Escape From Suicide Wolf Forest

UPDATE

2011-07-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

Suicide Wolf has been slow and we apologize. All our contributors are working on their own projects so Wolf @blogspot will be on HIATUS.

You can still find us on Tumblr where we do smaller reviews and comic recommendations! We love you vicious ponies a lot! Get to making comics!

Wolf on Webcomics: Hemlock

2011-02-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Hemlock is one of the most beautifully drawn webcomics that I've had the pleasure of coming across. I just recently stumbled upon Josceline Fenton's work and was blown away by her incredibly unique style and endearing storyline. Joscleine was kind of ennough to take the time out to answer some questions about her webcomic for us.

Tell us a little bit about yourself

I'm a second year graphic and media design student based in London. I've had some short comics published in a few anthologies (like The Girly Comic, BD Zine and a few pages in the new SEQUENCE Zine which is coming out soon), but my self-published stories tend to be very long! My first comic, "Circle", came to about 200 pages in the end. At the moment I'm working on a webcomic and my degree.

You've recently started a webcomic called Hemlock, can you give us a synopsis of your story?

Oh dear, I'm really not very good at synopses, but here goes. Hemlock is about a witch named Lumi who lives in a giant snail. When a human boy called Tristan accidentally winds up in the body of a frog as her new familiar, he finds out that Lumi has been married to a monster for the last 800 years. I could say more, but I don't want to spoil it! It's a little bit "Beauty and the Beast", but without a beauty, and a lot of influences from other fairy tales like the Baba Yaga stories.

What inspired you to create this story? You have a very unique art style, what are your inspirations there? Are there elements of you or your experiences in your story?

I think I always put elements of me and my experiences into my stories, but for Hemlock, it's much more removed from reality. Anything that I have put in is probably exaggerated beyond all recognition. I don't take experiences so much as specific feelings - for example, Lumi is in a marriage she can't get out of. But it's not about marriage (I've never been married, I'm too young!), it's about feeling stuck in a position that you can't do anything about.

Hemlock actually started with just the character of Lumi. I made her for a four page comic called "Starvation Soup", but I loved drawing her so much that I gave her a new comic, which became the idea for Hemlock. The hardest part was actually giving her a name - she was just "the witch" for a long time, but eventually "Lumi" stuck.

My art style is always difficult to explain! I used to draw manga, but I've been trying to move away from it for years now, because I wanted my work to look more original. There's a bit of Tim Burton, some Aubrey Beardsley, some 80s cartoons...I have a huge list of people that have inspired my style. Recently I've been trying to learn more from animation. I think there's a lot of crossover between comics and animation.

What made you choose the webcomic platform? Are you going to print your work or keep it in an online format?

I prefer printed formats, but as I said above, my stories are always pretty long. There were these big gaps between the books I was putting out, so I decided to make Hemlock a webcomic to keep the momentum going. Having weekly updates also forces me to keep at it, despite university workloads - now that there are people reading it and following the story as I make it, I don't want to disappoint them!

I'm printing Hemlock in one-chapter issues. The first chapter was released October 2010, and I'm aiming to release the second one in time for either April or May.

Wolf on Webcomics: Only So Much

2011-01-17T22:06:00.000-08:00

Sam Beck is an artist I've had the privilege of associating with online for a long, long time. Seeing how she's progressed as an amazing illustrator, graphic designer and comic artist has been exciting for me to say the least. She is in her fourth year at York/Sheridan Design Program and the way she's incorporated her design prowess into her comic work is impressive and refreshing.

She's working on her first webcomic, Only So Much, so let's hear a bit about it.

Tell us a little about yourself!

Well, I'm a fourth year student studying graphic design, living in a little suburb up in Canada. School has basically taken over my life in terms of what I'm working on, graduation shows and all that.
I've had my work in a small publication called GoreBook put together by Shy Custis and Coey Kuhn. I've also had the pleasure or working with Josh Tierney illustrating for a couple of his short stories and of course Spera.

I do have a few side projects other than my webcomic that I'm working on despite school. I'm still in the process of drawing a tiny tiny zine with a simple story about a being that travels through space and discovers Earth in all its beauty and horror (think Voltaire's Micromégas). I'm also working on something a bit more design oriented. It's again in a zine format but it's my own writing about winter accompanied by photographs. But really, I sometimes think I need a parallel life to work solely on illustration (it's my first love, design comes second).

You've recently started a webcomic called Only So Much, can you give us a synopsis of your story?

Only So Much starts off as a really typical high school slice-of-life type comic about some kid who starts attending a fancy boarding school up in northern Ontario and is quick to meet some interesting, albeit a bit mysterious, individuals and he remains pretty oblivious to it all for awhile (lets talk about clichés). It's soon revealed that these people he meets are not ordinary in that they possess some paranormal abilities. From there it progresses into power struggles between friends and ultimately a questioning of how much faith do you put into something so unbelievable?

What inspired you to create this story? You have a very unique art style, what are your inspirations there? Are there elements of you or your experiences in your story?

To be honest the inspiration for this story is about as deep as a plate. I was working during the summer selling school uniforms and decided I wanted to make the most cliché high school characters ever. So I took the whole boarding school idea, threw in uniforms and added a bit of paranormal powers. A fun fact... the school at Only So Much is firstly without a name and secondly was originally an all boy’s school, which explains why the main cast are all male.

My biggest inspiration continues to be anime and manga. A few artists that inspire me are Inio Asano, and Taiyō Matsumoto. However, I feel like I take inspiration from such a wide range of things that listing even a fraction of them is misleading. I mean, I bought a book a couple of years ago with some work of Leonardo Da Vinci and another book with Michelangelo's work and looking at their work, changed how I draw eyes (eyes!) completely. Small things like that are what shape my art.

In Only So Much there aren't a lot of obvious elements that relate to my experiences directly but at a powerful magnification everything is based somehow on some experience I've had or seen. The most obvious is probably the fact that I based the main character on the most stereotypical interpretation of a teen boy growing up in north Ontario (hockey and all). But the interactions of characters are based in part on my own perceptions of how people I've seen interact with each other and with me. I think everyone must do this on some level though. What shows up a lot are my personal interests and in regards to Only So Much it's the interest in the paranormal and the idea of faith (how other people handle it), that I kind of try to get my head around.

What made you choose the webcomic platform? Are you going to print your work or keep it in an online format?

I chose a webcomic as my platform because I love getting feedback from people and that was the easiest and cheapest way to do it. The need for feedback is also my biggest weakness in that I can't keep projects a secret and usually get ahead of myself. As soon as I started the comic I drew it and formatted it to be able to translate it into a printed copy easily. The feel of holding printed material is a big part of the reading experience and it just doesn't feel the same in a web format, especially since Only So Much is really print oriented in how it's drawn and how I leave the pages pretty messy looking when they get published to the web. I'm hoping to print out copies once it reaches 70 pages!

Suicide Wolf Interview: Sloane Leong

2011-01-15T06:44:00.000-08:00

Though she is still in the early years of her cartooning career, Suicide Wolf founder Sloane Leong is already beginning to establish her unique voice as a creator. Her comics are quickly paced and entertaining, but with a macabre undertone that seems to always be bubbling just beneath the surface. This same tension is mirrored in her linework, which combines smooth and confident figure drawing with detailed, almost frantic hatching. Furthermore, Sloane has a remarkable work ethic and has already become a prolific cartoonist, writer and illustrator. She is involved in a number of exciting projects, not the least of which is the founding and ongoing coordination of this very blog. In this interview, we discuss the genesis of her interest in comics, many of her recent works and her thoughts on comics, art and creativity in general.

Thanks to Sloane for taking the time to respond to my questions so thoroughly. To learn more about Sloane and her comics, you can visit her website, which provides links to all of her various ongoing projects. -- Andrew White

To start off, I was hoping you could talk a little about your background. How did you first get into comics, and have they always been a significant part of your life? When did you start drawing comics yourself?

My entire life I moved around a lot, so I was kind of an independent person and liked to be on my own. I drew a lot, watched cartoons, read books and generally liked to be left in my own little world. Like a lot of kids, cartoons were kind of my gateway to comics. Some of the cartoons and animated films that really influenced me as a kid were Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Ren and Stimpy, tons of Max Fleischer stuff and good ol' American Saturday Morning toons.

Obviously, comics were the perfect combination of stories and cartooning so I was immediately hooked. I started reading comics around 13, a couple years after I'd moved to Hawaii, and I'd hang out at Borders for hours while my mom finished work. I pretty much destroyed that bookstore and blew through all the comics it had. Been that way ever since.

I shifted from consumer to creator back in '06 and took the plunge into drawing comics. I joined a website which focused on improving sequential art. It allowed artists to create characters and "battle" them by creating opposing comic stories between yourself and another artist. It was a really fun and interesting way to hone my comic skills and exposed me to a lot of talented artists, many of whom are working as pros in the industry today.

A page from one of Sloane's comics at the website mentioned above

You're also engaged in a number of creative pursuits outside of comics, including fiction writing and illustration work. Do you see your artistic output among these various mediums as one big thing or as several disparate elements? Does each one scratch some kind of creative itch that the others do not?

That's a good way to put it actually, as everything that I do creatively takes care of a certain itch I have. If I'm comic blocked one day, I'll go and paint, or if I'm art blocked, I'll go and write a short story or something. If I can't do ANY of these then I'll go smash on the drums or mess around on the guitar as a last resort. I pretty much have no choice in the matter; it's an obsessive drive. I make art, make stories or make noise.

You're someone who seems to have been fairly active on the Internet as a cartoonist for several years now -- posting on forums, maintaining a blog and more recently a twitter, etc. In what ways is that kind of presence important to you?

Most of the reason is for my own benefit and enjoyment. I live and have lived in areas most of my life that don't have a big "art scene" so the only way I can get my fix and associate with other artists is usually online and occasinaly art shows or conventions once in awhile.

Now that I'm trying to turn comics into my main source of income I've found that attention is the most important commodity for a freelancer like myself. Most artists create new and original content every day or at least often. In a world that copies things over and over, being able to make something new, interesting and unique is an amazing ability. Self promotion and being known is key to being able turn that skill into something that is invaluable, if it isn't already.

As Suicide Wolf readers may know, you are the founder and driving force behind this blog. What were your motivations in starting Suicide Wolf? It seems that an important characteristic of the blog is that almost every contributor is a cartoonist. Why does that matter?

I had a specific idea for this blog when I talked about it with the other contributors. I couldn't find a place that only recommended good comics. I wanted a place that wrote only about good comics, old or new, not just every comic that came around and then criticize it. I see a lot of comic review sites and they just blog about anything and I go to read it and it's like a whole essay of why it was a horrible comic. I don't care about horrible comics. If I read horrible comics I'm pretty sure they would seep into my brain and spoil it. So no negativity here. Only quality comics.

I also wanted to be able to share all the awesome webcomics that I had been reading that weren't getting attention or weren't even in our own language like Korea's massive roster of webtoons which are just now gaining popularity as they're getting translated. I have yet to see a webcomic review site that covers webcomics as extensively as we do and is not just a popularity list. Also, having a place that could talk about art like drawing techniques, writing tips and pretty much anything that had to do with creating comics was a key element. Thus, the Wolf was born.

As for my cartoonist-writers, I find getting information straight from an actual artist, especially one from the current 'scene', is really important as we can relate a little easier to them. Also most of the writers are my good friends and also freakishly awe-inspiring artists, illustrators and comic artists and I really respect and admire them. Seriously, they're amazing.

More generally, do you feel that writing about comics is important to your own growth as an artist?

Definitely. Writing about comics, art and stories and breaking them down to understand them all ends up benefiting my work. There's a difference between knowing something and understanding it.

If you see a picture and you think to yourself, 'wow that picture is amazing' then you know that picture is amazing but if you don't take the time to understand why it is then you'll never be able to emulate it in your own work. Same with storytelling, you may know a story is good but if you don't take the time to study how a good story works, what makes a good character and understand those elements then you won't have them in your story.

You've also worked on a number of collaborative projects, with perhaps most notable being Maschinell, a graphic novel that is currently in the writing stages. Your collaboration with Nen on that project strikes me as fairly extensive -- how has that level of cooperation affected the development of the project?

It's been really great and I've enjoyed every step. Being able to have a different viewpoint on things is really important to me and one of the reasons I love collaborating on projects so much. We both specialize in different skillsets and have pretty different styles; she has a really exact, fluid style that is graceful and controlled while I'm more rough and chaotic. What we each lack, we can make up with the others skills. With the two of us together, the art style and character/environment designs are turning out really amazing.

Also being able to go through the story and put the characters and world together has been great and I feel like working with another person, another layer has been added to this world we are creating. As our differences overlap it's like the story we are creating is getting deeper and more piquant. She can add things that I wouldn't even think and vice versa. Also we're comfortable enough with each other that we can really pick apart the story and art we make, critically think about it and make it better which, for me, is priceless.

The story is now developing beautifully and is almost finished as well as the character designs so we're excited to get into thumb-nailing and busting out those pages.

Maschinell Illustration by Sloane

You recently had a comic published in the first issue of Fixit magazine. I understand that one unique aspect of that venue is that you had to go through a fairly structured editing process, which is an unusual thing in independent/alternative comics. What was that experience like? Do you feel that your Fixit work benefited from that editorial guidance?

It was really fun. I was surprised that [Fixit editor and publishor] Fawn actually chose my story just because it was kind of off the wall. I really enjoyed working with an editor and, as I said before, being able to get feedback from someone else is really important to me. It was interesting going through the traditional process of creating a comic (pitching, thumbing, roughs and inks) as I usually don't do the first two, or even the third, at all. I was kind of worried if my thumbs were too blurry or my roughs too rough but she was really easy to work with and explained what she needed perfectly.

What was great was that she really looked at my work in each stage and gave me some great feedback from story to dialog and paneling. I wouldn't hesitate to work with her again, or with any editor for that matter. Hearing how she broke down my work and what she noticed about my comic style really benefited me. It made me look at things that I had been doing that might be a problem in readability. When you see your work all the time and get comfortable in your style, it gets difficult to see it objectively or in another light so I was happy to gain that knowledge.

Cover and contents page of Fixit Magazine Issue 1

Finally, what projects are you working on right now? Where would you like to be in five years as a cartoonist?

I'm working mainly on Maschinell with Nen, our post-apoc, survivalist, tribal, cyberpunk graphic novel. I'm going to launch a cute, full-colored, odyssey webcomic soon with another writer, Elle, called Wild Roots which will be the most adorable thing I've ever worked on in my entire life.

I also have three solo projects, which all graphic novels, but I'll only mention the one that's the closest to being down which is called Comet Scabs, a little absurdist, scifi, slice-of-life novel. It's a story about a group of poor kids living in a small, tropical slum on an island and how the deal with the madness that ensues when a comet crashes into the middle of their home.

In five years I would love to have several of my graphic novels finished and out in the world, whether they're published by me or someone else. I would also like to be living in Mozambique by then but we'll see how that goes.

All About The Scrolling

2011-01-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

Just in case you missed it on our Twitter, we also started a Tumblr for those of you who are more partial to that (such nice endless scrolling). It will have a lot of little blurbs and links to a lot of cool webcomics as well as being a mirror feed for our more lengthy articles. So check it out!

SUICIDE WOLF ON TUMBLR!

Wolf on Webcomics: Minor Acts of Heroism

2011-01-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Interpunkt aka K. Van Dam and Joteivv aka Adriana Ferguson are names that I constantly see in the webcomics scene and are always putting out great work regularly. I was able to steal their time for a bit and get the skinny on who they are, how they work and what they have in store with their new webcomic, Minor Acts of Heroism!

Tell us a little bit about yourself!
Kristen: Actually, our day job’s in gaming. We’re both character designers for the game ourWorld. It’s an online MMO dressup avatar game. We’ve been working on it for the last 5 years. Super cute, fun game we love working on.

Adriana: On the side we do the comic-making thing. We’ve got two different comics we’re working on together at the moment (the other being S.T.O.P). So basically all we do is work on a game or work on a comic!

You've recently started a webcomic called Minor Acts of Heroism, can you give us a synopsis of your story?
Kristen: Little kid super-hero sidekicks dealing with the whole hero-ing thing, life, loss, and friendship, which makes it sound really serious but it’s mostly kids running around being incoherent and fixing/causing mayhem. It’s a comedy/drama sorta thing.
Adriana: Thematically, it’s mostly about friendship! And family. Family is a big theme. Which are things that you deal with when you write about young people in general, so it’s one of those growing up stories but with super-hero business. And punching people right in the face. We like fighting parts, but we like when characters hang out and talk, so we try to make the talking entertaining. It helps that the characters have personalities that lend themselves to making jokes when they’re put in a room together.

What inspired you to create this story? You have a very unique art style, what are your inspirations there?
Kristen: Story-wise, Both of us love super-hero stuff, but we always want more character stuff. A lot of the comics I get are 90% fighting and barely any actual character time but I love that sorta stuff- characters reactions and interactions with each other. So we thought we’d just try and do that sorta story ourselves.

We also love team super-hero stories, and we love kid heroes and sidekicks so we just sorta combined everything we loved in a ball and made a story out of it.

Adriana: A lot of the books we like best are books that start at the beginning and show you how people got to know one another, so this is a very “Year One” sort of comic, at least to start out with. Technically this is like, Year ½ for Simon (Everywhere Kid) but for the other kids it’s the beginning.

Kristen: Art-wise, I think our inspiration for the look of the characters is just that we like when little kids look like little kids so we made a conscious effort to make the kids look little. We also decided to try to make the adults various sizes and body types. I’m a firm believer that if a super-hero’s a physicist by day, he probably shouldn’t be built like a tank (no offense to any tank-like physicists of the world!).

Adriana: Bradley is still quite athletic! He works out! But he’s never going to be like The Juggernaut is what we mean. We both like comics that have a strong sense of black and white so with MAOH we tried to really make strong shadows. And we like the line art to speak for itself so we went with flat, vibrant colors.

How do you two work together when creating the comic, whats your process for writing and drawing? What are some pros and cons of working as a sort of tag team while creating?
Adriana: At the very very beginning, when we decided to make the comic, we started by going “Let’s make a sidekick team book”. Then we both made characters, like designed them and gave them back stories. Kristen and I have the characters divided between us and write their actions out in prose. Sergio was very different in the beginning when he was just a concept, so was Julius. It wasn’t until we started writing them that we figured out what they’d really be like.

Kristen: I sit on Adriana’s floor with my laptop and Google docs open and we just start making a list of the things we want in the chapter. After we decide on what we think fits into the 26 pages that make up a chapter, we start breaking out each pages dialogue and paneling, usually me typing while she’s on her computer starting to sketch out the thumbnails for the pages. After we get it all thumbed out she starts pencilling and I take a nap. Then once she’s got a pencilled page for me I ink, color, and letter it and we’re done. Then rinse and repeat a million more times for all of eternity.

Adriana: It’s faster this way and I think we play to each others strengths. A lot of when we’re writing the comic is us trying to make the other laugh. Or cry. Making Kristen cry is the biggest goal for me.

Kristen: Pros I think are that we’re funnier in a pair! Writing comedy is one of those things where you don’t really know if it’s funny until you say it to someone else. Same with serious stuff. Sometimes I might think something’s awesome but it’s actually dumb! It’s good to have another perspective for sure, and then we also have the ability to tweak each others stuff to make it better.

Adriana: I don’t think anyone else makes comics like this, writing it in prose and then extracting an issue from it with another person. But doing it this way keeps us from writing stuff that’s out of character, neither of us have all the characters in their tool box. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when writers make characters do something for the sake of a “cool idea”, they want the story to do X even though the characters would never do that thing. Working in a team keeps us honest because we have to justify any nonsense to another person.

Kristen: I’m not sure I really have any cons here. We’re best friends, and we work well together and have a lot of practice at it since our day job is also working together. Sometimes we disagree on concepts or how to execute an idea but we just figure out a way around it.

Adriana: I don’t think there’s really a con, either. Oh and also, work wise, at least on my end, with another person I’m always trying to impress Kristen. So that can be really motivating as opposed to just working on your own. You’ve got another person you want to look good in front of or that’s depending on you!

What made you choose the webcomic platform? Are you going to print your work or keep it in an online format?
Kristen: Basically the comic’s a labor of love. We have day jobs we enjoy, but we also love comicking. We’re doing the comic mostly for ourselves but we want other people to see it and a webcomic’s a simple way to show it to people.

Adriana: This is a question that gets asked a lot. “Why did you put it online?” But for us, maybe our whole generation of artists, it’s a given that we would. If you’re making a comic on your own, without a publisher, it’s more like “Of course we put it online, why wouldn’t we?” Kristen and I met via our Deviant Art accounts, which we didn’t even think to mention because now it’s like “Of course we did”, it’s so unremarkable now to say that you met online. Probability-wise, how else would an artist find another artist they have so much in common with in terms of aesthetic preference or work ethic? The odds of me finding someone like Kristen in my everyday life in Ohio would be pretty much impossible. The alternative to making it a web comic would be like, us just hoarding it and showing the cat I don’t own.

Kristen: Your imaginary cats would love our comic, by the way. I’m just saying. We actually do have a printed version available for the first chapter, and will have issue two out within the next month and we’ll be making a trade with the first 3 issues in it in time for San Diego Comicon in 2011- which we’ll have a Small Press table for: O-11. Any and all, stop by and say hi!

Adriana: Deciding to do a printed version was also a labor of love. I think, money wise, it ends up being us paying to give you the book but we like holding it in our hands! It’s a different experience than reading it online. We definitely make the comic so that it can be read in two different ways. Page by page there’s a certain benefit, but also in the printed version you’re getting that “page turn” surprise, and other things you don’t get when it’s online. Also, the printed version has a bunch of extras that are exclusive to print like a sketch book section and some articles about the world and characters in the comic. So read it online and buy the printed version in the shop at http://minoractsofheroism.com for a different sort of experience!

Youngblood Comics: Sequence Zine

2010-12-27T23:08:00.000-08:00

Today I thought I'd share a great new project taken on by a few artists whose art I enjoy! They've launched a great new venue in the form of a magazine to feature amateur comic artists called Sequence Zine! It's a really great project so I decided to get some more info on it from the creators themselves.

Tell us a little bit about yourselves!

Mickey: I’m Mickey, and I’m a high school student! I like to draw pretty much everything. Of course, my favorite is comics; I’m really interested by the fact that they’re like two different languages (words and iconography) working together to tell one story. Right now I’m working on drawing something Nicole wrote a long time ago but of course SEQUENCE Zine has sort of taken over my life!

Nicole: Hi, I’m Nicole but a lot of people call me Nikki! I love drawing super fun things with a lot of shapes and bright colors to entertain people. My main interest is comics because the idea of creating so many emotions through story + art just seems awesome to me. Plus, I’m one of those crazy people who comes up with ridiculous stories for everything. Currently I’m trying to work on a remake of an old webcomic!

Nozmo: Well, I’m Nozmo and I draw comics I guess hahaha. One day I hope to be able to make comics in every genre because that’d be pretty cool. I draw comics because I’ve always liked stories and being able to make things up because sometimes real life is pretty boring. At the moment, I’m just working on my webcomics on and off and maybe drawing some oneshots.

How did you all come up with the idea for SEQUENCE? Did it just occur to one of you randomly or had you planned it out with each other? Was there something missing in the comic world that made you decide to pursue this zine?

Mickey: Well, first there was “Young Cartoonist’s Society” - we all really wanted to do something to support the amateur comic creator’s community, so we tried this little social network. But, it was really inconvenient for everybody because the network needed constant attention. Eventually, we had to close it down.

Nozmo: After YCS failed, Mickey made a blog post about wanting to help out the comic community. I read that and I felt bad about what happened to YCS because I was really excited about it and wanted it to work out. So I just made a suggestion of maybe starting a blog with comic articles.

Nicole: When Mickey read that she came to me saying we should make some sort of magazine or something with comic articles; that way we could still support the comics community without relying on the constant activity of its members.

Mickey: Yeah, comic artists seem to be an especially busy group of people, haha. This way we could provide them something to read/use at their leisure, and something precious they could keep for the future.

Nicole: Then we decided we wanted to make something that wasn’t just for the “art elite” but that anybody could contribute to. I think everybody, no matter what skill level they’re at, has something they can contribute to this community.

Nozmo: Yeah, I really feel like the comic community doesn’t have anything like that or at least I don’t remember anything like that existing when I first started putting comics on the internet.

Mickey: Actually, it’s funny because just recently I was reading some foreign thing about comics and illustration and it was specifically saying “there’s no place for amateurs to showcase their work” and I just thought “that’s the need I want to fill!”

What are short and long term goals for SEQUENCE?
Nicole: Short term: get our first issue printed!

Mickey: DEFINITELY, if we can reach that I’ll feel like I’ve actually achieved something in my life haha...

Nozmo: Hahaha yeah and long term: hope to continue printing issues bimonthly.

Mickey: I think it’d be cool to have like a “staff” some day too, like a group of dedicated writers & researchers...

Nicole: The coolest thing I’d think is to have at least one or two artists actually be “found” through our magazine. Like, gaining fans or getting a job or something!

Mickey: Definitely, definitely, I really want this to be a vehicle for people to reach their goals.

Nozmo: Yes, those are the things I dream about. I just want this magazine to help people.

Support the launch of the first issue at their Kickstarter page!

You can see more of Nicoles art here, Mickey's work here and Nozmo's work here!

Hotshot Showcase: Jason Fischer

2010-12-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

Jason Fischer is definitely one of the most productive, industrious artists I know. He is constantly creating everything from illustrations and comics to curating art shows at the Pony Club Gallery in Portland of which I've been able to participate in. Without further ado, meet the incredibly talented Jason!

Alright, first question! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field? When did you know you were an artist?

After living 24 years in southern California, I moved to Portland, Oregon with images of high adventure in the woods and new beginnings dancing in my head. Although I was moving with these fantasies in mind, I was fortunate enough to meet a life in which these images came true, for the most part, with friends of new and old amidst lush green landscapes, my first snow, a beautiful first apartment and finally finding a dedication to comics and art. Once I was fully settled in to my new surroundings, I fulfilled a goal of mine by joining an artist cooperative, the Pony Club gallery, to which I've been a member for almost 2 years. Besides wanting to share an artistic space and provide artwork to the community, I got an itch for curating group shows after I held my first show as curator, "Presents Presence Prescience" at Floating World Comics. Since then, I've curated two more shows, "Self Psyche" and "Monsterbation", both held at the Pony Club.

As for getting into the lifestyle choice of cartoonist, I blame this decision heavily on my discovery of Robert Crumb in the pages of "Comix: A History Of Comic Books In America" at the somewhere age of 5 to 6. Although the book touches almost entirely on the Superheroic birth of the American comic book industry, the brief and final section concerning Underground comics really took my fascination. I was also persuaded towards monsters in cartoons, video games and toys, which I think played their inspirational role. Years later I would meet my friend and partner in comics Greg Khmara in high school. Our common ground of Japanese animation helped spark our initial meeting and quick friendship, but we learned soon after that we shared a love and desire to tell stories. Meeting Corey Lewis at the Alternative Press Expo in 2005 led me on the path to share my art with people on the internet, which I must credit towards the majority of my progress in the industry.

When did I know I was an artist? I've never known what else I could or should be. There were times when I questioned my dedication, but I've never questioned my role as a creator of art, whatever it is or will be. Phew!

Can you tell us about some your projects you're working? What are your favorite genres to work in?

Right at this precise moment, Greg and I are working on a one shot romantic drama called "Un Petit Romance", telling the tale of a monster boy and a human girl in love and the problems that love must face. We've been working steadily on our graphic novel "Tabouli Bros." as well as our webcomic "Jaephisch and the Dark Rainbow". Over at the Pony Club, there's always work to do such as our monthly art show openings and planning future shows. I've been trying to get more work printed and for sale, to which I've designed several shirts for Blood Is The New Black, stickers for Cafe Con Leche, boards with Identity Surfboards, prints with Kill Screen Magazine and an illustration in the upcoming Koyama Press anthology "Root Rot". Whether it be comics, illustrations and whatever else in between, I prefer fantasy realms and characters over all genres. Mind you, I consider any wild whim of fancy to fall into the fantasy realm. My head is full of fancy wild whims.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

As mentioned earlier, Robert Crumb has and continues to leave a huge footprint in my work. Growing up in a time when some of the most accessible anime titles were Akira, Ghost In The Shell, Vampire Hunter D, Ninja Scroll and Neon Genesis Evangelion also made a lasting impression. Watching Popeye repeatedly as a child sure made its mark too. Many video games from Nintendo to Super Nintendo; the art, music and overall experiences forged together to imbue their collective influence. I realized the tremendous work of Osamu Tezuka at a much later time from when I first sought Japanese comics. At the same time I discovered the powers that France had to offer, such as Joann Sfar and Moebius. Although to be completely honest and 100% sincere, I am much more inspired by the artists working with and around me on the constant who always continue to blow my mind and inspire me to work harder.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

Although my monsters and sexual creatures might have you thinking otherwise, I am always pushing the idea towards the Tezukian "preservation and cherishing of life". Whether it be the protection and compassion towards monsters in Dark Rainbow or the Tabouli Bros. trying to make good from their bandit lifestyle, the message is always concerning how to live better and make positive from negative. I still have much work to do before the desire to spread this message is well known, but that is the idea as I create my work.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

I definitely tend to mull things over methodically in my head and I very rarely sketch. Most of my thoughts are consumed with piecing together future illustrations or arcs in my comics. Some of my favorite work was created last minute. Being one to jump between mediums and subject matters quickly, my mind remains loose and in a state of development. I find this helps prevent art blockage and boredom. This practice comes with a cost, usually taking form in long absences from certain projects to scenes of major stress and sleepless nights. I do tend to pile too much on my plate.

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

All I really desire from my life and work in art is to captivate and floor artists of all kinds. I want my work to move people, to get them riled up with passion to create whatever it is they envision. No matter the fame and fortune, those trivial pursuits. I just want as many people to enjoy my art as possible.

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

Strong work has and will continue to flourish from both operations. Although the majority of my experience thus far is in self-publishing, I am extremely grateful for publishers. To me it does not matter as much how the work is getting into my hands, but rather the work itself and its sincerity. Most of my library is either self-published or from more independent publishing houses, for the record.

When you're in an artblock you: Try a new medium or subject matter or play Katamari Damacy.
Your greatest fear: Losing my ability to create.
Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Come upon a lost treasure on the beach.
Favorite book/movie/comic: The Little Prince/Ferris Bueller's Day Off/Osamu Tezuka's Buddha
Your darkest secret: Sometimes I doubt myself. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy. That's not a very good dark secret, it's just admitting humanity.

Fixit Magazine Issue 1

2010-12-06T09:33:00.001-08:00

Issue 1 of Fixit Magazine has gone to print.

The aim of Fixit Magazine, or "FXT" was to put into print new artists who've never had comics published in print before. Amongst those who will have comics printed in the pages of FXT, are myself and Sloane who you should all know from reading this blog.

But they also run comics from Anna Bongivanni, Mia Schwartz (probably better known as "poop mouth" online), and Hellen Cho.

I have in my possession an advance copy of issue 1, and it is really amazing. The magazine is printed in a huge 9x12" format. The comics are huge. Hellen Cho's comic is in full color, and is absolute eye candy. The cover is foil stamped. The issue is 160 pages thick. It's impressive. I tend become reserved when reviewing anything I am connected to, but it really is an impressive book.

I implore you to visit the magazine's site and check out the comic previews: http://www.fixit-mag.com/ If you like comics you owe it to yourself to a take a peek.

And of course if you really love comics, you be doing yourself a disservice not to order a copy while it's currently discounted. ;D

Hotshot Showcase: Roman Muradov

2010-11-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

Alright, sorry my vicious ponies for the absence but tonight I'm bringing to you a very cool illustrator and comic artist you just must get to know. He hails from Moscow and has a great, melancholic/ironic undertones to his art and stories as well as a wonderfully flowing inking style. Without further ado, Roman!

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field? When do you know you were an artist?

I studied Oil & Gas Engineering in cold scary Moscow for 5 years and worked in the field for two, it was the most dreadful time of my life. By the end of my 'proper' degree I started drawing little cartoons & writing articles for fun. They were utterly monstrous, since I had never tried drawing before, but people loved it for some reason and eventually I started drawing comic strips for a local paper. It took me another 3 years of wallowing in self-loathing and drawing like a 5 year old before I decided to take it seriously and dedicate more time to the matter. So it's only 2-3 years ago that I went to San Francisco and started drawing & writing daily. In short, my life is a waste.

Can you tell us about some your projects you're working on? What are your favorite genres to work in?

I'm finishing a short comic for the second volume of Anthology Project. It's a rather sweet story about a square-headed poet and his dog. Well, it's of course terribly twisted and absurd as most of my work, but underneath lies a simple and heartwarming tale. You just have to dig through layers of obscure references to find it. I try not to limit myself to a genre, but people mostly describe my stories as 'tragicomic' and 'absurdist'.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

The list is infinite and constantly growing. Among other all-time favorite artist & writers are Tove Jansson, Chekhov, Stephen Fry, Thomas Fielding, Camus, Jamie Hewlett, Koji Morimoto, Kafka, Magnetic Fields, Marcel Ayme, Nabokov, Daniel Clowes, Bulgakov, Herge, Oscar Wilde etc etc etc. Recently I've been obsessed with Alfred Jarry, Raymond Queneau, Boris Vian and other modernist writers, art of Nemiri, De Crecy and Jason.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

I suppose it's different from story to story, but I always try to fit as much between lines (written and drawn) as possible. I hope my stories appear funny & entertaining to those who flip through the pages and only want to read the jokes and to those who like to dig deeper alike. I'd hate to look elitist or pretentious. My work is very personal, but I believe the themes I cover are rarely unfamiliar to a modern reader.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process?

Story ideas usually pop out of the most unexpected places, I write them down and sometimes (most rarely) two or three of them work together. For every comic that I finish, there are literally hundreds of ideas and concepts buried in sketchbooks and notes. As for actual process, I spend most of the day reading, drinking and sketching. Around night I sit down for 4-5 hours and draw until I pass out. Not particularly healthy, but my brain seems to be absolutely worthless in the mornings.

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

For my work to support me financially of course, right now I'm a stereotypical starving artist with a scarf and it's most upsetting. And of course I want to be read by wider audience and make every reader sparkle with joy and laughter. Pretty standard stuff.

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

The comic industry is a dark and dreary place, especially when it comes to money. Self-publishing is even worse though, at least for me. I sold out almost everything during APE and still didn't even nearly cover the table/printing expenses. I charge less than most artists & I hope to keep it that way somehow.

What do you think about the comic scene currently?

I'm glad everything is going to be iPadded soon and I look forward to a future with no printing costs. I'm very fond of modern French BD (& old ones too of course), their scene is blooming in gorgeous colors and it's getting more beautiful each year.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an artblock you: read and drink and hate myself. Mainly the latter.
Your greatest fear: death and fountains.
Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: play/write music, be a girl.
Favorite book/movie/comic: Oh god, book, impossible. Maybe Master & Margarita. Movie: Delicatessen. Comic: Manu Larcenet's "Ordinary Victories". And everything by Jason.
Your darkest secret: I'm actually a decent person.

Find more of Roman's work on his website and tumblr!

Dip Pen Write Up #2

2010-11-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

As I noted earlier I also received a pack of Zebra G nibs. I heard these were the best G nibs, so I had to get some and try them out. To be honest, the Nikko and Leonardt G pens didn’t leave much of an impression on me. Yes they held a lot of ink and they weren’t super scratchy - but that was about it so far as their qualities went.

They aren’t that flexible, and they aren’t that smooth. So I thought maybe all the G pen hype was just that - hype.

Well, the good news is that the Zebra G is likely the best G nib being made today. Despite what I heard, it’s not super flexible - that description belongs to nibs like the Hunt 99 or the Brause EF66. It is more flexible than the Nikko and Leo though. Its flexibility doesn’t hold a candle to that of the long discontinued Mitchell’s G though. But don’t get me wrong - it’s a really good nib!

Like the other G pens, the Zebra offers a wide range of line variability from fine to super thick. But it is capable of an even finer line than the other brands I have tried. It's also smoother writing than the others, and can be used in any direction - pushed, pulled, or side to side without catching.

A point of interest (pun unintended) is that the tines are honed for flexibility instead of stamped. You can see this in the photo (Zebra on the left, Nikko on the right). Honing the tines makes for a more flexible and responsive pen. On the Nikko the tip is stamped creating that neat ridge pattern - but as you can see the tip of the Zebra is ground. The grinding removes some of the metal making the tines thinner and flexible. Stamping the point is a substitute for honing that came in around the 1930s to save time in the manufacturing process. I’ll talk about the Brause 66 EF later…

Zebra G pens can be bought from Jetpens here: http://www.jetpens.com/product_info.php/products_id/4195

As well as can be ordered from any shop that carries Deleter products. Deleter also distributes Tachikawa G pens.

Dip Pen Write Up #1

2010-11-24T18:06:00.000-08:00

I recieved my order from Jetpens today. This included a dozen Tachikawa School nibs, and a dozen Zebra G nibs. I also got a Brause B66 and mechanical non-photo-blue pencil. More on those later.

I tried the G first, but I’m going to write about it later. I wanted to order the school nibs because I haven’t read anything about people using them, liking them/hating them. So I was curious. I had a genuine fear they’d be like the Hunt 56 “school” nib - which has got to be one of the worst nibs ever. Scratchy, catchy, flimsy - no reedming qualities at all (I’ve actually heard that Speedball has discontinued it - so good).

Luckily - The Tachikawa School nib is actually Quite Nice! It’s moderately stiff, and decently smooth over paper. It provides a satisfactory swell and, I personally just love the response and feel of this pen.

It feels a lot like my beloved Falcons, only a little scratchier - but it has one big downfall as far as I am concerned; It cannot handle side strokes well. The ability of the Falcon style nibs to move in all directions without catching is probably the main reason I hunt them down and use them (beside their ridiculous ink capacity).

The nib itself is of excellent quality like all of the Japanese nibs I’ve tested so far. Jetpen's listing for the School nib is here: http://www.jetpens.com/product_info.php/products_id/4570

I'll review G nibs in general in my next post.

Hotshot Showcase: Cassandra Jean

2010-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

I found Cassandra Jean when I stumbled on her webcomic Dango Sunshine, a fun story about a quirky samurai and ninja duo. Since I've followed her Cassandra has been launching webcomic after webcomic like Land of Lions and her new release Black-Eyed Susan!

Hi Cassandra! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field?

Certainly. My name is Cassandra Jean Piedra (Cassandra Jean is my 'pen name'.). I'm an obsessive compulsive artist who spends hours every day toiling away drawing, with my precious puppy sleeping at my feet. I graduated from the Ringling College of Art & Design in 2009 with a Bachelor in Fine Arts, majoring in Illustration.

I got into this field mostly through a lot of stubborn hard work and blind luck. I advertised myself a lot to companies, and all over the internet. But most of my jobs seem to fall out of the sky onto my head! I suppose it's not that random, I'm sure my employers find me thanks to all the constant advertising I do, I'm just not always completely sure exactly how they found me in the first place.

As far as "knowing" when I was an artist... I think it was the first time I held one of my comics, in print, in my hands. It felt so concrete and real just then! I make my living through art alone, I don't have any other part-time work, so I think that helps me feel like I'm really a freelance illustrator too. (Not that part-time work is bad! I'm just personally thrilled I don't need to do it.) But I think I won't be satisfied until I see my books on American book shelves. When I can walk into a store and see it for myself! (Note: My first and second books have been published in Germany, though I live in New York.)

Can you tell us about some of your projects you're working on (or planning to work on)? What are your favorite genres to work in?

Well, I am currently working on two webcomics for a new (and very fun) company called Mangamagazine.net. One is titled Land of Lions, an action-adventure story taking place in a country full of tribal cultures. The other is a newer comic that I just started this month titled "Black-Eyed Susan". It is a mystery taking place in the old wild west. I'm particularly excited to work on this one, since I've always had a complete love for cowboys. But if you want to find out more, I recommend going and reading them first hand! Both of them update with a new chapter every month. The company MangaMagazine is really cool and is working hard to make webcomics mainstream and as respected as published comics. It's something I think every author of a webcomic should support.

My favorite genre to work in is adventure I think. I like the idea of exploring, and inventing, new cultures, religions and societies for the main characters to learn about and interact with.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

Well I'm inspired by most anything and everything. Movies, music, other artists, clothing, and even the weather. My last artbook "Pattern & Motion" was inspired by the incredible Cirque du Soleil shows and Native American totem poles. While my next illustration collection has been completely inspired by my love for my puppy Yukiko (a shiba inu), tattoos and headphones.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

So far, I'm not sure if I have some kind of deep message in my stories. Each one has it's own "theme" but I hesitate to talk too much about it while the comics are still in their early chapters. I'd hate to give away any spoilers. But what I want the audience to get most out of my work is just... enjoyment. Whether it's my comics or my illustrations, I just hope that everyone will see something they like!

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? (From ideas, to planning, to finishing it.) What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

I think that my process is probably similar to most artists. When it comes to art books, I think of several themes I enjoy, then try to combine them all into one idea. That way each picture has a lot in it for the viewer to look for.

With comics, usually I begin by coming up with basic plot ideas. When I find one I like, that has potential, I start to flesh it out. The next step is to think of the main characters. From there I continue to add to the story some more and more until it's complete. That's kind of vague isn't it? But it's hard to just talk about an art process, and so much easier to show it visually.

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

My dreams are simple, I just want to keep seeing it published. Online or in print. If I can continue to live through my artwork alone, then I am one very happy camper. Of course I also have those warm and fuzzy perhaps-unrealistic dreams of wanting to see my stories become movies or cartoons some day. Who knows? I will keep doing my best!

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

I think self-publishing is becoming more and more popular lately. Which is a good thing! Not only do you see more variety of comics and art that way, but since it's gaining in popularity, it's also becoming more respected. Self-Publishing used to just sound like someone had given up on trying to get published by a big company. But now it's more than that. Tons of artists do it and people are happy to be able to buy work from their favorite artists, even if it isn't on a Barns&Noble book shelf. I think the popularity of the internet has helped cultivate the rise in self-publishing. Everyone has a bigger audience now, from all over the world.

However, no matter how popular self-publishing is, the big publishing companies still rule all, don't they? Being published by them would bring recognition and money much quicker than the self-publishing route. You get a lot more opportunities with a big company backing you. Which makes sense, considering all the resources they have. The flip-side being with self-publishing you get a lot more creative freedom.

I won't say if I think one or the other is better. I love the freedom I have with self-publishing, but with bigger companies it is awfully nice to get that paycheck.

What do you think about the comic scene currently? (Like trends in comics, comics-to-movies, webcomics, over-used styles, any comments you have, go wild)

I have mixed feelings about the comic scene right now. I kind of enjoy that comics are being turned into movies (Even if they aren't always very good) because I feel like people are suddenly seeing comics as less of a "nerdy" thing. It also acknowledges that comics do have interesting and new stories that some hollywood writers seem to be lacking lately. (As evident by the insane amount of movie remakes these days.) On the other hand, it's a little tiring seeing them pump out so many comic-themed movies. I've stopped feeling very excited about them.

I support the rise of webcomics. Not all of them are incredible, but it's wonderful that people who love comics so much are able to work on what they love, get it out there, and get feedback from other artists and their readers. It's a new avenue for artists to share their work with everyone! At Mangamagazine.net they are working hard to support the blossoming webcomic world, and I think with inspired people like them around, that industry will continue to grow in a very good way.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an artblock you: Take a break!
Your greatest fear : House fire! Seriously..... scary thought!

Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Does my desire to develop super powers count?

Favorite book/movie/comic:
Fav Book: Watership Down
Fav Movie: Snatch
Fav Comic: Bakuman
Your darkest secret: I play pokemon. Shhh...

You can find Cassandra Jean's art on her DA and blog.

Hotshow Showcase: Lars Brown

2010-10-01T00:40:00.000-07:00

Two words: North World. Two more words: Lars Brown. Lars is an amazing comic artist, dragging you into his work with monstrous force as he casually cuts down comic monster after comic monster. Recently he started Northworld: the Kailee Chronicles and it's proving to be just as amazing as the first story arc.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field?

I’m not sure I ever wanted to be an artist exactly, there was a definite time after reading The Chronicles of Narnia that I very much wanted to be a writer. I always drew though, and around that time (grade school) I became friends with Kiel West who really got me to be drawing, especially comics. It’s very common for kids to only draw single panel pages, like storybooks, but Kiel got me thinking in sequentials early. Not very clearly, of course, but it paved the way. But instead of drawing comics I only wrote, prose and eventually scripts, for years. I always doodled, but didn’t really get started on comics until College. Strangely enough by the time I’d finished 22 pages and put it together as a book I met Doug TenNapel who pushed me to draw constantly and go to San Diego Comic-Con, that was 2005 and so far it’s paid off.

Now, the moment I knew I was an artist was in 2008 when I was partway through the second North World book. I was drawing on break at work and sat down and drew a large, half page panel of the character Kailee spinning with her arms out in Conrad’s childhood bedroom. It just flowed right out and in 20 minutes I’d gone from a blank, white square to a room with sense of history and characters living and breathing in it. I looked at it with the minute to spare before break was over and thought “well there it is, I guess I can do this.”

Can you tell us about some your projects you're working on? What are your favorite genres to work in?

I keep imagining that I love sci-fi and can write it, but I’ve only made about one short story in the genre. I keep coming up with the most awful, cliched stuff. FLCL was a big inspiration in college but I never managed to make anything close. So I just keep doing North World, I’m on the fourth book but it’s the start of a new, long story about the wizard Kailee.

I’ve written more fantasy than anything, and it’s a great genre, you can get away with anything and it can be very fun and liberating but only if you set it up very seriously and have an idea of laws within the world. Its like a garden on top of a high pinnacle, once you set up a wall children can play and throw themselves around without fear of falling off the side.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

Doug TenNapel has been a big influence for years, I got the first issue of his book Gear back in 1998 and it seemed to tell me that I could make characters be very expressive and malleable. The other big one is Bryan Lee O’Malley, I got into his work around 2003 or so, right before Lost at Sea came out. Then the first Scott Pilgrim came out and it was so crazy and messy and amazingly inspiring. Those are the big comics influences, but I pillage everything artwise, I’m constantly looking over Bone and Hellboy and One Piece looking at how the artists do everything. Their inking techniques, the composition, how trees and rocks are drawn.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

There’s a few. My first goal is always to entertain, and while I strive to clearly include classic themes I never seem to quite get them in very cleanly. I do tend to veer toward the heroic, getting characters to stand up and fight against something deadly for the benefit of others.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

I get some ideas that take a long time to cook and others that just tumble out and become stories in short time. I always seem to be trying some other method for every story I start working on. I’m hoping the next story line will be five books and I’ve been trying to set up a story line that can really unfold as I go. Instead of trying to figure out every little detail I’ll figure out the end then work towards it but keep a bit of room to play around in without painting myself into the corner with a noose hanging from the ceiling. I’ll let you know how it works out in five years when I’m done.

Then I write the script and work on the thumbs as I complete the pages. I’m always revising just about everything, the only things that remains constant are the general idea of where I’m going and the ending. It can sometimes get very frustrating in the middle, unless I come up with some great idea that fits in perfectly.

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

Media empire and a series of movies that wins more awards than Lord of the Rings and books that stick around like the Lord of the Rings books. These are dreams, right? I’m fine with whatever, the one thing I can control is making books and I enjoy that the most. I know people are reading them, and I’m always pleasantly surprised that they enjoy reading them. Every person that comes up to me and says they enjoy my book is a thrill “Really, my book? Success!”

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

I am very happy working with Oni Press, I like the people and I like letting them deal with the intricacies of getting the books into stores. If someone can do self-publishing more power to them, but at some point you get big enough and you need to hire people and run it like a business. I think I could do the business part okay, but I’d rather just draw.

What do you think about the comic scene currently?

There are some great things, it’s amazing to see the heights that Scott Pilgrim has hit, there’s always a fresh webcomic popping up and the internet is such a fertile ground of artists. There seems to be a lot of freedom for anyone to do anything as long as they’re willing to do the work. I don’t know if it’s ever been a great time to make comics as a living, but it is the best time to make comics because you love making stories. Even if the book market collapses and every publisher closes up shop artists will be able to make their work and share stories somehow.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an artblock you: Play video games until I hate myself and then draw really fast to catch up
Your greatest fear: Someone will find the awful fantasy novel I wrote in High School
Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Play a barre chord on my guitar, my fingers don’t bend that way!
Favorite book/movie/comic: Pride and Prejudice/ Royal Tenenbaums/ Orion by Masamune Shirow
Your darkest secret: My first comic was a combination of Dracula and War of the Worlds, I’m sorry!

You can find more of Lar's work on his LJ and his catch up with him on his Twitter.

Hotshot Showcase: Pete Toms

2010-09-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm going to share with you a little bit of awesome and that little piece of awesome is called Pete Toms. He has a solid tongue-in-cheek-with-a-grain-of-salt type style mixed with scandalous meta-metaphors. Without further ado, let's get it on.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field?

I'm Pete Toms. I work in the cut-throat world of the sequential graphic narrative arts. Some mornings I actually sit and think about whether or not I love the idea of my dog's existence more than I love my actual dog. Some mornings I sit and think about whether or not I love the idea of loving my dog more than I love my actual dog. Then I think about how much of my dog is just my idea of my dog anyway. Then I contemplate thinking about the abstract definitions of love, but usually decide it's too overdone. Then I worry about the fact that I'm thinking about these things. I am available for commissions.

I got involved in cartooning like a lot of people do. I grew up in a neighborhood in the Bronx called Devil Hoof. I had been reading Marvel comics since birth, but like most children, felt decidedly too mature for them by the time I was 7 or 8 years old. By then I was running with a group of kids (what would probably now be referred to as a 'street gang') called Electric Stocking. Though they later became a performance art collective, we'd basically sniff glue, and throw bricks at people, and argue about our favorite New Mutant, and scream Joyce quotes at women and children.

One night I was yelling 'Well, what's cheese? Corpse of milk!' over and over again to a group of frightened families outside of a church when I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. Everything went dark and I had the sudden image of myself standing in front of a bathroom mirror, with blood pouring down my face forming the outline of a Spider-Man mask. I woke up in the church's basement. A young priest named Father Eduardo had decided to save me from my life of sin.

He got me a job in the New York Aquarium as a janitor. I worked there for a few years. I was miserable. I became convinced that the dolphins were tapping on their tanks to communicate with me in Morse code. I was certain that they were attempting to collaborate with me on an escape plan, that would involve purchasing their freedom from our marine biologist overlords. It wasn't until years later that I realized I was delusional and the dolphins were actually just tapping out Public Enemy lyrics.

I performed my janitor duties while slowly stealing and collecting rhinestones off of old women's blouses and purses. I had planned to save enough to find some dolphin-safe-transport and a place for us to live after we broke free. Then Father Eduardo discovered my plot, claimed it was my 'rhinestone covered path to hell' and called the police. As the cops carried me out of the aquarium, over the sound of my gnashing teeth and through my tears, I stared at the tanks of fish and began to see life as nothing more than a series of panels forced upon a blank page.

My aquarium janitor career was over, my cartooning career had begun. I was 10 years old.

Can you tell us about some your projects you're working on? What are your favorite genres to work in?

I'm currently drawing my comic PAWS, a good portion of you can read here: http://ifeelawesome.net/paws
It's a horror story about watching TV.

And, as usual, I'm working on about 50 other things at the same time. A couple of other comics, some music, a few constitutional amendments, my musical about drug addiction called 12 STEPPIN', a website that's like YouTube but for Vaudeville, a book about the entire history of Ireland as told through the inner monologues of a satin vest, a hip hop dance piece about the Great Lakes, finding my biological father, ECT.

My favorite genre right now is 'existential dreadomedy'.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

I spend a lot of time reading and enjoying a lot of comics, books, and movies. It's one of the many reasons I live in terrible poverty. Sometimes when I wake up covered in the foot prints of rats and other vermin, with black rain water soaking the bed I've made out of boxes of 80s Marvel comics, I look over at the copy of ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY I'm cradling, and wonder if I could ever get a real job. Then I laugh with the knowledge that no one would employ a guy wearing a He Man costume, except for He Man himself as some sort of body double, or ruse to throw off Skeletor, or weird sexual fetish, and he is probably already fully staffed and is definitely not real, and I run my fingers over my Jim Jarmusch DVDs, and 70s Sci Fi novels as a tear falls from my eye.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

I'm mostly interested in the construction of public and private identity, the fictional construction of reality, and jokes. I'm also interested in creating stories that new readers aged 6 to 12 could pick up and enjoy. Something that's not mired in continuity or edgy sex and violence. When I was a kid, BATMAN was a book that any child could pick up and read. And the kids that really loved it would continue reading it for the rest of their lives. Then they would become kind of socially awkward and possibly emotionally and intellectually stunted, and spend much of their adulthood with some rage issues and talking about how the comics they now read as adults should be for made for kids. Who wouldn't want that for a child?

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

I live in a house boat off a pier that's not too far from a small farming community in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. Normally before I start working on a comic, I head out there to be among the people. I hear stories from farmhands, and listen to the concerns of day laborers, and sing Woody Guthrie songs with cattle ranchers. Then after buying them as much beer as my meager savings can afford, I ask them if they have any ideas for 'graphic novels.' They usually have no idea what I'm talking about. Then I'm like 'Comics?' And they nod and pitch me stories.

After I transcribe their stories into my own by adding punctuation and removing the Jersey-accent, I do layouts and dialog in a notebook using the right page for thumbnailing and the left page for dialog. Then I draw, color and letter it on a vintage 2006 laptop, with a antique, almost restored Wacom tablet from the early 2000s.

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

I worked for a large professional publisher for a few years. My job was essentially formatting and some design work. The publisher, as well as books, sold wholesale snacks to school and office cafeterias. One of the guys that was a potato chip salesmen contacted me out of the blue one day and asked me to describe my job duties to him. I blew him off as 'possibly insane.' He called a vice president of the company and let him know that in his time off from selling chips he compiled a list of over 400 employees that were 'non-essential.' Two weeks later my professional publishing career ended.

What do you think about the comic scene currently?

Every time I think I might be 'over' or tired of comics, I realize I'm just 'over' or tired of people that talk about them. Myself included.

I should also mention that I've honestly seen some of the most exciting and best comics I've ever seen, recently. And I say that as someone that has read comics for the past 55-ish years.

and then RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an artblock you: Try to entice strangers on the street into violent and/or sexual confrontations that end in me crying.
Your greatest fear: Artblocks. Also artblocks in the form of cancer.
Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Get paid.
Favorite book/movie/comic: Burroughs/Muppets/Ware
Your darkest secret: I'm not kidding.

You can find more of Pete's work on his site and blog.

Hotshot Showcase: Ulises Farinas

2010-09-21T01:44:00.000-07:00

Ulises is an insane master of hyper-detailed drawings with the most intricate line work I have seen in awhile. He's a cartoonist/illustrator living in Brooklyn, NY. He draws MOTRO as part of the webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE and is the founder of the Bear Party Collective.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What are some projects you're working on? What are your favorite genres to work in?

Currently, i'm creating new work to have a fuller, more recent portfolio to show off at cons. I'm a big superhero fan, so most of my work revolves around fun new interpretations of existing characters. I love to work in sci fi and silly fantasy, basically anything that allows me to draw weird creatures or bizarre machines.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

I'd say my earliest influences were Paul Chadwick who drew the Concrete series, and Katsuhiro Otomo, who drew Akira. Both of them had very beautifully imagined fictional worlds. I especially remember the Concrete origin story, "Strange Armor" where he depicts the alien ship as this disgusting mix of the biological, mechanical, and geological. I never seen nothing like that. And everyone's seen Akira, and known how beautiful his cityscapes could be. The amount of detail and focus that both those artists put into their work, is something i aspire to everyday.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

I'd say the main thing i'd want my audience to get out of my work is a smile. Just the feeling of "That was cool" I usually try to think of new inventive ways to use famous characters, or put them in unexpected situations.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

I like to think that nerd fights are a great inspiration. I always like to try to find similarities or cool juxtapositions, like why does Iron Man's suit looks so much like Dr.Doom? Was there some corporate espionage going on? Things like that will keep me up, and i'll have to draw them. That one i made up on the spot, but that's basically how i work. After that, i might go straight to pencils, or if i'm a bit stuck, i'll do a few thumbnails or character designs, but that's rare. Most of the time, my pencils come out with not much planning, and i ink from that.

My biggest challenge is getting overtired, that i can't draw for like a week after that. I don't like to stop once i start, so i'll draw and draw until the project is done, but after that, i feel mentally exhausted, and all my drawings after that are crap.

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

My dream is pretty domestic. I'd like to be able to draw all day, have 2.5 kids and a permanent living situation, with a wife, and be able to stop drawing just to play with my kids and cook dinner for my family. I know, cheesy, but cheese tastes delicious on everything.

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

If you can find success with self publishing, more power to you. Personally, i'd like to work in a more "mainstream" market, either drawing my own stories or someone else's cool stories.

What do you think about the comic scene currently?

It always feels like comics are perpetually failing and perpetually rising. So i try to ignore it mostly. It might be naive, but i like to think that hard work will eventually pay off. I just have to stick in there.

I'd say my biggest pet peeve with the comics industry, is the reluctance of most players in the industry to deal with the racism and sexism that is a part of the industry. I find that most find it close to impossible to admit exists, but it's everywhere. From the all-white legion of superheroes, to the mostly white male artist alleys and panels. There's lots of excuses for why it is, but most people don't really think its a problem for themselves to deal with personally. As a creator, i try to be fully conscious of the why/what/how of my characters, and not just blindly fall into the "all protagonists are caucasion by default" way of thinking.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an artblock you: Relax. Life will go on, and something sooner or later will reinvigorate me. Unless i start hating myself, and just keep forcing myself to draw crappy half ideas.

Your greatest fear: Failure and stagnation. I always want to improve my work, and reach new levels. I'm always afraid that it won't be enough though.

Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Learn how to rap and perform in front of an audience.

Favorite book: Never Let me Go

Movie: Terminator 2, and recently Inception
Comic: A tale of one bad rat, Akira, All Star Superman, Aldebaran
Your darkest secret: Don't really have secrets. I wish i didn't have regrets, I'm glad i learned from them.

You can find more of Ulises' work at his personal website.

Hotshot Showcase: Josh Tierney

2010-09-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

by Mel Stringer

Today we're going to interview our first writer ever, Josh Tierney. I found Josh's work when he first contacted me about being involved in an ultra-collaborative comic called SPERA. I checked out the rest of his site, breezing through his collection of short stories (also accompanied by lovely illustrations by various artists) and soon figured out how amazing a writer he is. I was blown away by his characters, stories and his writing style which is incredibly easy to identify with in a way I can't really put into words. He has definitely influenced the mindset I approach stories with.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field? When did you know you were a writer?

I was 11 when I decided to focus on writing. I felt like my drawings just weren't cutting it for the worlds I was trying to create, so I turned to words instead. From then until last year I focused on prose -- and the script for Spera happens to be prose -- but it was with Spera that I decided to take up comics as a career.

Oliver Hull was actually the one who suggested I try writing a comic. I've always been a comic fan, and always wanted to write one, but for whatever reason I never managed to get around to it until last year. I have Oli and everyone else involved with Spera to thank for helping me choose this path.

Can you tell us about some of your projects you're working on (or planning to work on)? What are your favorite genres to work in?

I've been writing and editing the second volume of Spera -- both the print issues and the online portion. At the same time I'm balancing a large, secret-ish project with Paul Maybury (and a bunch of other awesome people). Next month I'll begin scripting a sci-fi graphic novel drawn, plotted and created by Julia Scott.

My favourite genre to work in is probably the one Spera is: epic fairy tale. An epic fairy tale is basically a fantasy that focuses on smaller-scale, episodic adventures; it can also be seen as an ambitious fairy tale. Two examples of this would be Bone and The Hobbit, at least until they devolve into war stories.

byAfu-Chan

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

Bone would probably be the biggest. I began reading it when I was a child, and the continuous stream of inventiveness of the early issues -- along with their carefree feel -- is something I'll always aspire to. Ghibli films are another source of inspiration for me, particularly their use of strong and realistic female protagonists. My more experimental side can probably be traced back to Cerebus, the films of Jean-Luc Godard and the novels of James Joyce.

I also use videogames as inspiration, particularly 8-bit and 16-bit Japanese RPGs -- the use of four-letter names in my stories (Pira, Lono, Heph, etc) is a reference to the four-letter name restriction in older RPGs such as Final Fantasy I.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your stories?

Escapism might be the most recurring theme. When things go dark, people tend to look for ways to escape the darkness -- but you can't run away from something forever. Spera is an allegory for the act of escapism while serving as a work of escapism itself.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

First I decide on a general theme, genre or setting. From there my mind fills up with the more abstract elements: colours, shapes and feelings. After that I come up with a protagonist. Once I have these elements I usually start the process of writing, letting the plot form and evolve as I write. When I'm working with an artist, or would like to work with an artist, I look over their art for inspiration: the kinds of figures they draw, which colours they use and the feelings they tend to evoke. When I'm working with Afu Chan, his character designs tend to affect the way I write the characters, and I'll often go back to adjust them in the script accordingly.

I tend to focus on large-scale collaborative projects, such as The Untitled Saga of Hana, Radar Doesn't Believe In The Supernatural and Spera. With these projects I act as editor as well as author, which is where the real challenge comes in: finding, managing and scheduling the artists (and, for Radar, musicians as well), making sure things don't fall apart and seeing things through to the end are huge sources of both stress and satisfaction for me. I have to say that the stress drives me to complete a project as much as the resulting satisfaction does.

by Beryl Chung

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

I'm always daydreaming about one of my projects becoming a movie or tv show or cartoon or video game. These are the dreams I tend to have while trying to turn published work into a reality.

What do you think about the comic scene currently?

My current favourite trend has to be the ambitious, high-quality comics that have been appearing online in recent years, for free and fairly regularly: Old City Blues by Giannis Milonogiannis and Starfighter by HamletMachine immediately spring to mind.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you have writers block you: Write anyway.
Your greatest fear: Death. Dying. Followed (perhaps a bit too closely) by flying.
Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Travel to Japan.
Favorite book/movie/comic: Moby Dick/Whisper of the Heart/Bone
Your darkest secret: I secretly have a very crude and (abstractly) offensive sense of humour.

You can find more of Josh's work at his site, the Spera site and his blog.

Hotshot Showcase: Giannis Milonogiannis

2010-09-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

Alright, going strong with these interviews! Today we talk to Giannis Milonogiannis an artist I've been watching and whose work I thoroughly enjoy. Recently he released a four-issue webcomic which completely blew me away called Old City Blues! It's a fast-paced murder mystery with stunning ink work and a great innovative style. Be sure to check it out after you read up on Mr.Milonogiannis.

Alright, first question! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field? When do you know you were an artist?

My name's Giannis Milonogiannis. I was born in 1988 in the States and I grew up in Greece. I've been at this comics thing for about 4 years. I knew I was an artist when I realized there wasn't much else I could do as competently as drawing stuff. I knew I was a cartoonist when I found that making comics is much more fun and fulfilling that just doodling.

Can you tell us about some your projects you're working on (or planning to work on)? What are your favorite genres to work in?

Right now I just put together a little collection of comics and drawings called "Scribbles 1". I'm currently planning my next longer story, which is a desert-fantasy adventure, involving oracles, sword-fighting and barbarians.
I recently drew the first issue for Josh Tierney's new "Spera" mini-series, which was really fun to work on. Before that I finished my cyberpunk-police-action-post-apocalyptic-thriller book "Old City Blues".
I don't really have any favorite genres- I just like trying out different stuff as much as I can.

What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

Man, this is hard. Don Rosa's "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck", "Blade Runner", Pratt's "Corto Maltese", Naoki Urasawa, Munoz and Sampayo's "Alack Sinner", Shirow's "Ghost in the Shell", Schiele and Klimt, Asimov's "The Caves of Steel", Schuiten and Peeters' "Fever in Urbicand", Moebius' crazy short stories.

Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

I'd like for people to have fun and get excited when reading my comics or looking at my drawings. It sounds kind of shallow, but I'm finding it pretty tricky to get just right. You can't say "OK, now I'm gonna draw some fun stuff", because you'd end up with pages of explosions, boobs and nonsense. Making a comic that's fun and interesting to follow is like a complex balancing act.

Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

The biggest challenge for me has been finding the right look for different projects. If I'm working on a story of my own, I can't write the story if I haven't settled on the look. I end up redrawing lots of pages and rewriting as I go. Once I have the look I want, though, I knuckle down and thumbnail the whole issue/story and then it's just a matter getting the actual pages done. That initial phase of doing concept work and writing at the same time is the most stressful, for me.

What are some dreams that you have for your work?

That I'll find enough of an audience for my work to be able to keep doing it indefinitely? Not just regarding the financial aspects of having an audience- I'm starting to feel more and more that comics are incomplete until they are read and experienced. The reader is your final collaborator, and you need to actually feel like you're finishing something, otherwise it ends up feeling like masturbation.

What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

I don't have that much experience in the actual publishing industry yet to be able to pass any kind of judgment. Self-publishing is empowering. I think the line between the two is becoming increasingly blurred, as people figure out how to use the Internet to make a decent profit off self-published work.

What do you think about the comic scene currently?

I tend to look at old comics so I miss out on a lot of the recent developments. There are a lot of interesting things happening everywhere, from my point of view, at least. I get the feeling that people I like/friends are stepping up their game and just Going For It and making stuff happen.

It sucks how many series are being canceled and how many imprints were shut down recently, though.
Satoshi Kon's passing away will have a huge impact on the comics scene, in my opinion- it seems like every single cartoonist loved his work. Not to mention he drew great comics himself.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an art block you: Artblocks are for sissies!
Your greatest fear: Dying when I have one page of a story to finish.
Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Make a videogame.
Favorite book/movie/comic: Bester's 'The Stars my Destination/Kurosawa's 'High and Low'/Tardi's 'The Roach Killer'
Your darkest secret: wouldn't be too dark if I told you, would it??

You can find more of Giannis work on his flickr, DA and website.

Hotshot Showcase: Aluísio Cervelle Santos

2010-09-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Alright, after a bit of an unannounced hiatus, SUICIDE WOLF IS BACK and this time bringing you some fresh meat to chow down on. We're starting a new series of articles dedicated to young comic artists that are completely destroying us in the comic street. Our first interviewee is Aluísio Cervelle Santos who hails from fiery Sao Paulo, Brazil. I met Aluisio through a comic battling site called EnterVoid and was privileged to see him morph into this inking beast we have now.

1) Alright, first question! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into this field? When do you know you were an artist?

Hi there, my name is Aluísio Cervelle Santos, and I'm a Brazilian graphic design student, hopefully graduated by the end of the year, haha. I always loved reading comics, but for the longest while I thought it was impossible to make them on my own, due to specially a lack of processes knowledge, and skills to do it too, so not until a few years ago when I found entervoid.com I started making these stuff, and when I started, ironically it went from a simple drawing practice device to become my biggest passion.

2) Can you tell us about some your projects you're working on (or planning to work on)? What are your favorite genres to work in?

Sure! I'm currently a bit busy working on my graduation project, which is a 2D pixelart fighting game using of music and comic elements, and that will be killing me for the next 2 months, but after I'm done, I'm going back to work on a comic pitch, namely a RockStar one, all revamped, with an actual story and what not. I'm also slowly working on an epic collab entry for Gothology anthology with the talented Anna Bowles (http://community.livejournal.com/somesketch/). That one is a bit far off though.

I like to make comics about the fantastic, ridiculous, over the top or inexistant things, or hidden deep in people's imagination. For two reasons: My inability of making something realistically serious, and because our own lives are already serious and complicated enough. Comics can be that sort of escape for your mind, that's how I feel when I read a book, or what I want to find in comic books.

3) What are some of your inspirations that influenced your work?

I oftenly seek inspiration in elements from outside comic art, such as music or philosophers, games and cinema. Social contemporary philosophy are oftenly a mind-twisting adventure by itself, and they can be a real trip for your delight.

When it comes down to artists, I like several guys: Mike Mignola, Akira Toriyama are guys that will always be present to me, but then as I started actually making comics, I got really fond of Simon Bisley, Ryan Ottley, guys who know when you get a realistic type of art and when to get downright cartoony. Frank Miller is a particular god to me.

4) Is there an underlying message or theme that you have in your work? What is it you want the audience to get out of your work?

I don't aim to leave a message for most of time, though that probably could be somewhere to reach next. I normally try to make it clear it's a different trip, one that you might relate to, but won't find it in your everyday moments.

5) Can you tell us a bit about your creative process? (From ideas, to planning, to finishing it.) What are some challenges you face when you're creating?

I used to do both the thinking and illustrating altogehter, like thinking of snapshots of a scene, to only then properly write it, but ever since Zuda, I've found it much more productive and easy to go to first write an overall text, to then go to a small storyboard, to then go back to write it properly with dialogues and shits, and then thumb it down, to only then draw those pages. So yeah, I used to have issues when concepting the story, but I think it was natural to me to write first then draw, since I used to dungeon master a lot of DnD campaigns, and that's how I worked there too.

6) What are some dreams that you have for your work?

I dunno about the others, but I aim to be able to make a living of comics alone. What I like the most is to draw, and if I can both draw and tell stories, and then get paid to do it, sign me up!

7) What do you think about the publishing industry vs. self-publishing?

I think that's kind of like discussing politics. Both have their draws and their cons. You need to be ¨marketable¨ to make into the industry, which oftenly means follow a house style, while it pays really well. Self publishing lets you do whatever you want to, but you'll oftenly lack the selling pull those big publishers can do for you. If there's a way to do both of them together, it's a dream come true.

Both ways have it's challenges to be overcome, and are worth it.

8) What do you think about the comic scene currently

I see that concerning the big industries area, there are less and less ¨house styles¨ showing up - there are less and less ¨insert name-clones¨, which is an interesting thing to see, and opens a door for people with crazy good skills, but weren't able to draw bulging biceps and nads, skin-tight spandexes.
I don't know much about the american indy scene, other than webcomics becoming insanely popular to a point you can find a new one every two days or so.

One thing I can tell is that the app business is an interesting one to go with if you're looking to independently release a comic and get paid for it. Probably relying on your own marketing skills though.

RAPID FIRE ROUND:

When you're in an artblock you: Unceasingly browse through internet websites until I notice the entire day passed by and that I should be working instead!

Your greatest fear: To reach a point in which I'd regret my past actions.

Something you've always wanted to do but haven't: Started a rock band.

Favorite book/movie/comic: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, by Hirohiko Araki.

Your darkest secret: I need a flashlight first so I can see it!

You can fin Aluisio's art on his personal website and blog.

Storytelling - CHRIS BACHALO / GORAN PARLOV

2010-07-05T23:51:00.000-07:00

by Sean Witzke

"Storytelling" in comics is one of those weird and amorphous terms that you hear as a positive when describing good qualities in an artist - when I talk to people about Chris Bachalo I say his storytelling is what I love about his work. But... I don't know exactly what I'm describing. Bachalo does something with his layouts, character movement on the page, weirdly inducing moments that aren't on the page - Bachalo's characters act, his pages are actually composed with readability in mind, his figures are stylized, sometimes to the point of abstraction - but are any of those things storytelling?

In the pages here, from the New X-Men story Assault on Weapon Plus with Grant Morrison, Bachalo's techniques all exist in service of the story. Maybe thats what the term means, sacrificing other points that an artist employs in order to serve the story up in as fluid a way possible. The first three pages all employ layouts built to evoke falling. Not the cascade of panels that Sean Phillips employed in Sleeper, but the pages are full of panels drifting in blank space, untethered against blackness. Each has large dominant shot being either led to or away from with smaller panels. Bachalo also understands The difference that framing makes. Wide panels and close-cropped insert frames. The disconnect of on-screen imagery and omniscient shots are used to great effect. Morrison's story, which is largely about conspiracies and scientific observation, benefits from Bachalo's framing and shot choice. The story is a kind of horror film/ Prisoner riff with the X-Men thrown in, so observation makes sense thematically to shoot things these ways. But the cropping of screens and close-ups is an inspired touch, forcing the reader to snap back and forth to and from wide shots of action. On the fourth page, Bachalo employs the old-fashioned character-moves-across-the-page-in a single splash, maybe with a little bit of Jack Kirby cutaway vibe in there for effect. With the last panel he pulls the same trick, snapping from extra wide to cropped closeup to keep the reader uncomfortable.

But maybe "storytelling" is a term used to describe clarity? Steve Dillon and Dave Gibbons, those guys, who simply draw what happens. Maybe good storytelling should be invisible, it should be something you can't notice unless you're looking. Something like this first page -

Goran Parlov's work on the Barracuda arc on Garth Ennis' Punisher Max run is no flash, no mess clear concise storytelling. It's little moments like the waves actually rise and fall in the second and third panels. In the second page, we see how Parlov's wide full-tier panels are used to create a rhythm (which he does so throughout the story), but along with that we never see Barracuda move, he's just suddenly on top of the guy in the car, who without any frame changes is suddenly so tight in the shots that the reader is squirming with him - the creases in his face as he sinks back in the third panel, the use of shadow in the fourth panel, the whole page is compression without showing compression.

Garth Ennis is one of the rare comics writers that consistently writes great action scenes, but with Parlov there is something else going on. There is the matter-of-fact way that the fight plays out, and there is a clarity of movement. This scene is special because of the way that it mirrors the best filmed fights scenes. It's awkward, and kind of slow. The thing about the best fight scenes is that there is a sick rhythm of "AND THEN" to great fights. It's perfect that Parlov is the artist to do a story where the Punisher finally comes up against someone who's as skilled/as tough as he is, because this is an even fight for the most part. What happens is Barracuda sucker punches the Punisher AND THEN the Punisher stabs Barracuda's eye out. You can feel the pace of this fight, it's not quick cuts action made to excite you, it's every punch and heavy breathing, two men who can barely stand halfway through the fight. This is hurt, and there isn't a missed moment, because Parlov is intuitively showing precisely THIS moment of impact and THIS moment before. Storytelling here is spotless clarity, showing off by hiding in plain sight. Bachalo and Parlov are doing the same thing, but in diametrically opposed ways, Bachalo sees his story for what it is and bases his approach in framing and layout, Parlov does the same thing and goes for the direct approach.

You can find more of Mr.Witzke at his blog.

Italian Classics - Crepax and Sclavi

2010-06-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

While I was in Venice I was surprised to find that I was situated right next to a comic shop. It was gloriously filled with everything from Manara to Toppi as well as local self published comics and zines; way more extensive than my local shop. While perusing through there I found an amalgam of awesome Italian comics. Tonight I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite classic comic artists that I saw in Italy.

First up is Guido Crepax who was born in Milan, July 15, 1933 and passed away July 31, 2003 at the age of 70. He worked as a graphic artist and an advertisement illustrator while studying at the School of Architecture at the University of Milan. He made his debut in comics in 1959 when he contributed his work to Tempo Medico. He joined the new magazine Linus in 1965 with a fantasy comic, 'Neutron'. This superhero comic featured a minor character, a reporter called Valentina who turned out to be his most famous character. Valentina, created in 1965 and very representative of the spirit of the sixties.

After 'Valentina', other titles followed, such as 'L'Astronave Pirata' (1968), 'La Casa Matta' (1969), 'La Calata di Mac Similiano' (1969), 'Belinda' and 'Bianca'. Guido Crepax drew delicate girls, many of them inspired by actress Louise Brooks, whom Crepax adored. His style of art and storytelling was infused with insidious, dream-like qualities and psychedelic espionage. You can find it in Italian on Amazon though I haven't found any in English yet.

After a few more weeks of trekking through Italy we stopped for a week by a beach town, Mondello, in Sicily. We stayed at a cute three story pension where we got to know the family who owned it very well. When he found out I was a comic artist and looked at my work he quickly asked me if I liked Dylan Dog. I racked my mental bookshelf of the name but shrugged when I came up with nothing. He looked at me incredulously and said he'd run down to the newspaper stand a black away and get it for me. Upon his return he excitedly explained to me the premise and insisted I start reading it. While it seemed like a pulp detective novel at first I was happily surprised that it had a satisfying blend of noir surrealistic horror to it.

The creator, Tiziano Sclavi, was born in Broni on April 3, 1953) is an Italian comic book as well as an author, journalist and writer of several novels. Sclavi is most famous as creator of the comic book Dylan Dog in 1986, for Italian publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore. Having achieved great publication numbers, the series has been in collaboration with several artists, including Claudio Villa, Corrado Roi, Gustavo Trigo, Carlo Ambrosini, Luigi Piccatto, Angelo Stano, Mike Mignola, Andrea Venturi, Giampiero Casertano and Bruno Brindisi.

Dylan Dog is about an impecunious, neurotic nightmare detective with Groucho Marx as his comic sidekick. The story reminds me of Casanova by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon and Mike Mignola's Hellboy (who I recently discovered drew cover's for the English versions in 1999). I found Dylan Dog in almost all book stores as well as airport book shops, usually next to the classic western comic Tex by Aurelio Galleppini (ala Galep). You can find English version of Dylan Dog through Dark Horse in 7 different volumes.

Italian Classics - Beginning of Fumetto

2010-05-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hello readers! I've just returned from a month long excursion to Europe. I was able to find tons of interesting comics while I was in the UK and France but I spent the longest in Italy! So I decided I'd do a series on classic Italian comics.

Italian comics are locally known as fumetto, which means puff of smoke as in the word bubbles. This is not to be confused with fumetti which is a specific genre of comic depicted with photos (aka photonovel). Attilio Mussino started his career at a very young age, making humorous and satirical drawings for magazines like La Luna and Il Fischietto. For Bemporad publishers he took on illustrating 'Pinocchio' stories. Mussino soon specialized in illustrating children's books. At the same time, he was one of the first collaborators of Corriere dei Piccoli.

The Corriere dei Piccoli (Italian for "Courier of the Little Ones"), later renamed Corriere dei Ragazzi ("Children’s Courier") and nicknamed Corrierino ("Little Courier"), was a weekly magazine for children published in Italy from 1908 to 1995. It was the first Italian periodical to make a regular feature of publishing comic strips.

In December 27, 1908 Italian newsstands saw the first issue of Il Corriere dei Piccoli, the first mainstream publication primarily dedicated to comics. It was 24 pages long and sold 80,000 copies. The first issue introduced readers to the adventures of Bilbolbul, a little black kid drawn by Attilio Mussino that is considered the first Italian comic character.

Despite being officially considered the birthplace of fumetto, the Corrierino, as it is nicknamed, doesn't use balloons in the stories that it publishes, opting instead for captions in verse. Regardless, the sequential narration and the returning characters make the publication rightfully the first Italian comic magazine. Il Corrierino introduced American comics to the Italian audience; however, it was edited to replace balloons with captions. Following its spectacular success (reaching 700.000 copies), several other periodicals appeared during the following years: Il Giornaletto (1910), Donnina (1914), L'Intrepido (1920) and Piccolo mondo (1924). After World War II, Attilio Mussino left the comics field to return to illustrating children's books.

Besides introducing comics to Italian public, the Corrierino greatly influenced four generations of Italians, and played a significant role in the career of many Italian artists and writers, such as Giana Anguissola, Mino Milani, Hugo Pratt, Lino Penati, Dino Battaglia, Aldo Di Gennaro, Sergio Toppi, Mario Uggeri, Benito Jacovitti, Guido Buzzelli and many more

Links Emporium: Internet Comics Criticism

2010-05-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Today’s Links Emporium will send you to three places with, ostensibly, the same goal – the review and analysis of comics on the internet. Some quality sites on comics are already linked on the sidebar of this blog, but the three listed below are, in my opinion, a fine addition to that list.

Jog the Blog

Jog, or Joe McCulloch, is one of my favorite writers on comics. One great thing about his work is that he makes excellent use of the Internet as a medium; his best posts are long, image-heavy, and thus not ideal for a print publication, but an absolute joy to devour. I'm thinking here of pieces like his 18-part series with Tucker Stone reviewing every comic published by DC/Humanoids; I'm particularly partial to the discussion of the recolored version of Moebius and Jodorwsky's The Incal, which details a phenomenon that is both maddening and fascinating. Another good one is his two parter exploring the origins of manga publishing in the US, in which he also looks at the definition of the term 'manga' itself. If these text behemoths seem a little overwhelming at first, a (relatively) shorter introduction to Jog's writing can be found in his recent interview on the Death Note comic at the Comics Reporter. Jog also writes a preview of the comics being released each week (previously for his own blog, now for Comics Comics) that is infinitely more entertaining than its many counterparts on other comics news sites. While he will certainly make you aware of the most exciting new comics on the market, Jog is just as likely to talk about the relationship between Brian Wood's Demo and the comics blogosphere or to throw in a review of Tank Girl just for fun. In short, it always makes for a concise but entertaining read, ideal for when you don't have time to tackle a longer post. As the disparity in the links in this post indicate, Jog writes for several different venues, but he links to his work at his personal blog, so I'd encourage you to follow him there.

Marvelous Coma

Marvelous Coma is cartoonist Brian Chippendale’s site for, as the name would indicate, reviews of superhero comics. Though the sensibilities of Chippendale's own work might lead you to think otherwise, he apparently reads Marvel comics on a regular basis, and the combination of his extensive knowledge on this topic and unique perspective to the superhero comics industry makes for a great read. He’ll often review a single comic, just like dozens of other review sites, but it's Chippendale's fun approach that makes his blog worth bookmarking. He blogs with as much abandon and unfiltered energy as he draws – one of my favorite posts ended with him redrawing the final page of an Avengers comic to make it end as he would have liked. Unfortunately, Chippendale doesn’t post too regularly, but he last updated with a great post on Japanese cartoonist Taiyo Matsumoto; indicating, perhaps, that he will be expanding his online focus beyond Mr. Fantastic and Captain America. Even if that's not the case, however, I eagerly look forward to the next Marvelous Coma update.

Next Issue!

The Next Issue blog is written by Geoff Grogan and Kevin Mutch, two cartoonists who come at comics from a distinct fine arts background, at least in terms of their emphasis on theory and structure. The two take turns posting, sometimes building of off a previous update, but just as often veering off into a totally new direction. As such, though each Next Issue post certainly stands alone, I recommend reading the blog in chronological order. The evolution of Grogan and Mutch's discussion is fascinating (be sure to check out the comments as well!) and they discuss topics ranging from the low art stigmatization of alternative comics to the fetishization of photorealistic artists like Richard Corben. That sentence alone might be enough to put some comics fans to sleep, but I am a huge Next Issue fan and if you're reading this blog I think you will be as well. Unfortunately, Next Issue has been defunct for some time, and Grogan and Munch have apparently moved on to pood, a huge newsprint comics periodical where they are joined by cartoonists such as Jim Rugg, Connor Willumsen, and many others. Still, there's a significant archive of quality writing to enjoy at the Next Issue blog, and I can always hope that the lovely art on the pood blog might one day be interrupted by a discussion of the semantics of page layouts or something.

What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?

2010-04-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

I saw Art Spiegelman speak last week, and it was an incredibly rewarding experience. His lecture, entitled "What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?" mixed historical background and Spiegelman's own ideas about comics theory with a couple readings from his own work (mostly things from Breakdowns), and as soon as the lecture was over I knew I wanted to share what I had learned on Suicide Wolf. Originally, I intended to write some kind of piece responding to Spiegelman's ideas, but I quickly realized that my own words would just get in the way of relating the lecture itself as faithfully as possible. So, instead, here are my notes from both the lecture and a short Q&A session I attended earlier in the day. They're presented in chronological order, and I've done my best to present Spiegelman's thoughts as clearly as possible, though I'm sure there are things I've forgotten; keep in mind that these are just notes and certainly not a transcript of what was said.

Again, I would very much encourage you to go see Spiegelman speak if you get the chance. Aside from his extensive knowledge about comics, he's an entertaining, funny speaker who peppered his lecture with tons great anecdotes about his many years in the industry. In short, highly recommended.

First of all, here are some high points from the hour-long long Q&A, in which Spiegelman and his wife Françoise Mouly (art director of the New Yorker, RAW co-founder, etc) answered questions from a group of about 20 people:

On his time editing RAW: Spiegelman gave a short history of his time in the San Francisco comics scene, and talked about how his time editing Arcade informed what was done with RAW (which he says would never have happened without Mouly). He was quite critical of the fact that editing in alternative/underground comics was almost non-existent at the time of Arcade and RAW, and emphasized the importance of editorial vision in RAW. He talked about how the magazine gained a reputation for editorial strictness, and gave the example of Ben Katchor, who was unhappy when Spiegelman didn’t edit a piece he turned in for RAW. Katchor insisted that he be edited in some way, and Spiegelman finally relented, though he said that Katchor’s new version created just as many problems as it solved (which served as an interesting counterpoint of sorts to his support of editing in general). He also saw RAW’s work to bring European comics to the American market as quite important, and joked about how much easier it was to edit a comic that was already complete. Mouly jumped in to talk about the importance of RAW as a physical object with a carefully designed format, and said that this stemmed from her own interest in printing in the 1980s, when it was much more of a mysterious, exciting process than photocopying machines and home printers have made it today. They both agreed that one reason why RAW was successful was due to the fact that, both through editorial direction and luck, they were able to assemble a group of artists that had some kind of a cohesive aesthetic.

On serialization vs. graphic novels: Personally, Spiegelman is more partial to short work than to book-length comics, though he certainly recognizes the economic benefits and commercial appeal of the later. He sees the fact that Maus was serialized as essential to the success of the project, given the many edits that were made to earlier sections throughout the serialization process. Recent comics like Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button, on the other hand, are negatively impacted by their length, and the only reason Shaw was able to produce so much work so quickly was due to a simplified drawing style that stuck out like a sore thumb to Spiegelman. Even with script help from the Bible, R. Crumb still took 4 years to draw Genesis! Spiegelman said that he had in fact tried to start several graphic novels after having completed Maus, but that each attempt had for various reasons been unsuccessful. In short, he concluded, the time commitment needed to produce a graphic novel (a term, Spiegelman mentioned, which he doesn’t really like) just makes it much more difficult to self-edit in any holistic manner compared to a shorter project.

On writer/artist teams: Spiegelman is inherently distrustful of work not produced by a single cartoonist. In most cases, neither is able to communicate their ideas effectively to the audience, and even if a given cartoonist is a better draftsman than writer, for example, working alone is still the best way for that cartoonist to portray the world as he/she sees it. Jose Munoz and Carlos Sampayo of Alack Sinner are the exception to this rule; as a team, they are able to be much more successful than as individuals, but this is a rare case and stems directly from their long friendship and working relationship.

And here, as complete as I could make it, is the lecture itself: Art Spiegelman’s “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?”

Spiegelman began by taking about his title: "%@&*!" is both a word and a picture, and this combination of communication methods is what makes comics so special. He gave a quick history of comics from a very idiosyncratic perspective, beginning with the Frederic Wertham-induced death of EC Comics and the rise of Mad Magazine before moving back to the early-20^th century newspaper comics that he discovered later in life. He made it clear that these were the comics from which many of his formative influences were drawn, and it was during this section of the talk that he read several excerpts from Breakdowns about his discovery of and love for Mad. In the context of Mad, he also made the interesting point that in our parody-filled culture, it's quite likely that one will be exposed to the parody of a given pop culture phenomenon before knowing anything about the phenomenon itself.

Spiegelman then talked a little about the issue of defining comics, poking a little fun at Scott McCloud, and eventually arriving at something along the lines of 'a narrative conveyed through a series of images.' To serve as evidence for this claim, he read and then analyzed the sequential narrative aspects both a Nancy and a Peanuts strip (he had a large projector behind him). The Nancy reading in particular seems to have taken a page from Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden's How to Read Nancy, but Spiegelman certainly put his own spin on things. He talked a lot about the idea of cartooning as representational; in Nancy, Bushmiller only shows readers the bare minimum needed to convey meaning. He also touched on some formalist ideas, such as the fact that characters in Nancy move right to enter a location and left to leave it. In was in this context that he shared a 2 page Jules Feiffer Playboy comic with all black panels, where the only ‘pictures’ are the dialogue (this would make more sense if you could see the comic, which I couldn’t find online; please let me know if you have it scanned). Feiffer uses blank panels quite effectively as an indication of passing time, and Spiegelman used this example to illustrate that the panel is the basic unit used in constructing of a comic.

If the panel is the most basic aspect of a comic, the next element on a formalist level is the page, and this is what Spiegelman discussed next. It’s no coincidence, he said, that a building and a comic are comprised of stories; both have a deliberate architectural construction that is used to achieve functionality and clarity. He referred back to the ideas brought up during the Nancy and Peanuts readings at this point, and shared some of his own formal experiments with the structure of a page, reprinted in Breakdowns. He then showed how the same principles applied to his work in Maus, giving a couple specific examples of the ways he used panel structure as a storytelling tool. This was one of my favorite parts of the lecture, because while the examples from Breakdowns made the reader quite conscious that formalist tricks were being played, I would not have noticed some of the techniques used in Maus if they hadn’t been pointed out. In other words, formalism and structure in Maus was very much in service of the story rather than something being done for its own sake. Spiegelman certainly recognized this fact, mocking the lack of mass appeal in the Breakdowns work and saying that Maus was the next logical step in that it applied what he had learned from Breakdowns to a more linear narrative. He then showed the first page from In the Shadow of No Towers, saying that it combined the storytelling of Maus with a more explicit use of Breakdown's formalism. For instance, the layout of the first page (seen at right) is purposefully disorienting; readers are supposed to 'fall' down the page with the tower only after some initial confusion, a technique reflecting Spiegelman's own initial reaction to 9/11.

Spiegelman ended with a few more readings from the autobiographical sections of Breakdowns, talking a little about the work he has done after finishing Maus; he told a couple funny anecdotes about the criticism surrounding both his own 1993 Valentine's Day cover and the most recent Obama 'Politics of Fear' cover at the New Yorker, and also talked a little about his article in Harper's on the Danish Mohammad cartoons. Unfortunately, he had to cut things a little short due to time constraints, but he nevertheless made time for a few more questions and still managed to end with a flourish, declaring that "The future is the iPad, dammit!" before walking offstage to uproarious applause.

Thoughts on Format and Presentation in Webcomics

2010-04-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

I read a great comic by Connor Willumsen the other day. It's just the latest in a number of different comics that really take advantage of the web as a medium, which is something that I think is slowly moving from being a curiosity to a norm in the webcomics field. It's really exciting to see all of the different ways this is being done (animated gifs, interactive comics, Scott McCloud's infinite canvas, etc) and it's something that I'm consciously trying to experiment with in my own work. One thing I haven't seen explored as much, though, is the idea of the horizontal page as a significant factor in page and panel structure. Pages with a 3:2 ratio (ie to fit on a computer screen better than a vertical page), have become much more common recently, and while I think it's a great innovation for the webcomics format, the execution of the concept sometimes leaves a little to be desired. For instance, I've read a number of comics on Zuda (which, if you don't know, uses the 3:2 format) that are laid out in a way that leaves me confused as to which panel or word balloon I'm supposed to look at next, or at the very least makes me work to figure it out. This is especially interesting given that I'd be willing to bet that at least some of these comics' creators wouldn't have any storytelling clarity problems with a traditionally oriented vertical page.

This lack of ease with the horizontal format is certainly understandable; the printed page, sequential or otherwise, has been largely vertically oriented for hundreds of years, so it’s only natural that collective adjustment to horizontal formatting takes time. Still, it seems that some of the least readable among strips adopting the horizontal format (at Zuda, which does seem to attract some particularly bad eggs, or elsewhere) are those that don’t realize they are on a new playing field, so to speak. You can’t draw a horizontal page like a standard comic page that happens to have been cut off at the halfway point – it just won’t read right. Dynamic, exciting layouts are still possible on the horizontal page, but they have to be approached in a different fashion. I see this as more of an opportunity than a limitation, however – with a little experimentation and creativity, the horizontal format can offer storytelling possibilities that just wouldn’t be possible on a vertical page; this is something that the best Zuda strips illustrate quite succinctly.

On a similar note, it's been interesting to read all of the things that have been written about the iPad recently in the context of digital comics. Of particular note at this (very early) stage in the game have been the reaction to Marvel's iPad app. Boingboing's take on the app was especially interesting to read, and I was struck by the reviewer's positive reaction to the 'one panel at a time' mode that Marvel makes available (watch the linked video if that doesn't make sense). She commented that the experience was like watching a film, which I found a little annoying – comics aren't supposed to be like films, and if the original comic she read was any good, cutting it up into individual panels destroyed the artist's intentions in terms of pacing. Still, it's exciting to see another experiment in format and presentation, and it certainly does have some uses; it's perfectly suited, for instance, to the one panel comics on Act-i-vate. Plus, I'm sure there are tons of other format possibilities offered by the iPad and similar technologies; Boingboing mentioned a few of those (more 3-D comics, anyone?) in its initial iPad review.

So, what's the point of all this ruminating about new formats and modes of presentation? Won't good storytelling transcend the format in which it is presented and connect with readers no matter what? Well, yeah, it will – at least, to a certain extent. However, format can be just as useful a tool as color, line or any other aspect of cartooning in that it can be used to make your work as good as it can be. I don't think print comics are going anywhere, at least not any time soon, but that certainly doesn't mean good cartoonists should shy away from any and all kinds of experimentation.

Manhole by Tetsuya Tsutsui

2010-04-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Manhole was released back in 2005 and serialized in three volumes by Square Enix.

This macabre story begins with a disfigured and bleeding man crawls out of a manhole and falls dead on the street. It then follows two detectives, Ken Mizoguchi and Nao Inoue, as they try to solve the grisly case which slowly reveals itself to be just the surface of a massive and terrifying conspiracy. They soon find out that a pestilent pandemic looms on the horizon if they are unable to find the cause of this parasitic outbreak.

Tsutsui's style is sharp and cinematic; this story was one of the first, besides Junji Ito's mangas, that really gave me a dreaded and excited feeling which is something that is hard to come by. At the cinema, it's easy to get excited and enraptured by an intense

film with surround sound and massive flashing images. Tsutsui did this with a story alone, a frightening story at that.

Given his previous work as well, these intense thrillers are Tsutsui's calling. I think the reason his stories are so grabbing is because he uses everyday things and turns them into horrifying plot devices. For example in Manhole there is a photo, a fish tank, a manhole, all of which are so ordinary and yet turn into chilling keys to solving the mystery.

Let's just say you won't want to walk by a manhole again, if you didn't in the first place, and a buzzing mosquito will make you cringe.

Tetsuya is an independent mangaka and has published most of his work through his own website. Besides Manhole, he has also created a one-shot titled Dud's Hunt and Reset. Also on his website you'll find older web comics, one of particular interest called Collector (NSFW) which really takes advantage of it's web-based format and makes it particularly eerie.

You can find his website here here, http://www.pn221.com/ .

Heroman

2010-04-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Spring is here and, along with my allergies, the first set of episodes for the new anime season. The turn out for this round feels a lot more hopeful than last with a few titles having the promise to be actually interesting. One in particular, Heroman, is holding my attentin as it is a collaboration between Studio Bones (producers of Fullmetal Alchemist, Ouran Host Club, Soul Eater ) and Stan 'The Man' Lee. While Heroman may not be the first American comic/Japanese animation collaboration (I'm thinking of you, Batman: Gotham Knight and The Animatrix) it certainly feels new because of its tv series format and high profile participants.

Heroman's story of misfit-boy-in-emo-pants-meets-robot may not be the be the most innovative but it certainly is a classic one that has potential if you can bring something new to it. Maybe this U.S. collaboration is it. Maybe not. But after watching the first episode it's clear that I'm seeing something different. For starters, the location is set in a west coast American city that may or may not be a cleaner Los Angeles (it certainly has the same traffic flow.) I wouldn't say that there's anything too unusual about this. I mean, hey, the first East of the East Movie 1: The King of Eden just came out and has really brilliant actual NYC locations like the Angelica Theater and Brooklyn Bridge Park featured in them. It made the background fuller and visually gave the fabric of the movie a richer feel. While I have yet to spot any In and Out burgers in Heroman, the American color coding in the first episode couldn't have be more distracting for me. Let's take the opening for starters:

(apologies for the mirror flipped copyright evasion version)

Are there a lot of American flags in that or does it just feel weird because it's an anime?
The main character, Joey Jones, is an effeminate, brown haired and blue eyed boy who wears neutral colors of yellow, white and black. His aggressor at school, Will, the leader of a pack of bullies, is a blocky blond football type who sports a red, white and blue athletic jersey. Hmmm. Will's sister who shows romantic interest in Joey, also dons a red, white and blue pallet but it's more subdued than her brothers. And how about robot Heroman? I guess you could count the red circle formed by his chest and arms as a Japanese flag but the blue and white stars running up and down his sides kinda negate it for me.

The reason why I'm bringing this up isn't to stir U.S. and Japanese political debates (though I'm sure someone somewhere has that allegorical blog post at the ready) but how this will be accepted by anime fans. Specifically anime fans in the U.S. who have been notorious since anime's popularity boom to reject any Ameri-manga/OEL incarnations. If those hard core anime fans are out seeking out only 'real' anime, what are they going to do with this? To me, anime fans and conventions embrace the idea of being the 'other' or being the outsider. For many, anime isn't something the 'cool kids' are into (it certainly wasn't when I was in high school) so for the kids are into it, the inaccessible nature of it ends up being embraced. Just like the hard core comics fans, it becomes a circle of interest that you and your buddies can understand without having others intrude into.
So I guess my big question for Heroman is this: If you're trying to make anime as American friendly as possible, are you ultimately just shooting yourself in the foot? I won't deny that this first episode looks really good when you watch it but by making it more palatable for U.S. audience are you pushing the outsiders out?

Food for thought, my friends.
Related links of interest:
An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla
My Anime List: Heroman

P.S. Um, Stan Lee animated diner cameo? Spiderman on the laptop instead of the Apple sign? Hilarious

Not Simple

2010-03-25T12:48:00.001-07:00

This book was recommended to me quite some time ago, but I only just got around to picking up a copy last night.

If you like a good human tragedy that is not overwrought, then this is the book for you. The story chronicles the life of Ian, an Australian boy - from adolescence to death as he searches for the love of his true family.

Though the plot twists and turns and becomes quite heavy at times, it at no point becomes overly theatrical or melodramatic. Indeed the storytelling is intensely reserved and well paced. The plot would easily lend itself to pages of teary eyes and hysterics, but Natsume Ono spares us from that. Instead we are presented with a cold and detached narrative, that I feel not even Nick from The Great Gatsby could muster if he tried.

The paneling is well plotted and paced. Throughout the comic we're brought down through empty space into characters open heads, as though we've been invited to feel their emptiness. There are lots of silent panels, stilted panels, blank stares. You read the awkwardness and the despair of the scenes without having to read character's words or faces. It creates an introspective and introverted mood that invites you to empathize, sympathize, with the characters of the story and their plight without them having to explicitly state and narrate their circumstances and feelings.

That being said, you should know from reading the above whether this story is for you or not. There are no pratfalls, or explosions, and there is no happy ending where everybody gets married, or a hero to ride off into the sunset. If you are interested however, the book is being distributed through Viz's new SigIkki label, and a preview of the book is available on their site here: http://www.sigikki.com/series/notsimple/index.shtml

Trace by Nasty Cat

2010-03-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

I recently stumbled upon on a South Korean sci-fi/fantasy webcomic called Trace, a manhwa written and created by Go Yeong-hun or "Nasty Cat". It's original run was back in 2007 and is now published by Pop Toon.

Trace won the first prize and Netizen's Choice Award at the 1st SICAF International Digital Cartoon Competition held in 2006. Mr. Go was awarded with ten million won (roughly $8,800 dollars). The panel stated that they easily reached to choose it as the grand prix because not only it scored the highest point in the netizens' recommended works but also it fully meets the required criteria; characteristics of web manhwa technique, and artistic features.

Since April 2007 this manhwa had been featured on Daum, one of major internet portals of South Korea that is being considered a birthplace of many hit webtoons.

Trace is set in modern Korea where unidentified monsters have appeared, terrorizing the city; they are called Troubles. At the same time, people are slowly beginning to develop superpowers which are called Traces. They are the only ones that can contend with the Troubles. So far, the story focuses on a high school student dealing with his Trace powers and trying to assimilate into normal life and an older salaryman that has suddenly developed Trace powers and has his family taken from him.

Go Yeong-hun has a very interesting style, it is simple and angular with shades of movement. I enjoy his action scenes immensely as well as the way he sets up environments. The way he presents his comic is in one vertically long page in which he uses a lot of space between panels. His comic reminds me of film stills rather than your standard comic which I think is a great step in exploring various avenues of creatively presenting a webcomic.

It is also exciting to mention that Trace is soon going to be made into a live action movie, which is a first for webcomics internationally (I think)! Unfortunately, Trace was published only in Korean but you can find scanalations of it online. He also has another webcomic published through Daum called Rain (though I can't be sure because I don't know Korean).

You can find his main site, Nasty Cat, here.

You can find his other webcomic, Rain, online here.

Comix 2000

2010-03-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

The high concept behind Comix 2000, from French publisher l’Association, is simple and ingenious. To celebrate the new millennium, creators from around the world created short wordless comics, combining to produce a massive 2000 page anthology (printed on phonebook-thin paper to keep down size/cost) that transcending the language barrier. Cartoonists were also suggested the rather broad theme of ‘20^th century.’ The huge, amazing list of people featured in the anthology can be seen here. This unique editorial vision alone makes Comix 2000 a unique piece of history, but from what I have read the work featured in the anthology was quite strong as well. Sammy Harkham recently spoke highly of Comix 2000 in the Comics Journal, drawing attention to the fact that Comix 2000 contains a good mix of established creators (Lewis Trondheim, Brian Ralph, Chris Ware, etc.) and cartoonists who were relatively unknown in 2000, and, especially, in the US, might still be waiting to be ‘discovered’ by a wider audience today. The wordless nature of the book makes it incredibly accessible, and this, combined with its depth in styles of cartooning and breath in the geographical location of cartoonists, makes Comix 2000 in a certain sense the ideal anthology. If the comic was more accessible today, I imagine it would be one of the first books I would recommend to someone looking to be introduced to not only to European comics (which admittedly tale up much of Comix 2000’s real estate), but to comics in general.

At the time of its release Comix 2000 was readily available, and apparently was even distributed in the US by Fantagraphics, but today it has become pretty difficult to find (trust me; I’ve looked). Given the time sensitive nature of its premise, it makes sense that l’Asso has chosen not to reprint Comix 2000, but that doesn’t mean I can’t lament the passing of what was by all accounts a great anthology.

Mutt and Jeff

2010-03-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

When Bud Fisher created Mutt and Jeff in 1907, he also created the first successful, ongoing daily strip in comic history, as well as set a number of precedents for comic creators.
Orginally Fisher's strip appeared in the The San Francisco Chronicle - but in 1908 Fisher had been invited to draw for Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. The problem existed that Fisher had no claim over his characters, or strip (as was normal in that era), and had he left the Chronicle they would certainly hire a new artist to take over his strip and characters. So when the time came to submit his final strip to the Chronicle he followed it through the newspaper offices, right up until it was to be set for printing - then he asked the printer if he could make one small change to the art. The change he made was to add a copyright notice in his name.

Now that Fisher owned the characters and strip, he had them syndicated and became the first cartoonist in history to become enormously wealthy from producing comics.

As the strip progressed, Bud Fisher became increasingly disinterested in the artistic side of the comic, and began to hire assistants to draw for him. Fisher's assistants included such later greats as George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are). Eventually responsibility for creation of the strip fell on Al Smith, who continued the strip after Fisher's death in the 1950s, up until the early 1980s.

Aside from getting the first daily strip into syndication and hiring assistants - Bud Fisher was arguably the comic world's first merchandising whore. He licensed the rights to his characters out for use in live action movies, animated shorts, stage plays, figurines and all sorts of assorted knick knacks. The animated series was produced for 11 years (1916-1927) and resulted in over 300 animated shorts.

So had you ever wondered who had the first daily comic strip, where excessive merchandising originated, and who pioneered the use of teams of assistants in producing comics, look no further than Bud Fisher, and his pioneering comic strip Mutt and Jeff.

Exordium Quintus

2010-03-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

Hello! - I am Pow Flip. I was born in a dishwasher, and raised on the inside of an erupting volcano. These days I am really bad photographer who lives at no fixed address.

Currently I am fixated on becoming a professional comic artist (don't laugh, such things exist). I draw several hundred pages of comics each year, so I figure I may as well try to get paid for doing that.

What will I post about here? Probably stuff I know something about; like tools and supplies, and technical boring stuff. Occasionally I may ramble about things even I don't understand. But that's ok, we all grow up together.

Anyway despite the fact that I produce copious amounts of work, I'm not very social and don't have much of an online presence. So no other blogs for me to link to or fancy online portfolios. If you want to see my work just google my username and check out the results. I do under very rare circumstances print work - SO!- if you must have a hard copy, you have to be really lucky.

Cheerio!

Links Emporium: Three Cartoonists with Great Blogs

2010-03-08T20:07:00.000-08:00

Thus begins another attempt to synthesize cohesion in my writing for Suicide Wolf by arbitrarily dividing my posts into loose, ill-defined categories. Links Emporium will send you to those dark corners of the internet of which you might otherwise be unaware, but will hopefully come to enjoy. Today, I’ll look at three European cartoonists whose lovely, image-heavy blogs are a joy to follow.

Thierry Martin

Martin’s style is Franquin’s energetic cartooning by way of Christian Blain’s attention to detail and masterful control of color. He’s done some work for the long running Belgian comicsperiodical Spirou, and most of his published albums are done with writer Jean-Marc Mathis. The things he posts online are quite eclectic – his sketches are pretty different from his more polished stuff, for instance, and I loved his recent post on original art displayed at the 2010 Angouleme Festival. His separate blog of semi-autobiographical Jerry Alone strips is tons of fun as well.

François Olislaeger

I’m not too familiar with Olislaeger’s work, though his site indicates that he’s been published by l’Association and Atrabile, among others. The title of his blog translates to ‘Tourism in an Everyday Environment,’ and he posts these beautifully sketchy watercolors, which I assume are drawn from life, on a very regular basis. They range from portraits to environments bordering on abstraction, and seeing Olislaeger’s range within the confines of a fairly simplistic style is really interesting.

Guillaume Singelin

You might have seen Singelin’s work in Image Comics’ Popgun anthology, and if so you’ll know that he has a great, unique style and a real talent for portraying dynamism in both his comics and illustration. The stuff on his blog is mostly in black and white, which makes for an interesting contrast from his published work, which is mostly in color (you can see some sample pages on his portfolio site).

Sean Gordon Murphey draws stuff

2010-02-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

Sean Gordon Murphy pencils and inks Joe the Barbarian (written by Grant Morrison). His portfolio can be viewed at www.seangordonmurphy.com and you can check out some of his fantastic writing on his DA

Conformity Can Be a Good Thing

2010-02-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

I could have started this post by writing 1000 words on the value of homogeneity in design, and I might even have managed to make a coherent argument. Maybe. Instead, though, I’ll just ask you to compare this:

To this:

From a simple aesthetic perspective, all other considerations aside, is it really that much of a surprise that in recent years manga has been so much more successful, financial speaking, than American comics?

I understand the value of design and format as an aspect of creative expression, but I do think many publishers could stand to gain from following the lead of companies like Viz or Tokyopop. Viz in particular is a great example in that their books aren’t all exactly identical, and they’re willing to make exceptions to their normal digest format if needed, but in general they have a set formula and they follow it. When someone sees a big stack of, say manga from Viz’s Shonen Jump line, they understand that on some level these books form some kind of cohesive unit because they all look the same.

Look at the two images above from the perspective of someone who has no familiarity with either American or Japanese comics. Which one is this hypothetical reader more likely to be drawn towards? The bookshelf with some sense of uniformity in design and presentation, where individual series are easy to find (because, it should be noted, their length in addition to their design), or the bookshelf where that little Gipi comic you heard about might well be hidden between two huge hardcovers? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m certainly not arguing that, for instance, Chris Ware needs to publish all future issues of Acme Novelty Library in 200 page perfect bound paperbacks, but many American publishers could benefit from making some movement in the direction of visual cohesion. Fantagraphics’ recent Love and Rockets Library collections are a great example of the kind of approach that I think should be more widespread – nice and thick, well-designed, affordable (that’s a big one!) and uniform in format. They’re using a similar homogeneity in approach for their new Jacques Tardi material, presumably in part to make it easier for someone who enjoyed one Tardi comic to find the others. That’s the right idea. That’s what Viz and Tokyopop have been doing for years, and everyone else should be doing it too.

Getting Wild With Zachary Braun

2010-02-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

Zachary Braun is an artist and visionary that creates one of my all-time favorite webcomics! Do you like animals? Behavioristic psychology? Grandiose fight scenes? Then you will probably love Nature of Nature's Art, an exploration into an anomaly of animal revolution. So far, there are two completed arcs and one brand new one and I urge you to read up on them all. Braun is a fight scene virtuoso, a craftsman when constructing his scenes and not to mention an incredibly unique storyteller.

Obviously, while I could ramble on about dear Mr.Braun, he was happy to allow us some time in his busy schedule to answer a few questions!

How and when did you get started as a comic artist?

Back when I was in elementary school I would go through large amounts of paper drawing time machines and warplanes. Illustrated stories were also one of my favorite projects. This continued into 4th or 5th grade, when I developed a bunch of easily-drawn characters (snakes, comets) and started to make a few simple comics.

Both 10%+ and Secretary are noticeably long sagas; did you know before hand they would be this long? If so, did it seem a daunting prospect?

The length of each story wasn't something I planned for. They were intended to be small theses, and I had to set up structures that supported those theses in order for the reader to understand what I was trying to convey. It didn't matter how long it took; all of the points absolutely had to be hit, like checkpoints. It ended up taking a long time to hit them all.

Your comic sometimes comes off a little obscure; do you think your readers are "getting it"? What is it that you want them to get from your comics?

The wretched accessibility of NofNA relates to the personal preferences I had when I was younger, from the age of 16 to 24. Around this time, I didn't have any hobbies and was perusing many works, online and off. Because I didn't have much of anything in my personal life, including opinions, I could afford to be open and inquisitive in this way. I started to experiment with the limits of accessibility by giving even obscure and demographic works a chance. In these instances, I found that my rationalizing the work into something I could understand was a very powerful tool; it made the work personal to me. I thought this was a very positive experience and I wanted to try to recreate it. A few readers have expressed their undying appreciation for this method. While NofNA stories are designed around a theme, they are also open to the reader for personal interpretation. I think turning stories into this kind of a commodity is very important.

What is your process for creating your comics?

NofNA stories usually begin around a series of images and a hypothesis. The story-making process is just connecting the dots between the images and the hypothesis and then drawing as I go along. With both 10%+ and Secretary, interesting corollaries can end up working their way into the story. For example, the jerboa in Secretary who ended up becoming a main character wasn't even in the outline. Twists and revisions like this are what made both stories so long. It was very challenging and fun to rationalize my own stories into sense using the process I mentioned in the previous question.

What are your influences and inspiration?

For a long time I've been intent on connecting the technical aspects of nature and the figurative aspects of society. Human psychology is incredibly plastic, but it must operate within the confines of social norms--an environment in which everyone allows others to feel safe. If it needs to move outside of those confines, behavior becomes pathological. The opportunity to shed light on why those pathologies exist--justifying the character and the cathartic process that created it--is what keeps me going.

What are you working on now?

The next NofNA arc is called Lycosa. At this point, it seems to be a story about the persistence of the individual, but who knows what that will turn into. It features spiders.

Do you have any advice for your fellow comic artists?

Honor your life with your work as only you can make it. No one else can have your perspective or your memories. When you die, those will be gone from culture. It's up to you to feed all of that data back to culture in a way that justifies your life as you lived it. In other words, stand up for your own experiences.

Thanks again Zack for your time and we can all look forward to what you have in store for us with your next arc!

You can find Zack here at his main site and also at his DA.

Talk the Talk: Dialogue

2010-02-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

In comics, words appear in two important and correlating forms: dialogue and narration. In this two part piece, we will first talk a little about dialogue.

I've noticed that sometimes dialogue gets taken for granted in comics. I'll be sitting back, reading a comic and find that my eyes want to immediately skip over the dialogue; it was either was boring or static that they might as well have left it out. Good dialogue should move the story along, set the mood for each scene as well as give insight into the characters. So in harmony with this belief, I thought I'd share some helpful tips I've found on improving your dialogue.

Finding the Flow

A lot of comic artists I know tend to be unconcerned with dialogue and figure they can just wing it; that it doesn't take much skill. Unfortunately, this is an oft-made misconception. Real world dialogue and conversation is a layer cake of thoughts, acknowledgments and interjections. A good way to find this flow is to eavesdrop. Listen to the two crazy bums that are sitting behind you on the bus or the little boy asking his dad question after question behind you at a restaurant. John August, a screenwriter, said "To get a sense of this flow, you need to stop paying attention to the actual words being spoken. It’s the auditory equivalent of un-focusing your eyes." I find this to an extremely useful practice to learn how find a rhythmic dialogue.

The Rough Draft

As stated previously, dialogue needs to either 1) move the story along, 2) give insight into the character or 3) set the mood. The characters conversations should always contain some sort of information that contributes to those three goals. Avoid filler. Alfred Hitchcock said that a good story was "life, with the dull parts taken out." This applies to dialogue as well. Also while you are interested in how the characters convey their ideas to each other, you also want to pay attention to how information is conveyed to the reader.

What and What Not to Say

Another August quote, "Bad dialogue tends to spray out information in every direction, whereas smart dialogue sneaks the facts in while you’re otherwise entertained." It should not be obvious that you are feeding the reader facts. You should let the story unfold naturally, you don't need to bombard them with all the pertinent info all at once. Profanity, slang and stereotypes also are risks that may cause your reader to become distracted and take them out of the scene. Anything that distracts from the world you are slaving over to create is not your friend. This is the same with proper punctuation and spelling. Also avoid exposition, repeating plot information as well as repetitive naming.

Once you've written your dialogue, read it aloud or read it with a friend. Does it sound mechanical? Does it sound fake? Boring? This is a good exercise to find if your dialogue works or not. Also find books, movies and shows you like and listen and take notes on the dialogue you hear. What do you like about it? Why does it work well?

Remember, just like with art, writing is it own beast that you'll need to conquer.

Translate This Now: Lupus by Frederik Peeters

2010-02-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

Translate This Now will be a semi-regular series reviewing and otherwise extolling the virtues of quality comics that are not yet available in English. Today I’m going to talk about Lupus, a four volume series (with each book being about 100 pages) by Swiss cartoonist Frederik Peeters. I’ve only read the first two volumes of Lupus, but they’ve been outstanding so far, so I would imagine that the last two are just as strong. Lupus chronicles the adventures of the titular adventurer/thrill-seeker and his female companion Sanaa. It’s ostensibly a science-fiction comic, but Peeters is much less concerned with building worlds than he is with building characters; in that sense it’s comparable to some of Paul Pope’s work, especially 100%. All the same, the tantalizing glimpses of various planets and environments Peeters does offer are a key part of the Lupus experience, as he allows the reader’s imagination to create the intricacies that science-fiction so often seems to explore in exceedingly minute detail. Over time, these glimpses become more prolonged, and hints of the social and political underpinnings of the world Lupus inhabits become a counterpoint to the reserved, almost simplistic nature of Lupus himself.

Peeters’ art was the reason I originally picked up the first album of Lupus without knowing anything about him or his work. He has an airy, loose style and limits himself to around 4 or 5 panels a page, creating a sense of scale that is quite appropriate to the story he is telling. He’s able to create a balance between energetic expressionism and clear storytelling. Peeter’s character work is also strong; the personalities of Lupus and Sanaa are developed as much through their body language as through Peeters’ writing. Not to say that the writing in Lupus is a weak point – for instance, there’s a significant amount of narration by Lupus in the books, and the character has a unique voice that really adds a layer of depth to the story. I also enjoyed the sense of minimalism in design and color of the series’ covers, the first of which is pictured above.

As far as I know, the only work by Peeters available in English is Blue Pills, an autobiographical account of his discovery that his girlfriend has contracted HIV. It’s a great comic and an excellent introduction to Peeter’s work, especially given that he has said in interviews that Blue Pills helped him transition to the character-based work in Lupus and other recent projects. In light of the success of autobiographical comics like Maus and Persepolis in the American market, I can understand why Blue Pills would be the first Peeters comic a publisher would chose to translate, but here’s to hoping Lupus will come in second.

I heard you liked manga so I put some manga in your manga and...

2010-02-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

After Mr. Whites Comics of the Decade Pt 3 post that featured a nod to Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata's Hikaru no Go, an underrated title I hold dear, I thought there was no better time to embark on my maiden post here at Suicide Wolf.

Currently running in Japan's Weekly Shonen Jump is Obata's latest collaborative work, BAKUMAN. Paired with again the writing force of the enigmatic Tusgumi Ohba (is it really just a pen name for Hiroshi Gamo?) BAKUMAN tells the story of two high schoolers that decide to become mangaka together. As a drawing and writing pair, the main characters, Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi, move through the stages of being promising new talent to published pros. Obata's art is of course fantastic and the story (and subsequently drama and comedy) builds wonderfully as the main pair encounter and create relationships with more characters from the manga publishing world including editors and peer/rival mangaka. But perhaps the very best thing about BAKUMAN is that it's a comprehensive meta-manga paradise.

In case anyone is unclear on the matter, I'm rather fond of manga so manga about manga is really the double scoop of ice cream before dinner to me. And as far as BAKUMAN is concerned... well, lets just say I may have found my triple banana split sundae. I've have yet to read another comic that so explicitly and entertainingly breaks down the manga creation and submission process let alone one that shows the full editorial practice that happens between mangaka and their publisher. The explanations all happen naturally as Mashiro and Takagi learn the standard procedures, common set backs, and limitations of the manga world as the reader does. Of course, in typical shouen form, the pair meet and attack all of these bench marks with the unflagging gusto and idealistic hearts that set all the manga world aflame.

Past and currently running series and creators are referenced within the story as Mashiro and Takagi look to their manga forefathers for inspiration and clues to success. There ends up being a never ending folding of real manga within the fantasy manga of BAKUMAN that one can't help but wonder how many of the experiences have been shared by the actual drawing/writing duo of Obata and Ohba which, as a reader, only serves to makes things more interesting.

Currently, SleepyFans are providing translations that can be found at MangaFox but Viz has picked it up for US publication in the near future. BAKUMAN also has confirmation for an anime adaptation for fall 2010 ( as if it couldn't be further into the folds of meta-otaku culture...)

Know Your Webcomics

2010-02-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to brief you on a few of my current webcomic reads that I've grown fond of!

Sailor Twain or The Mermaid of the Hudson

Created by Mark Siegel, editorial director of First Second Books, has recently launched Sailor Twain, or the Mermaid in the Hudson, an elegant webcomic done all in charcoal.

“It is 1887," Siegel told Publishers Weekly, "and the depths of the Hudson River hold the unfathomable secrets of two men: the owner of a steamboat, who throws a bottled message overboard each morning, and the boat's captain, who saves a wounded mermaid. Into this comes a famous writer whose love for one of them will keep both men from taking their secrets to a watery grave.” Definitely keep your eye on this one.

Read it here!

What Things Do

What Things Do is a small (but growing) collective of artists with a magnificent large artillery of comics. So far it features work by John Porcellino, Sammy Harkham, Ted May, Steve Weissman and Jordan Crane. Their goals at the moment are unknown but it hardly matters.

Their comic genres and varied and all amusing and cute. Some of my favorites include Vicissitude, Elisha, King Cat, Soap Opera and This Already Happened. Go enjoy the massive collection of comics they have! You'll be missing out big time if you don't.

Find it here.

Death Day

Created by Sam Hiti, Death Day is a racous scroll of a comic with every inch og page and panel cut into with a glorious style of inking. The pacing is amazing so far as it tracks you through this alien world with the most intricate detail.

Read it here.

Comics of the Decade Pt 4 of 4

2010-02-04T05:35:00.000-08:00

For the final part of this series, I’ll be looking at three cartoonists who, for an American audience, might seem to have come out of nowhere, but in fact have quite storied careers in their respective home countries. It’s interesting to see how the work of foreign cartoonists is often filtered so that only their best material is translated into English. Financial considerations aside, of course, I think it would be interesting to see lesser known works by such cartoonists become available as well. Early work can often shed light on the development of a cartoonist’s style and sensibility, and I think a display of this process would shed light on the creative process and years of work that comes for great comics such as the ones on this list.

Notes for a War Story by Gipi

order in English here

Notes won the Best Book prize at Angouleme in 2006, and with good reason; it’s a great book. Set in an unspecified war zone, Notes is a war story in the same way that, say, Scott Pilgrim is a story about video game style fights. That is to say, it’s about an exploration of the three main characters (Giuliano, Christian and Little Killer) and the way the war affects their lives more than it is a story about the war itself.

In fact, Gipi drops several hints that he is skeptical of traditional depictions of war. For example, a character filming Giuliano for a war documentary says, “For now these are just notes for a war story. They’ve gotta be edited and packaged. The title will come later.” In other words, war isn’t really about the exciting explosions, fighting, etc. you often see on TV, but the truth isn’t suitable to be exposed to the public without being somehow filtered. In a way, Gipi’s art supports this view, as his raw, loose style is ‘filtered’ through a strong sense of storytelling to create a comic that is pleasurable and easy to read. Some of the images of Giuliano’s dreams are especially striking, and Gipi’s washes add an appropriate sense of somberness to the story.

As Giuliano, Christian and Little Killer (as well as several equally fascinating secondary characters) develop over the course of the book, Gipi touches on concepts as diverse as class conflict, patriotism, greed, and most importantly, friendship. Though the three boys are nominally friends, the subtle rifts Gipi creates in their relationship become increasing apparent as the story unfolds. It is a mark of Gipi’s talent that while one comes to expect that the three will eventually separate, the separation itself is still emotionally jarring. Plus the twist on the book’s last page gets me every time.

GoGo Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto

order in English here

Taiyo Matsumoto is a master at injecting a great sense of mood into his comics, and this is especially true in the case of GoGo Monster. The slow, rhythmic exploration of both the book’s setting and its characters has a personality all of its own, and this buildup culminates in the book’s wonderful final section, which is both frightening and captivating. Matsumoto does an amazing job of conveying the conflicting senses of wonder and confusion that are such an integral part of childhood, and that he does so with such poise is especially stunning. His cartooning and storytelling are second to none, and Matsumoto is fairly unique (though not alone; Frederick Boilet and Jiro Taniguchi both come to mind) in his smooth incorporation of both Japanese and European influences into his work. This really is a book that makes you think. It’s challenging in a good way, and in that sense it affords multiple readings.

It’s also interesting to see how Matsumoto’s style here is different from Tekkonkinkreet, likely his most well known work in English. The initial surprise of seeing such a different art style in this book, which I was not at all expecting, is no small part of what I enjoyed about it. Of course, the influences that can be seen in Tekkonkinkreet are still present in GoGo Monster, but Matsumoto’s approach here is pretty different in terms of tone and sensibility. GoGo Monster is a more subtle, understated work than the (purposefully) exuberant Tekkonkinkreet, in terms of both art and story, though the works do explore some similar themes. On a stylistic level, I’m not sure how much of this difference is a conscious effort on Matsumoto’s part given the years in between the two comics’ creation, but in any case it shows him to be a very diverse cartoonist.

Pluto by Naoki Urasawa x Osamu Tezuka

order in English here

What I enjoyed most about Pluto was the way that it oscillated between quiet character moments and the more sweeping story of Gesicht’s search for the robot Pluto. In all of his work, Urasawa is an expert at slowly constructing complex, multifaceted characters against the background of an impending sense of doom as established through the narrative that ties these characters together. The few interviews I’ve read with him seem to indicate that he’s very interested in character development and his characters are a big part of what makes his work so compelling. A great example of this phenomenon in Pluto is Urasawa’s choice to take two chapters away from his main character quite early in the story to explore the relationship between a robot and a human, both of whom he promptly kills off. Even better, the significance of this event in terms of the wider plot doesn’t become clear for some time. What a gutsy move! In terms of cartooning, Pluto is strong as well. Urasawa really knows how to lay out a page and his storytelling ability hooks you right away. It’s very difficult to not to read an Urasawa comic in huge chunks.

I had a tough time picking between Pluto, 20^th Century Boys and Monster as the Urasawa work to include on this list, as I enjoyed all of them (as a side note, it’s a little frightening that he has completed three series in the space of a decade). In the end, however, I think Pluto emerges the strongest work. It’s much tighter piece, which I think is largely a function of its length. 20^th Century Boys and Monster suffer from longer serializations, and to some extent their thriller/mystery nature, in that it seems Urawasa is forced to produce plot twists faster than he can come up with reasonable explanations for them. Admittedly, Pluto is somewhat of a thriller as well, but less overtly so, and perhaps the fact that it is based on a Tezuka Astro Boy story also helped to narrow Urasawa’s focus. While I suppose an argument could be make that the lack of resolution of all plot points is part of Boys'/Monsters' charm, I see it as more of a weakness. This is especially clear when these works are compared with the more tightly-plotted Pluto. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy the rides that were 20^th Century Boys and Monster (I definitely did), but in the case of Pluto I was just as pleased with the place where that ride took me.

***

Thus ends my first (briefly interrupted) series of Suicide Wolf posts. Hopefully this gives you some sense of the kinds of comics I enjoy. I'm really pleased with the way this blog has been developing so far, and I'll do my part to keep the momentum going; I will be posting again as soon as possible!

Don't Gild Your Pens

2010-02-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

Style is a topic that gets discussed often in the art world.

It is also something that I find a lot of artist obsess over very often, so often that they inevitably dig themselves into a pit of blandness. They somehow become overly self aware, concerned with something that really shouldn't be concerned about. In view of this, I gathered together some smartly written quotes that answer these questions perfectly: What is style? Is style something you need to strive after within yourself? Is it okay to take from others?

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."— Jim Jarmusch

"No man who has achieved greatness in the arts operated by himself; he was top man in a group of like minded individuals...If this isn't 100% true, its true enough to be interesting— and maybe helpful." — Kurt Vonnegut

"Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible, as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it. It is something for use, and not to look at." — Henry David Thoreau

"People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style." — Matthew Arnold

"The style is the man himself." — George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon

"When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man." — Blaise Pascal

"You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being." —Katherine Anne Porter

"Style is the perfection of a point of view." — Richard Eberhart

What is style? You already have it. You are your own unique individual. Even if you had an identical twin and you were both walking together and came to a tree standing in the path, one might go to the right and one to the left. You might go to the left and see a skunk. Your twin goes to the right and sees a taco stand. Style is as simple and direct as that. It requires digesting your experiences and creating things based on them. It doesn't mean blanking out the skunk and being mad you didn't see the taco stand instead. It means you see the skunk, you stay with the skunk, the skunk is your experience. Style is digesting who we are. If you are 'similar' to someone, it is because you have digested their work and with this your life. All the things that make you you. With this everything you create is imbued with you. - Natalie Goldberg

Comics of the Decade Pt 3 of 4

2010-01-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

Today’s comics are the three most mainstream in this series. This does not mean that they are superhero comics (though I considered writing about both All Star Superman and Batman Year 100 for this list), as I hate the way that superhero comics are sometimes equated with mainstream comics. I’m talking about books that have achieved some degree of success outside of the traditional market for comics. This means that they were bought by people who get comics from a bookstore or online (i.e. not a comic shop) and don’t necessarily ‘follow’ the comics industry. In other words, these comics are read by a huge pool of potential customers which most cartoonists, for a variety of reasons, aren’t able to reach. On that level alone, they have something that other comics do not, but these three works succeed artistically regardless of their financial success.

Bone by Jeff Smith

order here, Jeff Smith's blog here

Bone is as smooth as Jeff Smith’s wonderfully Walt Kelly-influenced brush line, and I definitely mean that as a compliment. Smith presents a perfect execution of what is essentially a combination of funny animal humor (à la Carl Barks or, again, Walt Kelly) and fantasy epic, but with enough poise, originality and skill that Bone becomes anything but a retreading of genre tropes. Plus, the cartooning is just so spot on; Smith molds an impeccable sense of sequence and timing into a work that just ‘flows,’ for lack of a better term. There’s a sequence early in Bone that illustrates this especially well – the rat creatures are shown first as they begin to leap and then after having landed on a branch where Fone Bone stands (the last two panels of the page to the right). It’s a subtly brilliant choice to focus on these two moments rather than the more obvious image of the leap itself, but it’s the accumulation of such choices that makes Bone succeed in terms of cartooning. However, it’s a mark of Smith’s skill that you don’t really notice this technical prowess when first reading the comic, as you’re too busy enjoying Bone itself.

Bone’s significance in terms of comics history also cannot be discounted – Smith, alongside Dave Sim and others, was key in the move towards collected editions and reprinting in the comics industry. Given Bone’s original publication in serialized form, it’s ironic to note that this same trend contributed to the rise in popularity of the graphic novel, but nevertheless the changes Bone helped bring about form a key component of the industry as it exists today. Now, in a new series of color editions from Scholastic, Bone is having a completely different kind of impact. The series is incredibly successful, having sold over a million copies in the color editions alone, and one would imagine that at least some of those million readers keep reading comics after they’ve finished Bone.

Hikaru no Go by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata

order in English here

I don’t think Hikaru no Go ever had the potential to be as successful here as it was in Japan. If you haven’t read it, the comic revolves around the Japanese board game of go. American readers, of course, have likely never heard of go, while I assume their Japanese counterparts might have the kind of passing awareness of the game that most Americans do of chess. Still, cultural distinctiveness aside, I see Hikaru as one of the best examples of a shonen manga completed in this decade. It is very much in line with the high concept approach of most shonen manga – troublemaking/outcast adolescent boy decides he wants to be the best [insert noun here] in the world. Humor and action follow as he pursues this goal alongside several companions. What makes Hikaru in particular so interesting is that the application of this formula to a board game seems so clearly unappealing. It shouldn’t work, but against all odds, it does.

Hikaru’s success lies in its combination of an immersion into the reality of the Japanese go world and a skillful exploitation of shonen tropes. The Insei system, for instance, is a remarkable concept of which I would otherwise be completely unaware, and throughout the series Obata manages to make the placing of a go stone seem just as dynamic as any shonen battle. His artistic development is also an apt parallel to Hotta’s wonderful character arcs; Hikaru looks completely different at the end of the series than he does at the beginning. Obata’s storytelling is a strong point as well, and he quite handily turns innumerable sequences of what is essentially talking heads into visually interesting comics (much as he later does in Death Note and Bakuman). Of course, melodrama and suspense are present throughout the comic, because that’s sort of the point. This isn’t a subversion of the shonen genre; genre conventions are adhered to quite strictly. In this sense I’ve included Hikaru on this list not only because of its own success (which, as I mentioned, is marginal in the US compared to something like Naruto), but because I see it as one of the best representatives of shonen manga, a genre that has achieved a great deal of mainstream success. Hikaru is an ideal example of artistic achievement within the confines of that genre; in both their high concept and their delivery, Hotta and Obata find a new twist on the shonen formula and execute masterfully. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Pinocchio by Winshluss

order in French here

When will France stop producing great dual name, dual career cartoonists? Like Jean Giraud/Moebius before him, Winshluss has a completely different career under his real name, though for him the difference is even more apparent than in Giraud’s case – as Vincent Paronnaud, he directed the Persepolis film alongside Marjane Satrapi. Personal details aside, however, Winshluss’ work in Pinocchio is marvelous. I should note that it’s a little bit of a stretch to call Pinocchio a mainstream success, as it’s isn’t even available in English as of this writing. Still, it won the Best Book prize at Angouleme, France’s premier comics festival, and from what I understand it has sold fairly well for an alternative, adult comic (in other words, much more than such a comic would sell in the US). So, at worst, it’s a mainstream success in a relative sense.

As the title suggests, this book is a very loose retelling of the well known Pinocchio story. At first, Winshluss plays up the humor of his high concept, albeit in a very dark way; if nothing else, Pinocchio is a very clever, funny book. For instance, his Jiminy Cricket is a spot on caricature of the struggling writer; he spends more time drinking than he does writing his novel. However, as this humor builds up, it eventually gives way to a series of complex character studies. An accumulation of countless humorous yet sinister moments allow Winshluss to explore the (often twisted) psyche of everyone from the Fox and the Cat to Geppetto. This character development is never overbearing or heavy-handed, though, as you’ll find no soul searching monologues here – the comic is largely wordless, so you’re free to enjoy the humor alone if you chose.

Still, it doesn’t take much to look past the superficial and recognize the extent to which Winshluss is able to develop these characters almost exclusively through simple, quality cartooning. Winshluss uses a number of styles and approaches to relate the various threads of his story, from scratchy pencils for Jiminy Cricket to a spot on imitation on a comic book cover when Monstro first appears to a number of beautiful full page watercolors. The way these threads come together at the book’s end is also quite pleasing. It seems as if every loose end is tied up, and the way in which many characters’ paths cross is the final exclamation point to both Winshluss’ humor and his subtly masterful depiction of human character.

Story by Robert McKee

2010-01-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

Your regularly scheduled Andrew White programming will return shortly, but the magic of the internet is such that I can change my plans whenever I so desire. I am the master of my own destiny!

In response, or perhaps in contrast, to Sloane's excellent post on Natalie Goldberg’s Wild Mind, I'd like to recommend Story by Robert McKee. McKee seems to think that his book is about writing screenplays, but he is wrong. It's actually a book about creating stories, with some annoying parts about directors and movie studios thrown in for fun. McKee breaks down the structure of a plot into a million pieces and then puts them back together right before your eyes. Yes, most of the examples he uses to illustrate his ideas are drawn from film, and yes, there is some advice specific to screenwriting, but that's beside the point. He explains scenes, acts, climax, subplot, theme and other terms that really apply to storytelling in general just as much, if not more, than they do to film in particular, in a way that is both simple and insightful. Just to give one quick example, I love McKee’s explanation of the dichotomous nature of story. To summarize and oversimplify, he says that a positive story beat is always followed by a negative beat, never another positive beat. For instance, Character A loses his job, but he still has the support of his family! But then his wife leaves him, but then he is freed to discover his true purpose in life. Et cetera. The rhythmic accumulation of these beats, McKee claims, is what creates the narrative and thematic focus of a story and eventually brings it to a climax. It’s a simple concept that is easy to apply (pragmatically, of course) to one's own writing, and it’s only one of many clear, digestible principles McKee has to offer.

Now, I haven't read Wild Mind, so this might be totally off base, but the passages Sloane excerpted/summarized emphasize a subconscious, unfiltered approach to writing. Tapping into that creative energy, that wild mind, is absolutely an essential part of any creative pursuit, probably even the most essential, but for most of us it's not the whole story. Pure creativity often needs a filter, a means by which you can express your ideas in a way that is understandable and relatable. Of course, plot construction is only one piece of that filter, but it’s an important piece. Even if you’re writing a very stream of conscious, postmodern work – even if you're not really 'writing,' but making it up as you go along – I guarantee there is an element of plot in your story somewhere. Now, that could mean that you've chose to reject the concept of a narrative, but you have to know the rules before you can break them. McKee’s approach to plot is admittedly in certain ways a traditional one, and I do disagree with some of his suggestions, but he lays out the basic rules of storytelling masterfully, and for that alone I recommend Story wholeheartedly.

Click here to order on Amazon. Do it now, before your better judgment catches up to you!

Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

2010-01-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Wild Mind is a practical and often humorous book containing advice about how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block. It was written by Natalie Goldberg, the third published book in her body work and was released in 1990. You can find her book here and her personal website here.

Wild Mind was written mainly for writer's but a lot of it applies to artists since we all operate in the same manner as creators. I'm going to reword some things so you can read it as it applies to you as a creator rather than as just a writer. The book focuses a lot on the wrestling of our unconscious against the conscious. The book also talks a lot about writing practice but since I am sharing this to help artists too, I will call it creative practice. Here are some excerpts:

RULES OF CREATIVE PRACTICE

Keep your hand moving. Once you sit down, whether for 10 minutes or an hour, don't stop writing/drawing. If a bomb drops at your feet, keep going. You'll go out writing/drawing. The purpose of this? Most of the time when we write/draw, we mix up the editor and the creator. Imagine one of your hands as the creator and the other as the editor. Now lock bring them together and lock your fingers. This is what happens when we draw/write. The creator hands wants to write/draw about something but then the editor comes in a squeezes it so it can't budge. "Don't draw that. Don't write that. Do this! I'll let go enough so you can." If you keep your creator hand moving the editor won't be able to catch you.

Lose control. Say what you want to say. Don't worry how it looks, how it sounds, just DO it. Allen Ginsberg was getting a Masters Degree from Columbia University. Back then they were doing rhymed verse. One night he went home and said he was going to forget formalities and write whatever. The product was Howl. Say what you want not what you think people want you to say.

Don't think. We usually live in a realm of second or third thoughts, thoughts on thoughts, rather than in the realm of first thoughts, the real way we flash on something. Stay with the first flash. This practice will help you contact those first thoughts. Don't be afraid to do a bad piece of art or writing. Feel free to write.

Go for the jugular. If something scary or different comes up, go for it. This is where the energy is. Otherwise you'll spend all your time writing and drawing around what you really want. It will end up bland and abstract because your avoiding the truth. Hemingway said, "Write hard and clear about what hurts." If you are scared, you piece will be glib. Boring. Slow down. Face your fear. Be will to sit at the bottom of the pit, commit yourself to stay there and let the animals approach, even call to them, face them, create them and not run away.

But don't you think theres a time when we should stop our hand from moving? Figure out what we want to say? It's better to figure that out while you are drawing or writing. Cut through to first thoughts. By focusing, being disciplined and keeping your hand moving, you will learn to cut through resistance. This practice will build your basic muscle and is a good foundation for all other writing and drawing.

WILD MIND

We are all under the big sky. The big sky is wild mind. I am going to climb up to that sky and put a dot on it with a magic marker. See it? That tiny dot is what Zen calls monkey mind and what Western psychologists call part of the conscious. We give all our attention to that one dot, so when it says we can't draw, we can't write, we are failures, we listen. When you are sitting staring at a blank page, a pen or brush in your hand, not knowing what to do, defeated; this is monkey mind. We listen and get tossed away. All our focus on this one dot.

Meanwhile, wild mind surrounds us. This is what Western psychology calls the unconscious though it is limiting. It can be the mountains, a river, a cigarette butt, a Cadillac. A dream is a thing that travels from wild mind to monkey mind/the dot/the conscious to wake us up. Our job as creators is to step out of the tiny dot. Let it run through us and write or draw as much as we can. Don't try to grab from wild mind and give it to monkey mind, trying to control it. Sit in wild mind. Be fearless. Cut through. Generating your own ideas is evidence of becoming your own creator.

PROCRASTINATION AND WAITING

There is a difference between procrastination and waiting. Procrastination is putting aside or pushing off. Waiting is something full-bodied. You are pregnant with an idea.You've worked on something you're excited by but you are wise and step back. You're letting the writing/drawing work in you. Procrastination is cutting off. Waiting is when you are already in the work and are feeding it and being fed by it. Do not use the excuse of "waiting" for the right idea or story to begin. That's procrastination. Get to work. Know the difference between the two. Be tough. Don't fool yourself. Do not freeze in something you've written or drawn. Move on.

Shut up and draw. Shut up and write. No excuses.

DISPERSAL or Allegories for the Movement of Seeds by Mollie Goldstrom.

2010-01-21T22:27:00.000-08:00

DISPERSAL or Allegories for the Movement of Seeds by Mollie Goldstrom. Black and white wordless illustrations, 24 pgs, 5" x 5" dimensions,pamphlet bound with a flaring gold thread. Date of publication: "winter-time" 2008.

This is a small book of illustrations by Mollie Goldstrom. It has four chapters covering different ways seed is dispersed, "Animal," "Wind," "Projectile," and "Water." What I found most interesting was that Goldstrom did not constrict herself to the theme of only plant seeds.

The drawings are simplistic, but elegant and complex in their message. I can't stop looking at this book and holding it in my hands, it is a very attractive piece. In particular, the yellow binding thread flaring out on the side, gives the impression of a fern, or maybe wheat.

Animals illustration and two of the wind drawings (my favorite section) plus the back of the book

I picked up this book at the B rooklyn Comic and Graphic Festival back in December. The only place I could find Dispersal being offered online was at Pitka Mies (Helinski). More of Goldstrom's gorgeous prints can be seen in the Gurari Collections. She is also part of theClosed Caption Comics group as well as Lightful Press, whose work I hope to see more of in the future.

Salute to Comic Pioneers: Alain Saint-Ogan

2010-01-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

Salute to Comic Pioneers will be a frequently appearing article on a comic artist that had an impact in comic history. Today we will talk a little about Alain Saint-Ogan and his contribution to the comic culture in his time and ours.

Alain Saint-Ogan (1895-1974) is, with Hergé, the founding father of French-language comics. He started as a cartoonist in 1913, publishing in a variety of newspapers and magazines. In 1925, he created Zig et Puce, a comic about Zig and Puce, two teenagers, along with their penguin, Alfred, that are caught in improbable and fantastic adventures. Zig et Puce was published for the French weekly Dimanche Illustré, intended to fill in for the lack of advertising. Alfred, whose character became a popular mascot, was taken by pilot Lindbergh in his famous plane Spirit of St-Louis, when he was the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean. He was also the mascot of the French President of the French Republic at the time: Gaston Doumergue.

After their original publication in "Le Dimanche Illustré", Zig et Puce appeared in a variety of newspapers until 1952. In the meantime, their adventures were collected in a series of 11 graphic novels by Hachette, published between 1927 and 1941. After the War, Hachette released five more graphic novels. A six-volume omnibus re-edition was published by Futuropolis from 1986 to 1992, collecting all of Hachette's first series of graphic novels, the first two graphic novels of the second series, plus the uncollected Zig & Puce in Atlantis. With the World War still on everyone's mind, Zig et Puce proved to be an escape for children and adults by following the trio from Ethiopia to Venus and everywhere in between.

Saint-Ogan was one of the first French-speaking artists to fully utilize techniques popularized and formulated in USA, such as word balloons. This took Bande Dessinée (also referred to as BD/bédé, a French term associated with Franco-Belgian comics) through a revolution in reading. The BD was then more "narrative" with the text below the image. The drawing style was influenced by the Art Deco trends of the period, embracing the geometric elegance that had swept through the Roaring Twenties. The exactness of the lines that Saint-Ogain used allows the art and story to flow with ease and not overwhelm each other. The stories are both engaging and charming, timeless. Like Babar, Snipe, or Foot Stooges, Zig et Puce are indisputable pillars of French literary heritage.

You can purchase Zig et Puce in French here.