well as room for Danny to write exposition explaining some of the back story. After emailing back and forth with Danny, I decided to just cut to the chase and show an establishing shot to show where the action was happening and cut right to Heather already in the castle chamber and reaching for the mask. figure (D) This is the new rough for the splash page which was quickly drawn on a Post-it Note. figure (e) The final tight penciled page. This, along with the final layout, is the most important part of the job. This is the visual foundation on which everything else will hang, and for me the most creative part of the job. Sure, penciling a nice figure or page and inking are always very creative as procedures themselves, but a poor beginning,

MIKE MANLEY

ABOVE (LEFT): A picture of Mike penciling the splash page along with the thumbnail from the DRAW! DVD How to Draw Comics from Script to Print. TOP (RIGHT): The final inked splash page. ABOVE: A shot of Mike inking the splash page, also from the DVD.

bad layout and confusing storytelling will not be overcome by the best rendering. Comics are meant to be read as a narrative, not as a series of cool drawings next to each other. DRAW! • FALL 2004

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MIKE MANLEY

10 DRAW! • FALL 2004

COMICS FIGURE (A) Danny’s Plot FIGURE (B) The first rough pass at breaking down the action FIGURE (C) The second pass at the rough/ FIGURE (D) The Final penciled page FIGURE (E) The inked page.

As you can see on the second page of the script, we get right into the action. It’s very busy and there is a lot going on. In my initial rough pass (figure B) I was working out how to break down the action of the ninjas damaging the time belt, and Heather’s time-jump, leaving the ninjas to ponder what happened, and to clearly show that she had vanished with the mask. That was the scene I had to clearly end on. If this was a storyboard I would be doing more drawings like the ninja tossing the throwing star in sequence. I wanted to show she could kick ass too, but I didn’t have much space to play out a fight scene. So clarity is crucial. I have to ask myself, do I sacrifice storytelling for dynamics? I don’t want to, so I keep thinking and sketching. I take a second pass at the page (figure C) and e-mail that to Danny. He felt there were too many small figures on the page. He wanted more Mighty Marvel-type action. I felt I needed to show mostly medium shots for clarity, so I started to push foreground and background elements to get interesting and clear overlays (Panels 2 and 3). I don’t have to show every ninja, I can show parts, like swords, etc., to indicate there are more E

MIKE MANLEY

ninjas surrounding her, I can use them also as design elements reinforcing the focal point of your eye to look at Heather. I replaced the last panel and composed it to focus on the head ninja and the missing mask by using the gesture of the ninja’s leg in the foreground to lead your eye right to it.

PENCILING The next step as is to take my layout and blow it up on my copy machine roughly 130% onto 11" x 17" paper. I then take that copy to my light table and put it under the sheet of 2-ply Bristol I will draw the final page on. I then start to trace off the layout. Now I want to stress something here. When I say trace, I don’t mean a dead-line tracing, I mean sketching or drawing. I can in some cases draw my finished page completely on the lightbox. I’m drawing and using the image coming through on the lightbox essentially as an underdrawing, as if I had lightly penciled the page in blue pencil. I don’t want that dead line you get with a tracing. I’m using the Bill Cole 500 series Strathmore with the plate finish to draw on. I like a smooth surface for penciling as it’s easier to keep clean and erase and it takes the pen well. I flip off the lightbox and go back over the page and continue to finish and touch-up the pencils. Normally I don’t draw this finished for myself to ink, I only pencil this tight if someone else is going to ink the page, but for the purpose of this tutorial I am going all out. I pencil with an HB pencil lead in a 5mm mechanical lead holder. I like a fairly soft lead as I don’t like to press down hard when I draw. It also cleans up nicely if I don’t dig down into the board. Every penciler has his or her own preference for lead and paper. Some like hard lead and rough paper and some vice-versa. The spotting or arrangement of blacks will be important in making this page “read.” I drew the panel where Heather jumps with higher contrast as that also helps rest the eye and give some contrast to the busier panels. Bold shapes and blacks against detail give the eye a variety and I feel give the comic page a lot of visual spice. The entire time I’m drawing the pages I’m always thinking of the fact that these penciled pages are not the BELOW: Mike’s light table showing the enlarged photocopy of page 7 which he places beneath the sheet of 2-ply bristol and uses as an underdrawing. The finished page is to the left.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 11

COMICS

MIKE MANLEY final step. As nice as they may be in places, they are a step, not the final art. The final art is the inked pages. Right from the beginning I am thinkA ing how I will will be inking the final page; if I will use a brush or pen, thick brush lines against thin pen lines, or textures. Do I want this with clean or rough inking, a lot of rendering or little rendering, relying more on “La Ligne Claire” (The Clear Line) exemplified by artists such as Hergé (Tintin)? All of this is in my mind as I pencil the pages, and since I am doing everything, including the coloring on this job, this gives me many more options than if I was only penciling. My main complaint about modern comics is that often the coloring and the art seem to be at odds instead of complementing each other. B For me, the big fight some days, even after all the pages I’ve done and my 20 years in comics, is keeping the freedom and energy I have in my roughs and sketches. I always like them better than the finished art. Maybe it’s that a sketch is always becoming something, it’s not as finite as a finished page. A sketch has no boundaries. My goal is to one day do pages that have the loose energy of my sketches without losing the drawing. Now page three was a fun but very tough page to do. Danny gave me a lot of freedom here to stage the action and to allow me to draw some really cool stuff. I also had to figure out how I wanted to draw the time well or portal. Again the C main problem was the limited space. Originally I was trying to get both the WWI soldiers and the dino on the same page, in some kind of swirling layout, (figure B) having Heather fall through the portal and land in WWI, with soldiers alerted to her when they see her “jump” in. She’d land on a dead soldier and recoil as bullets whiz by, as the British soldiers, thinking she’s a German soldier, advance on her. Panicked a bit she jumps again to fall back further in time as the timebelt is damaged, and lands with the dino. A lot for one page, and as you can see, with the Marvel Style of plotting I am doing a lot of writing here, plussing the script, adding sequences. This is what I love to do, as it gives me a free range to direct the scene. But it was too much to do on one page as you can see in my rough layouts, so I had to cut and combine ideas. I would have loved to stretch this over a double-page spread, or maybe even have a splash of just the dino.

12 DRAW! • FALL 2004

COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

D E

Sometimes as in FIGURE (E) I may do a few rough drawings of figures separately to work out possible poses or drawing problems. Luckily I had a good model on hand in the studio for my dino reference, my T-Rex toy from Jurassic Park (FIGURE F). It’s a great model and really came in handy for drawing good old T-Rex.

In the end I came up with the solution of having her falling through the time-stream, sort of like the strata of rock you see exposed in a place like the Grand Canyon. As you go down through the layers of rock you go back in time, and the separate bands (time) are clear. This way I could show an astronaut, the war, the sphinx, etc., indicating she was falling through time and get some nice sexy figures in here as well. I also did this because everyone knows dinosaurs are way cooler than soldiers! I adapted some of my original ideas from my first batch of roughs into my final layout. (figure D) One thing I was keeping in mind here was that color was going to make a big impact on this page, and in the beginning I decided to do very little rendering or turning of form and go for a cleaner look and allow the arrangement of blacks and colors to carry the day. This is my favorite page out of the whole job and the first page where I really felt I was finally starting to click and get what I wanted.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 13

COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

LEFT: The final pencils for page three. I felt here I was getting more of a handle on Heather’s personality. In the past, it’s sometimes taken a few issues to feel I know a character. Sure, some characters like Batman or the Hulk I already feel I know from reading or watching their comics or cartoons for many years. I think of them as real people, like an uncle or friend, so I can make them act on paper. If I can develop that intimacy with a character, feel like I know them as a “real person,” I will better be able to communicate that to the reader and make the character seem real, believable to them. I will say, however, seven pages is not enough to fully develop a new character’s personality, but it’s like having a good first date. You leave with a good feeling and look forward to a second date.

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COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

On page four we meet Henry, Heather’s brother. I wanted to show how close they are as brother and sister, and that he’s the tech guy and she the adventurer, but she couldn’t do it without him. So their gestures are important here, I wanted this page to read like a silent movie, without words, so the gestures and staging have to be really clear. Also this page was a big effects page and a page where I had to show some of the home base, lab, and time-jump machines. My idea was to do something design-wise that would work for a movie or TV show, since Danny and I would also try and pitch our idea to Hollywood through our own connections. I also added a small picture of her father in panel six, which readers may pick up on later. I also worked to make the ninja’s silhouette in panel four read, yet keep him mostly in shadow.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 15

COMICS

MIKE MANLEY This page went through a lot of changes and editing, and probably took the most time to lay out because I had a lot to include. I needed to show Heather recovering and talking about her mission, Henry doing his tech thing repairing the jump-belt, and the ninja sneaking and attacking. I also wanted to get a nice closeup of Heather reflecting on her trip and being resolved to find her father despite Henry’s doubts.

(figure 1) This was my first pass on the page and I wasn’t quite happy with it and did another rough (figure 2) which I e-mailed to Danny. I was pretty happy with this, but Danny felt the 4 action was more important and wanted bigger figures on the ninja attacking. He could cover the exposition in fewer panels allowing me to “blow-up” the action panels. I’m still on the fence about this but I did a real quick drawing in Photoshop over my layout (figure 3) and sent that to Danny and he liked this better. (figure 4) A study of Henry for panel one. (figure 5) This is the final pencils which combined elements from all of my previous layouts. 3

16 DRAW! • FALL 2004

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MIKE MANLEY

CONTINUED ON PAGE 67

DRAW! • FALL 2004 17

By Ande Parks

Interesting, isn’t it, that while an artist of my caliber rarely makes mistakes, many of my columns concern themselves with ways to correct, cover, and otherwise eliminate errant marks on the comic page. We have previously covered various types of whiteout pens, but we haven’t discussed the most traditional method of correction, the simple application of an opaque white to the page with a brush. Whiteout can be used not only to make corrections, but also for a number of effects… everything from smoke to white-onblack line art. Some artists (Michael Golden, for example) rarely use it, and in fact, seem to think of it as a stain upon their work. Others (Klaus Janson and José Luis Gárcia-Lopéz come to mind) cover much of the page with it, layering with ink and whiteout to achieve painterly results. For me, examining the page after it has been erased, whiteout brush in hand, is the final stage of the inking process. I use it to make corrections, but also to go back in to tweak the art. I admit that I often resort to a whiteout pen just because it’s fast and easy, but I still prefer to do things the old fashioned way. The problem with adhering to the time-honored tradition of painting with whiteout is that it has become much harder to find an excellent product. The goal is to find a substance that is thin enough to paint with easily, but is opaque enough to cover black ink completely in one coat. Ideally, it should also leave a nice, inkable surface to work with. For years, I faithfully used such a product, the wonderful Pen-Opake. Unfortunately, like many art supplies, it has gone the way of hand lettering and a decent corn dog. In other words, it has been discontinued. I miss it so, particularly after sampling the products that are available.

18 DRAW! • FALL 2004

I’m afraid you will not find a perfect product in this review. I didn’t find any magical substance that was ready to use out of the bottle, and possessed all of the properties I was seeking. Disgusted as I was by the choices that I found after perusing my usual suppliers, I bravely persevered. I owed it to you, my loyal readers, to wade through these milky bottles of glop. In the end, I did find some satisfactory products, and one that I like quite a bit, so let’s get on with it! The Criteria As I already mentioned, there were three things I was looking for as I tested the various whiteouts: ease of Application (flow): I wanted the whiteout to go down easy. Basically, it just had to be thin enough to flow from my brush without too much trouble. Many of these products are so think that they are nearly impossible to apply. In that case, I simply thinned out the substance with distilled water until I could work with it. The thinning may have left the product too thin for it to pass the other criteria, but I had to make it workable. Coverage: Ideally, the whiteout should cover thoroughly with one coat. inking Surface: Sometimes you will be able to apply the whiteout exactly where you want it, and you won’t have to go back in with any ink. Often, though, you’ll need to go back in and ink on the freshly-created white area. In that case, you want a nice surface to ink on. Many whiteouts flaked or ran when I applied ink, which rendered them unacceptable in my tests. The Candidates I tried to think outside the box, ordering everything from traditional whiteout to acrylic paints to gouaches, and even a fluid made specifically for watercolor corrections. It was pretty easy to rule some of these products out immediately, mainly because they were nowhere near opaque enough. I ended up with six final contenders, which you can read about below. The Testing I knew I wanted to test these products in real world conditions, so I went to the pantry and found a bunch of pages from my “no way in hell I’m ever going to be able to sell this crap” pile. Yes, dear readers, it’s true… actual original pages were sacrificed for your benefit. These gems of comic art may be lost forever, but they gave themselves freely so that you could buy a quality whiteout in confidence. I went over the pages, in some cases eliminating huge chunks of the art, and in other instances simply adding minor white highlights. Some of the products were ready to use right out of the bottle, but many others had to be thinned. It’s hard for me to say how thick each product may be when it finds it’s way into your hands. Shelf life may have an impact, and your personal preference for what consistency you desire may differ from mine. If you should have to thin your whiteout, I would recommend using water that has been distilled or filtered. Simply add some water and stir like crazy (I used the handle end of a brush). It’s not a very fun process, but you should be able to get a consistency you can work with.

ART SUPPLIES

ANDE PARKS

The Results FW ACRYLIC ARTISTS INK (White) Flow: A+, Coverage: B, Inking Surface: A I opened this jar of ink not expecting it to get the job done. It is, after all, a liquid. I didn’t imagine that it would be opaque enough to cover black ink. In truth, it isn’t quite thick enough to cover in one coat. With a little work, though, I was able to cover everything I wanted to. I just had to go over the area with one extra pass of the brush. That hassle was worth it, in my opinion, because FW flows so well from the brush. To get other products thin enough to be this usable with a brush, you have to add enough water to reduce their covering ability to at least no better than the FW. It also left as good an inking surface as any product I tested. That is, in fact, what really made me fall in love with this stuff. If applied with a little care, it leaves a surface you almost can’t tell from the paper. I was able to use a pen over it with little problem. For the time being, this FW acrylic ink is going to replace the thicker brands that I have traditionally kept on my drafting table as my main whiteout of choice. FW inks come in one ounce bottles.

FX ACRYLIC ARTISTS INK—WHITE 001 Made by Daler-Rowney www.daler-rowney.com The winner! Using a liquid may turn off some experienced cartoonists, but I found that, with a little work, this stuff really gets the job done. It goes on like a dream, covers pretty well, and leaves a great inking surface. You can even dip your pen in the stuff and draw with it.

PRO WHITE Made by Daler-Rowney www.daler-rowney.com These guys appear to have the market cornered! This is a good product, and one that is used by the majority of today’s comic artists. A little gloppy, but can be thinned to produce good results.

PELIKAN GRAPHIC WHITE Made by Pelikan www.pelikan.com Another fine, old-fashioned, slightly gloppy whiteout. It’ll certainly do the job, but I prefer the FW and Pro White. Another minor complaint about this product is the larger bottle size. At almost twice the size of the other products, this bottle will have a longer life in which it can become encrusted with dried whiteout. Oh, and just in case you’re boycotting English products for some reason, this is the only whiteout I like that isn’t made there. Pelikan is a Spanish company.

PRO WHITE Flow: B, Coverage: A, Inking Surface: B This seems to be the product of choice in the industry these days, at least it appears that way when perusing Larry Dempsey’s Inking Survey. WINSOR & NEWTON DESIGNER’S GOUACHELet me digress a bit to tell you that if you PERMANENT WHITE haven’t visited Larry’s site, it is a fantastic Made by Winsor & Newton resource. Larry asks all of the top inkers in www.winsornewton.com comics a standard set of questions, and most of them give very insightful answers. Check it out This is a great product… one of the better brands of for yourself at www.larrydempsey.com. gouache paint available at a reasonable price. The fact that it Anyway, I like Pro White a lot. It’s been my has to be mixed for use as a whiteout, though, standard whiteout ever since my beloved Pen led me to place it pretty low on my list. Opake became unavailable. It is thick, but can be thinned for pretty easy brush use. It’s still not as easy to work with as the FW, but it does cover very well. It also leaves a pretty good inking surface, but I prefer working over the FW. I found the Pro White a little more prone to flaking. This is a good product, but I would PELIKAN GRAPHIC WHITE encourage you to also try the FW. The more of Flow: B, Coverage: A, Inking Surface: Bthat product we all buy, the less likely it is that The manufacturer of my favorite ink also makes a pretty good they’ll stop making the stuff! You can get a one ounce bottle of whiteout. It’s very similar to the Pro White, but I like the inking Pro White at www.misterart.com for $5.19. It’s cheaper if you surface of the Pro White just a little better. This product must sign up for their VIP program. also be thinned, and it certainly does the job. Nothing to complain about, to be sure. A one and three-quarter ounce bottle of Pelikan Graphic White costs $9.47 at Mister Art. Less, of course, if you join their VIP club. DRAW! • FALL 2004 19

ART SUPPLIES

ANDE PARKS

DR. PH. MARTIN’S BLEED PROOF WHITE Flow: B, Coverage: B, Inking Surface: C Another product that will get the job done, but I found it a little harder to work with than the brands I’ve already covered. It’s thinner than the Pelikan and the Pro White. It doesn’t cover without some extra work, and it’s surface is prone to flaking. You can get a one ounce bottle at Dick Blick for $4.69. WINSOR & NEWTON DESIGNER GOUACHE (PERMANENT WHITE) Flow: B, Coverage: B, Inking Surface: B+ This product comes in a tube, and that’s why it places down near the bottom of my list, despite pretty good performance. It was actually hard to assign grades because, even more than the other products, a lot depends on how you mix it. With a little practice, I was able to get a very workable mixture which covered well and was good to work with. Convenience is a big deal with this cranky reviewer, though, and this stuff is too much work for me to use on a regular basis. I had to mix it up on a pallette. I guess it could be mixed in larger quantities and kept in a little jar, but really… who needs the hassle? It’s also a more

expensive option. A small tube (14 ml, which is a little bit less than half of an ounce) costs $7.19 at Dick Blick. That tube, however, would make at least an ounce after mixing. SPEEDBALL PIGMENTED ACRYLIC INK (WHITE) Flow: A, Coverage: C, Inking Surface: B I had high hopes for this product, just based on the fancy name and small bottle, I guess. I’m afraid it disappointed. It is thin and easy to use, but the coverage is poor and the inking surface is barely acceptable. It, along with the FW, though, might be a good option if you want to use a dip pen with whiteout. These inks come in .4 ounce bottles, and cost $1.66 each at Mister Art. And that is it for this edition of The Crusty Critic. I really encourage you to check out the FW Acrylic Ink as a whiteout. In the meantime, draw well and carry a finely crafted stick. Humbly Yours, CC

New Product Alert: BCE Mylar ArtBoardz and ProBoardz Well, fans, it finally happened… someone finally had the good sense to ask your own trusty Crusty Critic for advice when it came time to produce a new line of comic art supplies. In this case, the product is Bill Cole Enterprises ProBoardz and ArtBoardz. Bill asked me (and several other artists) to help him test various papers and figure out which ruling lines and other marks to include on the boards. I’m pleased with the results, and when I’m pleased with a product, it’s my duty to recommend it! Go to bcemylar.com/ProBoardz.html or call him at (781) 986-2653 to check them out for yourselves. Tell him The Critic sent you. In the meantime, I thought I’d give Bill a chance to tell my readers about the process that lead to the creation of these excellent boards. The Crusty Critic: So, why jump into the comic book board market right now? Bill Cole: We were having quite a few problems with deliveries from our suppliers. Our reputation for a quick turnaround time was being compromised, so we explored the possibility of doing our own boards. CC: Did you see a void, or did you just think you could do it better? BC: We did a great deal of market research before we started the commitment. We contacted quite a few artists and found out what they wanted and then started creating the actual board. CC: Do you think it can be profitable market? BC: With our huge data base of customers we figured it could only add to our product mix and increase sales. CC: How did you determine what stock to use for your boards? Were there a lot of options outside of Strathmore? BC: We started to test boards that had already been on and in the marketplace and found that many of them were not as advertised and most of the boards “bled” when using pens. Therefore there was only one choice and that was for the “Rolls Royce” of the paper industry, “Strathmore®.” They were quite happy to work with us in developing the ProBoardz.

20 DRAW! • FALL 2004

CC: Can you tell us about the varying levels of board that you offer, and what kinds of artists might be interested in each? BC: We now have four levels of boards: The new super smooth, super bright and non-bleed ArtBoardz for the very beginner, The ProBoardz 201 for the student, The ProBoardz 400 for the advanced student and professional and The ProBoardz 500 for the top professional and publisher. CC: Can artists buy from you in bulk? Can they have you customize boards with their logos or other specialized touches? BC: Anyone can buy from us in bulk at very competitive pricing. We can also customize boards with anything an artist would like, in quantities of course. CC: I’ve heard that the environment in which the boards are printed can make a difference. For example, paper printed in a humid environment can turn out with problems. Do you know anything about this? Do you have to be careful about printing the boards at certain times of the year? BC: What you are describing is art boards that turn yellow and fade over time. First of all, the Strathmore® boards we produce are acid free and will not turn yellow. Many art boards that are produced today, even though they are called acid free, just look at them after a few months. You’ll see what we mean. I would also like to add that we have added more items per package at much lower pricing than any of our competitors. CC: Well, Bill, The Crusty Critic wishes well to any brave soul willing to bring a good product to the marketplace. These days, it seems that good art supplies vanish on a weekly basis, so it’s good to have more quality stuff out there. BC: We appreciate your taking the time for this interview. In closing we want to tell your readers that in the next few months Bill Cole Enterprises will be adding additional supplies for the comic book artist. Just send an email to sales@bcemylar.com for more information.

DRAW!’s CRUSTY CRITIC’s Online Art Supply Stores Index ONLINE ART SUPPLY STORE UPDATE MISTERART.COM One of The Critic’s favorite sites. Mister Art offers an amazing array of supplies at decent prices. The site is fairly easy to navigate, with an excellent search engine. Shipping prices are average. Additional discounts for V.I.P. members. DICKBLICK.COM They’ve been in the catalog business since 1911, and they run a good web site, as well. Easy to navigate and search. They offer a lot of useful products, including the Raphael brushes, with reasonable shipping costs. ASWEXPRESS.COM (ART SUPPLY WAREHOUSE) I find the layout of the site a bit confusing, but they have a pretty good variety, along with good prices. Shipping costs are pretty high, and you need a Yahoo ID to check out. CARTOONCOLOR.COM Specializing in animation supplies. They offer excellent cel paints, as well as storyboard pads, animation cels, etc.. OMOCHABOX.COM Specializing in anime supplies. An excellent source for markers, pens, and dot screens. DANIELSMITH.NET Good all-around site, with wide variety of supplies. Daniel Smith also makes their own products, which I have not yet tested. Decent site layout and fair shipping costs. ITALIANARTSTORE.COM I often order my Raphael brushes here. Competitive prices, and fair shipping (free on higher orders). Unusual site layout, but effective. UTRECHTART.COM They make a lot of their own supplies, and I haven’t tested them. The site is good, and they offer a wide variety of materials. Shipping is reasonable, and free on orders over $150. CHEAPJOESCATALOG.COM The site is a bit dizzying, but they seem to offer a lot of products. Prices are reasonable, but shipping is a bit high. REXART.COM A good site offering competitive prices and reasonable shipping. You only have to spend $100 to get free shipping. SCRAPBOOKSUPERSTORE.COM A scrapbook specialty store which carries Zigs and Pigmas. Product ordered: 5-pen set of Zig Millenniums. Forms of payment accepted: Mastercard, Visa and Discover (no American Express) Order arrived in 6 days.

JOHN POOLE PEN NIBS john@poolej.freeserve.co.uk http://www.poolej.freeserve.co.uk/homepage.html 16, Brookfield Crescent, Harrow, HA3 0UT, England PHONE/FAX: (44) 020 8204 5315 Order by mail order via fax, e-mail or even snail mail. A unique collection of pen nibs, many of which can only be obtained from them. COMICTONES.COM They specialize in tone screens and markers, seemingly catering to the manga market. Product ordered: Neo Piko pens. Forms of payment accepted: Mastercard and Visa Note: They included a nice T-shirt free… a bit tight on this critic, but nice, nonetheless. If you have a favorite online vendor, let The Critic hear about it at: ande@mchsi.com

ON-LINE REFERENCE SOURCES Need a picture of something, or reference for a comic or illustration? Maybe you’ll find it here: City Skylines References Links to various city skylines http://www.rgimages.com/location.htm Free Foto—Tons of free photos for reference! http://www.freefoto.com/ Free Logos in Vector Format Thousands of free logos in vector(.ai) format, for PC or Mac... many major Western corporations, also Russian ones. http://www.logotypes.ru/default_e.asp Law Enforcement and EMS References Supplies and Gear http://www.safetyl.com Medical Supplies References pics http://www.tvmsonline.com Taxi References http://www.checkercabs.org/pics/ Vehicle References Lots of images for various vehicles. http://www.motorcities.com/main_vehicletypes.html Dinosaur References Links to tons of dinosaur sites. http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1638/plinks.html History References Brief info but broad: http://www.historyplace.com

DRAW! • FALL 2004 21

he vision and talent of Noel Sickles transformed and expanded the possibilities of narrative comic strip art in fundamental ways that are still apparent in current comic books and graphic novels. After this accomplishment he left the cartooning field to spend several decades as one of the grand illustrators of his generation, and ended his career painting historical western images for galleries across the Southwest. Sickles invented a technique combining naturalistic drawing, cinematic storytelling and realistic lighting that invigorated the art of newspaper story strips and gave birth to the melodramatic visual intensity of adventure-themed comic books. In his Scorchy Smith strip work we see the first aggressive melding of cinema camera techniques with static narrative drawing. Before Sickles, Hal Foster had created spectacular realistically drawn narrative sequences in his Tarzan strip work, but his vision was a more formal theatrical sensibility. Foster used no speech balloons, enclosing dialogue within captions, and his compositions were rooted in classical salon art and early magazine illustration traditions. The quality that was new in Sickles’ work was a convincing impression of spontaneity, as if the viewer were witnessing the events in motion. This sense of immediacy in Sickles’ work was his special gift, and it invigorates LEFT: An illustration from Life Magazine. all his images. As a ABOVE: A young Sickles. RIGHT: The young teenager Sickles power and moody atmosphere of Von haunted the public Schmidt’s high-contrast line drawings inspired libraries and studied all Sickles to introduce a similar approach to the the artwork that newspaper strip. Sickles pushed the simplifiappealed to him, from cation of detail further and eventually broadthe old masters to conened the tonal range by introducing a temporary newspaper mechanical gray tone that allowed him to cartooning, but he also play white edges against the gray, creating a

sketched from life constantly and gradually coalesced his vision into a personal approach to solving drawing problems. He began his professional career before the age of twenty, cartooning for local businesses and newspapers—in the early work reproduced here his skill and adroit mastery of then-common pen-and-ink styles is remarkable. In those days reproducing photography on newsprint was difficult, and newspaper artists were often visual reporters, drawing people or scenes to accompany a news story. When the opportunity to take over the comic strip Scorchy Smith came along, Sickles used it as a vehicle to develop his natural way of visualizing dramatic narrative images. At first he was required to imitate the style of the strip’s creator John Terry, who produced, in Sickles’ words: “...the worst drawing I had ever seen by anybody.” In the early Sickles example reproduced here, the evidence of Terry’s crude rendering technique is evident, though Sickles cannot hide his own mastery of form, arial depth, perspective, and storytelling. Already we see here an important element of Sickles’ revolutionary contribution—a flawless, spontaneous sense of objects and living forms existing and moving through real space, and a intuitive mastery of viewpoint and rhythm of scene choice—called “shot flow” in visual storytelling parlance. Sickles wanted to “...bring the art out of the page.” He combined the pacing, cutting and camera mobility of the black-and-white movies of his day with a graphic treatment inspired by a set of illustrations Harold Von Schmidt created for Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the ArchBishop.” (See examples below.)

remarkable impression of depth and air in his pictures. In the early strip below Sickles is still imitating the crude parallel line rendering of his predecessor John Terry, but his marvelous sense of spatial accuracy is already evident—look how surely the weight of the speedboat rides the heavy water—indicated so simply you can count the lines!

DRAW! • FALL 2004 23

NOEL SICKLES

Scorchy Smith © AP

SPOTLIGHT

The development of this strong high-contrast “graphic sparkle” rendering technique revolutionized his treatment of Scorchy, and is also evident in his political cartoons from this period. In the mature Scorchy strips printed here, the draftsmanship and storytelling are brilliant in their unforced feeling of “happening” as you look at them—Sickles’ work always appears to be unfolding as you witness it— you never see the mighty labor behind these spontaneous images that seem to be no more than accurate reporting of the events pictured. Although he took no credit for this gift—he explained it as “osmosis”—he recognized it as his defining motivation. After forty years of creating images he summed up his approach: “Spontaneity is all that interests me in picturemaking.” During his time as a comic strip artist Sickles shared a studio with the young Milton Caniff and Sickles’ influence on the style of Terry and the Pirates is shown in the examples printed here. The early Terry strips show the contrived, artificial mannerisms that characterized comic strips before Sickles’ influence expanded the possibilities. Note the weightless, stiff unnatural poses and fake drapery, the lack of any real sense of place—no clear ground plane or atmospheric perspective—and no shadows or light source. The later post-Sickles Terry strips take place in a world we recognize as our own—all the visual cues convince us the characters have substance, are bound by gravity and can be crushed by the weight of those falling bricks. The huge success of Caniff’s strip saturated the comic art and illustration world with Sickles’ vision, and directly shaped the development of comic book art styles. After only three years Sickles was bored by the endless pulp fiction pattern of danger, escape and rescue cycles he had enhanced so magnificently in the daily newspaper strip medium, and left for the larger world of 24 DRAW! • FALL 2004

magazine illustration, taking his marvelous vision with him and expanding it into new rendering techniques. The astonishing series of WWII tank warfare illustrations seen here began a long relationship with Life Magazine as an artist-reporter. Sickles illustrated news or documentary war events when no photographs were available, and also worked at the Pentagon using his picturemaking clarity and accuracy for military purposes, such as the soldier’s handbook for camouflaging movements and equipment seen here in an excerpt. During these years he also contributed his skill to large advertising campaigns. A highlight of his postwar association with Life is reproduced here, including several images that have never seen print before. In 1949 Life published a speculative article predicting a manned flight to

We see echoes of the Scorchy Smith style in the panels below, though for most of his WWII illustration Sickles expanded his use of tonal rendering, adding charcoal and occasionally ink washes over an understructure of loose but precisely composed and executed ink shapes and lines. The tank drawings seen here were generated entirely from Sickles imagination—there were no available photos of the current German equipment at the time these pictures were created.

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SPOTLIGHT

NOEL SICKLES

the moon would take place within 25 years. Sickles worked with the current available science knowledge and projections to produce this stunning set of illustrations depicting the first flight to the moon. Although the equipment appears quaint and the charming image of the whole town turning out to welcome the returning astronauts (page 29) is disarmingly naive, the ominous powerful presence and design of the black ship itself is haunting and inspiring in a way the eventual actual technology was not. After the war Sickles illustrated magazine fiction and historical articles for The Saturday Evening Post and other periodicals, and as the rise of television supplanted the large weekly story magazines he spent many years dramatizing fiction and nonfiction for the Reader’s Digest. In his late illustration career Sickles was a restless experimenter, adopting new tools such as felt markers and acrylics, and pushing the boundaries of line treatments into new territory. This curiosity and urge to try new ideas is one of my favorite elements of his body of work. I first discovered Sickles through his illustrations for Reader’s Digest Condensed Books and loved it immediately. That mysterious quality of life, the 26 DRAW! • FALL 2004

SPOTLIGHT

NOEL SICKLES

is unique, especially environments including machinery. He had a special fluency with man-made objects that humanized them somehow—he integrated depictions of people using their technology with a subtle grace and an obvious affection for the spirit These clippings and pencil sketches are among Sickles earliest professional work—his mastery of the ink rendering styles of the day and the astonishing natural grace and observation seen in these quick sketches are dazzling for someone barely into their twenties.

sense of interior animation expressed in his figures and animals captivated me. His innate natural gift for succinctly and convincingly portraying people interacting with their environment

of the Machine Age that is warm and full of charm. Over the next twenty years I collected as much of his work as I could find, tracked down interviews and sought out people who knew him or worked with him, including Caniff. I’ve learned something about his methods I can share with you in this article. Sickles was an inveterate sketcher—of the real world around him, from research materials and from his imagination. His drawing facility was kept in fine limber form by constant practice. This contributed greatly to the spontaneous handling of his tools and materials. Study the careful attention he devoted to capturing the most important elements of his subject in the pencil sketches seen here—not just the appearance of the surface details, but the FEELING of his subject—the atmosphere of the sunny rural road—the emotion in the attitudes of the figures. We can make a good guess at what kind of mood all these people are in just from these quick doodles. Along with a determined focus and an obvious love for the mechanics of the picturemaking process, he wasn’t afraid of hard work and did whatever it took to get the results he wanted. DRAW! • FALL 2004 27

NOEL SICKLES

SPOTLIGHT

These illustrations from later in Sickles career show him at the top of his form, creating intriguing drama, tension and excitement with deceptively casual rendering that looks almost thoughtless in its spontaneity. Hanging the viewer outside the cockpit of a pilot trying to land his plane on an aircraft carrier tossing in a stormy sea is typical of Sickles’ faultless sense of staging that seduces his audience into the story.

SPOTLIGHT

NOEL SICKLES

You can see in the examples printed here (BELOW) the extent to which he would “rehearse” an image—often investing more time and labor in the preparation stages of a picture than he did in the final printed piece. Compare the tight controlled rendering and attention to details of form in the prepatory illustration (for National Geographic) of the solitary sailor in the small cabin of his oneman craft. This labor-intensive process allowed Sickles to thoroughly understand the picture he was making—the subject, the content of his particular image, all its intricacies of form and detail—which areas could be simplified or clarified, which areas might need more detail. Once he was confident with the depth of his knowledge of the drawing or painting he was involved in, he could approach the final image with an almost casual ease and create an image that appeared spontaneous and deceptively effortless.

Although almost unknown today, even among working cartoonists and illustrators, Sickles was a giant in both fields and his influence shaped the development of comic book art so extensively it’s impossible to fully trace his legacy. His art remains a source of inspiration and pleasure to me—every time I look at his work I fall in love with picturemaking all over again! See you next time! Bret

DRAW! • FALL 2004 29

In the two versions of the WWII gas station attack note how carefully the shape arrangement and tonal pattern has been rehearsed—then perfected. In the final piece (RIGHT) Sickles has tightened the relationships of the foreground and background elements, and carefully improved the clarity of the figure actions—especially observe the telegraphic silhouetting that improves the limb positions of the two Japanese soldiers.

30 DRAW! • FALL 2004

SPOTLIGHT

NOEL SICKLES

In these two advertising illustrations Sickles has made no concessions to the prosaic subject matter—the beautifully silhouetted urgent figure action and tense faces of the men in the ambulance scene fill the picture with emotional drama. In the actionless crate-opening scene the crackling black and gray patterns punctuated by elegant sparkling white shapes fill the drawing with visual energy that delights the eye.

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The astounding scene of the astronauts preparing to leave their ship is one of my favorite images—by Sickles or any other artist. The verve, imagination and master draftsmanship of this piece is simple amazing—study it and be awed! The castle-storming scene is from late in Sickles’ illustration career—he was already planning his move into gallery painting by this time, yet his confident mastery is undiminished. The chaotic rendering of the attackers, the smoke and flames are accented and counterbalanced by the clear silhouettes of the expertly drawn and animated horses bearing soldiers as the eye moves across the image—the arrow of the archer on the far right directs our eye back into the arc of the composition and we get to enjoy it all again! The camouflage manual panels reveal how Sickles’ perfect command of visual clarity and composition allowed him to diagram those principles at work in actual physical reality.

32 DRAW! • FALL 2004

SPOTLIGHT

NOEL SICKLES

These political cartoons were done while Sickles was reinventing the newspaper strip through his melodramatic work on Scorchy Smith, and by contrast allowed his whimsy and sense of humor full rein—once again he proves himself a master at yet another form of visual storytelling. The quality of animation and unmistakably accurate knowledge of horse anatomy and behavior found in the trough cartoon is both funny and delightful. The lighthearted caricature of Hitler was done before the full extent of his atrocities were known— but his megalomania is understood and playfully deflated here in those few perfect brush lines charged with such marvelous brevity and eloquence—beautiful! The gritty Civil War piece was done thirty years later and is devoid of humor—at first glance it seems one artist could not contain such versatility, but again Sickles turns in a flawless performance.

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BRINGING CHARACTERS TO LIFE PART 2: Expressions and posing BY TOM BANCROFT AND ROB CORLEY

This is the second in a series of articles by animators Tom Bancroft and Rob Corley on the subject of “Bringing Characters to Life.” This article will discuss the second step: expressions and posing. While we are traditional animators and the examples given will focus mainly on that style, we believe these articles will contain information that will apply to the video game, special effects, comic book and comic strip industries, to name a few. ––Tom and Rob

Frank and Ollie’s Illusion of Life and Richard Williams’ book The Animator’s Survival Kit. These are excellent books and should be a permanent fixture in any character/story-driven artist’s reference collection. EXPRESS YOURSELF! Hey, all! It’s your friendly neighborhood animators Rob Corley and Tom Bancroft from Funnypages Productions here. Thanks for the great response to our first article last issue on “Character Design.” This next article in our series of articles touching on the finer points of animation is entitled “Expression and Posing.” Back in the early days, when an animated character had to show a particular expression it rarely went beyond a few basic designs, such as lines above the head to show surprise or tears pouring from the eyes to show sadness. These tricks worked for many years on the old shorts, but as audiences became more sophisticated the animators soon learned that they needed to bring something more to the screen and to their characters. One of the most important things we learned at Disney was to avoid the “cliché.” Try to avoid using the first idea, expression, pose, etc. you come up with for your scene. Some artists/ animators lose an important opportunity to really push themselves as artists and—ultimately—their scene to the “next level” by settling for the easy way out. It’s time to lock up that old toolbox of tried and true tricks or formulas and start really growing artistically. Now we’re not saying that your first idea ain’t pretty, but it’s always nice to flex your artistic muscles from time to time. You never know, you just might surprise yourself. Ok now, you may be asking, “Where do I start if I can’t think of anything else to do for my scene or drawing?” Only through observing life around you will you be able to bring something new and fresh to your arsenal of creative talent. Watch people and observe how they act, how they move and react to their environment. Peoples is such crazy animals, and nine times out of ten you will walk away with a library of information and material that could make your art/animation SING! Some of the suggestions that follow are based on our personal experiences and can also be found in a number of books on the subject of animation. One of the most obvious would be 34 DRAW! • FALL 2004

LET’S EMOTE! (No, Rob, that’s not what you put on toast.) First things first. Let’s concentrate on the face. Normally, when you approach drawing a character, you should never separate the thought process between the face and body. This is because they are so integral to one another and the emotion you are trying to convey. That said, we do it here for ease of reference and to concentrate on finer points. Later, we will add the all-important body to “push” the expressions. Your character must be real to you. You have to be able to relate to what your character is going through in order to capture the right pose or expression for your scene. What is your character thinking or feeling? Are they happy, angry, or confused? Use a mirror and “act” out the character’s mood or acting. Study your own attitude and ask yourself: “Does this pose feel right? Does the drawing I’ve created feel the way my face feels?” Choosing the right expression will make or break your scene or drawing. SOME BASICS: Let’s go over some fundamental principals first. Here is a basic cartoony face with no real emotion. (fig. 1) Not all characters have cheeks and even pupils (like more “limited-style” characters) but for these examples we are using a more realistic design to show more subtleties that can be achieved. The thing you need to notice on all of these examples is the “change” in the drawings. Making sure there is a clear “change” from one emotion drawing to the next emotion drawing is vital.

EXPRESSIONS AND POSING

BANCROFT/CORLEY

We can see this by using this “happy” expression example. In (fig. 2) there is little difference or “change,” it may be overlooked.

In (fig. 3) there is no escaping the change in attitude: notice how that when the mouth goes up it pushes the cheeks into the lower “lids” so that there is a compression on the eyes? The eyebrows go up. There is even a slight stretch upward on everything on the face.

TWO, the Eyelids. The lids are more the “Supporting Cast” in the overall emotion of the eyes but really help “push” an emotion. It should be noted that, though not shown, the compression of the cheeks below the eyes help create some of these eye expressions. (fig. 6)

In subtle acting, all these things are very important. (fig.4) is an optional “push” if the character is “very happy.” As soon as a character shows teeth, the level of emotion increases.

THE “EYES” HAVE IT They say that a person’s eyes are a window to their soul. In Rob’s case, his eyes are a window to how much sleep he got writing this article. For the purposes of a person creating characters that they want to bring to “life,” the eyes are the MOST important part of the expression. People look in your eyes for what you really mean or the context of what you are saying. In comic books or any print media, they are especially important as you don’t have a voice to hear to give more clues to the character’s acting. There are three main components to creating acting with the “eyes”:

ONe, and probably the most important, is the eyebrows. They are the key to how the eyes convey emotion. How the eyebrows compress and decompress the eye shape give the broad strokes of the emotion you are trying to covey. (fig. 5)

THree, is the Pupils. Eye direction can convey many subtle emotions. Psychologists say that when we are thinking of the past we look up and to the right, when we think of the future, it’s up and to the left. Either way looking up and to the corner of the eye “reads” as thinking. Looking down usually says you are remorseful. Pupils in the middle of the eyes reads as attentive. Looking up can say “Here we go again.” While looking left or right in succession makes the character feel paranoid or sneaky. Wall-eyed or cross-eyed pupils makes the character look like Rob. (fig. 7) TAKE YOUR “ORDER” PLEASE! Remember that you are creating a visual interpretation of a particular mood or attitude. For each attitude there is one key expression that will illustrate what your character is thinking or feeling. The thought process is revealed through the change of expression. What order and how many expressions you use will convey different things that your character is thinking—or not thinking. One example would be if your character is happy and suddenly becomes frightened but then becomes angry, you’ll need to plan out how you will get the best results as you move through each attitude. Timing in animation will help “push” what you are trying to convey but even in illustration the order and how many expressions you choose is vital. You’ll need to show that change from happy to frightened pretty quickly, but you may want to spend a few more seconds (or drawings) on DRAW! • FALL 2004 35

BANCROFT/CORLEY

EXPRESSIONS AND POSING

your way from frightened to angry to really make it read. If he’s a little slow, then you’ll need more time for the impulses to travel from the brain to the face in order to affect the body. No Tom jokes here, nope, not gonna do it! Yes sir! I’m takin’ the old high road on this one. (fig. 8) In animation, another thing to watch for is to be sure to change the expression before or after the character moves. This will make it more “readable” so it will register with the audience. (fig. 9)

Also, an expression or animation can be made stronger by having the facial elements working together. (fig. 11) Notice how there is compression on one side of the face and a slight “stretch” on the other? This creates a stronger eye direction of the viewer. You could take the pupils out and even the face would be pointing to the left!

STRIKE A POSE, or ”LET’S VOGUE”! (cheesy ’90s reference for Tom’s sake) Okay, let’s start adding the body!

WHACHOOSAY? Try to avoid saying too much. I think the phrase we used in our last article was: “K.I.S.S.—Keep it Simple Stupid.” There is usually one main expression that will dominate a scene or bit of action and that should only change in intensity and not feeling. Randomly changing the pose or expression in your scene will only confuse your audience and ruin any scene no matter how well drawn. Less is more they always say. How a character’s facial pieces work together need to make sense. A grin on one side of the face should compress the eye of the SAME SIDE. (fig.10) If you’re not thinking about this being an actual character with real muscles and tissue, you may forget some of these very “real” principles.

36 DRAW! • FALL 2004

COMPOUNDED (EMOTIONAL) INTEREST When we’re talking about “expression” we’re talking about the whole package, face, body and all. Through body language we are able to reinforce any attitude we are trying to convey. Some emotions are inseparable from the use of body language. Take the emotion “sorrow” for example, when a character begins to feel sad, the first place it will start is the “Mind” from there it will immediately begin to show in the eyes and the now down turned mouth. As the emotion progresses, it will begin to manifest itself in the rest of the body with the shoulders slumping and the torso taking on more of a “C” curve as the chest and pelvis slowly collapse inward on each other. (fig. 12) The face alone can communicate a wide range of emotions but it is greatly reinforced by the action of the rest of the body.

EXPRESSIONS AND POSING

BANCROFT/CORLEY

STAGE RIGHT Be careful to stage your character in such a way that helps to sell a particular pose or expression. In most cases that means you should choose a pose that clearly shows the face. Don’t ruin it by placing an arm or bit of clothing in front of it. The same rule applies to arms, legs, and chicken’s… okay; I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. (fig. 13)

Since all rules are made to be broken, keep in mind that sometimes the strongest way to convey an emotion is to let the pose do all the “talking” and not the face. (fig. 14)

Which one conveys “remorse” strongest? Which is scarier? (fig. 15)

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BANCROFT/CORLEY

EXPRESSIONS AND POSING

“TWINS” When posing your character, avoid “symmetry.” Create a drawing that is varied in its placement of the head, limbs and expression. Don’t fall victim to a static straight-on pose with the arms, legs and head facing you. In the industry this is what we call “Twins.” By placing the arms in the same position on each side of the body you will flatten out even the best of drawings. Turn the head, move the arms, reposition the feet, do whatever you can to place your character in three-dimensional space. Remember the “Three-fourths Rule”: everything looks better at a slight angle to the viewer. (fig. 16) IS IT CROWDED IN HERE? Staging a scene or action with multiple characters introduces even more challenges. Rather than just thinking of one character and how they are emoting, now you have multiple characters acting and reacting to each other. The first two concepts to think about are “Eye direction for the viewer” and “Who is leading the action?” Most scenes or situations with multiple characters are telling some kind of story. Once you know what the story is you can tackle the question of who or what is the “leader.” In this example, three kids are talking. (fig. 17) They are all excited equally and posed separately so the viewer has no idea who is telling the story. Who’s the leader? In the next illustration, it’s more obvious since the two on the outside are leaning in, pointing and actively listening (though still happy) to whatever the middle character is saying. You’ve created a story using staging, posing, and expressions. Likewise, the example on the right has another thing going for it that helps: Eye direction. As you can see (fig. 18), everything points to what you should be looking at as the viewer. BOOM, baby! As with our article on Character Design, there is so much more on this subject that we are not addressing because of length. The goal of these articles is to give an overview as well as a few tips on subjects that some of the readers of DRAW! may not hear that often. Coming from an animation background, our training has been specific but in areas that apply to not just animation. Unless you are a student of animation, you don’t get training in the art of “bringing a character to life”: a subject we feel could easily fill a lifetime studying. The good news is that Watson-Guptill, a prominent art reference book publisher in New York, has agreed to publish Tom Bancroft’s Designing Characters with Personality book. This book will focus on a lot of what we covered in the first article, but take it much further. This article on Expressions and Posing, we feel, could easily fill another book. Wait and see, it might happen. Thanks for reading! —Tom and Rob

38 DRAW! • FALL 2004

In Conjunction With #8 &

Comes: me Thief of Ti

HOW TO DRAW COMICS

From Script To Print

From initial idea to finished comic, WRITE NOW! Magazine Editor-In-Chief DANNY (Spider-Man) FINGEROTH and DRAW! Magazine Editor-In-Chief MIKE (Batman) MANLEY show you how it’s done in this featurefilled DVD! See a new character created from scratch, and watch a story drawn from roughs, to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering!

120 minutes, packed with Bonus Features!

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TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 • 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

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

www.actionplanet.com

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

Importing photographic textures and effects to add dimension and excitement to otherwise flat vector art is a lot of fun and it couldn’t be easier. Adobe Illustrator lets you bring Photoshop generated bitmap images through its “Place” command, which can be transformed with a click of the mouse. In addition to textures, you also have the capability of placing inked drawings, blackand-white photographs and sketches for easy coloring and tinting. A bitmap file looks deceptively like a good old high-contrast, black-and-white image. Its magic, however, lies in its transparency properties, the “black” part of the bitmap is opaque and can be recolored at will, while the apparent “white” area is actually 100% transparent, allowing for a myriad of design possibilities.

HIGH SPEED COLORING JOB I scanned the above inked drawing as “line art/text” at 600 DPI, and saved the image in TIF format. After creating a new document in Adobe Illustrator, I placed the file by choosing “Place” from the File menu. By the way, most high-resolution TIF bitmap files are under a megabyte in size. NOTE: It’s important that you keep all TIF files associated with the work you are doing in the same folder along with the main Illustrator document as AI keeps track of the linked files’ location. I then locked the current layer (Layer 1) and created a second layer which I re-named “coloring” and dragged directly underneath. You should also keep in mind that you can change the default grayscale (black) bitmap to any custom, CMYK, RGB, or PMS color you wish, but you can’t fill the image with patterns or gradients.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 41

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

APPLYING FLAT COLOR AND/OR GRADIENTS With the inked drawing placed securely in the layer directly above, I drew the different shapes that make up the car with the pen tool in a carefree manner and the girl was drawn freehand using the pencil. Ellipses were used where appropriate and also to speed things up.

For this particular piece I offset the colored shapes a bit, but you can color yours as tight or loose as you want, knowing the black line or layered colors will overlap and hide any inconsistencies.

THE FINAL ILLUSTRATION

42 DRAW! • FALL 2004

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

COLORING A QUICK SKETCH After scanning in Grayscale mode, the contrast was improved using the level slider in Adobe Photoshop—Command+L (Mac OS), Ctrl+L (Windows)—and the image was inversed—Command+I (Mac OS), Ctrl+I (Windows). The mode was converted from Grayscale to Bitmap using the Diffusion Dither Method at an output of 600 pixels per inch.

These settings worked fine for this image, feel free to experiment.

In a layer directly underneath the bitmap image, I drew the “inner color” shapes using the pencil tool and added the logo.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 43

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

The basketball as a design element was an afterthought, I felt the figure needed more than just a black background. The chain link fence was cut from the main picture and saved as a bitmap as well, several copies were colored red and scattered all over the ball for texture.

44 DRAW! • FALL 2004

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

BLUE JEANS BLUES Want to give those pants the look and feel of real denim?... I thought you would. Well, all you need is a fabric bitmap. If you don’t have one, you can download a copy from my website: http://www.brandstudio.com/tutorial/fabric.zip

I masked the fabric bitmap into the pants’ shape by selecting both the bitmap and the pants and choosing Object > Clipping Mask > Make from the top menu bar; you can also use Command+7 (Mac OS), Ctrl+7 (Windows). Make sure that the shape is in front of the bitmap you wish to mask. You can color the stroke of any mask; by default the mask has no fill or stroke. The dashed line for the stitching and other details such as buttons were added after the texture was mapped.

BACKGROUND The entire background was covered with the texture which blended really well with the flat blue circles.

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DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

46 DRAW! • FALL 2004

ALBERTO RUIZ

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

ALBERTO RUIZ

DOT MATRIX DOLL To create a halftone screen “glow” effect, I copied the silhouette of the girl filled with black, still in Illustrator, I then applied the Gaussian Blur filter from the “Effect” menu and exported the resulting image as a grayscale TIF file.

I opened the TIF in Photoshop, and changed the image mode to bitmap with the Halftone Screen option.

Saved file, placed in AI and re-colored. DRAW! • FALL 2004 47

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

48 DRAW! • FALL 2004

ALBERTO RUIZ

PRE-PRESS, PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION

JOHN MORROW

Getting It Out There: Pre-Press, Printing, and Distribution by John Morrow, publisher

If you’ve read both parts of the Write Now!/DRAW! crossover up to here, Mike and Danny have you prepared to create the world’s greatest comic book. But once the India ink is dry, and you’ve shut down Photoshop, how do you actually get that puppy out there for people to see (and hopefully buy)? Many people decide it makes sense to self-publish. I’ve spent more than the last two decades getting things printed: Brochures, Annual Reports, letterhead designs, and since 1994, books and magazines about comics. My task here is to try to condense that experience down to three or four pages, and give you a primer on dealing with printers and distributors. While I can’t possibly tell you everything you’ll need to know that briefly, I’m going to cram as much in this small space as possible. So hold on tight; we’re going to do this fast and furious!

The Digital Rules In no particular order, here’s some important things to remember when preparing your comics on a computer: • Computers: Macs (Macintosh computers) are best. Period. Don’t bother arguing it with me. You can do your work on a PCbased system; just be prepared for possible snags. The printing industry is geared toward the Macintosh, and most of the bugs have been worked out of their systems. Whatever platform you use, check with your printer to make sure they’re compatible with it, and you’re sending them the right format for your files. • Software: Use name-brand software like Photoshop, Quark Xpress, Illustrator, Freehand, and Acrobat. They’re the standard for the industry, and are less likely to have compatibility problems (thereby making it more likely that your Labor of Love will end up looking the way you wanted it to). Use the latest version that’s been in wide release for a while, but check with

your printer before you try to send files created in a version that’s recently been updated; printers spend years getting the bugs worked out of current software, and don’t always immediately upgrade to potentially buggy new versions as soon as they’re released. • Sending files: Check with your printer on how they like stuff shipped. Some take smaller files by e-mail or sent to an FTP site (don’t forget to “Stuffit” or “Zip” your files before sending, which not only makes the files smaller for quicker sending, but makes it more likely they’ll be readable on the other end). Others like files on disk, sent via Federal Express or other overnight courier. And when sending files on disk, check with your printer on what disks they accept: CD, DVD, Zip, etc. If you’re using an eight-yearold Syquest drive, don’t automatically assume your printer still supports such outdated technology. Computer technology is constantly changing; keep up with the times. • File formats: Use TIF, not JPEG or EPS, for scanned or drawn artwork files. JPEG files are smaller for a reason; they “average” similar groups of pixels into one big blob of color, resulting in loss of quality (although it only starts getting noticeable if you use a lower JPEG setting). TIF doesn’t degrade your image, even if you use its LZW Compression (a great way to make TIF files smaller if size is a concern). Only use EPS for “vector” art (like logos and type, where the art is actually “drawn” on-screen with a pen tool, or includes a font). Don’t send BMP (a PC-format), GIF (a format used for Internet web pages), or anything else. Just TIF and EPS. They’re all you need.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 49

JOHN MORROW

PRE-PRESS, PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION

• Fonts: Use only Postscript fonts whenever possible. (Many printers still have trouble dealing with Truetype fonts, especially when they’re mixed with Postscript fonts in the same document.) Be sure to include ALL the fonts used in your documents (and in the case of Postscript fonts, send both the screen and printer fonts). Missing fonts are the #1 reason jobs get delayed at the printing stage. • Color images: You MUST convert them all to CMYK before sending them! If you send them as RGB (the format scanners scan in), you’ll be charged extra for the printer to convert them, and you’ll be responsible for any images that print wrong because of it. Also, if you use “spot” (ie. PMS) colors in your layout software, be sure to convert them to CMYK as well (and don’t forget to also convert any spot colors in EPS files you’ve created in Illustrator or Freehand). Also, calibrate your computer monitor, and invest in a CMYK sample book (that shows examples of hundreds of combinations of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black inks), so you can be sure the combinations you choose in Photoshop will print the color you want them to. Lastly, be sure to convert any RGB “spot” colors you created in Quark Xpress or other page layout software to CMYK, or you’ll have the same problems you have with RGB scans that aren’t converted. • Layout: Don’t send loose Photoshop images to the printer, expecting them to magically put them in the right order for your finished comic book pages. Import them into a page layout program like Quark Xpress, and position them in the right order. Then, do a “Collect For Output” command to assemble all the book’s images into one folder, and send that folder to the printer. Be sure to include all the fonts needed to print it. And do NOT try to send press-ready PDF files; unless you’ve got a lot of printing experience, you’ll probably set them up incorrectly, and it’s difficult to make last-minute corrections on a PDF file if needed.

normal size, you have effectively cut the resolution in half by doubling its size (ie. at 200% of size, it’s now at 150dpi; double the size = half the resolution). Likewise, if you print that image at 50% of its normal size, you’ve doubled its resolution (ie. that same 300dpi image, at 50% of size, is now at 600dpi; half the size = double the resolution). And DON’T try to resize an image in Photoshop to increase its resolution; while it may look okay on screen, you’ll just introduce blurry edges and blotchy artifacts. It’s much better to rescan it from the original at the higher resolution if possible. • Bleeds and gutters: Leave a 1/8" bleed area (meaning extra area that the printer can trim off without adversely affecting your artwork) on all pages. This allows for variations when your comic is folded, bound, and trimmed. Also, keep important parts of your art at least 1/4" (or more) inside where you want the printer to trim the pages. This is called the “gutter,” and doing so will ensure nothing gets cut off or obscured by variations in printing. • Proofs: Some printers offer to send on-screen PDF proofs to save time and money. That’s fine for black-&-white work, since it’s the printer’s responsibility to match the proof they send you. But pay extra for digital hardcopy proofs of any critical color work you’re printing. Since every computer monitor is different, it’s the only way to insure you’ll be getting something that matches what you’re expecting. And whatever kind of proof you get, be sure to look over it thoroughly, for mistakes that snuck in when they printed it, proper page order, etc. Once you’ve okay’d the proof, any errors that you didn’t catch are your fault, not the printer’s. (And be sure to carefully proof your project in-house, BEFORE you send it to the printer, to catch the inevitable typos that you’ll have to pay to fix once the printer generates their proof.)

• Trapping: Trapping is making lighter colors “seep” slightly under darker colors, so you don’t get white spaces between colors when they print (colors can shift a little in printing, allowing this to happen). Do it yourself, or ask your printer if they do it automatically. • Resolution: For best results, you need color and grayscale images (ie. pencil art, colored comics pages, or painted art) to have a resolution of at least 300dpi at the printed size, and line art (ie. solid black inked art, where no color or gray runs against it) to have a resolution of at least 600dpi. Don’t send lower-resolution files, expecting them to magically print well. In most cases, they won’t; edges will be jagged, and you’ll see “blotches” (called artifacts) in the color areas. Keep in mind that resolution and image size are dependent on each other. If you use a 300dpi image, but print it at 200% of its 50 DRAW! • FALL 2004

Quebecor Was Here! The publication you’re looking at was printed by Quebecor Printing of Montreal, Canada, and we deal with them on almost all the TwoMorrows publications. They’re currently the second-largest printer in the world (they have many different divisions and can print nearly anything on paper), and the #1 printer of comic books (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, and

PRE-PRESS, PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION

JOHN MORROW

most other comics 32-page black-&-white comics (about $1.10 each). 2000 are printed there). would only cost about $100 more (approximately 60¢ each). They’ve been • Page count: Because most comics are printed on Web presses printing comics (which use large rolls of paper, where 8 or more pages are since 1982, and printed at the same time), keep your page count divisible by 8 can handle print (ie. 16 pages, 24 pages, 32 pages, etc.), not including the runs from 1000 cover. copies, up to • Binding: For comics with smaller page counts, go with 100,000 and more, “saddle-stitching” (stapling) instead of the more expensive of comics, books, magazines, and posters. But the main reason “perfect binding” (square-binding), which is used for comics we use them is that they’re simply the best printer we’ve found of 64 pages and higher, and trade paperbacks. They also do in terms of price, quality, and convenience. “case-binding” for hardcover books. There are other printers out there who can print comic books, magazines, and square-bound books, but we’ve quoted • Sizes: Use standard sizes like 6.625" x 10.1875" (comic book with dozens of them in the US, and none have been competisize), 8.5" x 10.875" (magazine size), 5.625" x 8.125" (digest tive. Quebecor’s advantage is that they specialize in comic size), 5" x 7.5" (manga size), and 4.375" x 7" (novel size). books, and have an entire facility set up just for that type of work, resulting in production efficiencies that save you money. They’ve customized their presses for printing comic books and magazines, including one that can print 32 black-&white pages at a time. The strength of the US dollar over the Canadian dollar helps too. Don’t hesitate to get quotes from local printers to compare; you might find a good deal 1) Call or e-mail this guy locally. But don’t forget to factor in freight (Patrick Jodoin) to discuss your costs. Quebecor has another big advantage project (don’t let the French name through their arrangement with Diamond Comic or Canadian accent throw you; he, like most of the Distributors, where Diamond sends their trucks people at Quebecor, speak perfect English) at patrickj@lebonfon.com or to Canada every Wednesday to pick up all the phone (514)494-5443. comics they’ve printed that week (and get them 2) Send or e-mail your files, and include a laser printout or PDF file for in comics shops the next Wednesday). This the production department to go by. saves you having to ship books from your local printer to Diamond’s various distribution ware3) Quebecor faxes or e-mails you a quotation to sign, which serves as houses, including one in England. Also, the Purchase Order. At this point you’ll have to prepay if you haven’t Quebecor (for a reasonable fee) will warehouse established credit. your extra copies, and as reorders (hopefully) 4) The production department performs pre-press on your files, and come in from Diamond, you can have Quebecor generates proofs for you within 3-5 days in most cases. Currently, put them on Diamond’s weekly truck pickup, Quebecor sends color digital hardcopy proofs or PDF files for color saving freight costs again. pages, and laser prints for black-&-white pages. Here’s some tips, based on our experience, and interviews with our rep, Patrick Jodoin. 5) You approve the proof, or request changes and specify whether you

The Quebecor Production Process:

• Payment: If you’re a new customer with Quebecor, expect to pay 100% up-front, before your job is printed. There’s a lot of turnover in comics publishing, and they’ve got to make sure they get paid for their work. Credit terms can be established once you have a track record. • Minimum quantities: While they’ll quote you fewer copies, a general guideline is to not print less than 1000 copies of a black-&-white comic. Don’t print less than 2000 of a fullcolor comic. Because of set-up charges, fewer copies will cost you almost as much, and with more copies on hand to sell, you have a better shot at turning a profit. For a ballpark figure, currently it costs about $1100 to print 1000

want to see a corrected proof. 6) You send delivery instructions or a Distribution Sheet (Quebecor will supply you one to fill out) telling them where to ship copies. 7) Quebecor generates negatives and makes printing plates, then prints your job. Your negatives are then, at your request, either stored for future use for a nominal fee (good if you think you’ll be reprinting the job one day), sent to you (at your expense), or destroyed within 30 days (saving you a storage fee). 8) The bindery department binds your book, which is then packed and shipped per your instructions, or picked up by Diamond the following Wednesday for distribution to stores. 9) If Diamond or another distributor places a reorder, you can fax or e-mail the Purchase Order or a Distribution Form, and Quebecor will pack and ship it for you (charging a small handling fee).

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JOHN MORROW

PRE-PRESS, PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION

Quebecor is set up for these sizes, and variations will likely cost you more. • Papers: Generally, using Quebecor’s stock papers will save you money, since they buy these in bulk for their web presses. For black-&-white book interiors, they stock a 50# offset (nice, white, uncoated paper), and two weights of newsprint, 45# and 35# (each a little less white than the offset paper). For color book interiors, you can use these same papers, or for extra sheen and color quality, they stock a 50# or 60# glossy paper. Covers are usually printed on a sheet-fed press (meaning it’s done on cut sheets of paper instead of a large roll, and only a few pages at a time), and they stock sheets of 70#, 80#, and 100# gloss papers for covers. (The “#”, or “pound” designation tells you how thick or heavy the paper is; the higher the number, the thicker it is.) For trade paperback book covers, they also stock much heavier 8 pt., 10 pt, and 12 pt. papers (with a matte or glossy finish on either one side or both). Other papers are available for special needs, but will generally cost you more. • Finishing: You can, for an additional fee, have them coat your printed gloss pages and covers with a clear matte or gloss varnish to keep them from smearing. They also offer UV coatings and lamination for covers. You can even get embossing, foil stamping, die-cutting, or nearly anything you can think of, if you’re willing to pay for it. • Turnaround: Saddle-stitched (stapled) black-&-white comics usually take 2-3 weeks from the time they receive your files. Perfect bound (square bound) black-&-white comics take 3 weeks. Color comics and trade paperbacks take 3 weeks, and hardcover books take 4-5 weeks. The biggest mistakes people make are: 1) Not checking their proofs closely. 2) Forgetting to include all the fonts/images. 3) Not converting RGB or Pantone colors/images to CMYK. 4) Sending files with a resolution that’s too low. 5) Setting up their files at the wrong size.

Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc.

The Distribution Maze The only really effective way to get your comic seen by the public is to go through a distributor, who takes a hefty cut of the sales price (generally 60%) in return for getting it into comic book shops. The top comic book distributor is the aforementioned Diamond Comic Distributors, and your goal is to get your comic listed in their Previews catalog (which monthly lists all the comics, magazines, toys, etc. that will be in comic book stores two months later). Other smaller distributors exist—FM International and Cold Cut being the main ones.

52 DRAW! • FALL 2004

But Diamond’s at the top of the heap, and without them, you’re facing an uphill battle trying to sell books yourself by mail. All items that Diamond lists in Previews are expected to create at least $1250 in sales after Diamond factors in their discount. If Diamond doesn’t believe that an item will hit that benchmark, they probably won’t list it in Previews. And if you’re soliciting a new comic, you must provide Diamond with at least a photocopy preview of it first. They won’t offer items in Previews sight-unseen for new customers. If Diamond agrees to carry it, you need to send solicitation text for Previews, describing your product. It’s normally limited to 50 words per item, and they may edit it further due to space considerations, so keep your verbiage concise! Artwork should be sent with the text at 300dpi, 2" x 3" in jpeg format (yes, they actually prefer JPEGs), either by e-mail or on disk. Remember that it’s a waiting game. You send your solicitation to Previews four months before it’ll be on sale in stores. Previews appears two months before the on-sale date, and you’ll get a Purchase Order from Diamond (showing how many copies they’re ordering) one month before the on-sale date, leaving you just enough time to get it printed. For more information, call Mark Herr at Diamond at 410560-7100, ext. 220, or e-mail hmark@diamondcomics.com.

The Bottom Line No one can stay in business if their product can’t turn a profit. I’ve had to pass on many intriguing publishing projects, simply because the numbers didn’t add up. So when you’re deciding whether to self-publish, do the math. Make a realistic guess of how many copies of your comic you think you could sell. Multiply that times the cover price you think the market can bear, and subtract 60% (the distributor’s discount). Then subtract the printer’s quote for printing the book, deduct any additional expenses (ads you’ll be paying for, freight, postage, etc.), and see if the final number is something you can live with. If not, you’ve got to either raise your cover price (which could hurt sales), find a cheaper printer, lower the page count, or forget the whole thing! If the total left is a feasible amount for you to make for your time and effort, pray that you guessed the right number of sales, and get it out there! And don’t forget to factor in the incredible feeling you’ll get the day your finished comic arrives from the printer. No dollar amount can be put on it. Good luck! —John Morrow

$200,000 PAID FOR ORIGINAL COMIC ART! COLLECTOR PAYING TOP DOLLAR FOR “ANY AND ALL” ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK AND COMIC STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT! COVERS, PINUPS, PAGES, IT DOESN’T MATTER! 1 PAGE OR ENTIRE COLLECTIONS SOUGHT! CALL OR EMAIL ME ANYTIME!

330-296-2415 mikeburkey@aol.com OR SEND YOUR LIST TO:

MIKE BURKEY

P.O. BOX 455 • RAVENNA, OH 44266 CASH IS WAITING, SO HURRY!!!!!

COOL SITES TO SURF ON THE WEB

BOOK REVIEWS and RECOMMENDATIONS BY MIKE MANLEY

CARTOON BREW: A daily news site about animation run by Jerry Beck (CARTOON RESEARCH) and Amid Amidi (ANIMATION BLAST) http://www.cartoonbrew.com

CARTOON RETRO: A great site celebrating the best of the classic illustrators, cartoonists and animators run by Shane Glines, who’s one classy guy himself. http://pub149.ezboard.com/bcartoonretro FINDAGRAVE: Alive or dead? End the debate right here.... http://www.findagrave.com PETER DE SEVE.COM: The official home page of illustrator Peter De Seve. http://www.peterdeseve.com

RETRO CRUSH: A cool link to a sight with pics from the classic ’60s Spidey cartoon as well as other Classic TV goodness. http://www.retrocrush.com

GHOSTBOT.COM: A great website featuring animators Roque Ballesteros Joe Paradise, Alan Lau and Brad Rau. http://www.ghostbot.com

SPUTNIK STUDIOS: http://www.sputnikstudios.com The swell guys who made our DVD! THE US COPYRIGHT OFFICE: The place to go to copyright your artwork. http://www.copyright.gov/

THE DRAWING BOARD: A cool website where amateurs and pros alike go to post artwork, talk about comics, film and animation and mingle. http://www.sketchbooksessions.com/thedrawingboard

54 DRAW! • FALL 2004

This spring and summer I received several nice art books of note, two of which I review here. I’ll review more next issue and look for more reviews coming soon on drawmagazine.com. The first book I picked up at the San Diego Comicon, the second was a nice personalized copy from the artist. THE FEMALE NUDE 1 A Pose Book For Artists Associates in Art www.associatesinart.com As far as pose books, or books of models for photo reference go, this new volume published by LA-based Associates in Art (a school featuring classes on drawing, painting and comics taught by illustrators and photographers from the entertainment business) is certainly one of the nicest I’ve seen. The book is worth a look just for the quality of photography by Jonathan Ling under the direction of Mark Westermoe, and the attractive model Hanna Pawlowska. I have many pose books by other publishers, some featuring gals with guns from every angle, or average to lumpen models laying about like sacks of wheat, but the quality of the photography and the lighting of the model Pawlowska really set this book apart. She is certainly very attractive and well proportioned (a real help when drawing idealized figures for comics and animation) and this would be a good book for students to do some figure studies or for fans of nude photography. The books is also broken up into sections featuring the face and hands, two areas most students need diligent practice on. The price is a bit steep at $44.95 US, so it might be out of the range of the budget conscious student. But you can always put it on the birthday or holiday want list. The Art of Silver http://www.silvertoons.com You’ve seen his art even if you don’t know his name. The Art of Silver offers a great overview of Stephen Silver’s career and personal sketchbook, character designs, and illustrations done for some of today’s most popular TV shows from Clerks to Kim Possible. It also showcases his personal works and figure studies, many from life, which inform his commercial work with a foundation of natural observation. Silver’s certainly a versatile and prolific artist who’s happy, it seems, to work in a wide variety of styles, and it’s easy to see why he’s an in-demand artist. The book has drawing tips, techniques and tips the scales at a hefty 160 pages. A personalized copy of the 11" x 9" 160 pg. full color hardcover book is available from Silver’s website for $40.

Up, Up and away with our 10th issue! From Captain America to the JLA, artist ron garney’s powerful pencils and cinematic storytelling have kept him in demand. Next issue Garney gives us a candid interview on his career and a glimpse behind the scenes, and a “step-by-step” on how he works. Garney’s rendition of Superman graces our cover. Artist graham Nolan takes us from the Batcave to the Skullcave. Nolan has moved from the comic book page where he illustrated the adventures of Batman to the comic section of the local paper. Nolan is the regular artist on two of the classic and remaining adventure newspaper strips, The Phantom and Rex Morgan, MD. Nolan takes us into his studio and shows us how he keeps up the pace producing two comic strips. DRAw! editor Mike Manley peels back the mystery on Adult Swim’s new hit cartoon The Venture Brothers with its creator, Jackson Public. Is that his real name? Sounds like a mystery to me. Mike ventures to NYC and Noodle Soup Studios to solve the mystery of the men behind this new show and uncovers plenty of production art and storyboards. Plus regular DRAW! instructors: • Bret Blevins on Dynamic Drapery (Part 2) • Alberto Ruiz (a.k.a. Dr. Cyberfunken) with more great Illustrator tricks and tips. NEXT ISSUE’S COVER BY RON GARNEY!

96 page pages with COLOR SECTION, $5.95 IN STORES IN FEBRUARY 2005

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

If you’re viewing a digital version of this publication, PLEASE read this plea from the publisher! his is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE T DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you’re a print subscriber, or you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks—your support allows us to keep producing publications like this one. If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, and it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. If that’s the case, here’s what you should do: 1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think. 2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader. 3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download. TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

www.twomorrows.com

From the WEb to Print Comics, catching up with

PVP’s Scott Kurtz

AN EARLY LINE-UP OF THE CAST OF PvP.

Who better to interview one web strip cartoonist than another web cartoonist? Jamar Nicholas, who does Detective Boogaloo, Hip-Hop Cop over on moviepoopshoot.com, turns the mike on the always funny, sometimes controversial Scott Kurtz. Kurtz has turned his PvP internet comic strip into a critical and financial success. Interview by Jamar Nicholas, edited by Mike Manley

GROWING UP Jamar Nicholas: Where were you born? SCOTT KURTZ: Watsonville, California: salad bowl of the world. It’s Northern California near Santa Cruz. I still have family there. JN: Are either of your parents artistically inclined? SK: My dad is. He wanted to be an architect and studied as a draftsman. He’s more inclined to draw a building or a blueprint than a cartoon, however. JN: Did you draw as a kid? If not, when? Did you always want to be a cartoonist? SK: I always drew as a kid, but it wasn’t until my mom bought me the first Garfield book that I decided I wanted to be a cartoonist. My first comic strips were all about fat cats. That was in the fourth grade.

JN: Did you have any art-related jobs outside of comics? SK: I worked as a graphic designer at a couple of sign companies out of college, and eventually landed a job as a webmaster for KLTY radio in Dallas, Texas. JN: Were you always attracted to this type of material as a kid? SK: Yeah. My dad would bring me home comics from the newsstands after work and I was addicted to cartoons growing up. Around the fifth grade, I had this friend named Jans Dykehouse who’s brother seriously collected comics. We snuck into his room and read all the Byrne/Claremont X-Men he had. Afterwards we would run to the kitchen table and create our own comics on reams of graph paper they had. JN: What was it about cartoons that made you want to do them? I know that I used to like Garfield because of Jim Davis’ line-work, not necessarily his plots. SK: Probably the feedback. When I would draw super-heroes and show it to my dad, I would get anatomy lessons. When I drew a cartoon, I would get a laugh. Sure, in fourth grade, they weren’t the funniest jokes, but they were clever and the response on a four-panel cartoon was immense. Especially if it was about someone everyone knew or a topic we were just discussing that day. I didn’t get that, drawing super-heroes. The simple, less complex line art was something I was always drawn too. Never liked the rendering and crosshatching as much.

JN: Did you have any art schooling?

JN: What other comic strips did you study when you were that age? I used to read Doonesbury that early. I didn’t get any of it, but I was entranced with the art style.

SK: Just the normal art classes one would have throughout high school. I studied advertising art in college for three years before dropping out. I did take a cartooning class one time at the West Des Moines Civic Center but I never got much out of it.

SK: I didn’t discover Doonesbury until college. My newspaper had Garfield, and older strips I didn’t care for. But I could go to Waldenbooks and find comics that weren’t in my paper.

56 DRAW! • FALL 2004

WEB COMICS

SCOTT KURTZ

SK: I remember having a heart-to-heart with my art buddy Scott Gordinier. He loved to draw, too. I would go over to his house and we would just draw super-heroes. He also had nudie-mags to reference for girl super-heroes. And I couldn’t get the hang of drawing super-heroes. But I was great at cartooning. It came natural to me. And I remember getting all choked up and deciding not to draw super-heroes and concentrate on cartooning. It was a choice I made in junior high.

JN: “The decision.” I remember that. I think a lot of strip cartoonists have had that talk with themselves. SK: I was heartbroken over it, because all my friends were making comic books and I was not going to be a part of the imaginary comic book companies we would create each week.

LEFT: An early cast drawing of the PvP characters. ABOVE: Kurtz’s website. BELOW: A Pin-up of Atari Nouveau.

Garfield was first, then a comic called SNAKE! Then came Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes. That was the progression. JN: I’ve never heard of SNAKE!. Tell us about that. SK: You can probably find it online. It was this cartoon about a snake in prehistoric times. He was always lamenting having no hands. And the girl snake had huge boobs. I’m not joking. The art was similar to Garfield.

JN: They’re very different elements to doing strips vs. comic books. I don’t think people know how much effort goes into it and that both aren’t totally natural to each other. SK: I knew that the secret to cartooning was to learn to simplify and observe and those skills were going to take practice, and I couldn’t do both I felt. If I studied cartooning, I was giving up studying super-hero art. JN: But on the same hand, a lot of comic book people couldn’t tell a gag in four panels, either. It’s like developing a muscle. SK: Yeah, that’s the other thing. My buddies didn’t care about writing. They weren’t looking to create a complete package. They were just working on portfolio pieces.

JN: That sounds BC-ish. SK: But not as preachy. THE DECISION

SK: I didn’t really get into collecting comics until high school. My dad would bring me some occasionally, but I didn’t know the collector subculture existed. I didn’t know that people followed creative teams, titles, etc. I was taught all that after meeting some collectors. The first comic I collected was Alpha Flight and I started with issue 11. The ad for issue 12 had the whole team lined up and said “NEXT ISSUE ONE OF THESE HEROES WILL DIE!” I lost it. That was the longest month of my childhood. JN: So you didn’t want to be a comic book artist, growing up, then? Most people would think that everybody wanted to draw Spider-Man when they were young.

JN: You seem to have a direct sensibility tied to comic strips, with your timing and delivery. Did you have any comic book love growing up?

DRAW! • FALL 2004 57

WEB COMICS

SCOTT KURTZ

JN: Let’s talk about family support when you were coming up.

LEFT: A pin-up of Skull the troll as the Dark Knight.

artist used the tree book for reference.

SK: My dad would criticize always and my mom would dote always. Dad would read a strip and nitpick. Do this, change that, add this. I would say, “What do you think of the joke? Don’t focus so much on one detail” and he would say, “Do you want the critique or not?”

JN: That’s great. You didn’t see what he was getting at then. SK: He taught me that cartooning is about breaking the rules of art, but that you had to learn the rules first before you can break them.

JN: Criticizing your art abilities, or the fact that you should be “doing something else”?

SK: No. He would never push me to do something else. He was huge on having a backup plan... he never discouraged me, but he was honest. JN: And mom? SK: Mom would laugh at the strip. Then I would look at her and say, “Do you get the joke?” and she would say, “No, but I can just tell it’s funny.” JN: A lot of creative people know what they want to do at a very early age. Usually the rest of your family unit don’t believe you until you’ve accomplished it. SK: Dad would always be realistic and tough on me. I would say, “I’m ready to be a cartoonist,” and he would say, “Not yet. You need to be able to effortlessly draw this with a couple of pen strokes. You’re not there yet, but you’re improving.” JN: That’s classic right there. “That’s nice dear.” My mother still does that. SK: And Dad was huge on art, having studied to be a draftsman. So he would push me to learn how to draw horses and trees and I didn’t want to do that. JN: Wow. That’s a huge plus, Scott. Some would kill to have that kind of person in their corner. SK: God, this one time.... He brought me a book on trees and told me to draw all the different bark patterns, and after 10 minutes I said, “ENOUGH! This is stupid. I don’t need this for drawing comics.” And he pulled a comic off my desk (the first one he grabbed), flipped through it and found this monster. He put the comic right up against the tree picture. I swear to god the skin on the monster was identical to the bark. It’s like the 58 DRAW! • FALL 2004

JN: Did you have any art books given to you at a young age from your parents? I think the How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way was a staple. That was back when the Borders didn’t have a whole section on comic art. SK: I bought that one myself. My dad had a stack of art books. Draw people, horses, trees, birds, dogs. All art books. Mom bought me a cartooning book that I hated. I think it was written in 1935. It had

all these flappers in it. JN: Did you actively try to use your dad’s books to work on your craft, or were they too “old” for you? SK: I used Dad’s books to draw when I wasn’t in a mood to draw cartoons. Or as reference. JN: What kind of school student were you? SK: Horrible. I had a very public rivalry with my high school art teacher. JN: Were you good when you were younger, then deteriorated? SK: I was good student through elementary. But I was distracted all the time. JN: So what happened? SK: I was too busy thinking about cartoons and comic strips. Ms. Allen was my art teacher and she hated cartooning. Hated it. She discovered a student named Andy who was brilliant with pottery. Just... really talented. And she practically adopted him. Like, he lived at her house for a while. And she gave him the kiln room—like, converted it into a private studio. JN: Couldn’t get away with that these days... SK: Yeah, these days she’d be in jail. He was from Korea and

his mom went back and he didn’t want to go. I’m sure it was all official and legal, but still. So she would give him preferential treatment, and enter him in all the art shows and that was total BS. And I hated him. I hated him with the heat of a thousand burning suns. And he hated me. Of course, when he introduced her to Manga, she was thrilled. Then cartooning was okay. So I got to enter a comic book into the big senior art show, and sparks flew when I won best of show over Andy’s pots. She hated me. JN: Do you still have that comic? SK: Somewhere, yeah. And, here’s the really sad thing: I went back to gloat afterwards. Here are my comics and take a look at my checkbook balance. And she was so small and frail and defeated. She cried and told me her husband died of stomach cancer, and I lost it. JN: That’s the opposite of what you wanted. SK: I realized it was time to grow up emotionally, I think. It was more important to focus on making good choices at that point. Life is short, you know? I was pissed, too, that day, because I felt she even robbed me of my gloating. Like... she

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held me back for three years and I won, but I couldn’t spike the ball at the end. My personal victory was all I got. Which of course is enough. JN: When did that happen? SK: Early 2000. PvP was still small. It wasn’t like I had “made it” officially. But it was enough that I was full-time at that point. I had great teachers who all saw my talent (other than the one teacher that was paid to develop it). Yeah, my best teacher was Jeff Grim. He saw I was different. He wrote a recommendation letter that got me into college. It said, in part, “You won’t see Scott on the Dean’s list, but you’ll see his art making an impact on the students.” Basically, saying, “His ACT and SAT scores suck, but he’s still worth taking,” and that letter got me in. The college told me as much. JN: Wow. So did you go to a Liberal Arts School for College? SK: Kind of: UNT (University of North Texas). I took ad art for three years and dropped out. I was wasting my parent’s money and these teachers were bitter ex-ad execs. I thought... “Do I want to be a part of this world? Do I want to be this smarmy guy? Or some production monkey? What am I doing here?” JN: That’s very self-aware of you. So why didn’t you just finish it out for the degree? SK: My stomach would hurt every day going to class. I would skip class and it would hurt more. I had no clue what I wanted to be and all my choices seemed wrong. So I quit and got a job at a sign company my friend’s dad ran. And that’s where I met Angela [Scott’s Wife]. JN: Did your dropping out cause problems at home? SK: Yeah. My dad was devastated. Mom, just... she was a mom. More worried about making me and Dad happy and smoothing things. Dad never went to a full four-year university and his mom (my harpy of a grandmother) brow beat him constantly about it. He got a two-year associates degree and no matter how great a dad, or how great a provider, it was never good enough for her. So he was huge on me getting into a university and

ABOVE: A PvP daily strip from early on and a recent one (LEFT) clearly showing the evolution of Kurtz’s style and the development of the characters.

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getting a degree. JN: Did you feel like you had to go do something to prove that you made the right decision? SK: No. Nothing that noble or focused. I just knew I would never want to do college and I had to quit so I could stop feeling so guilty about lying to my parents. You’re too young at 18 to go to college. My friend Gary is going now at 30 and he says that college is wasted on the young. And it is. JN: I agree. SK: I was just relieved when I quit. I no longer had to burden spending thousands of dollars to skip class and not care about college or my degree. I had to worry about getting a job and figuring out what to do next. JN: Did the job at the sign place help your art skills in the long run? Learn any techniques? SK: Well... that’s a funny story because I asked to get an art job there. But Raymond (that’s the guy running the place) knew I had dropped out and I think he tried to scare me back into college. So he gave me a job, but not in the art department. He gave me a job in Assembly. So I was working in a 105 degree warehouse moving six-foot sheets of three-inch-thick plexiglass from the dock to storage. I would moonlight in the art room to prove I belonged there. Eventually he moved me in. JN: Hoping you’d give up and go back to school. SK: I think so. He and my dad probably talked. I’m not sure. JN: What kind of work were you doing there. SK: Once I got in the art department, I learned how to do art on computers. Photoshop, Illustrator, Macs, screen printing, logo design, the whole thing. Dealing with clients, bosses, co-workers. It was college for me. JN: That’s the kind of learning you can’t get in school. SK: Unfortunately. JN: Do you handle all the business yourself, things like shipping books, and maintaining your web site? SK: I did it all by myself until recently. I now have someone helping me with the website advertisers. Of course, the wife is involved in all the major decisions, but day-to-day stuff is all me. JN: Sounds like the web site is really the heart of the business. Do you generate a good amount of sales and work from it? SK: It’s incredibly important. It’s the heart of PvP. Everything else can exist because of the website. The revenue from it pays 60 DRAW! • FALL 2004

ABOVE: Two pictures of Kurtz’s studio set up showing his working space and computer set up along with his dog.

the bills, the exposure of it keeps people excited about the work. JN: Being an entrepreneur, running your own business as a freelance illustrator, where do you spend most of your time? SK: Drawing and being on the phone. I feel like I always need to be working on the next thing that’s going to bring my work into the spotlight again. So half the time I’m setting up the next project or product and the other half of the time I’m working on the actual strip. JN: You are really developing a brand of sorts with PvP. Is this a goal of yours, something you set out to do? Did the webstrip take on a life of its own?

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SK: I want people to like my work and look forward to new things from me. I would rather that then people just like PvP and I’m a onetrick pony. I want to keep doing this for a while and the only way I’ll be able to maintain a career is by putting out new work. PvP will go on as long as the public will support it, but eventually it will die, just like everything else. I want to make sure I have other pokers in the fire when that happens. That’s why I’m working with Frank Cho on Summer Days. Robert Kirkman and I have a project in the wings as well. It all started out with the strip, and the strip is the core of what I do. But I want to keep going and moving forward. THE PROCESS JUNKIE: TECH TALK JN: Can you describe what your studio set up is like? SK: My studio is a large room that’s just off the front entryway of my house. The computer is something I’m chained to. I used to work at the computer all the time. It was always in front of me. But this last year, I pulled my dad’s 30-year-old Mayline solid oak drafting table out of his garage and took it home. So now I draw PvP on my dad’s old drawing table. There’s not a lot of room in here, but just enough for the computer, drawing table, my rack of old computer stuff and peripherals, and a TV for the Xbox. I like to keep it clean, but it can be a mess. Oh! Earlier this year my wife and I spent a weekend putting a shelf system into the studio closet. I highly recommend this to all you artists. Getting organized really helps. JN: Discuss in depth your working process. Computer set up, step-by-step.

ABOVE: A recent Spider-Man parody Sunday PVP strip drawn by guestartist Derrick Fish.

SK: I tend to write in my head and jot down basic ideas on a small legal pad with a red felt tip marker (don’t ask). Then I’ll sit down and draw out the strip on Bristol board that is ruled and cut custom for my strips. At this point, I have a basic idea of dialogue but nothing is final. I start working out the dialogue in my head and I draw the panels. A lot of time, the way I draw one character will determine the tone. I just go by feel on this. Then once the strip is penciled and inked, I scan it into Photoshop. There I fill my black areas and color (if it’s a Sunday strip). Now it’s time to put in the final word balloons. I write the final dialogue at this point. It’s rare I plot it out exactly word for word ahead of time. You have to tweak it so the words fit in the panel right. I simplify it a couple of times too. I’ll filter it down to just the bare essential words needed to get my point across. Save a high-res copy for printing, reduce to 72 dpi and post it on the site. I do all the production on the comic book on the PC using Photoshop and Illustrator. JN: Can you list the materials you use, or favorite ones, ie. pens, paper inks, markers, etc. SK: I draw on Strathmore Bristol. I prefer mechanical pencils with a medium lead (not too hard, not too soft). I ink with Micron Pigma pens. Everything else is on the computer.

JN: Tell us about your normal work day, start to finish. SK: God, this is gonna be embarrassing. Seriously though, let me try. I’ll be honest. LEFT: The template Kurtz uses on the lightbox to keep the characters consistent.

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JN: Please. SK: I usually wake up anywhere around 10:30-noon. I’m not going to lie about that. Then I spend an hour checking e-mails, phone messages, surfing the net for the day’s news, etc. I check a couple message boards. I start downloading the day’s Howard Stern show off of usenet, etc. Then I make an assessment of what needs to be done right away! Usually it’s the daily strip. I’ve been better at being on time with the coming of the new year, but I’ve got a long way to go in having worked ahead. Once everything that needs to be done right now is out of the way, I can take my time to figure out what I need to do next. Usually it’s just writing and drawing strips for either the website or the book. JN: Interesting...

SK: Yeah, there is that initial rush every day of “Crap! What has to get done first thing?” Not every morning, but most mornings. So... if I have strips written, I’ll turn on the sounds (either music or talk radio) and just get to drawing them. I can knock out five strips in a day if I have them all written out ahead of time. JN: But that’s not a definite. SK: No. Some days I’m really pressed for an idea. Or, to be honest, a good idea. I have a lot of ideas and my friends will give me a hard time because they think I’m too particular about what I use and reject. I would rather the strip be funny and late than on time and “ehh.” And it seems my best work comes out of my head at the 11th hour. Which I’m trying to change. The key to my being late is my inability to find a way to get ahead on ideas. If I could write a year’s worth of strips, I could work half the year and have the other half off. JN: So what is your strip idea process? Yellow pad with notes? Right to board? SK: Yeah. I have the legal pad and the red marker. Although lately, I’ve been going a little stir crazy so I’ll take the laptop and run off to Barnes and Noble or Starbucks to get away from the internet and phone. JN: So do you just work from day-to-day on ideas? You don’t “store” strip ideas for later? SK: I’m starting to. JN: So after the pad, you hit the board? Layout? SK: Here’s where the biggest problem with working ahead comes out. I tend to write the dialogue in my head as I’m drawing. I know the basic progression and the gist of the punch-line, but the voices tend to come out of the way I feel when I’m drawing them.

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ABOVE: The pencils for a pin-up featuring the cast of PvP as various genre heroes. NEXT PAGE: A pin-up featuring Jade Fontaine.

JN: I do it the same way. SK: Sometimes the joke will change in the process of drawing. JN: It’s not that unusual as I thought it was. SK: I got stuck with a strip one day and called my wife, and she was helping me work it out, and she says, “In the third panel, just have him say this.” And I answered, “He’s clearly not saying that,” as I looked at the picture. And she said, “Well then, redraw the panel.” And that feels wrong. JN: Right. SK: It’s like, he has a natural response and he’s trying to help me find it, but I’m not there yet. That whole thing sounds silly when you think of my art. I have Blueline Pro pre-ruled comic strip sheets that I draw on. And I have this template where I’ve drawn all the characters in a couple of percentages of sizes, and I can slip that under the Bristol and use the lightbox to make sure everyone stays the same height and shape. JN: Is that the commercial stuff? The board? Or are you cutting Strathmore? SK: It’s their standard stuff. They cut it and blue line it for me.

WEB COMICS JN: Oh ok, so it’s special Kurtz-blend board! SK: Actually, it’s a special Cho [Cartoonist Frank Cho] blend. I get to order it too because they’re already making it for him.

JN: So with the lightboxing, you’re not just laying down light traces, you’re using it for a height guide? SK: With most of the characters, yeah. It’s hard to draw Skull or Cole wrong. But with, Brent and Jade, their faces look wrong if the features start altering in height and spacing. JN: What tools are you using. Be specific. And what are the dimensions of your board? SK: Other than the bristol (which is around 6" x 18" I think), I use any pencil that’s handy and ink with Micron Pigma markers. I draw and ink directly on the Bristol, but I don’t fill in blacks on the board itself. I do that in the computer. Same for the covers, although I work on the standard comic book paper. JN: What size of Microns do you use? One size or do you vary? SK: The .03 for the interior lines and .05 for the outlines. I use .08 for borders. JN: Do you blue line pencil, or just go in with a #2 and erase before scanning? SK: That blue line lead doesn’t erase and it’s hard. It was cutting into my board. So I started using normal lead and erasing again. JN: Hmm. I’ve been using Col-erase blue pencils and killing the line after scanning in Photoshop. Unless you don’t like the look of a “blueless” finished page.

SCOTT KURTZ

SK: Can you erase the lines? JN: Yes, if you want. Ok, so after the strip is done, then what are you doing with it? SK: I have a 11" x 17" scanner, and it is the love of my life. JN: I love mine, too. What kind of scanner is it? SK: A Microtek... big... beautiful.9800XL. Tabloid scanner. JN: Right. They don’t really make those anymore. They’re beasts. SK: So I scan in the black-and-white strips at 800 dpi grayscale. Now, I used to only scan in at 300. But Cho insists that I should start scanning at 800 for black-and-white art for print. I guess in the off case I ever need to blow a strip up into a billboard... I can. If I’m going to work in color (like on Sunday strips), I’ll save a black-and-white 800 dpi version, but drop down to 400 dpi to color. JN: 800 is huge. SK: Yeah, but it looks awesome! I just got tired arguing with him, to be honest. He scans everything in bitmap though. JN: Then converts to RGB? SK: Yeah, for color. So all his strips are done before scanning. JN: No spot blacks? SK: It’s all on the board. JN: Why do you do spot blacks on the computer instead of on board? I’m thinking if you like your originals, that would be more complete. SK: Because I’m lazy, I hate using brush and ink, and I refuse to fill in black areas with a marker. You know it’s like... fill in the thing or just press CLICK! JN: Hmm, okay. So, you’ve scanned in at 800dpi grayscale, then what’s next? SK: I’m learning when I color, that sometimes I don’t want the black areas. I might not ever use a true black. So it’s cool to have the open lines. Brent’s black shirt can be more a dark purple. JN: Also, are you importing into Photoshop?

SK: Is it a lead for mechanical pencils?

SK: Yes, sorry. Right into Photoshop.

JN: Nah, they’re regular pencils, I don’t like mechanical pencils.

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SCOTT KURTZ SK: Yes, then I have the black line art clean above it. JN: Tell us about your computer rig and the specs.

SK: It’s a monster, a P4 with hyperthreading, 1 gig of memory I think. It has a 1 gig Radeon 9800 graphics card, a DVD drive, with an extra 40 gig hard drive just for my Photoshop scratch disk. It’s nice. ABOVE: A Sunday strip from last year. RIGHT: A recent PvP strip.

JN: Yeah, that’s impressive. Doing 800 dpi files would kill a normal PC. Do you have a WACOM tablet?

SK: In black-and-white, there’s one layer for art, and another layer for each word bubble.

SK: Yes, but I only use it for coloring. I’m trying to use it more.

JN: And you do all of that in Photoshop? Most artists do their balloons and lettering in Illustrator.

JN: After getting a tablet, using the mouse is like drawing with a brick. Ok so you’re done with the strip, how are you saving the files?

SK: Yes. JN: What’s your technique for word balloons in Photoshop? SK: I have a hard time with that because for some reason the letters pop over grey when I cut and paste. Or they’re not the right size. JN: What version of Photoshop are you using? SK: The latest version, 8 or Photoshop CS. I use the ellipse tool to surround the word. Add a tail with the polygonal selection tool, and then eDiT>STrOKe>12pt black. Done. JN: So you drop in lettering first, and fit the balloon around it? SK: Yep. And the balloons are aliased too. No gray pixels.,it’s all clean black-and-white art. I do that first on the art layer. JN: How does this change for your color strips SK: Just one new layer for the color. Colorist Bill Crabtree taught me this cool thing with Photoshop, where you can color on the background layer, but it still fills areas based on the line art layer above it. If you go to the Fill tool, there’s a box for ALL LAYerS, and you can use the Fill tool on an empty white space, but the color will stop based on the line art in the layer above it. Does that make sense? JN: Yes. So you do your line art colors like that? 64 DRAW! • FALL 2004

SK: I save it as a Photoshop psd file at 800 dpi, and I also save it at 72 dpi for the web. JN: Do you tweak out the 800’s for the comic? SK: Nah. I mean, they’re simple strips. After you flatten them, it’s all either solid black or white, no gray tones. JN: Roughly what size is the 72 dpi webstrip: h x w? SK: 850 x 270 pixels. JN: So you don’t use a brush at all? SK: On the artboard? No. JN: I mean as a tool. Not for the strip. SK: My wife would leave the house and I’d be all “Honey, today I’m doing my strip with a brush and ink.” And she would come home and find me covered in ink saying, “HELP!” JN: [laughter] SK: I have no idea what I’m doing with that stuff. JN: The brush is an amazing thing if you learn how to use it, but I understand the mastery of the techpen. Have you ever tried Rapidographs?

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SCOTT KURTZ SK: I used to have the brush and the professional white opaque jar stuff.

JN: Like Pro White? SK: Yeah. JN: Why’d you stop using it. SK: Yeah, but they’re a pain to clean. JN: So, do you buy a bushel of Microns? How far do you go in using one? When it gets down to a certain nib wear and you toss them? SK: I can tell when the drawings stop looking crisp, and I’ll move on to another pen. Until none of them are giving me the line I want. I go through a lot. JN: How many do you think you burn through in a month? SK: I’ll buy 5-8 and go through them all in a little over a month. JN: That’s not horrible. It’s good if you’re the only cartoonist in your area, because you can clean out the art shop! Nobody else would run in there and buy 3 boxes of #7 Microns. SK: Yeah. I clean out Asel Art. I’m about to clean them out again today.

SK: Well. the computer is easier, and I rarely correct on the board. You’re making me feel all lazy and @#%! JN: Me? SK: Yeah, because I’m doing so much on the computer instead of on the board. Heh. JN: That’s how you work—it’s a digital age. SK: So many of my art friends do it all on the board, and they say they envy me, but sometimes I envy them. Then I get pressed for time and I’m like... screw that!!!! INFLUENCES JN: Who are some of your artistic influences?

SK: Corrections?

SK: Influences... well.... as far as comic strips go it went Jim Davis, Berke Breathed, and then Bill Watterson. As far as comic books went, it was John Byrne, John Byrne and John Byrne. And Jack Kirby. The trifecta of cartooning comic gods influencing me in the present day: Stan Sakai, Sergio Aragonés and Jeff Smith. Those guys blow me away.

JN: Yes, if you mess up on the drawing.

JN: Do you see any of your style in them?

SK: All my mistakes can be fixed in the computer. I won’t use white-out unless I’m giving the art to somebody else.

SK: I wish. I wish my art was as cool as theirs.

JN: What do you use for corrections?

JN: So your style naturally developed on its own? JN: So you never fix it on the board? SK: Nah. JN: If you are using white, what are you using? A whiteout pen? SK: Yes, those... little pen things. Which can make a mistake a bigger mistake.

SK: I have to try really hard to get my strips to look the way I want them to, and I have to cheat. Sergio and Stan can draw circles around me. It’s got bits and pieces from a lot of places. But it’s a deliberate style. JN: I’ve seen some of your con sketches, your lines are so crisp. SK: I don’t like sketchy. I can’t do sketchy.

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SK: Have you ever read Hero Bear and the Kid?

SK: And I said, “Oh. I just use the pallette that loads by default with Photoshop.” And he freaks out!

JN: Sure. JN: Why?! I do the same thing... SK: Mike Kunkel is the nicest guy on the planet. And I always want to sit down and ink his comics.

SK: Because “You’re not supposed to do that.”

JN: But he’s sketchy. That’s “animation sketchy.” Flow of the line type of zen-stuff. Do you ever want to work over other people? Just you saying you don’t like brushes and inking and then wanting to ink someone else’s work is interesting.

JN: Works for me.

SK: Yeah, and I eat up every issue, but there is a voice in the back of my head saying, “Someone needs to finish this. Someone needs to ink it.”

JN: And there you have it!

SK: He said, “That’s foolish. Those colors won’t look the same once you print them as they do on the screen.” And I said, “You liked them enough.” So that’s the secret of my coloring. I don’t give a crap.

SK: I’m supposed to be clicking something in Photoshop so it’ll show me which colors will and won’t print as they are on screen. I got’s no time for that.

JN: Inks—.

JN: I didn’t know that was ever an issue. I do Boogaloo like that.

SK: Oh, no. I’m terrified to do that.

SK: Coloring standards, meet the wind. I throw you to it.

JN: Why?

JN: Even your own work? SK: I hate it, but it’s the best way to get a finished clean line.

ABOVE: A drawing of The Dazzler by Kurtz. BELOW: A drawing of the Skull parodying a drawing by Frank Cho, a close friend of Kurtz.

JN: But you wouldn’t get an inker because you’d miss that control over the final product? SK: I always ruin my drawings inking it. And digital inking...I don’t like that either. I need to see the clean black lines. Oh yeah, and I can’t afford an inker. If I could afford one, hell yeah. Here’s the funny thing, I get this a lot: People I respect... like... kick-ass artists, will write me and tell me they love my inking and my coloring. And I don’t get that at all. I’m winging it, especially with coloring. Did I tell you the Photoshop pallette story yet? JN: No... SK: When I was self-publishing, I got an e-mail from this kickass artist who I won’t name. He said, “Your coloring is awesome, can you send me a copy of your Photoshop pallette?” And I had no idea how to do that. What pallette? So I ask him “How do I do that, what is the pallette?” And he said “You know, your color pallette for PvP. The pallette of colors you chose and saved to color the series with.” JN: [Laughter] 66 DRAW! • FALL 2004

SK: Because I hate inking.

KEEP UP WITH KURTZ’s DAILY strip at: PVP ONLINE.COM! Interviewer Jamar Nicholas’ weekly web strip Detective Boogaloo—Hip Hop Cop can be seen Kevin Smith’s website: http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/boogaloo/index.html and his personal website is: http://www.sweatshoppress.com

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

MIKE MANLEY

Above (figure 1) is Danny’s plot for page six and to the right (figure 2) are my initial thumbnail breakdowns for pages six and seven. I laid out both pages at the same time as I wanted to make sure I could get the end of our comic to flow right for the cliffhanger. You can see I was working out the gesture poses on the ninja and Heather, trying to get good, clear, strong gestures and to make sure they read well as they overlay each other. I was also playing around with how to choose my shots. Do I want a medium shot, a close up? (figure 3) I decided to do most of the shots as medium shots to clearly show the action, and to add an inset of Henry in panel three to keep him in the action. In film this would be a quick cut-away shot. To me that is what an inset panel is, it’s almost a cut-away shot as you are showing two points of view in essentially one panel; you want the readers to read both panels as happening at the same time or to indicate that the person in the inset panel is watching the action happening in the larger panel it’s set into. (figure 4) The final pencils for page six.

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1 We go in really close, putting the camera in a very dramatic angle, a worm’s eye view, to see the father’s boot and the kids reaction to him (but he’s mostly off screen to keep the suspense). This creates a question/tension in the reader’s mind which is paid off in the big panel with the dad looming over the two kids, so we pull out for an establishing shot. The sweep of the father’s cape leads us to his close-up in panel six and the flow of his hair leads us to Heather’s right arm, which leads us to her face. We pull back from the father as he fades away in the time stream. I was also conscious of the fact I needed to arrange the elements in the panels to allow Danny plenty of room for dialogue and captions. (figure 3) The final penciled page for our comic. Now the next step... on to inking!

(figure 1) This is the final layout for page seven. As you can see from Danny’s plot (figure 2) I deviated somewhat from what he wrote. I kept Henry working the controls as Heather fought the ninja, only to have him come up to her so he can be with her as they look up and see their father. I also decided I wanted the ninja to disenigrate after the laser/energy bolt hits him. I figured it was some sort of time gun. On the design of the father I wanted him to wear an eclectic assortment of clothes and such that indicated he has been through various eras in time. This is what I call an in-out page.

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MIKE MANLEY

INKING

2 The most fun on any job after the layout, for me, is the inking stage. At this point it’s all smooth sailing. I covered a lot on inking in my article back in DRAW! #6. On the DRAW! DVD I also go into detail on pens and brushes and how I use them. The screen grabs here are from the DRAW! DVD chapter on inking. On the DVD you will be able to watch me ink a page of the Thief of Time comic from beginning to end. I want to stress again that inking is drawing in ink. The ink drawing has to be as good as the pencil drawing. Despite the joke in the film Chasing Amy, inking is not tracing. Before I ink a page I often warm up by doodling with a pen or brush directly on sketch paper or in a sketch book. (figure 1) I may do this for a half hour or maybe even an hour if I’m having fun. Like a musician warming up with his instrument, my goal is the same: to get the juices flowing. I usually start on a page by starting with some background inking, but sometimes if I am warmed up and ready to go, I pick up the pen and have at it and start with some figures. I generally do pen inking first (figure 2) then go back with a brush and heavy up a line or fill blacks. Sometimes I may ink almost everything with a brush if I feel it calls for it. Again, my approach is always open and interpretive. My whole process is very organic and flexible and when I ink a page, first I look at it and decide where I’m going to use a brush versus using a pen. I think the brush is great for organic things like hair. I also love to ink using the Rotring Rapidoliners. They are disposable rapidographs which come in various widths. My favorite is the .35. I love inking with these and can get a great variety of line from them from practice. I sometimes have two bottles of ink: One for the pen which is thinner and one for the brush which I often leave open. By leaving it open some ink evaporates and it becomes thicker, denser and covers better with a brush. If the ink gets too thick I just add a little water. I also will use templates when needed and suggest that any artist have a good set of ellipse templates, circle templates and french or ship curves. I also like Sakura Micron and Copic markers and often use the .02 or .03 for inking small faces and details. But always wait at least 20 minutes before erasing the page after using them as they will smear badly if the ink isn’t dry, especially on plate finish paper.

TOOLS Of the trade

B C

D A) THE ROTRING RAPIDOLINER. I like the .35 point. B) THE WINSOR & NEWTON SERIES 7 No. 3 sable brush. The tough yet supple hairs allow great response and delicate control. C) THE SAKURA PIGMA MICRON. These pens are great and the tips last a pretty long time. The ink is waterproof and fade proof. Just let the ink dry at least 15-20 minutes before erasing to avoid smearing. D) THE HUNT 102 PEN. The industry standard. It’s point is fairly flexible and allows a snappy thin-thick line.

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COMICS

MIKE MANLEY My inking set up is pretty basic. I have a bottle of ink for my pen and brush and have a Higgins drawing ink bottle and stand with pen rest across the front. I bought the stand off of eBay and it’s great for preventing the accidental spilling of your ink bottle. I also have an old rag, and a jar of water. I don’t use much whiteout these days since I scan that art into the computer, so I fix my mistakes and do corrections in Photoshop. I use Higgins ink. I have a fairly large stockpile of it that I bought years ago. If I find art supplies I like, I will buy a large quantity of it as I don’t want to run out, and too often in the last 15 years companies have either gone out of business or changed their formula. I ink and pencil using a lap board which saves on my back. This old board was a gift from Al Williamson and was one of the boards he used back when working on his EC jobs in the ’50s.

These images grabs are from the inking tutorial on the How to Draw Comics DVD. When I first begin inking I usually start with ruling backgrounds and warm up on them. I sometimes will ink on several pages at one time and switch back and forth. After the page gets too wet, set it aside and work on another one while the last one dries. I usually have a fan running in the studio as the air circulating helps the pages dry faster.

Next it’s time to whip out the pen. On this job I used a Hunt 102 Crow Quill pen. The 102 is pretty much the industry standard pen nib and it’s fairly flexible and you can get a good thin-thick line. If you are lucky and get a really good nib it will last for several pages before it snaps and breaks. I move through the entire page and do all my pen work first. Some small work I do with the Rapidoliner or a Micron Pigma, but I use the pen for the more organic figure work as it gives the line a nice thin-thick snap, and is great for doing a wide variety of textures. My suggestion is to do a lot of direct drawing with the pen you find most comfortable so that when you are inking you are confident. You must be confident when inking!

After the figure of Heather is done I go in and ink the masks with the Rapidoliner. Sometimes I switch back and forth between the pen and the Rapidoliner depending on what effect or type of line I am going for. I choose my inking tool based on the type of line I want to make.

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COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

Once the pen work is done I make sure the page is dry so I don’t smear the ink, and then pick up the brush and go. I start laying in the blacks. I usually use an older brush without as fine a point to fill in large areas of black as that much ink can be hard on a good brush. So don’t throw away those old brushes! I save my new or good brushes for the detail inking.

The brush is great for doing scrumbly type inking on things like trees, etc. A good technique or way to think of inking trees is to think of it as a high contrast photo which knocks out all the detail except for the blackand-white patterns. (figure 3) (figure 4) Below I go in and add feathering and textures and fill in blacks on the masks and figure.

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MIKE MANLEY

COLORING 1 I work in layers when coloring in Photoshop. I know some colorists and artists work in channels. I’ve never done that. I’ve always worked in layers. Maybe it’s because that’s just the way I learned to color when I started using Photoshop years ago. It’s also similar to animation where you have the cell and the background, something I’m very familiar with from working in animation. My process is pretty straight forward. I don’t do any color guides or keys and just work straight ahead. I can really see the color I want in my mind and it’s really an intuitive process or me. However, for some of you less experienced, I do suggest doing quick color guides either in markers with a photocopy of the page reduced to printed comic size, or a quick rough color in Photoshop. The main thing is to have good values and contrast in your coloring. Warm against cool, etc. Limiting your pallette is also a good idea. If you have the values too similar, the coloring will be flat. A good way to see if the values are good is to convert the image to grayscale in Photoshop. If you find the page is very flat, the greys too similar, that means you’ll want to push the values in your color art. I suggest getting a few books on color and studying the color chart, learning about value as well as complementary colors, etc. In my experience color sense is intuitive, personal, and some people just have a great natural sense of color, like a musician having a natural sense of timing. STEP 1) I scan my page in Photoshop at 600dpi as line art, not grayscale. Once the page is scanned, I convert it to grayscale and clean it up and fix any stray lines and dirt, smudges, etc. Then I save it at 300dpi as a grayscale TIF file. My scanner is a Microtek ScanMaker 9600XL. I still scan in OS 9 as a new driver for my scanner hasn’t been made that works with OS 10 on my Mac. STEP 2) After I convert the image to grayscale, I select the entire image, and copy and paste it onto a new layer. Next I 2

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select a small trapped area of the white with the magic wand (figure 2) and in the menu under SeLeCT choose SiMiLAr. This selects all the white area in the image. I hit DeLeTe and all the white is gone, leaving only the black line. layer one is now essentially like an overlay I can see through and I’ll color on the background layer underneath. STEP 3) I convert the image to CMYK under iMAge>MODe on the menu. CMYK is the way all four-color artwork is separated for printing. Now I’m ready to start coloring since every color in the four color printing process is a mixture or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. BELOW: A screen grab from the DRAW! DVD showing mike using the paintbucket to fill in the basic colors on the page.

COMICS STEP 4) I go though the page and using the paintbucket I fill in some big basic colors. This would be like blocking in the middle values in a painting. I can go darker or lighter or even change the color all together later, but at this stage I want to basically go over and block in the entire page. After I am satisfied with the block-in stage, I start going in and adding detail to the color, adding some shadows on the form, doing slight blends and highlights. My approach to coloring or modeling the form is the same in Photoshop as it is in painting. Highlight, middle value and shadow. Sometimes a second shadow tone, like in an animation cel, is all you need to pop a figure forward and give it dimension. I work back and forth either using the magic wand or the lasso to select areas to color. I use a Wacom tablet and the stylus to color the pages. I use the large 9" x 12" tablet as it allows me more freedom of movement.

MIKE MANLEY

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CARTOONIST My big issue with most colorists working in comics today is that the coloring is going against the artwork, obscuring the art and often the detail the artists labored to draw for the reader to appreciate. The colorist is often lighting the form against the direction of light indicated by the artist. I also dislike a lot of airbrushing. I think it’s a great tool if used sparingly, but too often it’s overdone and the art looks greasy, slimy. So my motto is “simple is better.” (figure 3) This is an example of what I was talking about when making sure your coloring has good values. The figures and backgrounds must separate and “read” well against each other. On the DRAW! DVD How To Draw Comics From Script To Print, you can watch me as I go through all of these steps and more live, as I color the first page of Thief of Time. I also show you how sometimes I go back in and slightly adjust the hue of the page or panel by choosing Hue and SATurATiON under iMAge>ADJuSTMeNT on the menu. This is a great filter to use to cast the entire image warmer or cooler. I often use this filter, especially in a night scene. When adding lighting effects like the glow from the portal (figure 4), I will do that on a separate layer, sometimes having several layers for each page. The last thing I will say about coloring is that it is really responsible for the emotional mood, like a soundtrack in film. Coloring that detracts or goes against the feel of the scene is like wearing bright colors at a funeral.

ABOVE: Another screen grab from the DRAW! DVD detailing Mike’s coloring process.

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COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

LETTERING The last big step of producing the Thief of Time comic is lettering the pages. Ideally I’d have preferred to have a real letterer doing the lettering on the actual pages, but like most modern comics I work on, there just wasn’t the time. I prefer the lettering on the original art so I can adjust the position of figures and the compositions once the lettering is down on the board. Sometimes you may want to slightly move an element like a head or arm. Lettering must be taken into consideration as a compositional element within the borders of each panel and as a 1 design element which leads your eye from panel to panel and across the page as well as effect the composition of the panels they are in. They effect the timing or speed at which the reader reads the comic page through the density of copy, number of balloons and placement. I also like to have my originals with the lettering on them for aesthetic purposes after they have been published.

I am lettering the pages in Adobe Illustrator 10. Now while I was finishing up the pencils and the inks, Danny was doing the final script. Once Danny finished the script in Microsoft Word he e-mailed it to me. He also faxed me copies of the pencils with the word ballon and captions placement. The balloons and caption boxes are numbered to correspond with the captions and dialogue on Danny’s script. (figure 1)

STeP 1) I open Danny’s script in Microsoft Word, then open Illustrator and import the page I’m going to letter in Illustrator. I set the page size at the standard comic-size page (6.625" x 10.187"). STeP 2) I go through the page and roughly place all the balloons and dialogue and caption boxes, matching where Danny indicated on the faxes. I do this quickly as I know I can come back later and adjust their specific size and shape. I can also adjust the color of each balloon or caption box when it’s selected by using the CMYK sliders. I decide to keep all my dialogue boxes a light yellow. I set the stroke at 1 point; this keeps the black line or frame around the balloons at 1 point in width. Again things like this can be adjusted to suit your tastes and to create different effects.

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COMICS 3

MIKE MANLEY

STeP 3) I create a new layer in Illustrator and name it Lettering. I save my doc and then I copy the type or dialogue from Word and paste it into Illustrator. I’m using the font called AstroCity and I set my type at 8 pt. with 8 pt. leading. Danny indicated in the Word file which words he wants bold and italic and I match them by selecting the word, and then in the character menu choose the bold typeface of AstroCity, which has a bold and italic version. Using the paragraph menu I select the CeNTereD option, then using the type tool adjust the type to fit nicely and then do adjust the ballon to fit around the letters. I like the negative space around the letters in my word balloons tight but to too tight, or the words appear cramped.

4 STeP 4) To crop word balloons so they will become flush with the panel borders I first draw a box by selecting it from the marquee tool. I draw the box over the part of the balloon I want to crop. Then I hold the shift key down while the box is selected and then click on the word balloon. Now both are selected. In the PATHfiNDer menu I then select the second box in the SHAPeS MODe. This clips away the part of the balloon I don’t want. (figure 5)

5 I repeat Step 4 again to clip off the top of the balloon to make it flush with the panel border. I continue through the rest of the page and keep repeating these steps with all the balloons I want to crop flush with a panel border.

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COMICS

MIKE MANLEY STeP 5) Now I draw the balloon tails with the pen tool.

STeP 6) I can go in and using the selection tool I can now adjust the tail as I want, or even draw one freehand with the pen tool. I also go and draw the bridge tail between the balloons to join the dialogue. I merge the balloons that are Heather’s together by selecting both, then clicking the first box in the SHAPeS MODeS menu.

STeP 7) I join the balloons and tails all together again by selecting them all (by holding down the Shift key) and clicking on each one with the selection tool and then clicking the first box in the Pathfinder menu. Now each character’s balloons and connecting balloons are joined as one shape. I go trough the rest of the pages repeating these same basic steps until every page is lettered. I save each file as an Adobe EPS file, which I will open, flatten and save in Photoshop as 300dpi CMYK TIF files. I will import these TIF files into Quark Xpress which I use to assemble all of my books, including DRAW!, for printing. I do all of my sound effects by hand as I prefer to place them in the art when I’m drawing the pages. 76 DRAW! • FALL 2004

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QUARK

The last major step for me in creating the comic and getting it ready to send off to my publisher John Morrow, is for me to assemble the comic book in QuarkXpress 4.1, the layout software that’s pretty much the industry standard for prepress. After he does tweaks and the issue is proofread, John sends all the files via FTP over the internet to the printer. You can read all about what John has to do in his article on page 49 of this issue. I created the Thief of Time logo in Photoshop CS and later imported and placed it on the cover in Quark, along with all the cover copy.

MIKE MANLEY

I go in and place the cover logo and all the cover copy. I tweak the type and can create a custom color in the eDiT menu under COLOrS. Quark is a deep program and it allows you to do a lot with color and type. I’m far from being an expert with Quark (as my patient and saintly publisher John Morrow will tell you), but I do know it well enough to assemble this comic, as well as DRAW!, along with the help of John and Eric NolenWeathington (TwoMorrows’ trusty production assistant). At this point the book is essentially done for me. I select COLLeCT fOr OuTPuT under the file menu which is a great feature in Quark that allows you to create a single folder, name it and put all of the images and Quark files for each job in one place. You have to include any fonts you use as well; make sure you have both the screen font and printer font. The last step is to stuff the files and FTP them to the TwoMorrows server. So there you have it, my complete creative process on creating a comic book. You can also follow along on the How to Draw Comics from Script to Print DVD. With this info, you should be able to go out and create your own comic! —Mike Manley

STeP 1) I create a new document in Quark with the proportion of the printed comic: 6.625" x 10.187". I had saved all of my final inked pages as EPS files in Illustrator 10 and then opened them up in Photoshop CS and converted them into 300dpi TIF files in CMYK. (figure 1)

STeP 2) I insert the number of pages I’ll need to contain all the pages for the comic. (figure 2) STeP 3) Using the Picture Box tool I create a picture box on each page and drag it out to fill the entire page. Next under the file menu I select iMPOrT iMAge and in the browser window I select the comic page to be imported. I have all the final art assembled in a folder on my hard drive. I may have to slightly reduce or enlarge the images to make sure I bleed all the borders except the center border (between two pages on the spine). I need at least 1/8" bleed to give the printer enough room to trim the book. I repeat this process on each page until the entire book is laid out. (figure 3)

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by DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY

THIEF time of

DRAW!’s Summer Vacation time you read this the warm breezes of summer Bwillybethea memory as September’s wind brings us nature’s fall pageantry of color and the official end to summer’s busy convention season. And what a summer it was. DRAW! once again attended the annual San Diego Comicon and had our best show ever, followed two weeks later by the Wizard Chicago Con, the first Chicago show DRAW! editor Mike Manley had attended in a decade. Both shows were great fun and we at DRAW! had a great time meeting so many of our fans, readers and fellow professionals who stopped by our booths at both shows to chat, buy back issues, and get a DVD or a sketch. Here are a few photos from DRAW!’s summer vacation. —Enjoy!

DRAW! masters Bret Blevins and Alberto Ruiz chill out on the hotel balcony before the entire DRAW! gang headed off to set up our booth for the San Diego Comicon’s Preview Nite. 78 DRAW! • FALL 2004

The quiet before the storm. The San Diego Convention Center, where the five-day event known as the San Diego Comicon takes place.

Bret Blevins sketches for an admiring fan, wearing one of his many cool hats and his “magic glove.” Wonder if he got it from Michael Jackson?

HANDS ACROSS THE WATER. Bret, Dave Gibbons (who was in our premiere issue) and ye editor, pose for a pic at the DRAW! booth.

Pikachu and his handler wander the con floor, one of the zillion characters (costumed or otherwise) to be seen strolling amongst the Stormtroopers,Sailor Moons and fanny packers.

Alberto draws a sketch for one of the many fans who stopped by our booth to say “hi” and purchase one of his two new sketchbooks.

Then a few weeks later DRAW! editor Mike Manley swept into the Windy City for the Wizard Chicago Con. Here is a shot of the eager fans lined up mere seconds before the show floor was opened and the con began.

Animator Roque Ballesteros (Joe Paradise), Mike, veteran DC artist Ric Estrada, and Dan Panosian.

Fellow TwoMorrows author George Khoury (True Brit, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore) helped co-man our booth during the weekend show. —SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! DRAW! • FALL 2004 79