Rough Stuff #4

No. 4 Spring 2007

$6.95

GENE COL AN

TLEBE O T N

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Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

Featuring

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EVEN BISS

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Batman, Starman, Adam Strange and Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics.

D CHAY R A W

KIN

EW RO R D N

SON BIN

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MICHAEL KALUTA

Volume 1, Number 4 April 2007

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

EDITOR

Bob McLeod PUBLISHER

John Morrow DESIGNER

Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving COVER ARTIST

Michael Kaluta

FEATURED ARTISTS 3

Steven Bissette

13

Howard Chaykin

48

Gene Colan

67

Michael Kaluta

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Andrew Robinson

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

ROUGH STUFF INTERVIEW 24

SPECIAL THANKS Stephen Bissette Howard Chaykin Jeff Clemens Gene Colan Michael Dunne Michael Eury Dave Gutierrez David Hamilton Michael Kaluta George Khoury Andy Mangels Tom Palmer Andrew Robinson John Totleben Ray Wong Eric Nolen-Weathington

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: $24 Standard US, $36 First Class US, $44 Canada, $48 Surface International, $64 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Central cover art by Michael Kaluta.

Batman TM & ©2007 DC Comics. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Bob McLeod and TwoMorrows Publishing. ROUGH STUFF is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

ISSN 1931-9231

John Totleben

ROUGH STUFF FEATURE 60

Wonder Woman Day Art Auction Helps Domestic Violence Shelters Ray Wong

ROUGH STUFF DEPARTMENTS 2

Scribblings From The Editor Bob McLeod

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Cover Stories Howard Chaykin and Michael Kaluta reveal the process of creating a cover.

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PrePro Art by featured artist Michael Kaluta, done before he turned pro.

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Rough Talk Comments and opinions from our readers.

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

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Free WRITE NOW! #15 Preview A sample of our mag about writing for comics, animation, and sci-fi—FREE! APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

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SCRIBBLINGS FROM THE EDITOR:

W

elcome! While we’re just beginning a new year on the calendar, this issue ends our first year of Rough Stuff! What a wonderful year it’s been. I’ve learned a lot about putting the magazine together, and it’s definitely a much different business being on this side of the editorial desk! I’ve reconnected with many great artists I’ve known during my career and been introduced to many wonderful new artists I was unfamiliar with.

I’ve listened to our readers’ many helpful suggestions, and I believe Rough Stuff will keep improving issue by issue.

I haven't really done much with “themes” up till now, but this issue has a definite non-superhero flavor to it, in that all of our featured artists are best known for their comics of other genres. There was an amazing variety of genres in the ’70s and early ’80s mainstream comics that I've sorely missed in the last couple decades. There is still variety, but in the ’70s the top selling comics were often non-superhero (anyone remember Howard the Duck?) Superheroes are great, but there's a much bigger world of comic art out there, and I hope to bring you the best artists of all genres in upcoming issues.

First up is Stephen Bissette, who’s probably best known for his award-winning work on Swamp Thing, a monster comic. Howard Chaykin first caught my eye in the ’70s on Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, a sword and sorcery comic.

Gene Colan, already well-known and loved for his work on Dr. Strange and Daredevil, began his 70-issue run on Tomb of Dracula, a horror comic. Michael Kaluta, our cover artist, started his career in the ’70s working on The Shadow, a mystery comic. John Totleben, our interview subject, worked on Swamp Thing with Stephen Bissette. This issue’s lone “newcomer” is Andrew Robinson, who’s done a lot of RPG fantasy art, among other things.

In addition, we bring you an article about the recent Wonder Woman Day charity art auction, with many great examples of the art contributions. Then we once again show you the evolution of a couple covers, this time by Howard Chaykin and Michael Kaluta. We also have never-before-seen art by Kaluta, done before he turned pro! And then I critique a fun pencil sample page starring the Kubert brothers! All that plus your insightful letters and comments.

Be sure to visit the Rough Stuff page of my web site to see even more great art and comments that we didn’t have room for in this issue. And visit the web sites of our featured artists, many of whom accept commissions: Steven Bissette: www.srbissette.com Gene Colan: www.genecolan.com Michael Kaluta: www.kaluta.com John Totleben: www.comicon.com/totleben/totleben.htm Andrew Robinson: www.theartistschoice.com/arobinson.htm

ROUGH STUFF celebrates the ART of creating comics! Edited by famed inker BOB McLEOD, each issue spotlights NEVERBEFORE PUBLISHED penciled pages, preliminary sketches, detailed layouts, and unused inked versions from artists throughout comics history, before-and-after comparisons, critiques, early work, and more from top comics pros!

Bob McLeod, Editor mcleod.bob@gmail.com • www.bobmcleod.com PO Box 63 • Emmaus, PA 18049

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D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

E T T E S S I B N E H P E T S

e first and e was one of th Stephen Bissett e Joe graduates of th most illustrious best d he’s probably an l, oo h Sc rt be Ku AMP ork on DC’s SW known for his w load hich won a boat w s, e self80 19 e th on some stuff h THING in k or w is h d ye . I first enjo now teachof Kirby awards ex. I hear he’s R Ta t ou ab T, d T YRAN Vermont. published calle toon Studies in ar C r fo r te en C the ing comic art at

STEVEN BISSETTE Swamp Thing, reborn! (from Saga of the Swamp Thing #23, pg. 16) Not much to say — this page was a pure shot, you can still see the barely-harnessed energy of my pencil strokes. I felt as liberated, unfettered and born-again as Swamp Thing by this point in the series! John and I had been craving this juncture since the day we went after the job. I was still getting my sea-legs drawing Abby, which is apparent to me looking back on this (and other pages prior to SOTST #25): my penciling of the character was still tentative and lacking confidence. Luckily, John drew and draws female characters as second nature; his inks rescued many an Abby face and figure in my first few issues with the character.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

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Courtesy of David Hamilton

STEVEN BISSETTE The Un-Men drones (September 1983) — These predate John’s and my tenure beginning with Alan Moore; these were, in fact, done for our final issue or so with writer Marty Pasko, who launched The Saga of the Swamp Thing series with his friend, editor & ST cocreator Len Wein. From our first issue working with Marty (SOTST #16), John and I had stretched the boundaries of creature design as best we could within the parameters we were working with. With Marty and Len’s decision to resurrect the key villain Arcane and his Un-Men, John and I pushed for a fusion of insect, humanoid and mammalian forms markedly unlike those Len and Bernie had introduced in the original Swamp Thing #10. With their blessings, we really went to town, exchanging a huge number of sketches and design concepts, fusing invertebrate and vertebrate structures, which is what you see at play here with these two. It’s too bad in one way so little of this work was visible in the final product, but this gives you some idea how seriously — and playfully — John and I engaged with every aspect of the Swamp Thing gig.

Building around a basic facial design which John cooked up — very Wrightsonesque, quite on purpose: that’s Bernie’s classic “Jennifer”,

STEVEN BISSETTE

in essence, with the sorrowful pure black eyes and exaggerated upper lip — I was toying with a head/body configuration subverting the real-world insect six-leg form into four legs and two arms, distinctively oriented as such. As you can see, these two sketches evoke a hivelike or ant-colony-like physiological and social structure within the new breeds of Un-Men — something that is completely lost, invisible in the issue itself (SOTST #19). As with everything I do, form follows function: the warrior “Pie-Faced Un-Man” has a formidable set of jaws, tough exoskeleton, armored cereatopsian-like head, dorsal spikes (similar to some species of ants), and mole-cricket-like shortened, thickened forelimbs and clawed ‘hands,’ for digging and/or building and fighting. Everything is softened for the drone, the same basic anatomical details, including human-like fingers and toes, and the linework reflects that softer, more pliable nature of its skin; note the harsher, tighter linework on the warrior. Again, form follows function, line expresses purpose as well as texture, weight, volume, emotion.

An aside: I’ve only seen one live mole cricket in my life, in Virginia back in the mid-1970s, but I never forgot it: it’s a very mammal-like insect in appearance and movement, which is unsettling on a pretty primal level, though they’re harmless and actually very cool little creatures. All monsters are based on nature, however inventive, imaginative or divorced from day-to-day reality they may seem, and these were no exception. We’re all just mixing-and-matching, having fun with the forms!

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STEVEN BISSETTE A rare example of SOTST pencils by yours truly (pg. 13 from SOTST #19) completed without full script or the complete text (balloons, captions, lettering) carefully blocked into place. Unlike every other issue of SOTST we drew from Marty’s writing, this issue — which turned out to be Marty’s final issue, as his TV and animated series scripting jobs pulled him away from the comic series — was completely penciled “Marvel style,” with Marty phoning me script pages, piecemeal, and my penciling them from his verbal descriptions. It’s not a method I prefer: one can only compose pages as single units, instead of orchestrating the complete story and imagery with narrative and emotional clarity of purpose and intent. Nonetheless, we did what was necessary. On the plus side, this penciled page clearly shows my design, compositional and story-telling sense of the period (over 23 years ago!) , as well as the ongoing influence and borrowing from Bernie’s original ST art at this early point in my work with the character: all three of those first three panels are copped from Bernie’s work in the original series. John’s inks were still pretty reserved at the time, too — we didn’t really get into drawing Swampy as we saw him until Alan’s tenure began with #20, and his reinvention of the character in #21, “The Anatomy Lesson,” gave us the license we’d long ached for to really cut Courtesy of David Hamilton

loose! The outsized dragonflyship in the fourth panel is more typically “Bissettian”, especially for this period in my creative life.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

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STEVEN BISSETTE Something that was lost for a time in the mid-tolate ‘90s in comics were pages that had no market value, that just told their stories well. In the rush to create ‘sellable’ and ‘hot’ pages for their original art market, it seemed that many of the most prominent comics artists suddenly went nuts, eschewing storytelling for a seemingly interminable procession of posed splash pages. If a page didn’t feature a flashy key heroic character or villain melodramatically engaged in action or posing like he/she were in a fashion fit (see John Water’s Female Trouble), the artists couldn’t be bothered: storytelling took a back seat to cranking out original art for the marketplace, with maximum pricing potential usurping caring about the story, the characters, the readers. (This became so prevalent by the time I retired in 1999 that I was not surprised to hear more than once from friends who were industry vets that new artists they were working with, who were assigned to draw from my friends’ scripts, seemed incapable of telling a story, so determined were they to convert every single page into a splash page of some sort, however disruptive to the narrative or superfluous it

Thus, I submit this little two-page sequence — still among my favorites of all those Alan, John and I did for our Swamp Thing run — from the opening of SOTST #23 (pp. 5 and 6), in which an ill-fated teen lad returns to the car he left his drinking buddies behind in while he (stupid fellow) went to take a piss (note: NEVER go take a piss if you’re a character in a horror movie or horror comic). Though this is a pretty understated sequence, Alan’s script, his suggested staging, the realization of everything Alan called for (down to the “LUP LUP LUP LUP” of the beer can emptying out, crushed in the dead boy’s hand — indicating the violence has just this moment occurred, mere nanoseconds ago, despite the stillness of the tableau otherwise: a brilliant touch on Alan’s part!), and if I may say so my own execution of the particulars in translating his script to pencil (including the characterization of the teenager, based on actor Matt Dillon) right to the concluding pages’s action still works like a charm.

Too many cartoonists eschew or misuse sound effects. The creation of the panel at the top of page 6 from the boy’s scream alone is an effective graphic device, and though I’ve since adopted less aggressive page and panel design aesthetics, at the time my determination to make page and panel composition integral to the emotional impact of each and every page still works for me: the splintered fragmentation of page 6 communicates volumes, culminating in the most disruptive shard of all dead center: the moment of the boy’s death. The symmetry of composition concludes with mirror ‘shard’ panels in which we finally see his killer as he sees him, with his dying vision: Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man.

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Courtesy of David Hamilton. Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics.

end up being.)

The way these two pages work together — the stillness and stability of page 5 setting up the explosion of the boy’s terror and race to live on page 6; the pacing, determined in part by page and panel composition and shapes: emotion as geometry, and vice-versa; the flow of imagery, including the sensuous flow and ripple of the lethal vines; the calculated use of sound effects; the immediacy and urgency of the action once it erupts; the agonizing fade/closing in on Woodrue’s face and eyes — embodied to my mind a rare chemistry at work, though these are hardly ‘show’ or ‘marketable’ pages. Just good storytelling. I still have the original art for this sequence in my personal stash of ST pages, I’ve never even been tempted to part with ‘em.

Note at this time I was still working with literally ‘casting’ my comics: Sigourney Weaver was Abby, Peter Cushing was my Floronic Man, this doomed teenager was Matt Dillon (circa The Outsiders, then playing in theaters), etc. Back in 1977, I was invited to visit the home of veteran cartoonist and illustrator Vincent Fago, who lived at the time on the backroads of Bethel, VT. I was in my first year at the Joe Kubert School, and Vincent was generous with his guest room, hospitality, and his time, offering to critique my portfolio of work (such as it was). Fago rightfully tore into my inability to remain consistent with characterization and faces, and strongly suggested I deal with this by “casting” my characters, drawing them from real-life friends and/or people, and if need be buying books and magazines with photos of performers to base my characters on. As a fan of Paul Gulacy’s work (particularly his run on Master of Kung Fu for Marvel), and having enjoyed seeing Gulacy “cast” the likes of Marlon Brando in his comics, this worked for me. I followed this practice thereafter, and evidence of that peppers my published work, Swamp Thing prominent among that. I found that after about ten pages, or two issues, of drawing a character using specific types and reference, I could conjure those characters freehand. Thanks, Vincent!

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of David Hamilton

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

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STEVEN BISSETTE The next page in the same sequence: ST battles the Un-Men, pg. 14, SOTST #19. As before, penciled from Marty’s phone description of the page’s action. I had a blast with this sequence, bristling with threatening invertebrate shapes and forms, from the overt (the stingers, pincers, jaws, etc.) to the subtle (the moth wings engulfing ST in the second panel, those horse-fly eyes and mouthparts in the bottom right-hand corner of the final panel: horseflies and deerflies have absolutely hypnotic eyes, which sometimes work to give the little bastards time to bite you as you’re looking at them on your arm or hand).

The uneasy insertion of the triangular fourth panel — a narrative aside, as a wasplike Unman carries off his prey — is problematic.

Even sans the subsequent clutter of balloons and captions, this panel is ‘lost’ in the read; I didn’t do my job well here as a storyteller, though it’s a nice page in terms of action and illustrative qualities overall.

Despite the relative freedom I felt completing these pencils sans text, compare this with the printed comic page — once Marty’s script was completed and the lettering was in place, the compositions were cramped and confined in ways they wouldn’t have been had we had the time (we didn’t) to work as we had with Marty on earlier issues, and as we did with Alan until his final ST issue — which, alas, was penciled via phone-in page outlines, and once again the final results were compromised by the affixing of Courtesy of David Hamilton

text elements after-the-fact.

Still, we did what we had to do, in the time we had to work with, and that was all that mattered then.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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STEVEN BISSETTE I still love this drawing as a drawing, for its portrait of one of my favorite characters and the sense of place and life in the tableau, and for the nifty dynamic between that little newt poised between Swamp Thing’s gentle fingers and the silhouette of a gator hanging in the murk of the background. What was deliberate about this piece was the content — contrasting Swamp Thing’s complacent harmony with swamp life forms in contrast to the vicious food cycle the other creatures necessarily inhabit, embodied by the snapping turtle Swampy’s right hand rest upon, devouring an eel, and the hungry mud-puppy coiled around Swampy’s feet — and the color composition: I chose a newt as the focal point knowing it’s orange color would stand out in contrast to the green-gray of Swamp Thing and his surroundings.

But this is here for sentimental reasons, too: This was drawn for John Totleben to PAINT, and paint it he did, for The Comics Journal issue featuring interviews with Alan, John and I. We did the cover for TCJ in barter for back issues and Fantagraphics books, but our intention was to convince our editor Karen Berger and thepowers-that-be to let John and I begin doing painted covers for Swamp Thing. It worked: once Karen saw this painting, John was in — but I never was. Despite numerous overtures, Karen and DC never gave me a shot at painting a cover for the series, which was a determinative factor in my final decision to leave the series, except for the occasional guest-scripting spot. Still, this drawing did its job at the time, and John has done some simply incredible covers for the series. It’s interesting to compare my pencils to John’s final painting (which was indeed painted over the pencils, unlike our later collaborative cover pieces for ST) Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of David Hamilton

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STEVEN BISSETTE SOTST #24, pg. 18, a rare happy ending for Abby and Swamp Thing, and a suggestion of things to come. Though I dislike the second panel on this page — it’s a clumsy, rushed rendering of Swampy (my friend Matt Levin pointed to this panel when the issue saw print and smirked, “Smoky the Bear!”), though I was no longer having to refer to Bernie’s ST — I still like the page composition as a whole, its balance and feel, and by this time was very comfortable drawing Abby.

John forever (thankfully) softened Abby’s features: I was still in Sigourney Weaver mode at this point, giving Abby harsher, more angular features than “our” Abby had, but the body language has grace and a naturalistic warmth of expression I quite enjoyed exploring. I was never a ‘good girl’ artist, by any stretch of the imagination, and though John is perceived as such (and is amazing at it), we both were in full accord with Alan that “our” Abby would be a far more real female character than we were seeing in mainstream comics at this time (only Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez in Love & Rockets were doing innovative, inspiring work in this direction then). Unlike almost every other mainstream cartoonist working in comics at the time, we eschewed the exaggerated breasts and figure, fish-like noses (the shorthand most cartoonist’s use for ‘female face’) or fashion-model look: Abby worked, sweat, cried, smiled, loved and screamed like a real woman, as best as we could muster and maintain that. There are many, many artist who are much better cartoonists than I’ll ever be that so idealize and/or stylize their female characters that they fall flat for me. I love women who live, who wear their lives and emotions on their faces, who don’t always look prim or pampered, capable of being comfortable in their own skins, looking disheveled and uncomfortable when they are — you know, people; human beings.

John was capable and in sync on that 100%, though he still draws stunning women without apparent effort. Among my favorite Totleben convention sketch experiences was the time he was drawing a nude Abby for a fan, in brush and Courtesy of David Hamilton

ink; the fellow was slack-jawed and riveted by the spectacle, and at one point exclaimed, “God, if I could draw women like that, I’d just stay home, draw and jerk off all day!”

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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STEVEN BISSETTE Ah, Nukefaces’s drinking buddy Bob bites the dust in SOTST #35 — my pencils, hot off the #35 script, and John’s inks, after we’d received the script for #36 and realized my extreme image of Bob’s meltdown didn’t jive with the ability for the authorities to identify the corpse in that upcoming second chapter: there had to be at least some recognizable features intact, including his teeth (for matching dental records). John made the changes in the inks.

My pencils, however Courtesy of David Hamilton

loose or tight they may

appear to you (I’ve no idea how they look to others), were never more than a jump-off point for John in their particulars, except in the page/panel design particulars (which John never, ever deviated from): it was all grist for the Totleben mill, which was fine by me. I’d suggest forms, John would run with them in ways no other inker or artist on planet Earth ever could or would. The result was a third artist, if you will: the synthesis and chemistry we were still enjoying at this point in the series was unlike any I’ve ever experienced in my life. So, not a case of editorial censorship, which we never really suffered working with Karen (besides, this was five issues after we’d no longer had to work with the Comics Code): just a minor revision to most eyes that John and I saw to ourselves, via phone conversation, as soon as I read Alan’s next chapter’s script and realized I’d inadvertently made a boo-boo.

This, by the way, was drawn pre-Street Trash (1987), Jim Muro’s NYC midnight-movie gem about winos melting down due to a hyper-toxic stash of liquor.

Note to pencilers: Following up on my notes for the SOTST #19 pencils (above), I always blocked in balloons, captions and lettering, as you can see here.

Note how closely my blocking matches the final lettering: I had and have a good eye for this, cultivated from years of experience. This was and is essential in all comics work, to my mind, and a blessing working from a full script that is simply impossible working “Marvel method,” unless (as Rick Veitch, Jim Valentino and I did in our respective penciled pages for the 1963 series, working “Marvel method” with Alan) one has the option to block in balloons/captions/lettering and revised the pencils accordingly before inking. Blocking in balloons/captions/text elements isn’t just essential for the purposes of composition and spacing in particular panels, as seen here — it’s essential to the flow of the complete page, ensuring the reader can read the page in only ONE way, with the text AND art leading the reader’s eye as the artist wishes to lead it. I can’t emphasize this enough, it’s among the most critical aspects of drawing comics and page & panel composition.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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STEVEN BISSETTE Love stinks for Matt Cable (pg. 11, SOTST #25). We’ve included this one to show how panel borders are also a communication tool, and a key one in the artist’s kit. I have always used panel shape as a vital communication device, but how you render your borders makes a difference, too.

Note that, despite the traditional six-panel grid at work here (a relatively sedate tactic on my part, especially at the time), only the first two panels are straight-edge ruled — panel three, as Matt’s agitation and madness asserts itself, is roughly hand-drawn, though the line is the same weight as the prior two panels. Second tier, the panel borders thicken and sicken, if you will: panel four’s border is rough-hewn and hand-drawn, sans ruler, and panel five thicker, rougher, and more assertive than any on the page, framing a rather elegant image (Abby’s clothing standing in the air, like something out of Bedknobs & Broomsticks) in a manner that accentuates its disturbing nature and emphasizes the mounting horror of the moment. The concluding panel on the page lacks borders — the monstrous, organic manifestations of Matt’s madness are the frame, and they spill over into and onto the page, cuing the point in the story in which Matt’s insanity begins to subsume his and Abby’s lives (and the comic itself).

I see faces as landscape, and it’s in the most intimate moments in the comics I’ve drawn that I’ll choose to focus intently on a character’s face (human or inhuman: this characterizes TYRANT throughout), as in panel three here. Making the character’s emotions vivid, strongly felt, encouraging recognition and empathy, is one goal; another, via the lighting on Matt’s face, is further conveying/enhancing the mood, atmosphere, a sense of time and place, light and shadow. As a penciler, though, I cannot assume what I draw will kiss the reader’s retina: John’s inks often transformed my pencils in ways that surprised me — always pleasantly. John always took it a step further, which is saying something given how far I myself was trying to push the envelope at times.

Finally, let me also mention what a beautifully conceived and written page this is, too. Alan did more with fewer words than any writer, a fact forgotten by pros who recall only the legacy of Alan’s massive scripts. The use of text here is sparing, calculated to optimum impact, the sequence conceived to allow the images and Matt’s actions to convey the chill — the only caption text, at bottom, is transitional, carrying us out of the scene evoking what the pictures cannot alone convey. Masterful writing!

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of David Hamilton

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D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

N I K Y A H C D R A W HO

artest is one of the sm n ki ay h C d ar How talent , with enough ow kn I s st ti ar comic d draws, le. He writes an for three peop nache. He's with a lot of pa th bo es do d an sexy, ng intelligent, ti ea cr r fo n l popular know created severa as h d an s, ok bo AN FL AGG. exciting comic aking AMERIC re db n ou gr is gh series, includin

HOWARD CHAYKIN The Flagg heads date back to 1982, before I actually began the finished artwork on American Flagg! I was playing with a look that combined elements of James Garner, William Holden, and Stephen Collins.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

©2007 Howard Chaykin

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HOWARD CHAYKIN The American Century #3 cover is a pretty solid demonstration of my process. I wanted the covers to have an echo of the boy/girl illustrations of the mass market women’s magazines of the ‘50s—the work of Coby Whitmore, Jon Whitcomb and the astonishing Al Parker.

BOB MCLEOD Art students should take note of the subtle but very important shift of the man's figure from a flat straight-on pose to more of a 3/4 view, making it not only a sexier pose with the cocked hip but adding more 3-D depth as well. ©2007 Howard Chaykin

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HOWARD CHAYKIN As you can see, the idea was all there in the concept, developed in the rough, done on layout bond, then traced onto bristol board for a tight pencil— all done repro size—then traced up onto illustration board to twice up.

Note the horizontal line behind his head—this both anchors the piece, and carries the eye to his expression.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

©2007 Howard Chaykin

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HOWARD CHAYKIN The Escapist rough is based on an idea from Michael Chabon, the author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, in which the Escapist is a comics character created by these fictional cartoonists of comics’ golden age.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

Escapist TM & ©2007 Michael Chabon

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HOWARD CHAYKIN The three pages of pencils are from a mini series I did for Wildstorm entitled City of Tomorrow— a political satire with a lot of gunplay. These are at the point when I’m ready to ink-and the drawing’ness, rather than the tight pencil nature of the pages, is a perfect example of why, for better or worse, I’m my only inker.

This is page three of the second issue, in which our hero, Tucker Foyle, shows up at home for the first time in a decade—to find himself confronted by robot criminals.

The challenge throughout the series was to create a look for these robots that would separate them from the human characters in the books—a technique I developed by looking at dolls and action figures. ©2007 Howard Chaykin

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HOWARD CHAYKIN Page four is a good illustration of the way my stuff looks just before I begin to ink—I say begin because, after the work here is outlined, it’s erased, then attacked again with a nonphoto repro blue pencil, and the inks are then enhanced by a whole new pass with textures and details added.

BOB MCLEOD Note the interesting, easily read silhouette shapes created by his figure groupings on these pages, and how he leads the eye from panel to panel.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

©2007 Howard Chaykin

18

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

HOWARD CHAYKIN Page 17’s large figures are a good demonstration of the building-up process I go through in my drawing—but note, I never indicate blacks at this stage in a comics’ page—I leave that for the second wave of inking I mentioned previously, where those blacks are marked and delineated in blue pencil.

BOB MCLEOD Notice the excellent use of diagonals on all of these pages, creating fluid, dynamic tension and movement.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

©2007 Howard Chaykin

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

19

HOWARD CHAYKIN I have no recollection of actually doing the Girls, Guns and Geeks piece—nor do I have any idea why, or what it was for.

It’s possible it was a pencil drawing for a sample painting I planned to do—beats the hell out of me. ©2007 Howard Chaykin

BOB MCLEOD Well, I don't know about you, but I really want to see that finished

HOWARD CHAYKIN

painting!

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ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

HOWARD CHAYKIN The page of rough layouts is from the first issue of a three book Blackhawk miniseries I did in the late ‘80s for DC. It’s a demonstration of a layout approach I’ve functionally abandoned—in that I no longer do full rough pencils for a page, but rather, work from thumbnails, then do the figures individually.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

Blackhawk TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

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HOWARD CHAYKIN The Reed Richards piece is a card for Upper Deck. Like the American Century cover, I delivered a very rough scribble that indicates character placement, environment, and scale—and, as in the American Century piece, the concept is all there.

Reed Richards TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

BOB MCLEOD Students, if you ever wondered how to make a boring scene fascinating, here's your answer!

Strong black and white

HOWARD CHAYKIN

design!

HOWARD CHAYKIN The second image is my ledger bond rough, where the shapes of the drawing are worked out.

22

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

HOWARD CHAYKIN The third image is that rough, traced onto Bristol board, with the blacks in place. For single illustrations—where the picture has no help but itself, I frequently resolve the blacks at this stage.

Reed Richards TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

BOB MCLEOD Hey, did you notice Howard chopped an inch or two off the bottom to eliminate wasted space and strengthen the design?

He almost slipped that one by me.

HOWARD CHAYKIN The fourth and final image is the black and white finish, which I think works rather nicely, graphically speaking.

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

23

INTERVIEW

JOHN TOTLEBEN Conducted by George Khoury

ohn Totleben, another former Joe Kubert School student, is best known for his beautifully intri-

J

cate, award-winning linework on DC’s Swamp Thing, which is all the more incredible when you learn that he’s legally blind! It’s now extremely difficult for him to do the precise type of

linework that made him famous (not that it was easy before!). John sent me so much great art

to choose from that it was very difficult for me to choose what to print, so be sure to check the Rough Stuff page of my web site to see some more! This interview was originally conducted in 2003, but recently updated for this issue by John himself.

GEORGE KHOURY: How did you discover Swamp Thing for the first time?

JOHN TOTLEBEN: It would have been the very first issue. I remember seeing a DC house ad for it, and just picked up the book when it came out.

KHOURY: Did you follow the entire series, even the Nestor Redondo ones?

TOTLEBEN: Oh yes. I had them all, right to the very end. There might have been 24 issues or something like that, and I bought them all… even the ones that sucked. I thought that while Redondo was a great artist, better than Wrightson as far as drawing figures and women and such, but somehow he still was not quite a match for Bernie’s obviously definitive version of Swampy. While Redondo had some fairly obvious technical advantages, he lacked the sheer vision and feel for the macabre that seemed to come so naturally to Bernie.

KHOURY: I thought you weren’t a big fan of the Wrightson work on the series?

TOTLEBEN: That’s not true. It was his earlier pre-Swamp Thing stuff I wasn’t real crazy about, say, anything he did before 1971. I liked what Wrightson did on Swamp Thing, quite a bit. I was, at the time 13 years old, more of a Neal Adams fan basically, and I had more of a taste for that “realistic” type art. By the time Swamp Thing came along I had expanded my tastes beyond just Adams work and was able to dig a lot of other artists, including Bernie’s work. What Wrightson was doing seemed more caricaturish to me, like Jack Davis’s art, but I quickly became a huge fan of Bernie’s work on Swamp Thing. It was pretty amazing stuff, there’s no question about it. He had really set some new standards, at that time.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

JOHN TOTLEBEN Swamp Thing #91 During this time, my approach to doing painted covers was to work out the composition and drawing on either sketch paper or bristol board at the standard 11” x 17” page size or even smaller. I would then enlarge the sketches in sections on a copy machine to get an overall image size of about 20” x 30”, then transfer the image to the canvas or panels using graphite paper.

Most of the paintings I did for the Swamp Thing covers were done this size, though some are smaller.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

25

JOHN TOTLEBEN

KHOURY: When you began helping [artist] Tom Yeates

Frankenstein

on [the art chores on] Saga of the Swamp Thing, was it

TOTLEBEN: Well, it is kinda hard for one person to do a

I don’t remember

because it was a character you always wanted to depict?

monthly book. At some point, you always end up slipping

what this was for,

Or was it that Tom just needed your help?

behind a little, because it’s a lot of work for one person.

TOTLEBEN: Well, both. I had always wanted to do the

It’s a lot of work for two people, y’know!

but it appears to be a fairly typical quick, rough, brush-inked drawing that was possibly done in a sketchbook.

Courtesy of David Hamilton

KHOURY: Was he behind right from the beginning?

character in some way or another, as it just seemed to me, if I were going to do comics – if I had to pick any character —

KHOURY: What did you think of the stories that Pasko

it would have been Swamp Thing. It just so happened that

and Yeates did together?

Tom had gotten the art assignment on the second series

TOTLEBEN: I remember thinking the writing was getting a lit-

and was working on it, so when he needed an art assist,

tle stuffy as issues went on. There was some good stuff in

which was inevitable really, it was a natural thing for me or

there… but I remember some sort of anti-Christ storyline going

Steve or Rick to pitch in. We would always jump in and help

on, with some girl or something, and it seemed to me that it

each other out in any way, on whatever jobs we were

was getting a little convoluted… boring, actually. The drag for

respectively working on when the deadline loomed.

Tom was that, after the first issue, Swamp Thing was taken out of the swamps and put in a more urban environment. Tom

KHOURY: You were already helping Tom out as early as

excels at drawing the natural world — jungles, swamps, wood-

#2? What kind of things were you doing?

lands, etc. — so for him to have to draw these boring urban

TOTLEBEN: Jeez, I don’t remember what issue it was. I

backgrounds was a waste of his abilities.

may have penciled a couple of pages or some panels. I don’t think I did any inking on those early ones; just some

KHOURY: Stephen Bissette was also there lending a

penciling.

hand to those issues, right?

KHOURY: Was Tom falling behind or was it because

might have done the cover layout, too. I remember him

you were the “monster” guy?

having done a considerable amount of work on the book.

TOTLEBEN: Steve did the layouts to #8, and I think he

TOTLEBEN: I think he was just starting to fall a little

26

behind, although I was an obvious choice to drag in when

KHOURY: Was Tom becoming disenchanted with the

the situation arose.

assignment?

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

JOHN TOTLEBEN Swamp Thing #84 This was one of those covers where I had to scratch my head awhile trying to come up with an idea that would make this work. The subject matter is a bit subdued with no Swamp Thing in sight, so I decided to focus on Abby. In hindsight, I would probably black out the ceiling in the background to force more attention to the figure of Matt Cable lying on the hospital bed.

Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

27

KHOURY: Was the period between leaving the Kubert School and getting the Swamp Thing assignment a tough period for you?

TOTLEBEN: After I got out of Kubert School, I was working with [Golden-Age comic book publisher] Harry “A” Chesler for a couple of years on The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam illustrations, so that kept me busy for awhile, and after I finished that, I had moved back to Erie from New Jersey. I picked up a few art jobs here and there, but mostly I was doing regular jobs. I had worked as a janitor, at one point, for some outfit. I ended up working at a plastic factory for a couple of months – you know, the kind of crap we all have to do before we end up escaping and doing what we want. [laughs] KHOURY: Were you having doubts that you weren’t going to make it as a professional artist?

TOTLEBEN: No, I never really thought that I’d fail. I just was convinced that sometimes you just have to wait until the right moment, I guess, and that moment came, of course, when Swamp Thing came up for grabs.

KHOURY: How did that happen? Did Tom let you know that he was leaving?

TOTLEBEN: Tom did mention to both Bissette and I that he was going to be quitting the book, and that we should send some samples to [then-editor] Len Wein.

KHOURY: Was it Tom’s idea that Bissette and you work together?

TOTLEBEN: I don’t remember if it was his idea, or what, but it might have been. I don’t really remember too clearly, other than I do recall that Tom had recommended us.

JOHN TOTLEBEN Strange Adventures In 1998 sometime, I got a call from Axel Alonso asking if I might be interested in doing something for the Strange Adventures mini-series he was editing. I told him I’d think about it. A few days later, I met Mark Schultz at a convention in Cleveland, and asked him if he might like to write up something

KHOURY: This was around the time of [Bissette & Totleben’s collaboration] the Dracula story [Bizarre Adventures #33]?

TOTLEBEN: Yes, that was the thing where Bissette had

we could work on together for the book. He came up with “Metal Fatigue”, and I finally got a

fallen behind on a job and he had to get it done pretty

chance to draw a cool robot story! Strange Adventures TM & ©2007 DC Comics

quick. So I went up to Vermont, stayed there for a week or two, and we just sat down and completed this job. I

TOTLEBEN: I think Tom was just probably getting tired of

did a lot of work on it, though I don’t know how much he

it, the monthly deadline grind, because he had been

had done on that by the time I got there, but it was a

working on it for over a year at that point and I imagine

pretty big book. Steve may have finished 10 pages into it,

he felt like he wanted to go on to other things.

or something, but there was still a lot left to be done, so we just sat down and did it.

KHOURY: Before getting the assignment from Tom, what were you doing in terms of work?

28

KHOURY: Were you two the only artists to try out for that

TOTLEBEN: Before we got on that book, I was jumping

book? Did you know if Len was thinking of anybody else?

around doing freelance stuff, only real sporadically.

TOTLEBEN: Nah, we weren’t the only ones considered. I

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

JOHN TOTLEBEN Death, The High Cost of Living #3 Pin-up Some local fans immediately recognized the background in this picture as being taken specifically from the Erie Cemetery. I used a number of reference photos and even though I freely rearranged certain elements for compositional purposes, it still retains the distinct feel of a particular area of that cemetery.

Death TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

29

knew that there were a lot of people, apparently, because

sense and an eye for layout, both of which I didn’t pos-

Len mentioned to me that he had people lined up all the way

sess at that time, at least not matching his abilities.

to Idaho or something like that. [laughter] I do know that Scott and Bo Hampton were being considered, as was

KHOURY: Steve had more experience?

Dave Gibbons. Len probably figured that since we already

TOTLEBEN: Well, it just seemed that Steve had the bet-

had some experience on the book working with Tom, and

ter knack for that end of it, and I had a better knack for

our samples were good, we were the likeliest choices.

the inking end. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

KHOURY: Was this the first time you tried out for a monthly?

KHOURY: Steve felt you had the Swamp Thing “look”

TOTLEBEN: Oh yes, that was my first time out.

down better than he did, in the beginning.

TOTLEBEN: Don’t forget that I had been a Swamp Thing

KHOURY: Steve and you had prepared three pages for

fan from the very beginning of the first series, George. I think

this tryout, right? He penciled two, which you inked, and

I turned him on to Len and Bernie’s work at the Kubert

you penciled one and he inked that?

School. I don’t believe he had seen it before then, if I remem-

TOTLEBEN: Right. He may have inked one or two pages

ber correctly. I had a better idea of what the character prob-

over my pencils, and then there were another couple

ably should look like, just based on the fact I had a longer

pages where I inked over his pencils. We just assumed

history of appreciating it and thinking about it, I guess, but

that it would probably work out better with him penciling

that was only a minor thing in the

and me inking, because Steve really has a

beginning.

good storytelling

KHOURY: Was the book already late when Steve and you joined the title with #16?

TOTLEBEN: I don’t remember if it was or not, but it sure it seemed like it. [laughs] If it wasn’t late by our first issue, it was definitely by the second one we did!

KHOURY: Steve mentioned that, in

JOHN TOTLEBEN

his heart, he knew he couldn’t

Un-Men Even before Alan Moore started on Swamp Thing, Steve Bissette and I were already building up a pretty good head of creative steam on the book. We were working out ideas for Arcane’s Un-Men based on insectoid designs almost before we actually began our penciling and inking duties.

30

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

Courtesy of David Hamilton

keep up with a monthly book.

TOTLEBEN: He never mentioned that to me. I just figured that I could do a monthly book, no sweat.

KHOURY: I recall reading that you and he had made a pact that, no matter what, you would both leave the book after one year.

TOTLEBEN: Well, Steve and I figured we’d only be doing it for about a year, anyway. It wasn’t a pact so much as how long we assumed our interest in it would last. We just thought we’d get on the book and do it for a year and move on to other things, but things just seemed to pick up and take off – especially once we got Alan in there.

KHOURY: What kind of editor was Len? TOTLEBEN: Len was a pretty nice guy to work for. I got along with him pretty well, and things went fairly smooth all the while I was working with him during his time as editor. Len’s assistant, Nick Cuti, was also a great guy and quite easy to work with. I think Steve, Alan and I were all pretty lucky to have been able to start off working on Swamp Thing with these guys.

KHOURY: Were you able to contribute to Marty Pasko’s storylines?

JOHN TOTLEBEN

TOTLEBEN: There were some ideas we’d sent along to

KHOURY: In #19, you guys really left a mark on that

Marty. Both Steve and I had ideas, but I don’t know if we

issue. What was different about that one?

ever got to the point where we started submitting a lot of

TOTLEBEN: It was just part of the growing process of

them. I think we probably did send some in, and it was

working on a book. When we first started, Len told me

just that Marty wasn’t around long enough to have used

that they usually like to give new artists or new teams

any of them. So we ended up forwarding a lot of those

about three issues to really get their feel for a book,

ideas to Alan.

because it took about three to really get in there and be

rather grotesque and

able to start hitting a stride. I think that somewhere in

disturbing thing at

KHOURY: It seemed, when you two were doing the

issue #17, Steve and I were already starting to pick up in

Bissette in an attempt

book with Marty, the direction of Swamp Thing was start-

terms of the art, though we also were starting to fall

to provoke him to even

ing to change. Arcane, Abby, and Matt returned as char-

behind a bit, in terms of the schedule! Swamp Thing

more unspeakable

acters, for instance. How did that happen?

#18 was a fill-in issue, but by #19, Steve and I were

TOTLEBEN: Marty had apparently planned to have them

pretty much on the ball. The work we did on issue #17

return even before we got on the book, I would guess. I

and #19 is probably as good as anything else we did in

imagine it was something he had in mind.

the series, as I’m sure you could pull out panels that are

Un-Men As per our usual goodnatured habits of trying to out-do one another, I tossed this

heights of weirdness.

Courtesy of David Hamilton

every bit as impressive as what came after.

KHOURY: Is it true that Len wasn’t too happy when you starting drawing Swampy because you started adding all

KHOURY: Do you remember why Marty left the book?

the vegetation and detail?

TOTLEBEN: Len told me that he was planning to take

TOTLEBEN: To tell you the truth, I don’t remember that

Marty off the book.

coming up; he may have said to keep it toned down a little bit. The thing is, on those first issues, we didn’t go

KHOURY: This was told to you before you started work

that overboard with Swamp Thing. We added some

on the series?

stuff, but we hadn’t gotten to the point where we were

TOTLEBEN: No, this was after a couple of issues, prob-

putting tons of vegetation, and tubers, and all that yet.

ably when I was working on #19, or had just started it.

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

31

Len just felt that Marty was so overextended, and had so

KHOURY: Did you have any help to get those books done?

much going on, that he was risking his health doing so

TOTLEBEN: I did it all myself. This was back in the

much stuff. Being friends with Marty, Len just basically

beginning, when I was young and stupid enough to be

wanted to do him a favor, I guess, to get Marty off the

able to keep doing that sh*t non-stop, and stay up all day

book to save his health.

and all night without collapsing.

KHOURY: Were you told by Len who the “new guy” was

KHOURY: When Alan came in, did you guys have to pick

going to be?

up the pace? Was there a new direction he wanted to go?

TOTLEBEN: Len did mention Alan Moore. He said that

TOTLEBEN: Alan sent Len a pretty tight overview of at

he wanted to get this new guy from England, who was

least the first couple of issues. He knew what he wanted

writing stuff for Warrior magazine, named Alan Moore to

to do with #21, and he had written both Steve and me

do Swamp Thing. That was the first I heard of it.

letters outlining what he planned to do. It was detailed enough so we knew what was coming.

KHOURY: This was around that time you were working on #19, which was falling behind schedule?

KHOURY: Alan was writing in a direction you wanted to

TOTLEBEN: Yes, I think I had gotten halfway through

see the book go, right? Such as getting the character

#19, when the first-half of Alan’s script for #20 came in.

back to the swamp. Do you remember reading “The Anatomy Lesson” script?

KHOURY: Was the book pretty close to cancellation, at

TOTLEBEN: Yes. Because DC wasn’t in the habit of

that point?

sending scripts to the inkers at that time, Steve sent me

TOTLEBEN: Sales were so low that Len told me — at a

a copy. That script was something of a revelation to me!

certain point when I was working on both of those issues

It was almost magical! I remember thinking that things

that, if both books weren’t done in a week or so, the title

were really going to start happening with this book, and

would be cancelled. He was basically telling me that I

we all knew that this was exactly the right direction it

had a week-and-a-half to finish both of these issues! It

should be going.

was a do-or-die proposition, and if I hadn’t gotten the books in on time, it most certainly would have been can-

KHOURY: Why did Tom Yeates stay as cover artist until

celled. Len was to go on vacation and, when he came

#24?

back, the stuff absolutely had to be on his desk, or that

TOTLEBEN: To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I think Len

was it. There was also the problem with the pencils to

wanted to keep him on the covers for a while to maintain

#20, which caused a bit of hair-pulling for Steve and I.

some kind of continuity. When [new editor] Karen Berger

This was Alan’s first issue and the script was perfectly

got on, that’s when she had us doing the covers. I think it

fine as written, but the penciler, Dan Day, saw fit to make

was #25 where Steve and me started doing the covers.

some changes that did not serve the story very well: He added a splash page that was not in the script, plus a lot

KHOURY: Around what issue did you really begin to feel

of pointless symbolic stuff. Also, he did not have a handle

comfortable working with Steve?

on how to draw Swamp Thing, at all. (Dan later told me

TOTLEBEN: I was comfortable right from the start, but I

that he wasn’t really into drawing monsters and horror-

think, we really started to hit our stride around #19 or 21.

type stuff.) When I got the first batch of those pages in

It was around that time when we started picking up,

the mail, I thought, “Yikes! What the hell am I supposed

because after that we were already rolling.

to do with this?” So I called Len, asked him what he

32

wanted me to do with it, and he said, “Just make it look

KHOURY: When did Alan, Steve and you begin to col-

good!” He was really pissed about the art job, so I just

laborate on the stories together?

took that as license to do whatever I thought needed to

TOTLEBEN: Right from the start. Alan had the first storyline

be done to keep true to Alan’s script and the intent of his

ready — that first story arc with Woodrue – which he had that

story. I tried to restore as much of the storytelling as I

pretty much worked out ahead of time. Steve and I were send-

could, redrew practically all of the Swampy figures,

ing him ideas for all kinds of stuff, bits and pieces of this, story

reworked the splash… it was nuts! And all that under this

ideas for that. The second storyline he ended up doing was the

nightmarish deadline-doom situation! That was a real trial-

one with the Demon, that one Steve and I had hit him with early

by-fire, let me tell ya! Luckily, Len and Alan were both

on. He just liked the idea so much that he couldn’t resist so he

quite pleased with the way that issue turned out.

had to do that next.

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

KHOURY: The early collaborations were done through the mail because you still hadn’t spoken to him at this point?

TOTLEBEN: No, I hadn’t talked to him on the phone, not right off the bat. It might have been quite a few months before I actually connected with him by telephone, but we had been writing letters back and forth a lot.

KHOURY: Would you get letters and packages in return?

TOTLEBEN: I received ideas, weird articles, all kinds of sh*t. We’d send him copies of the artwork in progress, and there was lot of correspondence for at least the first year of pretty much the same type of material.

KHOURY: Alan welcomed your ideas?

TOTLEBEN: Absolutely. Alan is the sort of writer who actually solicits ideas from the people he’s working with, just to really get a feel for what it is his artist collaborators are interested in drawing, or what they want to do. It is a real collaborative process, in that respect; he never had problems with artists making story suggestions.

KHOURY: How early in the game did Rick [Veitch] begin helping you guys?

TOTLEBEN: Rick was always there from the start, even from before the start. You’ve probably heard the stories about Rick and me joking about edible, hallucinogenic tubers, and all that stuff, way before we actually started the book. His actual hand in the art probably didn’t start until #21, where I think he did do some stuff. In fact, there’s some machinery throughout that issue that looks awfully Veitch-like, so I think he probably did some of that work, kicking in a few things here and there. He may have very well have had a hand, or at least a finger, in almost every issue early on, probably minor background things, at the very least. Of course, when he started penciling fill-ins, it was just a matter of him stepping to the fore when Steve couldn’t do an issue. Steve and Rick probably remember more clearly.

KHOURY: Was Karen Berger a stricter editor compared

JOHN TOTLEBEN Swamp Thing #161 Frequently, I do cover sketches straight to the paper in a sketchbook or pad with black marker pens and a Sailor White Writer pen, no penciling involved. I bounce back and forth between the black and white pens as I refine the sketch to the point where it can be submitted to an editor for consideration. Once the sketch is approved, I enlarge the image to size and transfer it to 3-ply plate bristol and pencil it up. Swamp Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

to Len?

TOTLEBEN: Probably not a lot. We were doing crazy

TOTLEBEN: I wouldn’t say either of them was strict. Karen

stuff even before the Code was dumped from Swamp

was basically our mother. [laughs] She kept us from going

Thing. They had this stupid, little list of what we couldn’t

too far off the deep end. She really knew how to steer

do. There was the zombie thing: For some reason, we

things, when the pace was picking up. She would know

couldn’t show zombies or whatever, some kind of leftover

when not to interrupt that, and when it needed to slow

remnant of the 1950s [Dr. Fredric] Wertham debacle

down. She was really great to work with, and she brought

[when the Code was thereafter established to enforce

that much-needed woman’s touch to the book.

industry self-censorship] that was still part of the Code.

Remember, this was in 1984, the year Michael Jackson’s

KHOURY: What was the difference working on the book

Thriller video was on MTV, so society was kinda past

under the Comic Code restrictions and after?

having to worry about showing creeping dead zombies APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

33

JOHN TOTLEBEN Dreaming #50, pg. 19 While I was still penciling the pages for this sequence, someone at DC asked if I could quickly ink in one of the panels so it could be used for solicitation purposes.

Hence, the completely inked face of Cain.

Working out that descending spiral, fossil-encrusted, rock-hewn stairway was a bit of a hairpuller, I might add!

Cain, The Dreaming TM & ©2007 DC Comics

34

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

on television. (Not to mention that HBO was airing a lot of horror flicks at that time, and you could always see stuff that was a bit over the top, at least for that time.) In comics, the Code was just a stupid thing, and everyone – the readers and those in the business — knew it was stupid. [laughs] The Code just didn’t seem to have much muscle or relevance, really, so it probably didn’t matter with Swamp Thing whether there was a Code stamp on the cover or not. It’s not like you ever remember your mother asking you if your comic book had the Comics Code Seal of Approval before you read it! [laughter] I don’t think you’ll find one kid in America who ever had to show that stamp to his parents before he read a comic. It was just some stupid little thing that meant nothing, really.

KHOURY: The sales on the book didn’t really shoot up until the Code was dropped.

TOTLEBEN: I don’t know at what point sales started picking up.

KHOURY: So when did you go to conventions and start getting recognition from folks?

TOTLEBEN: I’d been doing cons for years before working on Swamp Thing, but I would say the recognition factor kicked in after a little less than a year into the book, when it started really, really picking up. And it was really, really, really picking up when Steve and I were getting ready to leave. [laughter] By 1985, we had won the Kirby Awards that year for “Best Art Team,” Alan won for “Best Writer,” we got the “Best Cover” award, and whatever else Swamp Thing received… I think we got away with a handful of awards just a few months before Steve and I bailed!

KHOURY: You guys left the book right around the time Watchmen came out?

TOTLEBEN: We left a little before that, so they were probably starting to plan Watchmen. Steve and I quit in the fall of 1985, and that’s when we finally decided that we were gonna call it quits. We still ended up working on the book for a few months

JOHN TOTLEBEN Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #10 This was the first pencil to this cover. It was redone to extend the top and bottom image areas to make more space for the logo, etc. Contrary to what some people may think, this cover was not colored directly from the pencils. I did a full-blown detailed ink job on this piece that was completely buried under overdone digital coloring. I was not happy about it, to say the least. Spider-Man, Man-Thing TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

after that, and we tagged #50 as the last issue that we’d do

seemed to be a confirmation that it was indeed time to call it

together, and then that would be it. The funny thing is, at the

a day, as far as being a team was concerned.

precise point I arrived at the decision to quit, I was walking to a phone to call Steve and tell him this, when the phone rang.

KHOURY: Were you a little burned-out at this point?

I answered and it was Steve calling me to say that he was

TOTLEBEN: No, I wouldn’t say burned-out. I think over-all,

quitting! He beat me to the punch! But that incident just

it just seemed like the right time to back away from it. We’d APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

35

hit our stride, hit a peak, and then, what was the point with

didn’t want to write it, because it had nothing to do with any-

things starting to wind down? The funny thing was that the

thing, really. It just seemed to be the one issue of the entire

issue we really both decided to leave was #46, which is that

run that should never have been, though there still was some

boneheaded Crisis [on Infinite Earths] issue. Alan probably

good stuff in there. Art-wise, there’s probably some interesting work. I had friends who were reading the book, only

JOHN TOTLEBEN Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #10, pg. 15

because they knew me and weren’t necessarily interested in

When Brian Michael Bendis asked me about doing an issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, I was

comics, and they’d come up and say, “What was with that

more interested in who the villain might be. Even before settling on Man-Thing as the tag-team part-

last issue of Swamp Thing, man? Like, what was that all

ner for Spidey, I made sure Brian knew that I was really, REALLY interested in getting the Lizard into

about?” [laughs] No non-fan/collector understood it,

this story. I did numerous prelim sketches of the Man-Thing and the Lizard, many of which were used in the finished art. Spider-Man, Lizard TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

because none of them gave a sh*t about Crisis on Infinite Earths! They just wanted to read Swamp Thing! And, having written it because DC made it a requirement, Alan had to work that stupid crossover in somehow, and none of us really wanted to do it. That was the point when Steve and I just said, “Screw this!”

KHOURY: I read that one of the reasons Steve did that issue was for the potential royalties.

TOTLEBEN: We didn’t get any royalties off of that issue. [laughs] The first time I ever got royalties off the book was for the last thing I did, which was #60, the first issue that went direct [sales distribution]-only. So that’s a bit of strange irony, I guess. We didn’t get royalties on any single issue of Swamp Thing, ever. Royalties came when the trades were put out.

KHOURY: Was there a reason you and Steve didn’t do anything else besides Swamp Thing at DC? TOTLEBEN: We couldn’t do any other work. [laughs] We couldn’t have done any other book really, because we couldn’t work fast enough. Besides that, everything else at DC was pretty much super-hero stuff, which didn’t necessarily interest us.

KHOURY: Did Steve do a Cloak & Dagger issue around that time?

TOTLEBEN: I don’t know if that came before or after.

KHOURY: Did you guys give an ultimatum around #46 that, if the book was scheduled as a bi-monthly, you could still draw it?

TOTLEBEN: No. By that point, we were pretty much through with it. We wouldn’t even have done it together if it came out once a year. There

36

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

was some talk about it going bi-monthly earlier on… I think

made the presentation work, in that respect. But I thought

the book had a momentum that they wanted to maintain, in

Shawn did some great work; that Pog issue is a standout.

spite of the fact that we couldn’t be in every issue. Even the

That’s obviously, and rightly, considered a classic. Other than

fact that we would do a couple of issues and then need a fill-

that, regarding the other fill-ins, it probably didn’t matter who

in, then did another couple of issues, and then a fill-in, did-

drew them, I guess.

n’t hurt the momentum. Fill-in artists didn’t stop the thing; it just kept going and that was largely due to the storylines

KHOURY: What was Alan’s strength on Swamp Thing?

Alan was writing, and people were starting to follow his work, so it probably was a smart move not to make it a bi-

JOHN TOTLEBEN X-Men Unlimited

monthly book.

Pages like this often take a bit of time to work out. A number of very rough panel/page layout sketches are done, and then figure and background sketches, usually done on small pieces of

KHOURY: Were Steve and you able select fill-in artists, like Alfredo Alcala?

TOTLEBEN: Alcala was my suggestion. I remember hav-

sketch paper are drawn up. Many, if not most, of those sketches are graphite paper-transferred to the page, after undergoing various stages of enlargement/reduction to achieve the best compositional effect.. X-Men TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ing a conversation with Karen, and she was basically asking, “Gee, if we got someone to do a fill-in issue inking over Steve, who would you recommend?” I thought, “Well, the only one I can think of working business right now is Alfredo Alcala,” probably because he could maintain the level of detail and the mood. Really, when you think about it, there weren’t a lot of artists who did that kind of line-work and level of intensive detail.

KHOURY: Alfredo was little heavy on Steve’s pencils at times, right?

TOTLEBEN: Well, his stamp was noticeable, though I’m pretty heavy, too. It comes with the territory when you ink in a style like ours, which just tends to overwhelm the pencils a bit.

KHOURY: Did you also recommend Ron Randall, a Kubert School classmate of yours?

TOTLEBEN: I don’t remember if I recommended him or not, because it could be that Karen may have tapped him … I don’t recall. Some of this stuff is just foggy after so many years, George.

KHOURY: Were there any fill-in issues that you guys regret not doing? Maybe the Pog story?

TOTLEBEN: The Pog story is actually the one issue that I think Steve and I could not have done better than Shawn McManus. We could have done an okay job, but I just think that Shawn had a certain touch that made that issue work. One fill-in issue that I think Steve and I definitely should have done was #28, “The Burial,” which Shawn had also drawn. A big part of that story rested on having Wrightson’s version of Swamp Thing and our version of Swamp Thing meet. It was a central idea in that story, but it ended up not looking like either of our Swamp Things! It just didn’t have that touch to it that would have APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

37

It seemed to me that he was more into the drama and

the beginning of it. In the years since, it has obviously devel-

science-fiction, while you and Steve brought out the hor-

oped way beyond that. Everything starts somewhere.

ror in the title.

TOTLEBEN: Well, aside from being a great writer, Alan’s

KHOURY: Sandman almost felt like it was a spin-off of

one weird f*cker. I mean that in the most affectionate and

Swamp Thing in the beginning.

endearing manner possible, with all due respect and rev-

TOTLEBEN: It wasn’t a spin-off. Neil came up with that, free

erence! (After all, it does take one to know one!) He

and clear of anything to do with Swamp Thing. It had nothing

could do all the weird, horrific stuff quite easily, and that

to do with Swamp Thing, because he just had a completely

was the one thing, I think, we all had in common: This

different idea. Neil had an obvious Alan Moore influence early

sort of penchant for bizarre strangeness. Alan obviously

on, but it certainly wasn’t a case of the character of Sandman

had a very strong sense of how to handle horror. And, of

being a spin-off. Now, John Constantine, Hellblazer, that was

course, Steve and I made the most of it with the art.

a spin-off of Swamp Thing.

KHOURY: It seemed like the stories that dealt with basic

KHOURY: But some of the elements done in the “Love

horror came from ideas Steve and you planted in him.

and Death” storyline reappear in some early issues of

TOTLEBEN: That’s true to some extent, but not totally.

Sandman.

There was just a greater willingness among the three of

TOTLEBEN: Yeah, Neil had his influences like we all do,

us to play around more outside the envelope. We weren’t

I’m sure, but it wasn’t what I would consider a spin-off,

afraid to do wacky sh*t. I think there are a lot of people

not like Hellblazer was.

who, if they even get decent ideas, don’t know how to use them. The trick is, if you get a pretty nuts idea, you

KHOURY: How did Houma become Swamp Thing’s

gotta figure out what the hell to do with it, and that’s

hometown? You didn’t go to the swamp to do research?

something we never had a problem with.

TOTLEBEN: I never did, but Bissette did go down South,

KHOURY: When you did Swampy, it was also pretty

and stuck his finger on a little town that looked good

much the only horror comic around until Vertigo

enough…

at one point. I think Alan must have sat down with a map

emerged.

TOTLEBEN: I don’t know if Swamp Thing was the only

KHOURY: Steve went down there?

horror comic, because I don’t know what Marvel was put-

TOTLEBEN: [Laughs] And he made it back, too!

ting out, but I don’t think they were doing any horror at that time. Actually, there was Twisted Tales, which Bruce Jones was editing for Eclipse.

KHOURY: In the beginning, could you ever imagine that, with this book, you could tell any type of story you wanted?

TOTLEBEN: Well, I don’t know if it was even considered

KHOURY: Maybe Epic magazine, but that tended to be

at first. It was one step at a time. We just came up with

more science-fiction.

whatever ideas we thought would work, and it was up to

TOTLEBEN: Epic was science-fiction. Heavy Metal was sci-

Alan to decide what would work and how to fit things in.

ence-fiction. I think, by that time, Bizarre Adventures had fold-

He knew what kind of stories he wanted to tell, and he

ed. I think House of Secrets and House of Mystery were pret-

could figure out a way to make things work.

ty much gone by then. Marvel wasn’t doing any horror titles.

Dracula wasn’t being done at that time, was it?

KHOURY: Were there any stories that were frustrating to draw?

KHOURY: No, that was long over.

TOTLEBEN: There are always those pages that are like,

TOTLEBEN: I guess we just about had the whole field to

“Aw sh*t!” But, no, I can’t think of any single issue off the

ourselves, in that respect.

top of my head that was one I would have disliked over any other, as far as drawing them. I think more of certain

KHOURY: What was your reaction to Vertigo, which

pages and sequences as being pains in the ass, as

seemingly started with Swamp Thing?

opposed to whole issues.

TOTLEBEN: Vertigo started with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman

38

and John Constantine, Hellblazer, standing on top of the

KHOURY: Was the book usually inked out of sequence?

shoulders of the Moore, Bissette, and Totleben Swamp

How exactly does Steve lay out a book?

Thing. That was essentially the Vertigo totem, pretty much

TOTLEBEN: Whatever way he wants. [chuckles] Steve

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

tends to jump around a bit, which works for him. It’s a

a party you and Rick attended?

real organic process, especially when working with Alan,

TOTLEBEN: Rick Veitch came up with that idea back around

where you have the entire script, from start to finish, in

the time Steve and I had first submitted samples to DC. We

front of you. You could pretty much go through it and

were all together at a hotel in Jersey, close to where we had

start seeing how you can handle things a little better. If

lived in Dover. [Artist] Tim Truman got us together to do some

you know that something is going to happen on page 22,

sketches and ideas and stuff for [gaming company] TSR,

then you can foreshadow it on page five, for example,

which he was working for at the time. We did these monster

making it that much easier to do with a full-script, and

designs that they were going to be making into Dungeons &

Steve really thinks like that. He thinks of the story in

Dragons toys. So we spent a week sitting in this hotel room,

holistic terms, how he can wring the greatest emotional

drawing monsters and, at some point, we found ourselves at

impact out of any given story or any given scene. He’ll

a party thrown by an ex-Kubie who was still living in the area.

jump all over the place. It always drives editors nuts,

Veitch and I were sitting there, talking about what we might

because they just want pages in order for the sake of

do if we actually did Swamp Thing, and we threw about

making it a lot easier on them, but from a creative stand-

some ideas. He came up with the edible tubers. [laughs]

point, the way Steve was doing it, it made sense to him.

Instantly, we started making all kinds of sick jokes and, of

To a lot of other artists, they may not have been able to

course, the idea of them being hallucinogenic was something

work that way either. I think some artists just like to sit

that I tossed in. This is one of those things that you think up

down and do page one, page two, page three… until

and it floats through the air, and you don’t think about it

they get to the end. Steve is a bit of a grasshopper when

[again] until later, when you need it.

it comes to doing that stuff. As far as the inking, it usually doesn’t matter whether it’s inked out of sequence or not.

KHOURY: Where did the hippy character Chester Williams come from?

KHOURY: Did you or Steve have any arguments work-

TOTLEBEN: Alan created Chester Williams as a basic

ing on the series? Any disagreements?

hippy-type, as far as I know. Stan Woch was penciler on

TOTLEBEN: That’s kind of the unique thing about the way

that issue and he patterned the character, visually, after

we all three worked on it: We all knew when something

an old friend of ours named Larry Loc, who was also a

worked or didn’t work. There were no real arguments or any-

Kubie student.

thing. It was pretty much recognized that Alan was the one who was gonna steer the course, and any ideas we had we

KHOURY: Was your solo issue the first chance to show

just threw to him and he’d pick and choose as he saw fit.

readers what you could do?

We didn’t have big battles over what should happen with

TOTLEBEN: Issue #48 was the first issue of Swamp

this or who should appear in this issue… there was none of

Thing that I penciled and inked on my own. So, in that

that. We pretty much thought in parallel lines, more or less,

respect, it was the first time most people had seen a

on the overall direction.

complete job by me. I had done some other things solo before that, some short back-ups, and a few covers.

KHOURY: Nukeface was one of your ideas?

There was a “Munden’s Bar” back-up I did with Truman

TOTLEBEN: He was just one of those weird characters I

in Grimjack that turned out pretty nice.

had drawn in a sketchbook.

KHOURY: At that point did you feel more comfortable KHOURY: Do you have an idea where that character

working on your own, compared to working with Steve?

came from?

TOTLEBEN: I was already comfortable working on my

TOTLEBEN: The same place they all come from. I don’t

own, but it’s a completely different thing, obviously. By

remember coming up with a story idea for that, though I may

that point, Steve and I had pretty much exhausted what-

have had a couple of little bits. I just had the character and a

ever it was that we were gonna do together, so solo

basic idea. Steve was the one who suggested using

work felt fresher to me. For me, it was an entirely new

Nukeface after spotting the sketches. And Steve may have

way of working on the book. The time was right to do

tossed in a few ideas, as well, but overall I think Alan’s story

that, I guess, so that’s why it happened.

was something he’d already had in mind after seeing the sketches and general idea I submitted.

KHOURY: Wasn’t your Batman issue originally intended as an annual?

KHOURY: Did the idea of edible tubers come to you at

TOTLEBEN: I don’t know if it was supposed to be an APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

39

something to make the reader look at the book differently.

They wanted the reader to turn the book and read it on its side, and Steve felt that to go from the perspective that you’re normally reading it to the point when you turn it sideways, he had to work into that somehow. You couldn’t just, all of a sudden, flip one page, and there it is sideways.

There had to be a smooth, gradual transition. So Steve devised a layout that made that work. He really did a good job at that, because it had a real natural flow going from reading the normal comic book way and then having to rotate the book to read the panels.

KHOURY: When you did your collage issue, was that done as an experiment?

TOTLEBEN: I had this idea to do a freestyle, improvisational approach to doing comics. Basically what I did was sit down and put together about half an issue’s worth of full-page collages without really having any idea what the hell we were gonna do with it. That was then sent to Alan, who took a look at it and he came up with the story to use as he saw fit. I really didn’t have anything specific in mind for a story with it; it was just me going out on a limb and seeing what we came up with. It’s nuts when I think about it, to do that on a monthly book. [laughs] It just happened to work.

KHOURY: That was done multi-media, more than just pencil and ink?

TOTLEBEN: No, not really multi-media; it was mainly a photocopy collage. For Swamp Thing, I used a little head I had

JOHN TOTLEBEN

annual or not. I forget, but it was supposed to be this

made that was no bigger than an inch-and-a-half around,

Oz #1

double-sized, special thing. I think this was the stand-in

made of acrylic modeling paste and, basically, I had made it

This was one of those

annual, or something like that. I don’t know why they did

a few years earlier just to use as a reference model. It’s not

covers that I nailed

that, but that’s the way it turned out.

terribly impressive looking to look at, in actuality; it looks like a little petrified white turd. I took it and photographed it with

on first crack. Editor Scott Allie sent me the script, which I skimmed through briefly, got the basic

KHOURY: What kind of instruction did Alan give when

a Polaroid camera, an SX-70. Polaroid photos are weird

the “vegetable sex” issue was done? Were you and Steve

because you can do this strange lighting thing with them: If

both left to your own devices on that sequence?

you have a white object, like this head, you can double-light

TOTLEBEN: I don’t know if I ever saw the script for that

it with a fluorescent light on one side and incandescent on

issue, though I probably did, but I don’t have it around any-

the other. The result is this weird color effect, with the incan-

idea and penciled it

more. I imagine they contained the same types of detailed

descent side coming across as an orangish color and the

up pretty fast in a

descriptions Alan typically did in every other script.

sketchbook. After

fluorescent side will be this sick gray-greenish color. It looks kinda cool when you do it that way. So I had taken some

Scott approved it, I

KHOURY: How hard was to draw something that’s

photos like that and used one of them on the cover, for that

transferred this

beyond our physical realm?

weird collage painting. Then I just ran off some photocopies

sketch to a sheet of

TOTLEBEN: I don’t know. Impossible, I would imagine, if

of the Polaroids until they were a real stark high-contrast,

bristol board and did

it’s beyond the human ability to conceive. Fortunately, hallu-

and just collaged them in with all kinds of other stuff. There

up the inks.

OZ ©2007 by Dark Horse Comics, Inc. and its respective Licensors

40

cinations aren’t impossible to conceive! We just came up

were a lot of bits and pieces of watch parts, zippers, and

with the collage bit and some of the other weird stuff that

sh*t like that. I just hunted around and whatever I found that

we did in there. Steve came up with a device for turning the

seemed useful I just stuck in there somewhere. It was pretty

page on its side. Actually, Steve and Alan wanted to do

loose, pretty much a freestyle approach to doing comics

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

storytelling. The fact that Alan even got a story out of it is pretty amazing. He actually did a pretty great job with it.

KHOURY: How did you become the cover artist for the book after you left as inker?

TOTLEBEN: I had done a couple of covers, some of them paintings, after I was done doing the interiors of the book altogether. Basically, I had always wanted to do a bunch of painted covers on the book, but the opportunity never really came up. Then, at a certain point, Karen approached me about doing painted covers for Swamp Thing, and it was around the time I was starting to wrap-up work on Miracleman, so, of course, I jumped at the chance.

KHOURY: You did covers until #100, and then you left.

Was your contract up?

TOTLEBEN: They were done on a freelance basis. I didn’t have a contract to do X-amount of covers, or anything like that. It was just do ’em ’til you drop. [chuckles] I just figured that #100 sounded like a good number, and it also happened to be Karen’s last issue [as editor]. So, again, it just seemed like the right time to move on to something else.

KHOURY: How were you lured back to do covers?

TOTLEBEN: The same way as always: With a phone call. [Editor] Stuart Moore called to see if I might consider doing another bunch of covers, and I was in the mood to do that sort of thing again, so I said yes.

KHOURY: Did they give you a reason why you were called back? Were sales dropping?

TOTLEBEN: No, I don’t know anything about that. Maybe he had someone who was doing covers who had quit, and he had to start thinking of getting someone else, so he thought

pretty good. There were a lot of them that were quite

Sandman #50 pin-up.

to find out if I’d be into doing them again.

interesting. There are a few towards the end which I had

Sandman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

just done in black-&-white, with that heavily detail KHOURY: Was it strange to see the series, one you

approach – the stipple and dense crosshatching – and

helped to revitalize, being cancelled?

some of those turned out pretty well..

TOTLEBEN: It just seemed like it was going to happen, at some point. It was no big deal for me, though I did

KHOURY: Is Swamp Thing a character you ever get

enjoy doing covers, but I wouldn’t probably have drawn

tired of drawing?

another issue anyway. It was just one of those things. It

TOTLEBEN: I wouldn’t say that I get tired of drawing

was over and done with… so what? [laughter]

him. It’s easy to draw the character now after having drawn him for so long, so I don’t get tired of drawing

KHOURY: Did you have any favorite covers from the

him, but I don’t have a real need to draw him. I don’t

ones you did? Do any particularly stand out?

actually wake up in the morning and think, “I have to

TOTLEBEN: A number of them stand out. There was the

draw Swamp Thing!” [laughs]

cover to #34, one that always stands out. There was the cover that had Swamp Thing with the dragonfly on his

KHOURY: Do you enjoy drawing the character because

hand [#93], one I thought turned out pretty well. The one

he’s this vegetation who is constantly evolving? In that

with the zombies and the violin player [#92], that was

you don’t have to draw him exactly the same every time?

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

41

TOTLEBEN: Yes. I’ve got the basic form of the character and I can do what I want with that. We had just done so

even weirder is getting calls from editors saying, “Gee, I

much with Swamp Thing, all those ideas… so the things

was in high school when I read Swamp Thing. I was a

we wanted to do, we pretty much did..

big fan and all of those books,” and now they’re working as editors who call me up to do work. But you get used

Swamp Thing #163 cover pencils.

Swamp-Thing TM & ©2007 DC Comics

TOTLEBEN: It’s a little weird, actually. [laughs] What’s

KHOURY: Do you find it rewarding seeing kids who

to it after a while. It comes with the territory.

weren’t even born when you were doing the book enjoying the comic? How cool is that?

KHOURY: When you look back at this work, was this an important time in your life, working with your friends on this book?

TOTLEBEN: It was a unique period, George, a pretty exciting time, especially from a creative viewpoint. We had generated such a tremendous amount of energy on the book that we were all feeding off of it. It’s a pretty big high to do that.

Kind of after the fact, it would seem that anything else would be a letdown. You do it, you go through it, and when you’re done, you go on to whatever else you’re going to do next. It was definitely a pretty exciting time, especially being able to work with Steve and Alan like we did, doing the things we did. Plus, the fact that we could do it pretty much unrestrained for a good period of time, because early on, DC’s attitude was that it was just a nowhere book on the verge of cancellation — “So who cares what they do with it?”

KHOURY: When did DC start caring and meddling with the book?

TOTLEBEN: When it started getting attention and moving up in sales… in the life of a successful title, that always becomes the point when they want to start exercising more control… and that’s usually when things start to hopelessly disintegrate. [laughter] There’s also a lot of pickiness that goes on once those bread-and-butter superheroes start showing up. They’re very concerned about things like insignias being drawn just so and stuff like that. Nothing lasts forever I suppose, but I think we gave that book just about the best shot it’s ever likely to have, and …I mean, I’d sure hate to have to follow an act like that!

42

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

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COVER STORIES

W

hat happens between the initial layout of a cover, and the finished, printed piece? Usually a lot of changes—some brought about by the pencil artist, some by the inker (assuming they're not the same person as the penciler), and some at the request of an editor or publisher.

HOWARD CHAYKIN Jonah Hex My inspiration for the image— and this is based on memory, as opposed to actually looking at the artwork in question—was a cover for a MAX BRAND paperback by an illustrator named Roy Andersen—who did a beautiful series of covers for Warner books back in the seventies or eighties—imagery that was apparently too damned sophisticated for the western buying public.

Somewhere between the concept and the finish, my rough pencil seems to have lost a bit of horse that Steve saw on the comp, so when I delivered the finish, he asked me to add a bit more horse—which the finish here demonstrates.

44

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

HOWARD CHAYKIN For a single image, I tend to work out the pattern of darks and lights more specifically than on a comics page—and as you can see, the finish is a pretty solid reflection of what was there in the rough.

I was delighted to get an opportunity to do a JONAH HEX cover for Jimmy and Justin’s take on the character. According to Steve Wacker, the then-editor, he opted for the specific comp he chose because no one had done a horse on the cover—pretty odd for a western, huh?

Jonah Hex TM & ©2007 DC Comics

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

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MICHAEL KALUTA Batman: Cat’s Cradle When I got the news in 2000 that my pal Bob Schreck had landed the editorial position at DC Comics that meant he would be wrangling The Batman, I fired off an e-mail laved with Congratulations and ended it with a “please let me work on The Bat...”. Eventually, in 2004, we were able to come together on a Cover (called an Inventory Cover: something to keep on hand to fill in if a cover were needed). I did up three different ideas: Large Swing, Distant Swing and Cat’s Cradle. The Cat’s Cradle won out! It fit the bill for the dark, moody at the same time ooomphy representation of Batman.

MICHAEL KALUTA Batman: Large Swing Sketch 1 The Large Swing is a Deco/ Nouveau pose that can have him smashing through a window, or whatever, quite close up, with city, etc in the bits that show behind him.

MICHAEL KALUTA Batman: Distant Swing Sketch 2 The Distant Swing is another Kalutatype composition. Batman with lots of bats swings in front of (in this case) a church, casting a huge shadow (indicated in line) across the building front. If a church doesn’t cut it, then the building could be, say, a huge neon sign, etc...

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MICHAEL KALUTA Batman: Cat’s Cradle The Cat’s Cradle is that Kaluta design trip with what, 4 bat symbols... his chest, the batarang, his face/cowl and the Bat Signal behind all... the Cat’s Cradle will add a touch of the arcane...

A year later I was asked by another editor if I’d paint the cover up for inclusion in an omnibus dedicated to the release of Batman Begins. When I asked if it were to be a cover, he said no, a pin-up. I mentioned that a pin-up wouldn’t need to be painted: did he mean he wanted the piece colored, like a comic book page (after all, both the painting of a piece and the printing of a painted piece are expensive propositions, much more than the coloring of a page and printing of same)?

Well, he said “Oh, no, we really want it painted!”

Cool! But they really didn’t... it was an editorial mix up. What was needed for the piece was normal comic book page coloring. Still, they got a painted Batman image. Through one thing and another, the piece ended up back in my hands with assurances it’d not be used, so here: Rough Stuff gets the benefit of their editorial kindness! Batman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

GENE COL AN

e of the always been on Gene Colan has Dracula ics. His Tomb of m co in ts tis ar best ries ever, favorite comic se y m as w es ri se was) with d inked (as he of ten e always enjoye and he was pair I’v gh ou lth A . r, Tom Palmer the grey my favorite inke flustered by all e er w rs ke in any other perb even ing his work, m that his art is su e er h s u s ow ut he sh ter recently tones he uses. B commissions af g in az am g in ill do uninked! He’s st 80th birthday! celebrating his Courtesy of David Gutierrez

BOB MCLEOD These two fairly recent commissions are proof that Gene Colan is doing some of the best work of his very distinguished career at the age of 80! Staggering depth and form, dramatic lighting and camera angles, subtle rendering and dynamic poses.

There's simply no one like him.

Shadow TM &

GENE COLAN

©2007 Conde Nast

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GENE COLAN This Daredevil drawing came to me as I went along. Once I established the positioning of the two figures, I had enough Daredevil TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

of the background in my files to complete it.

Courtesy of David Gutierrez

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BOB MCLEOD Gene was one of the first to break away from the standard grid and use angled panels, which allow more dramatic shots and add visual excitement. Imagine this page with horizontal panel borders and see how much quieter it would be.

And he always finds the most dramatic camera angle. His panels have so much depth from his constant use of foreshortening. This page and the next were never inked or published, as far as I know. When the decision was made to end the series, the script was rewritten and new pages were drawn. ©2007 Marvel

GENE COLAN

Characters, Inc.

Courtesy of Tom Palmer

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BOB MCLEOD These photocopy scans don't really capture the subtlety of Gene's grays, but you can see why most inkers were intimidated by what to make black and how to render the grays. Gene's pencils are casually loose and fluid yet tight and finished at the same time. The trick to inking Colan is in understanding form and light rather than simply using the standard mannered feathering of most comic art. ©2007 Marvel

GENE COLAN

Characters, Inc.

Courtesy of Tom Palmer

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BOB MCLEOD Well, there was no next issue, unfortunately. As magnificent as it is, this page was never used, so I'm very happy to show it here. Gene did go on to draw more Dracula stories, however, in a different format that suited his style even better, in my opinion, and I was the first lucky inker to benefit from the format change as the Tomb of Dracula was reborn in glorious halftones! You can see more of these unpublished pages on the Rough Stuff page of my web site. ©2007 Marvel

GENE COLAN

Characters, Inc.

Courtesy of Tom Palmer

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BOB MCLEOD After the Tomb of Dracula color comic ended it's spectacular 70-issue run, it was immediately succeeded by a black & white magazine. This piece originally framed Marv Wolfman's preface to the first story in The Tomb of Dracula magazine #1, which I was lucky enough to ink because Gene's usual Dracula inker, Tom Palmer, was busy on another assignment. It was an unfortunate editorial bungle to schedule it when Palmer was unavailable, but I was thrilled to step in, and did my best to do justice to the job. Since it was a black & white mag, I had the benefit of being able to use wash tones to capture all the subtle grays Gene uses in his pencils, which are so difficult to translate into black line when inking him in a color comic. You can see my inks for this page

GENE COLAN

on the Rough Stuff page of my web site.

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53

GENE COLAN Tomb of Dracula #1, page 19 As I worked on this one, the details of Drac and other figures fell into place.

For the other four panels I moved the action along in proper sequence.

Reading and rereading the script helps me know what to show sequentially. [See my inks for this page on the Rough Stuff page of my web site! -ed.] ©2007 Marvel

GENE COLAN

Characters, Inc.

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GENE COLAN Based on all the technical info before me, I managed to illustrate this commission right off! In other words, I had enough reference in my files to compose it in my head based on the reference pics on hand.

BOB MCLEOD Gene makes it sound so easy doesn't he, but just look at all the gray tones and atmosCourtesy of David Gutierrez

phere he achieves.

It's difficult to imagine any other comic artist pulling off these scenes as well. Most of these commissions are done on a large scale, too, making them all the more

GENE COLAN

impressive.

Courtesy of David Gutierrez

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GENE COLAN The composition does not always come to me immediately. In this particular case, the main problem is always to deal with the main character or characters first. The background is the last consideration.

BOB MCLEOD In looking at Gene's many commissions, several of which I've been fortunate enough to ink, I'm always amazed by his incredible imagination. It's difficult enough to draw this scene so well, but just to conceive it is even more impressive to me.

MICHAEL DUNNE Whenever you commission an artist, there is always the anticipation: Will it be as I envision it? I combed through ancient covers of Mystery in Space to find a classic image of Adam in flight, soaring to Alanna's rescue and mailed the reference off to Gene. The magic day arrived and I eagerly opened the over-sized package. My first thought was huh??? Adam's not flying, but then I stopped and looked and savored and realized that Gene had ignored my suggestions and created something

ADAM STRANGE TM & ©2007 DC Comics

much more magnificent.

Courtesy of Michael Dunne

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GENE COLAN Anything with Howard was always a jog for me. Nothing all that special to say other than if Howard was in it, that was all I cared about! My most beloved assignment to date!

Would do it in a heartbeat again with Steve Gerber.

Simply inspired!!!

[See my inks for this page on the Rough Stuff page of my web site! -ed.]

GENE COLAN

howard the duck TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters,

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GENE COLAN I enjoyed the storytelling aspect of these panels. No action, just plenty of drama! Don MacGregor poured his heart into this book. Lovingly and well done!

BOB MCLEOD I believe this page is from an issue of Ragamuffins, which was printed directly from Gene's pencils without being inked.

Although this has become fairly commonplace today, it was unique at that time. However, today's comics printed from pencils rarely have any gray tones. The whole purpose of printing Gene's pencils like this was to take advantage of his unique approach, and to show the fans his extraordinarily sub-

GENE COLAN

tle penciling style.

©2007 Don McGregor and Gene Colan

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TOM PALMER I’ve been asked by my old friend, Bob McLeod, editor of Rough Stuff magazine, to write a short overview of my inking Gene Colan over the years, and it seemed like an easy task. After much thought and false starts, I have come to the conclusion that I really don’t have a definitive approach or method working over Gene; it all started with him, and I never stopped to ponder.

I was just out of art school and freelancing in an art studio when I went in to Marvel looking for work, and my first assignment was penciling a Dr. Strange comic, my first comic book work! Returning after that assignment for more work, I was asked if I would like to ink another pencil artist on the same book’s next issue, which in hindsight was the nicest way to tell me I was not ready for the big time, but maybe had some promise. I did have inking experience doing line spots for the art studio, but I had never inked a comic book before.

When I was given Gene’s pencils on that issue I was quite impressed with his work, especially after coming off my first attempt at penciling, his dramatic compositions, the fluidity of his figures, and the beautiful pencil rendering, each page was absolutely striking. If you’ve never seen Gene’s pencils before you have missed some remarkable examples of graphite artistry laid out in a range of grays from light to dark, with very little comic book line work. Someone once said, “inking Gene Colan is like trying to ink smoke”, but without any reference point on comic book penciling, I just thought this was the way it was and dove in.

I used pen and brush to ink the darkest passages of his art, used the pen to shade some areas with strokes and cross hatching, and being a big fan of Wally Wood’s work and his use of zip-a-tone, laid in different values and patterns of “zip” to capture those gray pencil areas remaining. Somehow it worked I suppose, Marvel continued using me over Gene on Dr. Strange, and I had valuable time to learn the business.

Gene Colan is still doing beautiful pencil rendering, work so accomplished that inking his pencils would only detract from his art, the crude printing process of earlier days replaced with digital technology today that can capture his art perfectly for all to enjoy.

DR. STRANGETM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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DAY Art Auction Helps

By Ray Wong

Art by Terry Dodson Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of Andy Mangels

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Domestic Violence Shelters

H

ow do you take a hobby like collecting comic books, memorabilia, and original art and turn it into an event that raises $15,405.33 for two domestic violence shelters? That’s exactly what Andy Mangels did on Wonder Woman Day, October 29th, 2006 at Excalibur Comics in Portland, Oregon.

The art auction, featuring donated works from comic book, animation, and comic strip

artists such as Alex Ross, Adam Hughes, John Romita Sr., Dick Giordano, Bob McLeod, Bill Morrison, Terry Dodson, Anne Timmons, and Matt Clark, benefited Raphael House and Bradley-Angle House – domestic violence shelters for women and children in Art by Alex Chung

Portland. Dodson, Timmons, and Clark appeared at the event to do signings.

Excalibur Comics displayed the auction art, and proxy bidding by e-mail for a short period before the event allowed non-attendees to participate in the fun. All art

help women and children of domestic violence.

He contacted two local shelters in Portland to gauge

depicted Wonder Woman — a fitting symbol to combat

the marriage of a comic book character to the issue of domestic violence

auction included an Alex Ross painting that sold for

awareness and thought the theme

$4000. Adam Hughes’ marker piece with background

would make for a great event.

fetched $777. A flowing Terry Dodson pencil drawing

Mangels had worked previously

brought $500. Ryan Sook’s exquisite pencil rendering of

with Bradley-Angle House, and

a sword-wielding Wonder Woman went for $400.

they signed on shortly after.

According to Mangels, “I

of Development for Raphael House, cited that the event

put my heart and soul into

“made a critical difference in the lives of thousands of

contacting artists about

women and children in this community fleeing domestic

donating for the event. I

violence.”

started with ones I

Kristan Knapp, Development Director of Bradley-

knew, then

Angle House, proclaimed “Andy Mangels’ creative

cast a wider

‘Wonder Woman Day’ celebration offered Wonder

net.” The

Woman fans and comic book readers in general an

response

opportunity to do something locally to stop abuse

was mind-

between intimate partners.”

boggling.

The idea for the event started out as a suggestion to

Courtesy of Andy Mangels

their interest. Raphael House was thrilled about

violence against women and children. Highlights for the

According to a press release, Jessica Elkin, Director

Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

He ended

Andy Mangels to include Wonder Woman in a charity

up with

cause. Though he had organized many charity events, few

over 100

related to comic books. An avid Wonder Woman collector,

pieces of

Mangels decided the heroine would be most appropriate to

original

Continued on page 65

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Art by Geof Isherwood Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of Andy Mangels

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Art by Stephen Sadowski Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of Andy Mangels

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Art by Franchesco Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of Andy Mangels

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Continued from page 61

art for the auction, some full color paintings to go with pen and ink drawings, marker pieces, and numerous pencil works from some of the biggest names in the industry.

Mangels put Wonder Woman Day together in a span of two months so that it could take place before Halloween. “I wanted an all-ages event, something families would like. I wanted kids to be able to come in their costumes and have a really great time.

People came who had never before set foot in a comic book store.”

Coincidentally, October also happened to be “National Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” and by all accounts, Wonder Woman Day was a smashing success. The two shelters were amazed and grateful at the amount of money the event took in. While putting it together, Mangels envisioned a goal of raising $10,000 for the two charities. Even before the day of the event, the email proxy bidding on art had nearly reached that amount. Surpassing $15,000 went beyond even Mangels’ wildest hopes.

Perhaps the greatest testament to the success of Wonder Woman Day can be found in a comment by Peter Marston, the son of Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston, “I think Wonder Woman would be proud.”

[Ed. note: To see over 100 more of the Wonder Woman Day sketches, check out this link:

Art by Ryan Sook Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

Courtesy of Andy Mangels

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PRE-PRO

W

hat did your art look like when you were 16? Did you ever wonder what a pro's art looked like back when he was in high school? Here's what Michael Kaluta was doing at that age. He even knew what a crow-quill point was! A genius in the rough!

MICHAEL KALUTA Originally drawn in a Grumbacher spiral-bound sketch book using a crow quill pen point, this drawing of the Heliumetic Navy from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom Books shows my 16-year old mind and hand at work: the mind was lucid, but check out that figure: woooo: pretty squirrely! The flyer designs owe a large debt to the airships in the Abbott art for Ballantine Books paperback covers from the ‘60s.

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D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

MICHAEL KALUTA

. His is so individual Michael Kaluta yle is rent, but his st pa ap e ar s ce influen been. and always has totally unique Edgar comics work on y rl ea RUCK, is h om Fr DOW, to STARST A SH E TH to ’s VENUS, continRice Burrough missions, he’s m co d an s on ok illustrati imagination. to his many bo stic detail and ta n fa is h h it sw ued to dazzle u mics. rite people in co vo fa y m of e He’s also on MICHAEL KALUTA Doorway To Nightmare #2, sketch One of the refining steps in creating the cover for Doorway to Nightmare #2... after some very rough sketching, tracing paper is put over the rougher drawing and a cleaner image is developed. This would, in its turn, be light-boxed onto the DC Comics cover stock for final rendering and inking.

MICHAEL KALUTA Shadow #10, sketch This is one of the layers done for DC Comics’ Shadow #10 cover in the 1970s... like the boat sketch with “I, Vampire” on it [see page 75], this would be flopped for use on the finished cover, then the two killers added and, lastly, the large Shadow Face looming over all.

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MICHAEL KALUTA Batman #242, sketch In 1969 or ’70 I opted out of a DC Comicspromoted bus trip to the Sparta Plant (possibly in Connecticut) where comic books got their color separations hand made in a room full of specialized Rubylith cutters (a technique made obsolete by today’s computer coloring of comic books). Instead I hung out at the nearly abandoned DC Comics offices, doing little scribbles in a small office off the main hallway.

Carmine Infantino, then Big Boss of DC Comics, leaned into the room and asked if I’d ever considered doing covers for DC. Whatever my answer was, he asked that I dope out some Batman cover ideas.

This sketch is my first ever cover idea, done then and there... I believe it was Carmine’s idea for me to pull in closer and make it more of a punchy image, the Kaluta composition that eventually ended up on the comic book [shown above].

Batman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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MICHAEL KALUTA Batman Sketch On Placemat.

The City Diner on Broadway, NYC, has a stack of these placemats, used for the breakfast set-up.

However, the waiters generally bring me a small sheaf to draw on when I come in late night while waiting for my burger and fries. The “unimportance” of the paper keeps my ideas from getting “precious” and allows them to drive my hand.

Not all the scribbles are kept, but now and then the germ of a finished piece is developed during this process. Other ideas, like these on this page, are held off to the side for some future use.

Batman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

MICHAEL KALUTA Another group of drawings done on a placemat or some similar “scrap” paper: letting the mind

MICHAEL KALUTA

drive the hand: there’s a fairy at the top left, then, to the right, what appears to be a sphinx or lion, but is actually Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN holding a string of keys. Just below that is The Batman in a pretty nice pose: it might even be the pose I used on my Batman pin-up where I have Catwoman sculpting him. Left of that is what I was tempted to call a Shadow Sketch, until I saw the high heels... it was an Idea for a Game Magazine illustration of a woman detecting her way into a basement with flashlight and legs...

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MICHAEL KALUTA Ghaglan These are the methodical tracings I did as the next to final step in drawing my first professional 6page strip for DC Comics. This was done in the first year of my career, 1969... it’s probably the last time I did such finished work in the prelim stages: time just would not allow such an indulgence, especially once there were 20 pages to draw for each story.

Before this stage I’d have done thumbnails and larger versions of each panel. I used Polaroids of my own face as the “hero”... I’d quickly drift away from using any photos, often using a mirror as a posing tool when needed.

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MICHAEL KALUTA About three weeks before Halloween ‘06 I was asked by a Los Angeles’ gallery if I had any Halloween-type art they could add to their upcoming exhibit of same done by designers and make-up artists in the film industry. I didn’t have anything on hand, but said I’d try to get something done: I missed the deadline, but hope to finish this up for Halloween ‘07.

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The image grew out of my nostalgic love of the old Halloween paper products and the black and orange color motif of the holiday.

As with every finished image I do, there are layers of “refining tracings” before I get to my desired composition. The next step from the most finished Sharpie tracing would be to transfer the image to the “good” paper, generally via light box, and then I’d ink and paint.

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MICHAEL KALUTA Wonder Woman Pin-up Here’s the sketch for the finished Wonder Woman pin-up: getting all this looseness on the paper allowed my eye to pick out the gestures I wanted to use in the final.

If I were to use a model, I’d have done a sketch similar to this before posing, then arranged the model based on my scribbled whim, then photographed same and drawn the final using that photo as the main reference.

In this case I did an overlay of transparent bond paper and refined the art until it looked “right”, then transferred that to the paper I’d ink on.

MICHAEL KALUTA Wonder Woman Pin-up There’d been such a deadline rush on the Wonder Woman pin-up, I never finished the art to my satisfaction before it had to be at the office for publication (this was 1982, years before the computer and Internet would make life so much easier...) When the art was returned, I did my final rendering: Here’s the piece, published in this variation for the first time.

Wonder Woman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

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MICHAEL KALUTA House of Mystery #315 About the next-to-last cover done for the “I, Vampire”

Mystery); here you see the finish. I was told that the boat shouldn’t be pointing the way I have it in the sketch, so I light-boxed that drawing for the completed cover.

I, Vampire TM & ©2007 DC Comics

MICHAEL KALUTA

series from DC Comics (as presented in House Of

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D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

N O S N I B O R W E R D AN name to me, son was a new in ob R ew dr n A a fantashis work! He’s ve lo ly al re I t bu ciler and l as a fine pen el w as r, te in tic pa ncil essed by his pe pr im ry ve as w inker. I be, I know you will d an e, er h n work show cker fan, he’s a Mort Dru r ea h I d n A o! to book! gold star in my a im h s ve gi h whic

ANDREW ROBINSON Here is my layout for a He-Man front and back cover. I completed the final which included pencils, inks and colors. Sadly it never saw print due to my principles.

The art director loved everything except for the coloring. He insisted on some over the top crazy coloring, which just didn’t jive with my style. I tried convincing him that I was right. Sometimes sticking to your guns means you might have to miss out on a paycheck. And I did but it was worth it- every penny.

He-Man TM & ©2007 Hasbro

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ANDREW ROBINSON Here’s a breakdown for a sample page for some Vertigo book. I really like the cartooning. And tracing off my rough helps me to keep that initial energy from my sketch. It also helps steer me away from adding too many superfluous details.

Unfortunately it was too cartoony for Vertigo and I didn’t get the job. Oh well, I probably would have been late anyway.

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ANDREW ROBINSON Trying to fit the Sinister Six into this square must have taken me three days or more, drawing and erasing until the paper turned a shade of gray. And it was just for one card from the game VS

by Upper Deck. Doc Ock straining in the background makes the piece for me.

And then there is Kingpin, a very simple design which makes it one of my favorite VS cards.

ANDREW ROBINSON

Mysterio, Sandman, Vulture, Electro, Kraven, Kingpin, and Dr. Octopus TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ANDREW ROBINSON Top left I think this is the only time (for publication) that I’ve drawn the Hulk, and man, did I have a good time. The whole time I was sketching I just kept imagining things (usually rocks because they are easy and fun to draw) shaking and breaking. And I remember quietly chanting… “Rumble, Rumble, Rumble”. It’s good to think about motion and the emotion behind it. For me it puts more spirit into the drawing.

Top right Nick and the commandos in one war and I was in another, the battle of the tangents. In this case I used Photoshop after finishing this sketch, to cut out background figures and move them slightly to avoid bad tangents. For example, Nick’s right arm seems to be leaning on a commando’s back. So to correct this bad tangent, I just moved that background figure to the left. I find this process a lot easier and much less time consuming than using sheets of tracing paper.

Bottom right When I think of the Punisher I see him as being very stoic. For this composition I was inspired by the propaganda posters of WWII . The straight lines in his form help define his defiant attitude as he pulls a “John Wayne” in the midst of enemy fire.

Bottom left I was asked to draw a card for VS that depicted an army of Sentinels. So I drew just one. For the final I used Photoshop to duplicate this one Sentinel into a company of Sentinels making some bigger and some smaller to create some space. It was quite a short cut but I loved how it turned out.

Characters TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ANDREW ROBINSON These sketches are for a double-page illustration for Star Wars Insider. I really enjoyed playing inside this space. To show that Obi Wan is the center of the action, I used the different layers of space. To keep Obi Wan in the middle of the conflict, I put him in the middle ground. The flying droid cropped in the left corner brings the foreground into play. Then smaller droids suggest the background. With just a few layers a lot of space can be created. Characters TM & ©2007 Lucasfilm.

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The straight forward approach. This design is just too flat.

ANDREW ROBINSON This is my final rough for the design of an

ANDREW ROBINSON

ANDREW ROBINSON

Avenger’s painting. It just comes down to finding out where all the puzzle pieces visually fit together. This always takes longer than I anticipate but it feels so good when you finally get it right.

ANDREW ROBINSON This is the final pencil drawing for a painting of the Avengers. At this point I am using some photo reference that I shot.

That helps me work out where the shadows and highlights fall on the human form.

Thor, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Iron Man and Captain America TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ANDREW ROBINSON Top Left First attempt at a design for a Ghost Rider painting.

Top Right This composition works better and we see more of the open road.

Bottom This is the final pencil version after drawing from reference shots with a model and plastic skull. And I also found reference for the bike which is a necessity for me. It’s very difficult to draw motorbikes out of my head.

ANDREW ROBINSON

Ghost Rider TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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ANDREW ROBINSON This is a breakdown for a page from an upcoming issue of Dusty Star. Early on in my comic book career I got to hear Mike Mignola speak about his process.

He has a common sense approach to designing a page.

Get everything important (the basic drawing, the lighting, spotting the blacks, all key story elements, etc) worked out in the rough.

After you lay down a solid foundation, completing the final page is no problem and a lot more fun.

This may not work for everyone but it worked for me and my work really improved.

After I am satisfied with the rough I just blow it up on the copy machine, and after some light boxing, it's time to ink.

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ANDREW ROBINSON This is the final drawing for the painted Starman #72 cover. Again I took some photo reference mainly for lighting purposes.

To see more of my pencils, roughs, breakdowns visit www.nextexitprodu ctions.com and get the Androx sketchbook. The sketches in this issue of Rough Stuff are from the upcoming Androx #2 and the next Dusty Star Sketchbook.

Starman TM & ©2007 DC Comics

BOB MCLEOD See Andrew's awesome finished painting from this sketch on the Rough Stuff page of my web site!

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ROUGH TALK I just wanted to quickly congratulate you on one of the best comic industry related magazines (specific to artists) to come along in a long time, Rough Stuff! The magazine arrived on the stands with little advanced warning or fanfare, but when I saw that first cover I just knew that something interesting and worth my $7 was to be found in those pages. Thankfully I was right! I like also that I’m able to go to your Rough Stuff website and see further artwork from my favorite artists. This only enhances the experience. Please keep doing what you’re doing. I greatly look forward to each new issue!

Thank you, Neil K. Hill [Thanks, Neil. Everyone should check out the Rough Stuff page of my site to see lots of extra stuff we couldn’t fit into the mag: www.bobmcleod.com/roughstuff.htm -ed]

Hi, Bob. The reason I’m writing you is I just started to pick up Rough Stuff and it has given me the urge to pick up the old #2 pencil. First, thank you very much for a magazine like Rough Stuff, I love art in the raw stage. I’m a product of the old school—Buscema, Alex Raymond, Mac Raboy, and so on—and my style is on the loose side.

And I feel, like a lot of others, that today’s pencil art shouldn’t be so darn tight. It leaves the inker with nothing to do but trace. Be well, and thanks again for Rough Stuff.

Best, David Hillman Hillman Arts [Apologies to Jerry Boyd for neglecting to credit him for contributing scans of John Buscema’s doodles on p.15 last issue.-ed.]

SEND YOUR ROUGH COMMENTS TO:

As usual, Rough Stuff was at its best, with a collection of some of comics’ best. After learning that both Buscema and JRJR would be in the latest issue, it was a no-brainer that it had to be ordered!

You do a great job commenting on the art, and having the artists do that on their own stuff. If only the issues came out a little more frequently.

But that’s fine.

Have long been a fan of your clean, classic lines inking. I try to learn to ink myself, but stick mainly to tightening figure work and composition and leaving the inking to those, who, as you often say in the mag, are the finishers and embellishers of pencils!

Regards, Thad Branco www.firstsalvo.com What a wonderful and insightful magazine. Getting to see the pencils of so many artists, plus having them comment on their own work, is such a great idea. If only there were a little more “how-to” in the magazine. It’s a great magazine, and like Draw!, it gives you lots of insight.

Clare Gooney Hi. I just got Rough Stuff #3. I really like your mag.

I have loved your work for a long time. I remember some strip you had in either Playboy or Penthouse (woman in a blue outfit with a woman symbol—can’t remember what the name was, though). I hope one of these days I can meet you.

Thanks so very much, Richard A Scott [That Playboy strip from the ’70s was called Singlewoman, written

by Judy Brown. -ed.]

email: mcleod.bob@gmail.com (subject: Rough Stuff) or snail mail: Bob McLeod, Editor- Rough Stuff, P.O. Box 63 Emmaus, PA 18049

ROMITAMAN ORIGINAL COMIC ART IF YOU LOVE COMICBOOKS, THEN YOU “MUST” CHECK OUT ONE OF THE LARGEST INTERNET WEBSITES FOR COMIC BOOK ART AND COMIC STRIP ART EVER PRODUCED! THIS MAY BE YOUR BEST ARTWORK INTERNET SOURCE! CHECK OUT OVER 1000+ “PICTURED” PIECES OF COMICBOOK AND COMIC STRIP ART FOR SALE OR TRADE. ALSO CHECK OUT THE WORLD’S “LARGEST” SPIDER-MAN ORIGINAL ART GALLERY! I BUY/SELL/AND TRADE “ALL” COMICBOOK/ STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT. SO LET ME KNOW YOUR WANTS, OR WHAT YOU HAVE FOR SALE OR TRADE!

www.romitaman.com APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

85

ROUGH CRITIQUE

By Bob McLeod f you’re serious about improving your penciling, send us a sample page and I’ll publish and critique one page per issue sent in by our readers. Many beginners struggle with the same problems, and I think it’s helpful to see a critique of another artist’s work.

This action-packed sample page was submitted by Jeff Clemens. He says

I

the lead roles are played by the Kubert brothers, so I’m assuming Jeff is a student at the Joe Kubert School. Let’s see if we can bump him up to the head of the class!

First, let’s begin with what I think Jeff’s doing right. Jeff obviously draws very well and with some study will soon be working as a comics pro. His composition is very good. He’s using the panel space well, focusing on what needs to be shown and nothing else. He’s using a lot of diagonals and variety in the size of the main shapes, and he’s moving the viewpoint around well. He’s also doing what Joe Kubert does so well, which is a good mix of really close close-ups and really long long shots. There’s a lot of drama, emotion, and action. The forms have weight and the panels have depth. His storytelling is very clear without needing words.

As with most beginners, though, he still needs to study figure drawing a lot more. His anatomy is weak and awkward, and his foreshortening is off. He hasn’t put much thought into developing a rendering style yet, either, but that will come easily enough with a bit more study. The other thing that really jumps out at me is his lack of correct perspective in the backgrounds, which by the way, are pretty sparse. You can get by with that on an average action page, but a good sample page really needs more (and better) backgrounds.

Panel 1: Jeff, I’m guessing you don’t wear glasses. All eyeglasses have nose pads, and your bridge has depth and is shown from below, yet your lens frames are flat and shown straight on. A little research and reference on stuff like this goes a long way. The eyebrows look like they’re on fire. Study your own in the mirror. But this is a great close-up otherwise.

Panel 2: I generally dislike profile shots, which tend to look flat. Since the Adam figure on the right is closer to us, it would have been much better if we were looking over his shoulder. It’s unclear whether he’s just holding the sword or if he’s hitting Andy in the hand or clavicle with it. I’m guessing that you’re attempting to show him just threatening Andy with the sword, but you’re forcing me to guess by using this awkward angle. And is he losing his grip on the sword, or what? You’re also having some difficulties with anatomy here. Andy’s left thumb is dislocated (ouch!), and Adam’s left ring finger is broken (double ouch!). Adam’s right arm is

86

ROUGH STUFF • APRIL 2007

coming directly out of his pectoral (chest muscle) rather than his shoulder (that’s gotta hurt!). If you feel your own jawbone, you’ll notice it’s in front of your ear, not behind it like you drew Adam’s.

Panel 3: This reminds me of my advice in the critique I did for issue #1, where I said think of Charlie Brown flipping upside down from a baseball hit right at him when you show someone getting hit by a punch. So you have the right idea in exaggerating the action with Adam, but the other part of my advice was about the guy throwing the punch. You need to show him putting

his whole body into it, not just his arm. If you were going to punch someone as hard as you could, you wouldn’t lean back and swing your arm up like that, you’d lean forward and throw your fist forward. Andy looks like he’s glued to a wall here and can only move his right arm. He also appears to be standing on the edge of the beam, knocking Adam way off of it, but in the next panel he’s shown walking forward and Adam’s still on the beam! Your foreshortening on Adam’s figure is also poorly done. His legs appear to be growing out of his rib cage, and his left hand doesn’t quite look attached to his arm. His right hand should enlarge as it comes toward us. I can’t figure out why you left a gap in his jaw line, which flattens his face into his neck instead of making it appear to come forward, as it should. And overlapping the glasses and sword would really add depth as well. This might be a good time to have the figure coming out of the panel..... a gimmick that should never be overdone, but it works here.

Panel 4: Backgrounds at last, but not in proper perspective! If we’re closer to Adam and Andy than to the other figures in the distance, why aren’t the other figures smaller? Where might your vanishing points be? All the horizontal lines of the building should be receding to a single point way off to the left. The lines from the beam heading to the right need to meet at a point off to the right on the same horizon.

And if you are up high and look down to the street below, the vertical lines don’t look vertical, they begin to converge toward a vanishing point far below. The light gray lines are yours, so you can see how far off yours are. This calls for 3-point perspective. Get a cheap book, and you can easily learn it in one day and take two giant steps toward the head of the class.

It’s mind-blowing how many artists don’t understand basic perspective.

Panel 5: Excellent panel. But he still doesn’t seem to be gripping that sword very tightly. Compare it to this remarkably similar panel by P. Craig Russell from Rough Stuff #3. See what I mean? Now, that’s gripping! You’ve also dislocated Andy’s right thumb. You have a perfectly good model on the end of your arm. Look at it and compare it to this. You need to get reference and draw 50 hands.

Become the class expert on drawing hands! You can do it in one day. One day!

Take one body part at a time and study it for a day and memorize it.

Jeff, really work on your anatomy and your perspective and backgrounds, and work on making your action more dynamic by studying

John Buscema and Jack Kirby, and you’ll be far ahead of your fellow students in no time. You’re strong on camera movement, storytelling and composition. Study your favorite artists and develop your rendering. You’re almost there!

Readers who want to submit a page of pencils or inks for a critique should email a full-size 300dpi scan to me at mcleod.bob@gmail.com, or mail a photocopy to: Rough Stuff Critique P.O. Box 63 Emmaus, PA 18049

APRIL 2007 • ROUGH STUFF

87

We hope you enjoy this FREE

WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH (former Marvel Comics editor and Spider-Man writer), WRITE NOW!, the magazine for writers of comics, animation, and sci-fi, puts you in the minds of today’s top writers and editors. Each issue features WRITING TIPS from pros on both sides of the desk, INTERVIEWS, SAMPLE SCRIPTS, REVIEWS, exclusive NUTS & BOLTS TUTORIALS, and more! Issue #15 features an in-depth interview with J.M. DeMATTEIS, discussing his work on Disney’s Abadazad with MIKE PLOOG (who provides a sidebar interview, and our all-new cover)! We also have a NUTS & BOLTS section on DC’s 52 series, featuring script by the MARK WAID/GREG RUCKA/GEOFF JOHNS/GRANT MORRISON team, breakdowns by KEITH GIFFEN, and pencil art by JOE BENNETT and CHRIS BATISTA! Then: JIM OTTAVIANI—writer of TWO-FISTED SCIENCE—tells you about the world of nonfiction comics writing and publishing!

GRIMJACK’s JOHN OSTRANDER discusses the difference between writing a character you own and a “franchise” property! STAR TREK novelist BiLL McCAY tells how to deal with editors and rewrites, and more!

(80-page magazine) SINGLE ISSUES: $9 US SUBSCRIPTIONS: Four issues in the US: $24 Standard, $36 First Class (Canada: $44, Elsewhere: $48 Surface, $64 Airmail).

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TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

Here it is! A special Nuts & Bolts section featuring script, layouts, and pencil art from issue #24 of DC’s red-hot 52 series!

[© 2007 DC Comics.]

Feast your eyes on J.G. Jones’ sketch for the cover to the issue, then his finished inks, and, finally, the fully rendered cover as it appeared in your pull-file!

52 NUTS & BOLTS | 89

52 #24 FINAL PAGE ONE THE OLIVER QUEEN PANEL ONE: EXTERIOR ESTABLISHING, MAYORAL CAMPAIGN OFFICE. 1 DATESTAMPS:

Week 24, Day 1.

Star City

2 SIGNAGE:

QUEEN FOR MAYOR Campaign Headquarters

3 FROM IN/burst:

MAGGIN!

(VERY CASUALLY PANEL TWO: INTERIOR. OLLIE QUEEN GIVING A PRESS DRESSED) IS IN HIS MODEST OFFICE, LEAST TWO CAMERAS. AT CONFERENCE TO REPORTERS WITH AT POPS HIS HEAD IN THE FAR LEFT, A YOUNG ELLIOT MAGGIN ATTACHED.) DOOR. (SEE ELLIOT PHOTO REFERENCE, 4 ELLIOT: 5 REPORTER:

6 OLLIE:

You rang, Ollie? than Mr. Queen, with the election less you as three weeks away, voters still see ell nutsh a political UNKNOWN. Can you your platform once more for-REPORTERS! Elliot, come talk to these nice

ELLIOT ON THE BACK, PANEL THREE: OLLIE PATS CONFUSED AS. SHOVES HIM IN FRONT OF THE CAMER 7 OLLIE:

CAMPAIGN Ladies and gentlemen, this is my to take MANAGER, and he’ll be DELIGHTED any further QUESTIONS!

8 ELLIOT/whisper: 9 OLLIE/whisper:

Ollie, what are you DOING? wanna talk to YOU!

They

Gotta take an important CALL. You say. can do this. You know what I’d Use the word “FATCATS” a lot.

TO THE REPORTERS AS PANEL FOUR: ELLIOT, NERVOUS, WAVES OLLIE SCURRIES OFF. ((more)) calls! I didn’t hear 10 ELLIOT/whisper: I SCREEN your one come IN...!

11 OLLIE/whisper:

This one, you WOULDN’T.

DISCREETLY PULLING A PANEL FIVE: TIGHT ON OLLIE’S HAND LEAGUE COMMUNICATOR SHIELD-SHAPED, OLD-SCHOOL JUSTICE SIZE OF A CREDIT CARD. FROM HIS POCKET. IT’S ABOUT THE 12 OLLIE/whisper/off:

PRIVATE LINE.

13 SHIELD:

JLA COMMUNICATOR

PANEL SIX (THIN)

DC COMICS 52

[© 2007 DC Comics.]

The creative process for 52 is very much a collaborative one.

In a nutshell, the team of writers (Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, and Geoff Johns) works out the stories with the editor—for this issue, it was Steve Wacker.

90 | WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW

Keith Giffen then breaks the scripts down into rough layouts (in which we see copy placement, where each number corresponds to a piece of copy in the script), which are then developed into pencil art, in this case by Phil Jimenez (which was then inked by Andy Lanning).

PAGE TWO PANEL ONE-A

WRITER CREDITS

PANEL ONE: EXTERIOR, REAR ALLEY WAY. GLANCING AROUND TO MAKE SURE NO ONE’S LISTENING IN, OLLIE SPEAKS INTO THE COMMUNICATOR LIKE A CELLPHONE, IS EXITING THROUGH A REAR DOOR. 1 OLLIE:

GREEN ARROW here.

2 OLLIE:

Who’s this? Supes, is that you?

Bats?

WHOEVER it is, am I glad to hear from Y--

PANEL TWO-A

ART CREDITS

PANEL TWO: CUT TO FIRESTORM, ELSEW HERE, LIKEWISE USING A BADGE AS A CELLPHONE. 3 FIRESTORM:

It’s FIRESTORM, Mr...Arrow, sir.

I...umm...

4 FIRESTORM:

How...ARE you...?

5 ELECTRIC:

PEEVED. That ain’t Firestorm’s VOICE, kiddo. Who is this and how’d you get this FREQUENCY?

PANEL THREE-A

COVER AND EDITOR CREDITS

PANEL THREE:

BACK TO OLLIE.

6 ELECTRIC:

I’m Firestorm’s...SUCCESSOR, sir. the communicator through HIM.

7 ELECTRIC:

You don’t really KNOW me, but I’m a big FAN and...well...I wanted to INVIT E you to...to...

8 OLLIE:

To WHAT?

9 ELECTRIC:

N-NO, sir.

A TAYLOR HICKS concert?

I got

WHAT?

To...to...

Current 52 editor Mike Siglain explains things from here on: “I talk to the writers numerous times within the week, and they certainly talk to each other, but we make sure that we all get on the phone at least once a week to revise and tweak the scripts, and to make sure that the story is still heading in the right direction.

[© 2007 DC Comics.]

52 NUTS & BOLTS | 91

PAGE THREE

“We usually decide which writer gets what scene by committee. It depends upon which writer had the idea for the scene, which writer is most familiar with the characters, and which writer has the time in his schedule to do the writing.

SPLASH. INTERIOR, JASON RUSCH’S COLLEGE-STUDENT APARTMENT. FIRESTORM’S STILL ON THE “PHONE,” AND WITH HIM ARE FIREHAWK, SUPER-CH IEF (IN AN OPEN TRENCHCO AT, POWERSTONE VISIBLE), BULL ETEER (IF AVAILABLE--GRANT ?), AND AMBUSH BUG. THE GATH ERING HAS THE AIR OF A POKE R PARTY--CHIPS, SODAS. 1 FIRESTORM:

...to join the new JUSTICE LEAGUE.

2 TITLE:

WEEK 24

JUST IMAGINE

“Once all of the various scenes are written, I’ll stitch the issue together, then send it out to the writers so that everyone can comment and tweak accordingly.

“Keith Giffen’s role has been monstrous.

Aside from breaking down every single issue and keeping all of the pacing in check, Keith acts as the continuity police and as an extra set of eyes. He’s constantly coming up with tweaks and scene variations that enhance the story. [© 2007 DC Comics.]

92 | WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW

PAGE FOUR S OVER M, STILL TALKING, LOOK PANEL ONE: FIRESTOR R. FIREHAWK AND BULLETEE 1 FIRESTORM:

Pardon, what?

2 FIRESTORM:

Oh.

PANEL TWO:

.

Well, there Firehawk

HE LOOKS OVER TOWARDS

PAGE FOUR, continued

TOWARDS

PANEL FIVE: FIREHAWK CHIMES IN AS FIRESTORM WRESTS THE “PHONE” FROM THE BUG.

And Bulleteer.

13 FIRESTORM: 14 FIRESTORM:

Sorry, Mr. Arrow...

No, I don’t know who “Giffen” is, EITHER...

15 FIREHAWK:

Ask him if he knows where J’ONN J’ONZZ is.

It never feels like the JUSTICE LEAGUE without the MARTIAN MANHUNTER.

SUPER-CHIEF.

3 FIRESTORM:

s himself And someone who call SAGAW...SagnoWA...

4 FIRESTORM:

...SUPER-CHIEF.

5 FIRESTORM:

sir.

He’s new to me, TOO,

TO SEE AMBUSH M, STARTLED, LOOKS UP PANEL THREE: FIRESTOR HIM. BUG POPPING IN ABOVE PIZZA place?

EBRAIN! Is that the FLAM Hey, 6 BUG: 7 BUG:

Tell him NO MSG!

8 SFX:

POP!

9 FIRESTORM:

Also, Ambush Bug.

10 FIRESTORM:

ly, ARKHAM? What? He WAS? Real didn’t MENTION--

PANEL SIX: A SECOND LATER. AMBUSH BUG IS GONE, BULLETEER ASKS A QUESTION OF FIREST ORM, FIRESTORM (COMMUNICATION NOW FINISHED) STARES AT THE COMM BADGE IN HIS HAND WITH DEJECTION. 16 BULLETEER:

Well?

17 FIRESTORM:

He said he doesn’t know.

18 FIRESTORM:

And not to call anyone else with this.

And that he’d be by next week to confiscate it. But it’s a good question since no one’s seen him for six months:

No, he

FIRESTORM, BUG, HAVING FALLEN ON PANEL FOUR: AMBUSH THE “PHONE.” GRAB TO R FLOO THE WRESTLES HIM TO Send up a PLOT and a Hello, room service?

11 AMBUSH: right AWAY! OGUE DIAL of s page e thre D! Giffen’s getting BORE 12 FIRESTORM:

=HNNFF!=

((more))

“The script for the pages shown here was physically typed by Mark Waid.

Once everyone decides which scene is going to be written by which writer, that writer goes off into his little corner of the world to pen his pages.

Once the pages are done, they’re distributed by the editor to all of the other writers. After everyone has had a chance to read and digest them, they’re discussed, tweaked if need be, and finally approved. The locked pages are then sent off to Keith Giffen to lay out. [© 2007 DC Comics.]

52 NUTS & BOLTS | 93

PAGE FIVE TAIN HING SHOT, THE OLD JLA MOUN PANEL ONE: LONG ESTABLIS Y) E, WE CAN SEE J’ONN (TIN ANGL THIS FROM .

TERS HEADQUAR FAR SIDE NG HEAT VISION ONTO THE FIRI AIR, MIDIN RING HOVE BUT FROM SEVERAL YARDS AWAY, OF THE BARREN-ROCK MOUNTAIN END OF WHAT HE’S DOING UNTIL THE WE WON’T BE ABLE TO SEE THE SEQUENCE. 1 CAPTION:

“Where IS J’Onn?”

2 DATESTAMP:

WEEK 24, Day 2

2A CAPTION

Headquarters.

Original Justice League

2B CAPTION

RHODE ISLAND.

PANEL TWO: OFF.

NG TIGHTER ON J’ONN, PROJECTI

HIS HEAT VISION

3 J’ONN:

nmeer himself My friend, I pray to H’ro . that you will UNDERSTAND..

4 J’ONN:

...and FORGIVE me.

“My major role as editor is, first and foremost, to make sure that the writers’ vision comes through on a weekly basis. It’s my job to get their story into the hands of the readers, and that involves working with the writers, artists, colorists, and all of the various production people at DC, who are the real unsung heroes of this project. Creatively, I throw in my two cents when I talk to the writers, but only to enhance the story or help them in their writing.”

INTO STS HIS SUPER-STRONG FIST WE PANEL THREE: J’ONN THRU SPLINTERS OF ROCK FLYING. ING SEND E, FSID CLIF Y THE ROCK S IN G, HEAT-VISION-CARVED LINE OKIN L-SM STIL SOME SEE CAN CLOSE N, WE NEED TO STAY FAIRLY THE CLIFFSIDE, TOO. AGAI PICTURE FOR THE END. TO HIM AND SAVE THE BIG you. Perhaps had I heard what happened to 5 J’ONN: en before it was I intervened...had we spok too LATE...

6 J’ONN:

d we? Not really. ...but we couldn’t, coul we saw in each It had come to where all al FAILURE. other was the pain of mutu

BLUE BEETLE (TED) IN THE PANEL FOUR: FLASHBACK TO OFF BY J’ONN WHILE J’ONN HED BRUS G BEIN WATCHTOWER, TOR WOMB. MONI THE IN LAYS DISP STUDIES ignoring TED. “We were BOTH guilty of 7 CAPTION: 8 CAPTION:

various CRISES “We were too busy with our for assistance... s plea his ZE RITI PRIO to ANY of us what but he knew better than DANGER we were in.”

Thanks, Mike.

See, folks? There’s nothing to it. All the 52 crew has to do is achieve the impossible—52 weeks in a row!

For more great Write Now! insider writing tips and how-to's— including more 52 script and art—be sure to pick up WN #15, on sale now!

Look for the sensational MIKE PLOOG cover!

[© 2007 DC Comics.]

94 | WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW

THE END

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The history of a character as old as Superman, from 1939 to his tragic fate in DC Comics’ hit INFINITE CRISIS series, and beyond! Reprints the first appearance of The Blue Beetle from 1939’s MYSTERY MEN COMICS #1, plus interviews with WILL EISNER, JOE SIMON, JOE GILL, ROY THOMAS, GEOFF JOHNS, CULLY HAMNER, KEITH GIFFEN, LEN WEIN, and others, never-before-seen Blue Beetle designs by ALEX ROSS and ALAN WEISS, as well as artwork by EISNER, CHARLES NICHOLAS, JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, KEVIN MAGUIRE, and more!

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ROY THOMAS’ new sequel, with more secrets of the JSA and ALL-STAR COMICS, from 1940 through the 1980s:

The definitive book on WALLACE WOOD’s super-team of the 1960s, featuring interviews with Woody and other creators involved in the T-Agents over the years, plus rare and unseen art, including a rare 28-page story drawn by PAUL GULACY, UNPUBLISHED STORIES

by GULACY, PARIS CULLINS, and others, and a JERRY ORDWAY cover.

Edited by CBA’s JON B. COOKE.

• Wraparound CARLOS PACHECO cover!

• More amazing information, speculation, and unseen ALL-STAR COMICS art!

• Unpublished 1940s JSA STORY ART not printed in Volume One! • Full coverage of the 1980s ALL-STAR Each lists PUBLISHED COMICS WORK in SQUADRON, with scarce & never-pub- detail, plus ILLOS, UNPUBLISHED WORK, lished art! and more. Filled with rare and unseen art!

(240-page Trade Paperback) $29 US (68/100 Pages) $8 US EACH

WALLY WOOD & JACK KIRBY CHECKLISTS

(192-page trade paperback) $29 US

Prices include US Postage. Outside the US, ADD PER ITEM: Magazines & DVDs, $2 ($7 Airmail) • Softcover books, $3 ($10 Airmail) • Hardcover books, $6 ($15 Airmail)

COMICS ABOVE GROUND SEE HOW YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS MAKE A LIVING OUTSIDE COMICS

HERO GETS GIRL!

THE LIFE & ART OF KURT SCHAFFENBERGER MARK VOGER’s biography of the artist of LOIS LANE & CAPTAIN MARVEL! • Covers KURT’S LIFE AND CAREER from the 1940s to his passing in 2002!

• Features NEVER-SEEN PHOTOS & ILLUSTRATIONS from his files!

• Includes recollections by ANDERSON, EISNER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ALEX ROSS, MORT WALKER and others!

(128-page Trade Paperback) $19 US

SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN The ultimate retrospective on COLAN, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his nearly 60-year career, plus a comprehensive overview of Gene’s glory days at Marvel Comics! MARV WOLFMAN, DON MCGREGOR and other writers share script samples and anecdotes of their Colan collaborations, while TOM PALMER, STEVE LEIALOHA and others show how they approached the daunting task of inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages!

Plus there’s a NEW PORTFOLIO of neverbefore-seen collaborations between Gene and such masters as JOHN BYRNE, MICHAEL KALUTA and GEORGE PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created specifically for this book by Gene! Available in Softcover and Deluxe Hardcover (limited to 1000 copies, with 16 extra black-and-white pages and 8 extra color pages)!

COMICS ABOVE GROUND features top comics pros discussing their inspirations and training, and how they apply it in “Mainstream Media,” including Conceptual Illustration, Video Game Development, Children’s Books, Novels, Design, Illustration, Fine Art, Storyboards, Animation, Movies & more! Written by DURWIN TALON (author of the top-selling PANEL DISCUSSIONS), this book features creators sharing their perspectives and their work in comics and their “other professions,” with career overviews, neverbefore-seen art, and interviews! Featuring: • LOUISE SIMONSON • BRUCE TIMM • DAVE DORMAN • BERNIE WRIGHTSON • GREG RUCKA & MORE! • ADAM HUGHES (168-page Trade Paperback) $24 US

COMIC BOOKS & OTHER NECESSITIES OF LIFE WERTHAM WAS RIGHT! SUPERHEROES IN MY PANTS! Each collects MARK EVANIER’S best essays and commentaries, plus new essays and illustrations by SERGIO ARAGONÉS! (200-page Trade Paperbacks) $17 US EACH ALL THREE BOOKS: $34 US

THE DARK AGE Documents the ‘80s and ‘90s era of comics, from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN to the “polybagged premium” craze, the DEATH OF SUPERMAN, renegade superheroes SPAWN, PITT, BLOODSHOT, CYBERFORCE, & more! Interviews with TODD McFARLANE, DAVE GIBBONS, JIM LEE, KEVIN SMITH, ALEX ROSS, MIKE MIGNOLA, ERIK LARSEN, J. O’BARR, DAVID LAPHAM, JOE QUESADA, MIKE ALLRED and others, plus a color section!

Written by MARK VOGER, with photos by KATHY VOGLESONG. (168-page trade paperback) $24 US

(168-page softcover) $26 US (192-page trade hardcover) $49 US

DICK GIORDANO

COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOL. 3

CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality!

• Covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor, peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS on his career milestones!

• Lavishly illustrated with RARE AND NEVER SEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art (includes a color section)!

• Extensive index of his published work!

• Comments & tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO & others!

• With a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS and Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ! (176-pg. Paperback) $24 US

ALTER EGO COLLECTION, VOL. 1 Collects the first two issues of ALTER EGO, plus 30 pages of NEW MATERIAL! JLA Jam Cover by KUBERT, PÉREZ, GIORDANO, TUSKA, CARDY, FRADON, & GIELLA, new sections featuring scarce art by GIL KANE, WILL EISNER, CARMINE INFANTINO, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MURPHY ANDERSON, DICK DILLIN, & more!

Reprinting the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #7 and #8 (‘70s Marvel and ‘80s independents), featuring a new MICHAEL T. GILBERT cover, plus interviews with GILBERT, RUDE, GULACY, GERBER, DON SIMPSON, CHAYKIN, SCOTT McCLOUD, BUCKLER, BYRNE, DENIS KITCHEN, plus a NEW SECTION featuring over 30 pages of previouslyunseen stuff! Edited by JON B. COOKE. (224-page trade paperback) $29 US

(192-page trade paperback) $26 US

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, VOL. 1-5 See what thousands of comics fans, professionals, and historians have discovered: The King lives on in the pages of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR! These colossal TRADE PAPERBACKS reprint the first 22 sold-out issues of the magazine for Kirby fans!

• VOLUME 1: Reprints TJKC #1-9 (including the Fourth World and Fantastic Four theme issues), plus over 30 pieces of Kirby art never before published in TJKC! • (240 pages) $29 US • VOLUME 2: Reprints TJKC #10-12 (the Humor, Hollywood, and International theme issues), and includes a new special section detailing a fan’s private tour of the Kirbys’ remarkable home, showcasing more than 30 pieces of Kirby art never before published in TJKC! • (160 pages) $22 US • VOLUME 3: Reprints TJKC #13-15 (the Horror, Thor, and Sci-Fi theme issues), plus 30 new pieces of Kirby art! • (176 pages) $24 US • VOLUME 4: Reprints TJKC #16-19 (the Tough Guys, DC, Marvel, and Art theme issues), plus more than 30 pieces of Kirby art never before published in TJKC! • (240 pages) $29 US • VOLUME 5: Reprints TJKC #20-22 (the Women, Wacky, and Villains theme issues), plus more than 30 pieces of Kirby art never before published in TJKC! • (224 pages) $29 US

ART OF GEORGE TUSKA A comprehensive look at Tuska’s personal and professional life, including early work with Eisner-Iger, crime comics of the 1950s, and his tenure with Marvel and DC Comics, as well as independent publishers.

The book includes extensive coverage of his work on IRON MAN, X-MEN, HULK, JUSTICE LEAGUE, TEEN TITANS, BATMAN, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, and many more! A gallery of commission artwork and a thorough index of his work are included, plus original artwork, photos, sketches, previously unpublished art, interviews and anecdotes from his peers and fans, plus George’s own words!

TRUE BRIT

CELEBRATING GREAT COMIC BOOK ARTISTS OF THE UK A celebration of the rich history of British Comics Artists and their influence on the US with in-depth interviews and art by: • BRIAN BOLLAND • ALAN DAVIS • DAVE GIBBONS • BRYAN HITCH • DAVID LLOYD

• DAVE MCKEAN • KEVIN O’NEILL • BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH and other gents!

(204-page Trade Paperback with COLOR SECTION) $26 US

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US

HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

REDESIGNED and EXPANDED version of the groundbreaking WRITE NOW! #8 / DRAW! #9 crossover! DANNY FINGEROTH & MIKE MANLEY show step-by-step how to develop a new comic, from script and roughs to pencils, inks, colors, lettering— it even guides you through printing and distribution, & the finished 8-page color comic is included, so you can see their end result!

PLUS: over 30 pages of ALL-NEW material, including “full” and “Marvel-style” scripts, a critique of their new character and comic from an editor’s point of view, new tips on coloring, new expanded writing lessons, and more!

(108-page trade paperback) $18 US (120-minute companion DVD) $35 US

SILVER STAR: GRAPHITE JACK KIRBY’S six-issue “Visual Novel” for Pacific Comics, reproduced from his powerful, uninked pencil art! Includes Kirby’s illustrated movie screenplay, never-seen sketches, pin-ups, & more from his final series!

(160 pages) $24 US

CALL, WRITE, OR E-MAIL FOR A FREE COLOR CATALOG!

MODERN MASTERS BOOK SERIES Edited by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, these trade paperbacks and DVDs are devoted to the BEST OF TODAY’S COMICS ARTISTS! Each book contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, plus a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW (including influences and their views on graphic storytelling), DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more! And our DVDs show the artist at work!

VOL. 1: ALAN DAVIS

“This volume does a really terrific job of explaining why Walt Simonson is great. It’s a really excellent job, for a really excellent comics artist. Get it.”

Steven Grant on MODERN MASTERS VOL. 8: WALTER SIMONSON

V.2: GEORGE PÉREZ

V.3: BRUCE TIMM

V.4: KEVIN NOWLAN

V.5: GARCÍA-LÓPEZ

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905252 Diamond Order Code: STAR20127

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905306 Diamond Order Code: APR042954

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905382 Diamond Order Code: SEP042971

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905443 Diamond Order Code: APR053191

V.6: ARTHUR ADAMS

V.7: JOHN BYRNE

V.8: WALTER SIMONSON

V.9: MIKE WIERINGO

V.10: KEVIN MAGUIRE

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905542 Diamond Order Code: DEC053309

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905566 Diamond Order Code: FEB063354

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905641 Diamond Order Code: MAY063444

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905658 Diamond Order Code: AUG063626

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905665 Diamond Order Code: OCT063722

V.11: CHARLES VESS

V.12: MICHAEL GOLDEN

V.13: JERRY ORDWAY

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905696 Diamond Order Code: DEC063948

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905740 Diamond Order Code: NOV068371

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905795 Ships August 2007

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905191 Diamond Order Code: STAR18345

MODERN MASTERS STUDIO DVDs (120-minute Std. Format DVDs) $35 US EACH

GEORGE PÉREZ

ISBN: 9781893905511 Diamond Order Code: JUN053276

MICHAEL GOLDEN ISBN: 9781893905771 Ships July 2007

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

GREAT NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

BACK ISSUE #22

ALTER EGO #67

DRAW! #14

WRITE NOW! #15

KIRBY COLLECTOR #48

“Dynamic Duos”! “Pro2Pro” interviews with Batman’s ALAN GRANT and NORM BREYFOGLE and the Legion’s PAUL LEVITZ and KEITH GIFFEN, a “Backstage Pass” to Dark Horse Comics, Robin’s history, EASTMAN and LAIRD’s Ninja Turtles, histories of duos Robin and Batgirl, Captain America and the Falcon, and Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, “Zot!” interview with SCOTT McCLOUD, and a new BREYFOGLE cover!

Interview with BOB OKSNER, late artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Jerry Lewis, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, and others, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

Features in-depth interviews and demos with DC Comics artist DOUG MAHNKE, OVI NEDELCU (Pigtale, WB Animation), STEVE PURCELL (Sam and Max), plus Part 3 of editor MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP on “Using Black to Power up Your Pages”, product reviews, a new MAHNKE cover, and a FREE ALTER EGO #70 PREVIEW!

J.M. DeMATTEIS interview on Abadazad with MIKE PLOOG, DC’s 52 series scripting how-to by RUCKA/JOHNS/MORRISON/ WAID, KEITH GIFFEN breakdowns, pencil art by JOE BENNETT and CHRIS BATISTA, JOHN OSTRANDER on writing, STAR TREK novelist BILL McCAY on dealing with editors, samples of scripts and art, and more, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #4 PREVIEW!

KIRBYTECH ISSUE, spotlighting Jack’s hightech concepts, from Iron Man’s armor and Machine Man, to the Negative Zone and beyond! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER’s column, two pencil art galleries, complete 1950s story, TOM SCIOLI interview, Kirby Tribute Panel (with ADAMS, PÉREZ, and ROMITA), and covers inked by TERRY AUSTIN and TOM SCIOLI!

(100-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: FEB073887

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $9 US Ships July 2007

(80-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: JAN074011

(84-page tabloid) $13 US Diamond Order Code: FEB073907

IMAGE COMICS

BRUSH STROKES WITH GREATNESS: THE LIFE & ART OF JOE SINNOTT

WORKING METHODS

COMICS 101:

(100-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: MAR073855

COMICS GONE APE! THE MISSING LINK TO PRIMATES IN COMICS

This profusely illustrated book spotlights a barrel of simian superstars like Beppo, BrainiApe, the Gibbon, Gleek, Gorilla Man, Grease Monkey, King Kong, Konga, Mojo Jojo, Sky Ape, and Titano! It’s loaded with rare and classic artwork, cover galleries, and interviews with artists & writers including ARTHUR ADAMS (Monkeyman and O’Brien), FRANK CHO, CARMINE INFANTINO (Detective Chimp, Grodd), JOE KUBERT (Tor, Tarzan), TONY MILLIONAIRE (Sock Monkey), DOUG MOENCH (Planet of the Apes), and BOB OKSNER (Angel and the Ape)! With its all-new cover by ARTHUR ADAMS, you won’t be able to keep your filthy paws off this book!

Written by MICHAEL EURY. (128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905627 Diamond Order Code: JUN068194

THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE In 1992, seven artists shook the comic book industry when they left their top-selling Marvel Comics titles to jointly form a new company named IMAGE COMICS! IMAGE COMICS: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE is an unprecedented look at the history of this company, featuring interviews and art from popular Image founders ERIK LARSEN, JIM LEE, TODD MCFARLANE, WHILCE PORTACIO, MARC SILVESTRI and JIM VALENTINO. Also featured are many of finest creators who over the last fifteen years have been a part of the Image family, offering behind-thescenes details of the company’s successes and failures. There’s rare and unseen art, making this the most honest exploration ever taken of the controversial company whose success, influence and high production values changed the landscape of comics forever! Written by GEORGE KHOURY. Introduction by DAVE SIM.

During his 56-plus-year career in comic books, JOE SINNOTT has worked in every genre, from 1940s Timely Comics to Charlton Comics, Treasure Chest, and Dell as a top penciler. But his association with Marvel Comics in the ’60s as its top inker cemented his place in comics history. This book celebrates his career, as he demonstrates his passion for his craft, sharing his experiences working on Marvel’s leading titles with STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY, and rare and unpublished artwork from his personal files. It features dozens of colleagues and co-workers paying tribute to Joe, plus an extended Art Gallery, and a Checklist of his career. Written by TIM LASIUTA, with a Foreword by STAN LEE, and Afterword by MARK EVANIER.

Art professor JOHN LOWE puts the minds of comic artists under the microscope, highlighting the intricacies of their storytelling and creative processes stepby-step. For this book, three short scripts are each interpreted in different ways by professional comic artists to illustrate the varied ways in which they “see” and “solve” the problem of making a script succeed in comic form. It documents the creative and technical choices MARK SCHULTZ, TIM LEVINS, JIM MAHFOOD, SCOTT HAMPTON, KELSEY SHANNON, CHRIS BRUNNER, SEAN MURPHY, and PAT QUINN make as they tell a story, allowing comic fans, artists, instructors, and students into a world rarely explored.

Hundreds of illustrated examples document the artists’ processes, and interviews clarify their individual approaches regarding storytelling and layout choices.

(280-page trade paperback) $39 US ISBN: 9781893905719 Diamond Order Code: MAR073745

(136-page softcover w/ COLOR) $22 US ISBN: 9781893905726 Diamond Order Code: MAR073744

(176-page paperback w/ COLOR) $26 US ISBN: 9781893905733 Diamond Order Code: MAR073747

HOW-TO & HISTORY LESSONS FROM THE PROS TwoMorrows has tapped the combined knowledge of its editors to assemble an all-new 32-page comics primer, created just for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! You’ll learn: “Figure Drawing” and “How To Break Down A Story” from DRAW!’s MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, “Writing Tips” from WRITE NOW!’s DANNY FINGEROTH, plus ROUGH STUFF’s BOB McLEOD provides “Art Critiques” of promising newcomers!

There’s even a “Comics History CrashCourse”, assembled by ALTER EGO’s ROY THOMAS and BACK ISSUE’s MICHAEL EURY! (32-page comic book) Diamond Order Code: FEB070050 FREE at your local comics retailer on May 5, 2007

SUBSCRIPTIONS: JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Four issues US: $40 Standard, $56 First Class (Canada: $64, Elsewhere: $68 Surface, $84 Airmail).

BACK ISSUE!: Six issues US: $36 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $72 Surface, $96 Airmail).

DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF: Four issues US: $24 Standard, $36 First Class (Canada: $44, Elsewhere: $48 Surface, $64 Airmail).

ALTER EGO: Twelve issues US: $72 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $144 Surface, $192 Airmail).

FOR A SIX-ISSUE ALTER EGO SUBSCRIPTION, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

For the latest news from TwoMorrows Publishing, log on to www.twomorrows.com/tnt

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com