Comics Are Great! 02 – Magic is Real

This time I have the pleasure of talking visual storytelling with two guys who are way smarter than me. Dave Roman is the creator behind Astronaut Elementary, Agnes Quill, Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden, Zuko’s Story, Comics Bakery, and more. Brandon Dayton is the artist behind Green Monk and the newly launched Feature Creeps process blog.

We get together to continue a conversation we began at Kids Read Comics 2010, during which we found ourselves nearly screaming with excitement when discussing the storytelling principles behind Avatar: The Last Airbender. We spiral that out into a general conversation about storytelling for young people. Throughout our discussion we use Pixar films and 80s adventure cartoons to highlight the difference between writing for a general audience and writing for kids and adults.

Some of the books mentioned in this episode:

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Comics Are Great! 01 – Syncopated Writing

It’s the first episode of the Comics Are Great! podcast, a new show where I’ll be discussing with various people who make comics just why comics are so great.

There’s no one better to start the new series with than Dan Mishkin, not only because he’s the inspiration of this site’s name, but because he’s an inexhaustible source of insight and enthusiasm on the craft of comics making. Dan has been writing comics for over 20 years, working on titles such as Superman and Wonder Woman. He co-created the DC characters Blue Devil and Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (the latter of which is one of the finest examples you’re likely to find of pure comics). He’s written many more comics since (check out his entry on Comic Book DB for more info).

Dan and I sit down to discuss the role of writing visually when creating comics. Throughout our discussion we highlight the importance of rhythms in visual storytelling, how words and pictures syncopate to deliver story, some thoughts on how writer/artist collaborations should work, and the special elasticity that words have in the comics medium.

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Stephanie’s Off To School

I bid Stephanie, a former student of mine, a fond farewell as she heads off to college.

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Video: Making non-photo blue pencils in Photoshop

I talk a lot on the Art & Story podcasts about how I don’t like to use a lightbox. It’s yet another piece of equipment to keep around in the studio, it only serves one purpose, and I’ve yet to use one that feels sturdy and resilient. I much prefer drawing on my stable and solid art desk.

Yet many of my peers say how they prefer to use the lightbox to convert their graphite pencils into non-photo blue lines. They put a piece of bristol over top of the graphite pencils and trace it out (refining as they go) with non-photo blue pencil.

But there are more problems that come with that method beyond my dislike of the lightbox itself. What if you want to collaborate with another artist across the country? Even if you’re the one using the pencils, what if you mess up in the inking stage? Then you have to break out the lightbox and start all over again!

Call me lazy, but I like to pencil once and leave the opportunity open to ink as many times as possible. So I scan everything I draw and convert it to non-photo blue lines with Adobe Photoshop. I use Utrecht bristol, which is perfect for running through my inkjet printer. Now if I mess up at the inking stage I just print out another copy and start over. This is a terrific method for making minor changes at the pencils stage as well. I’ll make a few alterations in Photoshop and print it out for inks. Saved my bacon on many a deadline. It also means you’ll have two versions of the original artwork to sell at conventions, if you decide to sell your art.

So I put this video tutorial together for those of you who want to ditch the lightbox. I’ve included a Photoshop Elements version of the tutorial in the second half, knowing that not everyone can afford a full version of Adobe Photoshop.

Enjoy!

Are we better or worse off?

A casual wondering about the effects of social media. Were we better off when we had to struggle alone with our craft?

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Deutche Video Game Music

Anne and I share a moment from our trip to the American Library Association Conference, specifically a wonderful experience we had at a restaurant in Washington D.C.

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Video Podcast – Comic Book Academy, Part One

As I reported here and there on the Art & Story podcast in episodes back in July of 2008, last year I led a 6-week cartooning workshop for teens at the Ann Arbor District Library. I was videotaped during the formal presentation every week, and the library has since collected the series as a video podcast called “Comic Book Academy”.

You can watch the first video here. The running time is 38 minutes, and there you can download a high-res version as well as an iPhone-ready version, or even an audio-only version.

The rest of the episodes, covering world-building to penciling to inking, will be released on the Ann Arbor District Library Website soon.

Interview with Neil Kaplan

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing one of my favorite voice actors on the Art & Story podcast. Neil Kaplan is a versatile actor who might be best known for playing the role of Optimus Prime in the Transformers: Robots In Disguise series back in 2001. What made this interview doubly great is we got to talk with him not only about his craft as an actor, but his work as a comics storyteller on his upcoming graphic novel I, Of the Wolf. Neil had all sorts of interesting things to say that I’m sure a struggling cartoonist would be interested in hearing, about how one must think of one’s creative product as well as its byproduct, how showing fantastical violence is somehow more acceptable to an audience than showing more “real” violence (or even swears!), and how a creative process can sometimes be a mixing and matching exercise.

I had a fantastic time talking with the man, and I’m sure that anyone interested in making comics will get something out of the episode as well. You’ll at least get a kick out of his uncanny Gilbert Gottfried impersonation!

Listen to the episode here, or better yet, subscribe through iTunes!

Through This Middle and Comics Podcasts

I have a theory (and it’s just a theory, mind you) that there are two kinds of people in comics: Those who love comics for comics’ sake, and those who love comics culture. This isn’t to say that the two types are mutually exclusive–I think if you drew a horizontal line with the two types on either end, most of us would fall somewhere closer to the middle. We all lie somewhere between Scott McCloud and the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

This is all to support some comics podcast recommendations I’d like to make. If you search iTunes, you’ll find hundreds of comics podcasts, and many are great. The only disappointment I find, as a fella who falls more to the left of this McCloudian chart I’ve proposed, is that too few of them focus as much on the craft and business of making comics as they do the general fandom and culture of being a comics collector or enthusiast.

Don’t get me wrong, I love comics culture–half of the fun of going to a comics convention is seeing the great big guys and gals dressed as Klingons (especially when they’re carrying lightsabers!). During my recent trip to Wizard World Chicago, I was delighted to see a grown man dressed as Granny Goodness. It’s just that, being a lover of the craft of comics as well, sometimes I crave a little bit of discussion on what’s under the hood. Call it “NPR-style” if you want, though my counter-argument is that it’s still comics, and NPR isn’t that cool yet.

So here are a few comics podcasts worth listening to if you’re one of those folks who fall into my neck of the chart:

Javiland, hosted by Javier Hernandez. I think his buddy Ted Seko counts as a co-host, since he’s been on just about every (if not every) episode so far. Javier’s managed to attract some really great and intelligent guests on his show, and the conversation about what it takes to make a comic as well as how to go about evangelizing and marketing your work. It’s lighthearted, but the humor never gets in the way of the content, which I appreciate. Fun and informative.

Who should listen: Anyone who loves “Bronze Age” American comics and has a sincere love of the craft.

The Mini-Comics Dump Truck, hosted by Kevin Cross. This is essentially a club meeting for folks enlisted in the Mini-Comics Dump Truck, a comics group where each member creates a mini-comic and trades with everyone in the group (full disclosure, I’m part of this group, but I don’t really ever get a chance to be on the podcast). The members use the podcast to discuss their work in progress, but they also wind up discussing storytelling, business, and marketing strategies during the recordings. This show, too, has it’s share of fun and silliness, but always with an eye on digging at the topics. As I posted in my Twitter feed, listening to this show is like finding out that all of my cool friends went to an awesome party after I went to bed.

Who should listen: Lovers of indie comics, mini-comics, or underground comics. I have a hunch that if you subscribe to Make Magazine, you may get a kick out of it.

The Sequential Artists’ Pub, hosted by Krishna Sadasivam. For those who don’t know, a comics creators ritual at conventions is to meet and commiserate at the hotel bar after the show. This is an audio version of that. Krishna happens to be a teacher as well as a cartoonist, and the way he leads the conversation on this show is a clear reminder of that. It’s driven, focused discussion on comics topics. However, it is at a virtual bar, so things can get punchy from time to time. But that’s part of the fun, listening to cartoonists drink too much while they discuss their craft.

Who should listen: If you are interested in web comics, or if you make a web comic, this may be yours.

Of course there’s also Art & Story, but you knew that. And it would be unseemly to plug my own podcasts in this post (don’t look at paragraph 3).

DUCF Report

We’re back from our weekend at the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, and we had a wonderful time. Mark and I did an hour and a half audio report on this week’s episode of Art & Story, where we tried our best to evaluate what went right, what went wrong, and what are some of the ways we independent comics creators can reach out to an audience outside of the comics industry. This was our first time exhibiting under the Tiny Astronaut banner, and we learned some interesting things about packaging and presentation at an art show/comics convention.

I also took the opportunity to rant a little bit about comics evangelism.

Photos of our outing can be found on my Flickr page.

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