I’m back to doing Art Soundoff again, this time to follow along with my Interactive Media students. I try to model how I think about articulating what I’d like people to know about me.
Years ago I was leading a comics workshop at A2 Inkubate (a pre-conference for the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival). I joined the participants in the hands-on activity where we all made zine-style minicomics. Minutes passed and everyone was drawing away. But a good friend next to me sat and stared at the blank page, pencil tip circling inches above. I whispered to him, “just make some marks and respond to them.” He did, and minutes later he was drawing along with the rest of the group. He told me afterwards how helpful that nudge was.
The paralysis inflicted by the blank page is something we’ve all experienced. But what’s behind that? I thought this bit from a recent episode of This Jungian Life captured it pretty well.
I run into this a lot with students. Each one has their own words for what that moment of staring at the blank page is. They might be a perfectionist. There are too many good ideas to choose from. There are no ideas. We freeze up under the pressure to do it right. But sometimes the best move is to just make something. Even if we don’t like what we draw, the momentum will help us get to the good drawings. Instead of letting hesitation jam our energy, make some marks and respond to them.
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Visit my resources page for FREE creativity tools and comic books, including a handy-dandy downloadable cheat sheet of this list. – http://resources.gerimi.net
My Top 10 tools for drawing comics
1. Ticonderoga HB pencil
2. Red Prismacolor col-erase pencil
3. Pencil extenders
4. Staedtler leadholder with F lead
5. Staedler 25% Rag Vellum
6. Blick round synthetic brushes – sizes #00, #2, #4
7. Assorted Sakura micron pens
8. Sakura Electric Eraser
9. Pentel Presto correction Pens
10. Speedball Super Black or Higgins Black Magic india ink
I’m not sure when I got The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #20. I think it might have been Christmas of 1990. My parents, resigned to the fact that I was hopelessly in love with comic books (especially Spider-Man), got me a Marvel Comics collecting starter kit. I’m pretty sure it was this one—a short box that came with a sampling of the various Marvel Comics that had come out in the past few years.
Or it might have been in the back issue bins of Levi’s Bookstore, my first regular comics shop. Either way, this comic became a clear explanation for why I loved Spider-Man so much.
The story, based on an original story by Fred Schiller, written by Ken McDonald, Penciled by Mark Beachum, inked by Bob Wiacek, lettered by Jim Novak, and colored by Bob Sharen, starts with Arno Stark, the Iron Man of the far future time of 2020. He’s pretty much the character portrayed by the Marvel movies. Irreverent, brilliant, funny, and infuriating.
His mega-headquarters is suddenly invaded by a terrorist by the name of Robert Saunders. Iron Man quickly does the hero thing to stop him, but Saunders is killed during the conflict. Problem is that Saunders’ retinal patterns are the only thing that can shut down the mega bomb he activated within Iron Man’s compound.
But no worries—future Iron Man has a time machine. He’ll just go back in time and scan the retinal patterns of the young Saunders before he became a terrorist. You need a ticking clock, though, so in the case of this time machine, time moves forward for everyone, both past and future. Iron Man has to get those retinal patterns quickly and get back to 2020 before the bomb goes off and kills everyone he loves.
Once in 1986, Iron Man tracks the boy Saunders down to New York City, and his path accidentally crosses a battle between Spider-Man and The Blizzard. Iron Man shows more macho brashness from Iron Man as he swiftly dispatches The Blizzard. And without verbal explanation he grabs Saunders to grab the retinal pattern.
Enter Spider-Man, who isn’t okay with powerful people barging their way into scenes and pushing around the powerless without a word. Still, Iron Man’s one of the good ones, so there must be a reason. He gives Iron Man a chance to explain. Iron Man tries to shoo Spidey away, and the resulting action destroys the retinal scanner.
We get a speedy chase where Iron Man, again without explanation, announces he needs to take the young Saunders. Spidey bobs and weaves, but Saunders is gravely injured.
And then we get to this terrific scene. Spider-Man unloads on Iron Man and nearly beats the armor off of him. Peter Parker has a button, and it’s when you push around those smaller than you. Especially kids.
And the part that gives me goose bumps is that he can’t even summon a proper insult.
The part that makes me laugh and cry at the same time is when Saunders’ father, who is quite wealthy, offers Spider-Man a reward. And Spidey not only asks for a loan instead of an outright reward, but he asks for the exact amount of his rent, which is due tomorrow.
I won’t spoil the ending for those who care about that (though it’s a nearly 40-year-old story). But for me this is peak Spider-Man. He’s the humble guy down on the ground with us, but he’s not afraid to question when the bigger fish are doing something he finds questionable.
Welcome to a slightly different episode of Tell The Damn Story, the podcast where we delve into the depths of storytelling and creativity.
This week, your host, Alex Simmons, is going semi-solo, and the episode is a mashup, combining the great piece of insight from episode 191 of TTDS.
In this episode, we’ll be exploring the complexities of personal pride, the challenges of self-promotion as a writer, the impact of rejection, and the pursuit of creative dreams.
So join us as we share personal anecdotes, discuss influences that shaped us as writers, and explore the power of storytelling in our lives.
So grab a pen and paper, and get ready to Tell The Damn Story!
Have questions or comments for us? Post in the comments section below or … Write: TTDSOnAir@gmail.com
And follow us on …
@Tell The Damn Story
www.Facebook.com/Tell The Damn Story
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:26 New York Comic Con impacts creatives’ lives.
00:05:36 Hallway duty, art rooms turned museum. Beautiful.
00:08:21 Teacher and journalist discover transgender student’s happiness.
00:12:20 Rejected submission educates and offers more assistance.
00:16:08 Writers explore online entrepreneurship; some succeed.
00:17:24 The challenges of pursuing creative dreams.
00:23:20 Unexpected encounters with genius lead to excitement.
00:25:34 Impoverished, isolated, only black kid in class.
00:30:36 Permission to play, doubts, and hard work.
00:33:09 Back, don’t smoke, love Sherlock Holmes. Writes mysteries, teaches workshops, and writes a play. The episode reflects on personal growth as writers. Exciting upcoming guests. Join us next week.
In this exciting episode, if IMDB is to be believed, the DECEPTICONS MAKE FRIENDS UNDER THE SEA! It really doesn’t go quite that way… but there’s plenty of Autobot cars-on-waterskiis, Subatlantican telepathy, and bad guys turning on other badguys action! So grab your speedo and scuba mask like Spike and dive in!!!
Last Monday I attended the Feeling Heard concert performance at the Ohio State University. A partnership between the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, and the OSU School of Music, this concert explored the overlaps between musical and comics storytelling through some “duets” where the musicians performed pieces in response to cartoon art, and art responded to music being played.
Here’s the latter, with art by Justin Schell:
And here is the improvisational duet, where musicians responded to Raina Telgemeier’s drawings as they emerged on the screen.
We can celebrate comics for what they can do better than other media. But we can also do that while simultaneously exploring the similarities it shares with other art forms. After the last decade or so, it seems to me like relating our interests to those of others is a healthy move, and I’m grateful to the team who demonstrated that through this performance.
I was also thrilled that two of the students I’m working with in my current residency got to play a part in the performance!
(oh and full disclosure, I was involved in the team, but only in drawing the cartoon host, Gene. Here I am on stage with everyone else)
Saturday was a glorious day where I had no obligations outside my studio (well, I did have to mow the lawn and weed the front walk). So most of the day was spent on creative pursuits!
My favorite Saturday nights are spent drawing while watching old horror or monster movies. Most of the time Svengoolie provides the movie, but when he’s playing something I’ve seen recently (or don’t ever want to see again), I’ll turn to Tubi. This week I found a fun Peter Cushing film from 1977 titled The Uncanny.
If you love scary movies and cats as much as I do, you might like this one. Peter Cushing plays a frightened writer with a manuscript proving that cats are truly out to get us. The manuscript is a framing device for an anthology film with three stories wherein cats create a body count (but the people always had it coming). I was happily surprised to see one of my favorite actors (and inspiration for an upcoming Doctor Baer character) Donald Pleasance was in one of the stories. It also has one of the coolest title sequences I’ve seen in a long time.
I will warn you that there is some minor disturbing gore in the first story, though.
So now I move on to flatting this piece so I can have it painted before Halloween. Fingers crossed that it won’t be as hard as it looks!
There’s…. well, there’s a lot of sighing in this episode. This is another one of the AKOM-animated episodes, and it… it looks pretty bad. Very bad even. So the challenge is, can we find the good in it?? Well, we found some!! It’s got Chip Chase, so you know Jerzy ferreted some good out. And it’s got some nice Skywarp action, so Hoover was pleased with that at least. What else was there to like? LISTEN AND FIND OUT!
