Rough Stuff #8 Preview

No. 8 SPRING 2008

$6.95

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

Featuring

Ms. Marvel, Wasp and Scarlet Witch TM & Š2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Alex Horley Rafael Kayanan Nick Cardy Tony DeZuniga

MIKE MAYHEW

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82658 27766

6

81

Interview and Gallery

Volume 1, Number 8 Spring 2008

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

EDITOR

Bob McLeod PUBLISHER

John Morrow DESIGNER

Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington COVER ARTIST

Mike Mayhew

FEATURED ARTISTS 3 15

Tony DeZuniga

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Alex Horley

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Rafael Kayanan

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions SPECIAL THANKS Nick Cardy

Nick Cardy

ROUGH STUFF FEATURE 26

Introduction to Belgian & French Comics Dominique Leonard

Tony DeZuniga

ROUGH STUFF INTERVIEW

Alex Horley Rafael Kayanan

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Mike Mayhew

Mike Mayhew

ROUGH STUFF DEPARTMENTS

Dominique Leonard Gerald Forton

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J.C. Mezieres

Scribblings From The Editor Bob McLeod

Albert Uderzo Mike Murdock

ROUGH STUFF™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Bob McLeod, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: ROUGH STUFF, c/o Bob McLeod, Editor, P.O. Box 63, Emmaus, PA 10849-2203. E-mail: mcleod.bob@gmail.com. Fourissue subscriptions: $26 Standard US, $36 First Class US, $44 Canada, $60 Surface International, $72 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Central cover art by Mike Mayhew. All characters are copyright Marvel Comics. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2008 Bob McLeod and TwoMorrows Publishing. ROUGH STUFF is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

ISSN 1931-9231

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PrePro Art by Rafael Kayanan, Mike Mayhew and Alex Horley, done before they turned pro.

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Cover Stories Mike Mayhew and Alex Horley reveal the process of creating a cover.

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Rough Critique Editor Bob McLeod critiques an aspiring penciler’s sample page.

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Rough Talk Comments and opinions from our readers.

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D U R E F E A T

NICK CARDY

I S T A R T

AHAWK, ty on DC’s TOM ri la pu po g in in First ga work on st known for his be s ap rh pe s e’ h d my TEEN TITANS, an AQUAMAN and e drew the g, and SH. Early on, h e Hogarth writin rn favorite, BAT LA u B ith w ile h e did rip for a w strips as well. H N A TM daily TARZAN st BA d an comics to SEY RUGGLES , before leaving 0s worked on the CA ’7 y rl ea e th all of for DC in e Comic Book H th to in scores of covers ed ct du appealing, ing. Nick was in eral are always n work in advertis ge in t ar d an is figures ve him.

Fame in 2005. H e who doesn’t lo n yo an ow kn t and I don’

BOB McLEOD Nick penciled the first 39 issues of Aquaman from ’62’68, and all the covers through the final issue, #56 in 1971. This

NICK CARDY

is an unpublished version of

I also preferred the

the cover for issue #43, which I

original version, but the

like better than the published

word came down from

version. The flowing line work

on high, so it was not

on the distant figure, as well as

up to me.

Aquaman’s dynamic pose amid

I penciled and inked

the tangled seaweed are much

all of my stories. No one

more interesting to me. Notice

could ink over my loose

how the black ‘L’ shape creat-

pencils. [Drat! I started

ed by the large sandal and its

ten years too late! - ed.]

shadow frame the Aquaman

When my deadline

figure.

became tight, others penciled (Neal Adams, Gil Kane, George Tuska,

NICK CARDY

Carmine infantino) and I inked.

Aquaman TM & ©2008 DC Comics

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BOB McLEOD

NICK CARDY

In this pencil commission, he revisits Aquaman and his wife Mera thirty years later. Notice how he adds to the depth by overlapping forms, using foreshortening, placing shadows, and even adding the water currents.

Aquaman TM & ©2008 DC Comics

BOB McLEOD Nick designed the character of Mera, Aquaman’s wife, in Aquaman #11. Fans have long admired Cardy’s way of depicting the female form. “Cardy girls” were a large part of his allure in comics.

Notice how often Cardy uses a 3/4 angle pose for his figures. It's more difficult than a profile or straight-on shot, but it's a very effective way to add more depth and form to your figures.

NICK CARDY This Mera was the first of a series of the Cardy girls: Black Canary, Wonder Girl, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, etc. These pencils were to become full-color illustrations.

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ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

BOB McLEOD I just love the atmosphere of Bat Lash in this Bat Lash sketch from 1999.

Bat Lash is fondly remembered by everyone who likes western comics, for the great scripts by Sergio Aragonés, the Mad magazine cartoonist, and Nick’s wonderful art.

As good as it was though, it only lasted from July of ’68 to November of ’69.

An easy trick to aid in drawing hats so that they fit squarely on the head is to draw the top “crown” of the hat first on top of the head, and then

Bat Lash TM & ©2008 DC Comics

NICK CARDY I worked from the script written by Denny O’Neil— I never saw Sergio’s stick figure layouts— I used my own judgment on the layouts. Denny and I were very flexible on the stories. I wish this figure hadn’t come out looking mean.

NICK CARDY

add the brim.

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D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

TONY DeZUNIGA

ating JONAH own for co-cre kn st be is y . He’s n To BL ACK ORCHID so al d an , C D HEX at r Marvel, several titles fo also worked on Sega. He rs in deo games for vi ed gn si of the best inke e de d on s an e’ h k in GE SWORD teaches. I th also paints and is work on SAVA h d ye jo en y rl the art for rticula nt me much of se comics, and pa e H a. em sc of the John Bu mments, so all co e ak OF CONAN over m to t t was reluctan this feature, bu mine. comments are

BOB McLEOD Tony originally began his career as a letterer at age 16, and here he designs a wanted poster of Hex. This was done on toned paper with ink and colored pencil. You can see it in color in the PDF version of Rough Stuff, available at www.twomorrows.com.

For all of you young artists who have trouble staying within the lines when you color, Tony demonstrates that’s not a problem.

Jonah Hex TM & ©2008 DC Comics

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BOB McLEOD Finished pencils (with even the title lettering!) for a Jonah Hex splash page from Weird Western Tales #13.

Fairly tight pencils, considering he would be inking it himself. With or without the additional boulder, it’s a well-planned composition, nicely framing Hex and

TONY DeZUNIGA

his wolf, Iron Jaws.

Jonah Hex TM & ©2008 DC Comics

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BOB McLEOD Arak Son of Thunder #39 (DC, 1984) After scripting Conan for Marvel for many years, Roy Thomas created a barbarian comic for DC called Arak, Son of Thunder, and he brought Tony along with him to do the art. They had a good run for a few dozen issues. I think DeZuniga’s cross hatch ink style was particularly wellsuited to the barbarian genre, and he probably couldn’t help but be influenced by John Buscema’s great layouts while inking so many issues of Savage Sword of Conan. I like his extensive use of diagonals in the composition here.

Courtesy Heritage

Arak TM & ©2008 DC Comics

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INTRODUCTION to

T

Dominique Leonard

he very first time I was in contact with Bob McLeod, it was for a commission. A few weeks later, I got two marvellous drawings he made for me. Wow, great work. Basically, I’m a fan of comics who grew up with Belgian and French heroes, but I’m also really interested in American artists and characters. Now, I’m trying to re-discover stories I read when I was a teenager 30 years ago. It’s fun to re-read all these stories with lots of super-heroes.

So, when Bob told me about his magazine, and invited me to write a kind of “Introduction to European comics”

name to the magazine. Spirou, the character, appeared

for his readers, I felt very flattered, but as I’m not a pro-

for the first time in the first issue of the magazine.

fessional in the comics field, I also did worry. What could

Another important magazine, Tintin, created in 1946 (last

I write that would be likely to arouse your interest? Just to

issue in 1988), also took the name of its main character,

summarize the history of comics in Belgium and France

but “Tintin” the hero was never the property of the editor.

since the ’40s, I would need more than three Rough

His creator never sold the rights to his character. Tintin

Stuff issues, so I thought it would be more pragmatic to

was created in 1929 and is probably the most popular

highlight the work of top artists of the Golden Age of

character in comics worldwide.

comics (between the ’40s and the ’70s); my

Comics creators were “all-rounders.” They wrote

personal selection of 13 Golden Age artists.

the stories, did the pencil drawings and also

First of all, it’s important to mention that there are a lot of differences between comics in Europe and in the USA. Let’s have a look at the major ones: In Europe, almost all characters are the property of their creators. Usually, when an artist stops his activities, his hero

DOMINIQUE: Forton has a great ability for sketching very fast. His

disappears at the same time.

Of course, there are some exceptions. The most important character that was the editor’s

pencils are often

property is named

clean but very clear

“SPIROU.” It was

at the same time.

also the title of a

He likes horses and can reproduce these animals perfectly in his

magazine created in 1938 and still published today.

westerns. He’s also very good at working out the balance between black and white.

“Teddy Ted”, unpublished sketch copyright Forton, 2008

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The editor bought the rights to the hero who gave his

ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

inked their own stuff. This is the reason why it took an average of one year for a story to get finished. On

Belgian & French Comics BOB McLEOD: Giraud’s Blueberry is easily my favorite comic art series, even though I can’t read most of them.

Luckily, many of them have been translated into English. Here is a rare look at Giraud’s rough pencils for a page from Mister Blueberry. I’m hoping he had to tighten up the pencils somewhat before inking, but possibly not.

BOB McLEOD: In the printed version, he stayed very close to the pencils,

top of the books, they produced pages for some

but I’m intrigued by

magazines at the same time. So, workaholics…

how he changed the

impassioned guys… Nowadays, lots of artists

angle of the lamp in

illustrate stories that are written by professional

panel two, which

writers, but in the Golden Age, artists regularly

now contradicts the

did a full creation.

perspective, which

Between 1940 and 1960, three writers produced

of course he knows

lots of great “success stories”. Their names: Jean-

very well. I assume

Michel Charlier, René Goscinny and Michel Greg. All the stories are published in hardcover. The standard measurements are 8" x 11". The books contained 64-page stories till the early ’60s, and then they were reduced to 44page stories. The price for a book today ranges from $10.50 US to $20 US. Let’s have a closer look at some artists amongst my all-time favorites. All of them have very important links with the two magazines listed above: Tintin and Spirou

he thought it was in which they published their main stuff, which is also

more important to

strongly linked to their graphic style. Spirou was more

have the yellow light

dynamic and humorous, Tintin had a staff of realistic

there rather than the

artists – classified under the generic name la ligne claire

black top of the

(the clear line), and Pilote, that came two decades later,

lamp, which would

was more the work of a second generation of artists,

have sunk into the

possibly more irreverent.

black background.

(both of them are originally Belgian creations that have

Artists from TINTIN magazine

been published in France too), but also with a third one,

HERGÉ (pronounced “airzhay”, Georges REMI,

Pilote, created in 1959. On the one hand, the graphics

Belgium, b. 05.22.1907 – d. 03.03.1983)

of some of these artists were influenced by American artists, but on the other hand some of them also influenced some contemporary American and British artists.

I’ll try to classify the artists in relation with the magazines

His pen name comes from the phonetic pronunciation of the first letters of his surname and first name ‘RG’.

He’s the creator in 1929 of Tintin (the character), a reporter always accompanied by his dog “Milou”

The change in Blueberry’s pose is also interesting.

Blueberry, unpublished sketch copyright Giraud – Editions Dargaud, 2008

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D U R E F E A T

ALEX HORLEY

I S T A R T

es work n artist who do ia al It an is x Ale ates, and d the United St an y al It r fo both e for his best known her he’s probably orked for intings. He’s w r private fantasy art pa sought af ter fo ry ve is d an s, blisher to show several U.S. pu and asked him e, yl st g n ti in like his pa commissions. I intings. work for his pa im el pr is h of e us som

ALEX HORLEY Packaging for a computer game, the World of Warcraft’s “Fires of Outland” set. I did a small layout to start with. The art had to work as a wraparound cover, or similar to a VHS box. I did the layout in actual size, so that I had a precise feel of how to handle the composition.

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ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

ALEX HORLEY Evil Ernie cover rough. No thumbnails for this one. I just started drawing him on a 8.5” x 11” sheet and the rest pretty much came together.

BOB McLEOD I love it when the roughs are works of art in themselves.

With very little touch up this could easily be printed as an

ALEX HORLEY

interior illustration.

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ALEX HORLEY This art was done for box art and packaging of Upperdeck’s VS card game. The set was called “Marvel Team-Up” (one of my favorites as a kid).

The layout was done 8.5” x 11” size and then blown up to 18” x 24” for the painting. I try to leave as much as possible of the rendering in the painting stage and not sort every single detail right away in the preliminaries, otherwise I would get bored, it would be like working on the same thing twice and the painting won’t have the same energy.

This one took a few weeks to paint, but I had a great time, since I got to work on many of my favorite characters in one shot. I grew up with Marvel comics in the ’70s and the art of Marvel in those years has been one (if not the main) major influence in my drawing formation. Kirby, Buscema, Kane (his covers!) and Colan, are still the comic book idols I look up to.

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All characters TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

PRE-PRO

D

id you ever wonder what the pros’ artwork looked like before they turned pro?

RAFAEL KAYANAN Drew this during the heyday of the short-lived TV show. I was nine years old and I had the Galen action figure, the trading cards and the comics!

ALEX HORLEY The guy with the cape is one of the hundreds of characters I “designed”.

I guess this one was inspired by The Vision. These are from a drawing pad I found a while ago. I was eight when I did these. I used to copy almost all

ALEX HORLEY

the covers of the comics I could afford to buy (not many, back then)!

Conan is the only non-superhero character I was interested in, back then. At age eight, his stories were kind of creepy, but exciting as hell.

R.E. Howard’s epics have been another major influence on my creative formation and John Buscema’s interpretation of his characters in comic book form, to me, is still the best one.

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ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

R AFAEL K AYANAN

’80s when ael in the early af R et m t rs fi I ics, and eaking into com he was first br ry sucto become a ve on e n go ce n he’s si ng in films al artist worki ci er m usical. In m co l fu cess Spider-Man m ew n e th r fo adway RM, TUROK, and now on Bro ciling FIRESTO n pe r fo n ow all on st kn artist, so we’re comics, he’s be al ti ar m r te as e’s also a m and CONAN. H . ior around him our best behav

RAFAEL KAYANAN Pencil splash page for a story written by John Byrne. This is much tighter than I would normally pencil today because I usually ink my own art and I leave all the small details for the inking stage. I was also unfamiliar on who my inker would be so once I get a few pages back inked I can tell how tight I have to go. This was the image that helped secure a spot for me as illustrator for the Spider-Man Broadway show that Julie Taymor (Lion King) is directing. I had a diverse selection of concept art from various film and stage projects, but I knew I needed to cater my portfolio so that the reviewer can see that I’d actually worked on the character. I chose a pencil page because directors are used to seeing the pre-visualization process. Handing them a slick color comic with your name on it does not show them the working stage, and that’s what interests them. There’s a certain disconnect if you hand in printed work for concept design gigs, it appears too polished and the reviewer wants to see where they can springboard from your rough ideas.

RAFAEL KAYANAN I draw a ton of squiggly lines when I’m trying to find my way around a sketch. Note the extra limbs ghosting on the prelim indicating possible choices on the pose. In this instance I am happier with the rough than the final because the head placement is more appealing and the shading was better on the torso. I would also swing the webbing back to lead the eye to the bottom figure. This Spider-Man TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

scene depicts a Spider-Man hologram being viewed by the couple below.

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RAFAEL KAYANAN Really rough stuff, on the right is the thumbnail I use to enlarge a layout, I work in the darks with a broad marker or just use the side of a pencil. I like using the old Duofold Parker mechanical pencils because it fits snuggly in my palm like a charcoal stick. You have to be careful purchasing them online though, because after a certain age, the barrel turns brittle and can snap in half if you place too much pressure on it. For something like Star Wars, there’s a lot of reference work, so I did a larger drawing (left), that contains more detail but is still very loose. I ended up discarding these studies and went for a focus point on one of the aliens with Luke and Obi-Wan speaking in the background. After all, the scene was not about the Cantina, but on what the two subjects were talking about. So as a comic book storyteller, you have to step away from “showing off” if the image isn’t adding to the main story. I would probably choose this panel layout otherwise, and if it were a double page spread. On the printed page, this bottom panel would be too small for the detail, and unnecessarily eat up valuable deadline time.

STAR WARS TM & ©2008 Lucasfilm LLC

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RAFAEL KAYANAN Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Portion of a page and the roughs. I flopped the small Batgirl figure to direct the eventual fall of her victim down to the larger Batman figure in the Foreground.

Batman TM & ©2008 DC Comics

BOB McLEOD Next time you're thinking of being lazy about adding backgrounds to a page, remember artists like Rafael are putting in 110% and really making you look like the slacker you

RAFAEL KAYANAN

are!

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COVER STORIES

J

ust how did a blank piece of paper turn into the sexy painting on this issue’s cover? Mike Mayhew wanted to do a new painting just for us, but our funds are limited and we just couldn’t afford him. Then Len Gould saw it and liked it so much he decided to buy it for his collection, and paid the difference between our cover rate and Mike’s asking price. It was a win-win-win situation for all of us!

MIKE MAYHEW This cover was done in the same vein as my Women of Marvel TPB work. The characters were chosen by interviewer Len Gould. I really had fun portraying these classic Avengers ladies.

All characters TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

BOB McLEOD Mike often uses live models for his paintings, and I hope he's a fast worker because it must have been difficult for Ms. Marvel and Wasp to hang in the air like that! Here you can see the thumbnail he made to get his basic color scheme of red fading into yellow established, and the underpainting he did before adding subsequent layers to achieve the lustrous finish.

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INTERVIEW

MIKE MAYHEW

By Len Gould

M

ike Mayhew is one of comicdom’s rising stars. His extremely tight pencil renderings have an

uncanny photorealistic feel. This truly forces his art to stand out amongst a crowded field. Mike is

most widely known for the series of covers which he has done over the last few years for Marvel,

most notably on She-Hulk, Pulse, and Mystique. His earlier interior work on Vampirella with writer Mark Millar was simply stunning, bestowing depth to the character not seen since the halcyon days of José Gonzales and Gonzalo Mayo.

MIKE MAYHEW I’ve been playing a lot with gray prismacolor markers in my prelims, to lay down quick values and get a sophisticated sense of lighting. They’re a lot of fun too!

Catwoman TM & ©2008 DC Comics

Mike has a lot on his plate currently; mainstream work and creator-owned; covers and interiors. His career has come a long way over the last decade. Recently, he sat down with me to discuss that journey, artistic influences, and techniques.

LEN GOULD: As always, the best place to start, Mike, is at the beginning.

Could you give the Rough Stuff readers a brief bio?

MIKE MAYHEW: My pleasure. I was born In Mesa, Arizona. I grew up in the ’70s just really into horror movies and science fiction. I was seven years old when Star Wars hit and that just kind of solidified things for me. I just kind of always drew, too. I was an only child, so it was some-

ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

This was one of a

thing that really kept me entertained and

pair of tight

I could just sit there for hours and hours

unpublished Elektra

drawing characters. I never really drew

images that I did in

actual comic pages when I was a little kid,

anticipation for some

but I always drew little scenarios and that

Elektra covers.

kind of stuff.

Elektra TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

GOULD: Were you a comic book fan?

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MIKE MAYHEW

Storm TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

MAYHEW: Yes, but as a little kid mostly of

MIKE MAYHEW

horror comics. I remember having Creepy

Storm cover

and Eerie. I even remember bringing a

With these covers, I

copy of Tomb of Dracula to church, so I

wanted to celebrate

wouldn’t get bored, and I remember my mom tearing it out of my hands. I also had a lot of the Power Records that Neal Adams did the art for. I was a fan of the popular comic book (especially Hulk and Batman) and cartoon characters and drew them a lot when I was a younger kid, maybe before

the African ethnicity of Ororo and T’Challa. So many times in cartoonderived comic art, ethnic races end up in

ten, and then I kind of just got out of it for what-

caricature. I know

ever reason. Then, as an adolescent, I grew up

from working with

and discovered Frank Frazetta and Heavy Metal.

models and photo-

GOULD: OK, now that’s a pretty big step! [Both

ual’s unique, idiosyn-

laugh]

cratic features can be

MAYHEW: Yeah, then I got back into comic

captured, and in the

books when I was 14, 15, because of the art-

course of a series a

work. It just really kind of spoke to me. That was a cool time for art-

range of emotions can

graphs that an individ-

work, too, because there was a lot of experimentation going on. Bill

be displayed.

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MIKE MAYHEW Mystique cover Mystique is probably my best known work.

I thought when I got the gig, “This is going to be as easy as falling out of bed”. Hot chick, espionage, action, no problem...

On Mystique #9, here’s an initial variation on the pose that didn’t quite work as well as the final art turned out.

On Mystique #12 I really wanted to capture a photo-realistic figure that seemed to be flying through the air and not posed. I started with a super-cartoony sketch to get the feel of what I wanted, that I had at my photo shoot to refer to.

On Mystique #16, I actually inverted my model into this pose (balancing her on a step ladder) to get the reality of how it would look. She wore the latex outfit, and looked exactly like this except for the blue skin!

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ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

Mystique TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ROUGH CRITIQUE

By Bob McLeod

T

his Marvel-ous sample page was sent in by Mike Murdock (presumably no relation to Daredevil, aka Matt Murdock). Mike has evident talent and has obviously put in a lot of hours trying to teach himself how to draw comics. He sent me several pages to choose from. He has balanced compositions, his storytelling is clear, his figures are well-proportioned, he’s varying his views, putting in some backgrounds, and no doubt wowing his

friends, so he must be wondering why he can’t get a break at Marvel. What’s he doing wrong?

As I know all too well from personal experience, the problem with teaching yourself is that a lot of your effort gets misdirected, and you tend to overlook the weaknesses in your art that

All characters TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ROUGH STUFF • SPRING 2008

are obvious to others. Many comic artists are self-taught, but it’s a long process of trial and error. Mike, when you draw a panel you’re choosing what to show us, and a lot of your problem is in your choices. I mean what information you’re putting into the panels, and exactly how you’re showing it. Let’s begin with panel one. You’re showing us a cool building. So far so good.

But make it more dramatic with a more extreme upshot and exaggerate the perspective of the building. Maybe move our view up so you get the top of the building in the panel. The top’s much more interesting to see than all that empty space at the bottom. And c’mon, putting a little cloud in the center of every opening is repetitious and boring. Better to place the clouds off-center so they look more random.

Panel two needs some background to show us we’re inside the building, not up on the roof. Nothing fancy, just maybe a doorway, a chair and picture frame will do. I shrunk Cap’s hands a bit to make more room for that and a dialogue balloon. Don’t forget writers like to write dialogue and you have to leave room for it. Some simple metallic shine adds interest and texture to that coffee pot. It would be even better to google some reference and see what an actual coffee pot looks like. He’s also holding it a bit awkwardly. Try pouring with the handle facing away from your body like that and you’ll see. Logan appears to be staring at the coffee cup because his newspaper is hidden behind the coffee pot.

His face is also touching the edges of the woman (is it Wanda?), flattening the depth. He appears to be a large head next to her that she’s reaching down into. By moving Wanda over behind Logan, she doesn’t look so squeezed in between them, and he’s clearly in front of her. They now become a unified shape instead of two separate elements.

In panel three, you now give us too much background. All that detail in such a small space becomes a gray pattern and competes too much with the figures for our attention.

It’ll also no doubt be almost totally covered up with a dialogue balloon. This is exactly what I mean by misdirected effort. There’s a time and place for detailed buildings, but this isn’t it. In a panel like this, it’s better to simply put in a graphic black shadow, presumably caused by light from a window projected onto the wall. This pops Cap forward much better and doesn’t distract from the figures. You also

need to move Cap’s head down away from the panel border. Never have the edge of anything touch a panel border.

And never draw a line into the corner as you did with the towel on Wanda’s head. It looks like you moved your camera and barely got Wanda in the picture. Move everything over a bit to get her into the frame more. Placing your figures correctly is critical when you’re composing your panels, so put much more thought into it. Also, notice the changes I made to Cap’s and Wanda’s faces. On men, it’s better to have a strong, square chin than a pointed, rounded chin. And it adds depth to throw a shadow on the neck and under the nose. On Cap’s face and the two faces below it in panel four I raised the right eye and moved it away from the nose.

The tear duct should be right above the edge of the nostril.

Wanda’s neck is poorly drawn. I also moved Cap’s pectoral down. His star should be up on his chest. And once again I must advise: Learn to draw hands! Yes, they’re difficult, but you can do it. Make it a priority.

The figures in panel four look squeezed into the space next to Logan’s head. You should always try to vary the size of heads from panel to panel. It’s not as interesting when they’re the same size, as Cap and Wanda are here in panels three and four. See how much more interesting your views of Logan are? And where do you want the balloons to go? I’d rather see them over their heads instead of covering up the figures, wouldn’t you? The left side of Wanda’s neck should be under her left ear. If you study the skull and visualize the head transparently, you’ll know where that is. And did Logan stand up?

Why do we seem to be looking down on Cap and Wanda, as if Logan’s up above them? The composition is improved with him lower anyway. This is the focus we want. We don’t need to see Cap’s leg or Logan’s neck. We don’t need to see the coffee. Only show us what tells the story, which in this panel is the talking heads. And if you do show the coffee cup, move it away from the border and make it shorter like it was in panel three. The background can be white, but I’d rather throw in a black to help balance against panel one. And finally, the mouth simply can’t do what you’re attempting with Logan. Put a mirror next to your drawing table. I also moved his right nostril in a bit and changed his right eye. As the head turns, the far eye looks smaller and shorter.

Study the composition of the best artists. It’s really vital in sequential art. Try to group figures rather than just place them side by side, and study when and how to add backgrounds.

You’re very close, Mike, but those last few yards to the goal line are often the toughest. Don’t give up! Readers who would like to submit a sample page for a Rough Critique can send it to P.O. Box 63, Emmaus, PA 18049 or e-mail me at mcleod.bob@gmail.com SPRING 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

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