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NUMBER 13 $6.95

WINTER 2006

IN THE U.S.A.

THE PROFFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS AND CARTOONING

ALEX HORLE Y PAINTING DEMO & INTERVIEW K YLE BA KER PART TWO OF OUR IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW COLLEEN CO O VER CREATOR OF BANANA SUNDAYS

PLUS! BEHIND THE SCENES WITH

ADULT SWIM’S MINORITEAM TUTORIAL BY

BRET BLEVINS & MIKE MANLEY! 1

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THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING WWW.DRAWMAGAZINE.COM

WINTER 2006 • VOL. 1, NO. 13 Editor-in Chief • Michael Manley Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Proofreaders • Eric Nolen-Weathington, Donna Nolen-Weathington, and Chris Irving Transcription • Steven Tice

FEATURES

3 COVER STORY INTERVIEW WITH ALEX HORLEY

For more great information on cartooning and animation, visit our website at: www.drawmagazine.com

Front Cover Illustration by Alex Horley

SUBSCRIBE TO DRAW! Four quarterly issues: $24 US Standard Mail, $36 US First Class Mail ($44 Canada, Elsewhere: $48 Surface, $64 Airmail). We accept US check, money order, Visa and Mastercard at TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614, (919) 449-0344, E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com ADVERTISE IN DRAW! See page 2 for ad rates and specifications. DRAW! Winter 2006, Vol. 1, No. 13 was produced by Action Planet Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Address is PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082. Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2006 by their respective contributors. Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if workfor-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in said artwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; and said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied. Batman, Blue Devil, Lobo, Lois Lane, Maxima, Spawn of Frankenstein, Superman ™ & © 2006 DC Comics • Avengers, Colossus, Inhumans, Kang, Modok, Silver Surfer, Sleepwalker, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man, Thing ™ & © 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Donald Duck, Pirates of the Caribbean ™ & © 2006 Disney Enterprises, Inc. • Daffy Duck, Porky Pig ™ & © 2006 Warner Bros. • Big Bird, Ernie ™ & © 2006 The Jim Henson Co. • Dick Tracy ™ & © 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc. • Scorchy Smith ™ & © 2006 Associated Press • Cryptid ™ & © 2006 Michael Todd • The Spirit ™ & © 2006 Estate of Will Eisner • Banana Sunday ™ & © 2006 Root Nibot & Colleen Coover • Small Favors ™ & © 2006 Colleen Coover • Freckled Face ™ & © 2006 Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover • The Stranger ™ & © 2006 The Stranger/Index Publishing • Minoriteam ™ & © 2006 Cartoon Network • Al Space, The Bakers, Cowboy Wally, Holmes & Watson, Nat Turner, Why I Hate Saturn ™ & © 2006 Kyle Baker • Madman ™ & © 2006 Mike Allred • Star Wars ™ & © 2006 Lucasfilm LTD • John Carter ™ & © 2006 ERB, Inc. • Nightbreed ™ & © 2006 Clive Barker • Creepy ™ & © 2006 Jim Warren • This entire issue is © 2006 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING • ISSN 1932-6882

INDY COMICS BANANA SUNDAY AND SMALL FAVORS ARTIST COLLEEN COOVER

BEHIND MINORITEAM AN INTERVIEW WITH THE SERIES CREATOR TODD JAMES

KYLE BAKER PART 2 OF OUR INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE

COMIC ART BOOTCAMP COMPOSITION BY BRET BLEVINS & MIKE MANLEY

And don’t miss the FREE PREVIEW of our sister magazine ROUGH STUFF #3, on page 79!

Figurative interpretation by Bret Blevins

FROM THE EDITOR Boy, where did the year go?! Why, it seems like it was just summer, and zoom! Now Old Man Winter is here to keep us all inside drawing away on the long, cold days. But that’s okay, a nice up of hot coffee or Chia tea with soy milk (a fave around the studio here), some freshly sharpened pencils and new markers, paper, ink, a good brush, and your imagination is all you really need to get through the grey winter days. We lost many great cartoonists in 2006—Alex Toth and Dave Cockrum, just a few days ago, just to name two. It’s always sad to learn of the passing of an artist because it means we’ll never see any new art by them, and for me that’s the saddest part. However it will often get people to re-examine an artist’s work, and for some the news is the introduction to an artist that they never really looked at, and in the end that is maybe one positive about the loss of another master’s pen or brush. With 2007 here and spring close, it means the convention season will be just about to start. I will be attending the February NYC show at the Javitz along with the crew from TwoMorrows, so stop by our booth and say, “Yo!” and grab some swell TwoMorrows product. I’m also happy to announce two new DVDs for this year, one by Bret Blevins on drawing the female figure and one by myself on drawing the male figure. After the great success and overwhelming positive feedback on my first DVD, How to Draw Comics, From Script to Print (still available at www.twomorrows.com) we decided to release two more DVDs this year, and if these are as successful, we’ll do more next year. I’d also like to thank my contributors this issue—Alex Horley and the beautiful Stacey Walker, Todd James, and Colleen Coover—for taking time out from their busy schedules to share with us their working methods and techniques. Also a firm pat on the back to my fellow Drill Sergeant Bret Blevins for his part in our continuing feature Comic Art Bootcamp. This issue we cover composition, and even if you think you’ve advanced beyond basics, I suggest you really give this article a good reading and keep it close by the drawing table, to help troubleshoot your layouts and designs. I’d also like to say goodbye and thanks to my layout man, Eric, who’s leaving us here at DRAW! but isn’t leaving the TwoMorrows family. Eric is just going to put his total creative energy into doing more of his great Modern Masters series for us here at TwoMorrows. The next time you pick up an issue of DRAW! will be #14 in July, and by that time we are hoping to make a huge announcement which will mean bring even more of DRAW! to you. Till then, keep drawing!

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Interviewed by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice

Born in the outskirts of Milan, Italy, in 1970, Alex Horley (nee Alessandro Orlandelli) has become one of the foremost painters in the comics and sci-fi/fantasy fields. Though heavily influenced by Frank Frazetta and Simon Bisley in his early years, Alex has since gone on to develop a style uniquely his own. DRAW! editor, Mike Manley, caught up with Alex to gain some insight into his background and current working methods.

DRAW!: Did you attend art school or get any formal training? ALEX HORLEY: I did go to art college first, and then to the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, and although I learned a lot about art in general, there wasn’t much to learn there for the kind of art I was really interested in. DRAW!: At this time, who were your favorite artists? AH: I was heavily into Richard Corben’s art at that time, which was the reason I chose to study sculpture as well, to get a better feel for 3-D and to be able to apply that to my 2-D work, to make even the most incredible creatures look “real.” Then I discovered the work of Simon Bisley, which basically summed up all the artists I liked the most: Frazetta, Corben, and Sienkiewicz. He was one of the artists who had the most influence on me back then. DRAW!: What time period was this? AH: That was the early ’90s. I remember that my favorite

comic then was “The Melting Pot,” by Bisley and Eastman. The story was a bit psychedelic, but I loved the art. There was a surreal feel to the whole thing. I also remember being blown away by the first Hellboy mini series. I’m totally self-taught. What I learned was from studying the art of my favorite artists and trying to figure out how they did it. If I had someone pointing me in the right direction right away it would have saved me some time, maybe a lot, but I’m glad I went through all that experimentation; it was fun to make all those mistakes.... DRAW!: So was the art school an art high school? DRAW! • WINTER 2006

ALEX HORLEY

COMICS

AH: Exactly, you still had the average high school instruction, with math, literature, science, geometry, plus we had other more artistically oriented matters, like anatomy, figure study. and sculpture. Unfortunately, anatomy hours were very limited compared to other things like math (my kryptonite!)... so I learned anatomy mostly on my own. I got into sculpture as well, which I never seriously tried before. It was a good exercise, since I think it definitely helps “feeling” the shapes and volumes when you draw, as well.

THIS PAGE: Pencil nude studies. RIGHT: Alex’s take on the Avengers that Kirby built.

DRAW!: I agree, and I always recommend taking sculpture to all my students. I would like to take it back up myself. How long were you in school in total? AH: I did four years of art school, from age 14 to 18, and then five years at the Academy of Fine Arts.

AH: That’s what I was hoping to find. We did life drawing from models, but there wasn’t much anatomy study, in the classic way. Everything was very experimental, so my knowledge of anatomy is self-taught. I remember buying this big book on Leonardo Da Vinci, in my early teens, with his anatomical drawings, and copying them using sepia ink.... Of course, I bought any art store’s anatomy manual as well. I think it is fundamental to know anatomy, even if you want to do stylized stuff like manga or more cartoon-y oriented things, because whatever character you build, you will know how to make it “work.” DRAW!: Can you elaborate on what you mean by “experimental”? AH: By that I mean simply to take chances when trying to understand how some artwork is done, what media you can use to achieve a specific result and how to use it. Not having a guide led me to many “wrong” tracks before finding the right one, but it wasn’t a waste of time. Besides having fun with it, what I learned was better assimilated. DRAW!: Tell us a bit more in detail about how you went about training yourself as an artist. Were there certain artists you keyed in on, like Frazetta? I am a self-taught artist as well, so I am always interested in finding out how other artists went about the same process. AH: I think the first step that most artists go through at the beginning is imitation. At some point, as a kid, I started realizing there were some artists I liked more than others, especially Jack Kirby. So what I used to do anytime I liked something, a cartoon, a movie, or a toy I couldn’t buy, I tried to recreate the thing on paper. Kirby was a great influence, because while trying to imitate him, I absorbed some of his sense of dynamics. The feel for powerful poses, extreme perspective and the “chunkiness” of his figures helped me to learn how to block out basic shapes while drawing a figure. Many years later, I found 4

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

DRAW!: Did you get any classic training such as drawing from casts or doing life drawing, anatomy? I would assume, maybe wrongly so, that attending such an art school would have led to you drilling on the basics, in the classical tradition.

COMICS

ALEX HORLEY

the book How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, and I found that many things they were teaching, I learned on my own looking at Kirby’s work. Then, with Frazetta, I started having to deal with another problem: color! I slowly started to realize how the values work, how to achieve the illusion of depth. That later led me to study painters like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. It’s a never-ending learning process!

AH: From Frazetta I learned mostly that, before coloring, you need to have a strong composition, lights and shadows and values figured out. Then you can move to coloring.... Some of his paintings are mostly tonal renderings in sepia or umber with just a hint of color and they’re perfect like that! Of course the choice of those few colors and the subtleties he manages to obtain—you have to see his originals!!—are part of his genius. From Corben I learned the use of warm light-cool light— or I should say warm light-cool shadows and vice versa—and how to use it to emphasize volumes and shapes with color. Color is also mostly based on an artist’s personality and how one deals with each subject matter. There are some rules that you learn along the way, and there are endless methods to coloring, but in the end what you want to achieve is to lead the viewer’s eye where you want and suggest the “emotions” you want them to feel through the colors you use. DRAW!: I agree with what you say as far as color being emotional and very personal. It’s such a reflection of the artist’s emotions, his or her emotional expression toward a subject. When you get an assignment, say a cover or an illustration—a single piece as opposed to a comic story—what is your approach, the way you go about tackling the assignment? Do you do thumbnails, small layouts, etc.?

DRAW!: Can you explain to us a bit on your thoughts on color, your approach to using it and what you learned from studying the Masters and artists like Frazetta and Corben?

AH: With a cover you have to suggest a story—or part of it— with just one picture, and at the same time try to capture the reader’s attention with it, make them go “Hey, what’s going on here?” and pick up the book. So, compared to the panels from a comic book, a cover—or any single illustration, like gaming cards—has to be more “complete”. I always do thumbnails, whether for covers, cards, or comic book pages. It’s so much easier to block down compositions at a small size. Then I blow them up to the size I need with a photocopy or with a projector. I have to do pretty detailed sketches to get approved first, but I don’t like to do super-detailed drawings; I like to leave some spontaneity to the painting stage. If I plan too much, then it becomes sort of like painting-by-numbers. If I know exactly where I’m going, it gets kind of boring. DRAW! • WINTER 2006

ALEX HORLEY

COMICS AH: I use photos very rarely. I actually use photos only when I do covers for Heavy Metal magazine, for which I work with Stacy Walker, my one and only model. But even in those circumstances, I never start drawing from a photo. I always start with my own drawing, then I shoot the pictures—usually you have to take many different ones to “fit” your layout—and finally I “squeeze” the photo references into my drawing. But I’d say that 90-95% of my work is without references. DRAW!: How do you try and set yourself out front, separate yourself from the pack as it were, as one of many artists working in the illustration, fantasy, sci-fi, and comics field, which—let’s face it—is really going through a rough time in many ways?

AH: Good question.... how? I tried to figure that out for years, but in the end I just settled with my instincts. I’ve been lucky enough to keep almost constantly busy since I started working in this field. The market goes through trends and flavors; I just stuck with what I like doing and what I have fun doing. Of course, having the chance to choose the right projects helps. Some kids at conventions will often ask me “How do I find my style?” or “What style do you think I should use?” I don’t have an answer to that. I can only say that it better be a way of working that you really enjoy because you’ll have to spend a lot of time doing it. DRAW!: What’s your studio set-up like? I know you travel back and forth between the States and Italy; do you have similar studios in both countries? At times I do small colored sketches—or color comps, which I suggest to do in general, in order to solve problems before you move on to a bigger surface—but I never have time now. At times I do “painted sketches” for myself, just for fun. To me those are real finished paintings; it’s all there, the energy, the spontaneity— but, you know, everybody wants “detail”! Sometimes I wish I had the guts to say, “This is my final piece!” but I like to eat, so....

AH: Heh! “Studio” is a big word. In Italy, I work in a former bedroom, turned into a comic book warehouse, turned into studio. When I’m in the US, I work in the living room, but I don’t paint huge canvases—for now!—so I’m fine with that. Both “studios” look like an art store just exploded, taking down the action figures section of a Toys ’R’ Us....

DRAW!: How often do you use photos or models, and do you shoot them yourself?

DRAW!: What about digital media; do you use Painter or Photoshop at all in your process?

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

COMICS

ALEX HORLEY

AH: I don’t do many black-&-white comics now, but when I did—many years ago—I was into using markers rather than brushes. Today I would definitely go for a totally different look and would definitely use brushes instead. I used blue pencils for a really short time, but I mostly use regular pencils, both for roughs or finished drawings.

bad day destroy your ego and career. Accept all criticisms and advice.” I learned a lot from my portfolio reviews. In general, be humble, meaning to always leave open the possibility there’s something you haven’t learned yet. Besides being talented, you need to show also that you’re easy to work with. This doesn’t mean to be an ass-kisser, but just try to give an impression of reliability.

DRAW!: What type of process do you go through? Do you do tight layouts first or do you go straight to the board?

AH: I usually plan out the pages at a really small size, just to have a feel of the whole page, to study balances and direction. I loosely ink them with Faber-Castell’s brush pens, then blow it up at comic page “actual size”—to see how it would work in the reader’s eye—and light box it on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of photocopy paper where I tighten up the drawing. After that I blow it up to the standard comic art page size [11" x 17"], where I either ink it or paint it. I try to not go crazy with details and leave a little room for “playing” between one step and the other.

AH: I don’t read as much as I used to—time issue again—but what I’ve been reading on a regular basis is Hellboy and Eric Powell’s The Goon. I love weird horror comics with a touch of black humor. I read and re-read everything by Robert E. Howard, Joe Lansdale, and Richard Matheson. Lansdale especially is extremely imaginative and wickedly visually inspiring. I can spend hours looking at any Caravaggio painting. When I need to get my juices running, I just look at some of Frazetta’s painting or John Buscema’s and Jack Kirby’s action sequences... that usually does the trick. DRAW!: Is there a subject that you would really like to sink your artistic teeth into that you haven’t?

DRAW!: Do you like to do loose pencils and do a lot of the drawing in the finish since, I think, you always ink your own work?

AH: I’ve been lucky enough to have a chance, in one way or another, to AH: Yes, I try to keep it loose. (Often I have to work on most my childkeep it loose for time reahood’s favorite characters sons.) I don’t like to trace (superheroes). my drawings; it’s like I have a soft spot for drawing them twice. dark characters and stories, so that’s what I would like ABOVE: Self-portrait. DRAW!: And what advice PREVIOUS PAGE: Alex shows a bit of his Kirby influence in this Wonder City illo. to do. I love R.E. Howard’s would you give the nerwork and would really love vous guy standing in line to work on one of his stowith his portfolio looking to break in? ries. I also would like to work on some “adult horror-fantasy” stories, you know, something like Richard Corben’s “Den” saga. I AH: “What are you into today as far as your reading or study have tons of ideas and subjects I’d like to sink my artistic teeth in, habits across the fields of sci-fi/fantasy and comics, even fine it’s not even funny.... art? Whose work do you follow? What gets you excited, gets you going on the days when you feel the drawing or painting DRAW!: Finally, where do you see yourself in five to ten years? just isn’t coming—something that will always inspire you?” “Be polite, don’t get defensive when an art director criticizes AH: Hopefully, still where I am right now: painting and your work; also don’t let an art director—or a famous artist—on a drawing away in my studio. See page 40 for more of Alex’s art!

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

COLLEEN COOVER

INDY COMICS

They say making a simple drawing is hard, and this is true, but some artists like Colleen Coover make the hard part of simplicity look easy, and that is always the mark of a good cartoonist. From her just completed Banana Sunday series to her work on Small Favors and work in-between, Coover’s art displays a classic, charming, open and inviting style, a bouncy brush line that hearkens back to the best of Betty and Veronica and girls’ comics of the Silver and Golden Ages without becoming embalmed with retro kitsch. DRAW! magazine Editor-in-Chief Mike Manley conducted this interview over the phone with the hard working Coover from her home studio.

Interview conducted by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice

DRAW!: You’re normally a morning person? COLLEEN COOVER: Well... yeah. I mean, I get up probably around 8:00 and then sort of ease into things, probably like, 10:00, 10:30. I’ve been doing panel borders so far this morning for very low-impact work. And then I like to go down to my gym sometimes in the morning, and lately I’ve been hanging out at Mercury Studio to do actual work with the fellows there.

DRAW!: Okay, I’ve heard of them. And so it’s nice to have that camaraderie, I take it? CC: Oh, yeah, and they have a great space downtown in an office building, so it’s nice. It’s almost like going to work. DRAW!: Yeah. It’s nice to sometimes break up the monotony of working at home.

DRAW!: So who is Mercury Studios?

CC: Exactly.

CC: It’s Steve Lieber, Jeff Parker, David Hannes, Ron Randall and Matthew Clark.

DRAW!: Which can get you really easily distracted sometimes.

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

INDY COMICS

COLLEEN COOVER

CC: Yeah, or lazy, which is the other word for it. DRAW!: Well, you know, there’s that laundry that needs to be done, that pile of mail that needs to be gone through. CC: Yeah. And also I’ve found that if I go with a limited scope of what I can do, like if I don’t pack my inking stuff and I just pack some stuff to be penciled, then I’ll do more penciling. I’ll actually get more penciling work done than I would ordinarily, because sometimes, if I’m just doing whatever at home, I’ll pencil something halfway, and then I’ll get bored of penciling, so I’ll start inking it before it’s really ready. DRAW!: Right. So you have a setup at home, your home studio, and then you have, I guess, like a space that you rent with the guys? CC: Actually, I just sort of squat on whatever table is free. DRAW!: So you don’t have another mini-setup there so you don’t have to haul stuff back and forth? BANANA SUNDAY ™ & ©2006 ROOT NIBOT & COLLEEN COOVER.

CC: I’ve got the girlfriend drawer, you know? I’ve got a box that’s really filling up. I’ve got a bottle of ink and a brush that’s sort of just staying there now. DRAW!: “I guess we can clear some of these action figures off to let you have some space for your girl stuff.” CC: Yeah, nothing official. Some of the people who actually pay rent there never go there, and there are still tables from former artists who used to go there. DRAW!: So they’re the mystery artists? CC: Yeah, I don’t think they still are actually paying rent on the place, but they still have all their stuff there. It’s a very easygoing kind of studio space. ABOVE: Layouts from Banana Sunday. DRAW!: I was very interested in interviewing you, because in the comics industry there seem to be fewer women, and in the animation business there don’t have to worry about doing all-nighters when you’ve are a lot of women in various positions—animators or backalready had to deal with your family as well. Whereas in the ground painters, even character designs—but in comics, at least other industries, historically, it’s more acceptable for a fellow to in the mainstream, it’s like, four or five women in total. I may go do an overnighter at a studio or whatever and leave the family be stretching a bit, but I always see, it seems, the usual suspects. behind for a few hours, y’know? And in the alternative comics crowd, there’s a lot more women. DRAW!: So you think it’s more that than maybe the material in CC: Right. I have my theories, but they’re all sort of conjecsome respects? tures about that. I think a lot of it has to do with the same sort CC: I also think it’s the material. I don’t think it’s necessarily of family dynamics that have made women historically less because the genres are less appealing, although, now that I’ve powerful in other industries, where, y’know, if you have a baby or something, that’s going to take time away from your art. And said that, I want to contradict myself. I think if you’re working for yourself, that’s not as much of an DRAW!: Well, I mean, another reason I ask this is, it’s always impact. So, if you are, say, Carla Speed McNeil, and you’re fascinating for me to go into the comic book shop with my girlworking for yourself and you set your own schedule, then you

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

COLLEEN COOVER

INDY COMICS

friend, Echo, because she likes 100 Bullets, she likes Sin City, she read a lot of manga stuff when she grew up in China, and so it’s always interesting for me to get her take on the mainstream stuff here. And most of the stuff, she picks it up and puts it down. It doesn’t seem very appealing to her. She sort of feels that a lot of it looks like it’s all done by the same person. CC: Well, this is true, and speaking generally, I’m not sure who most of the mainstream stuff does appeal to. DRAW!: Well, the same people that it’s appealed to for the last 20 years since the direct market started. CC: I mean, as a retailer, I knew people who would buy a certain line of comics every month, or every week, if it was like a family of books, and I know for a fact that they never read them. They just wanted their complete set, because they were collectors or whatever.

CC: And not only chained to continuity, but also to marketability and what that means, not necessarily to the creator or even the editor, but to the guy in the office. DRAW!: So now, having said all that, when you started doing Banana Sunday you had a beginning, a middle, and an end. So talking about stories that you like that have a beginning, a middle, and an end, were you very conscious of that when you came up with the concept, that you were going to do the four-issues that you could collect and then have a little trade paperback so that if somebody wanted to pick it up, they could get the whole story in one lump? CC: Oh, yeah. Also, I don’t think either Paul or I wanted to have me be up against the deadline. I’m not that fast, as an artist.

DRAW!: So you used to work in retail? CC: Yeah, I worked for six years in a comic shop in Iowa City, and my partner, Paul Tobin, was actually the manager there for over ten years. It was a very large comic book shop, and I know for a fact that some of our regular customers collected that way. Now, I also know that there were people who were reading everything. They would read every single Marvel comic because they had read every single Marvel comic since they were seven, and now they were 35, and they had just gotten into that habit, and it didn’t really matter to them who was writing or what was going on. And sometimes they would complain about this or that being stupid, but they just kept picking up those books.

DRAW!: Well, again, another reason I find this an interesting subject is also the fact that in the classes I teach, I would say I had, what, five, six female students a year. They all liked comics. Most of them liked anime. Most of them did not like superhero comics for the most part, and if they did, it was Sin City and things like that, and again I’m sort of wondering if it’s because it’s the—in those books Frank makes the women very tough and very alluring as opposed to the—I mean, it’s cheesecake, but it’s more of a macho cheesecake. CC: Yeah, and I would also argue that what Sin City has, that maybe some of the books in the two corporations don’t have, is a beginning and an end. It’s a story that goes somewhere with a purpose, whereas the stories with the ongoing characters are so bogged down with backstory and so bogged down with having to fit in with the rest of the Marvel or DC Universe. DRAW!: Oh, that’s true. Everything is chained to everything else; it’s just chained to something that happened 40 years ago. 14

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

ABOVE AND NEXT PAGE: A page from Banana Sunday from layout to finished art.

TODD JAMES presents... the SECRET ORIGIN of

Interviewed by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice What would a smash-up between those old limited animation Marvel cartoons, Jack Kirby, racist stereotypes, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, and part of the team behind Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers look like? The result is the disturbingly funny and un-PC Minoriteam. DRAW! Editor Mike Manley was asked early on to contribute to the look of the show by inking the storyboard art to look very “Kirbyesque.” So sit back and enjoy this look behind the scenes on one of Adult Swim’s newest hits—Minoriteam!

DRAW!: Where did you grow up?

DRAW!: You dropped out of art school and high school both?

TODD JAMES: New York City.

TJ: It was an art high school.

DRAW!: Did you go to art school?

DRAW!: While you were there did you have any teachers of note? Any famous cartoonists?

TJ: I went to the High School of Art and Design, which is not the same as Art Music and Art, the school Fame was based on. Art and Design was more for commercial art and had some cartooning classes. By the time I was in 11th grade they had cut all that stuff and I dropped out. Art and Design was a huge training ground for graffiti writers and comic book kids. So in that way it was great and like nowhere else.

TJ: The one teacher I can remember was a guy named Mr. Pacter; he’d talk with a microphone. He’d tell everyone to stop watching TV and practice drawing or they’d end up as garbage men. I remember stopping for a week. I might have actually ended up doing something I didn’t like if it wasn’t for TV. Thanks, G-Force. DRAW! • WINTER 2006

TODD JAMES

ANIMATION

DRAW!: Did you attend college or take any more art classes to continue your education? TJ: I took some night classes at The School for Visual Arts (SVA) with Don Duga and a class at Parsons in comic book art with a teacher named Ken Lendgrath—I think that’s his last name. He was a good teacher. He was very into reference files, and that was before the Internet, so having your own library of images was important.

DRAW!: Do you continue any classes now or go and do weekly figure drawing, etc.? TJ: No, but I draw a lot. DRAW!: Are you New York-based, or did you move to LA for the show since the offices for the company, Funny Garbage, are in LA? TJ: I live in NYC but was out in LA most of last year working. Peter and Adam, my partners on the show, both live there. DRAW!: So I take it you were a big Marvel Comics fan growing up? TJ: I had a big phase around the age of 12 to 14; it was when John Byrne was doing the X-Men and they had those issues with the Sentinels. When I left Art and Design I was at this school called City which was internshipbased, and I interned at Marvel and then got hired for a summer job. I read mail, Xeroxed comic art for editors, I sat in the bullpen. I loved reading fan mail because it was usually nuts. I was 17 and wasn’t as big a comic fan then. I was wrapped up in Graffiti and Tex Avery cartoons, but it was a very fun job. DRAW!: What other cartoonists were you into? TJ: Well I actually didn’t know the names of the designers, the directors had the credit at the beginning. But I loved the art.

ABOVE: The clean-up pencils of the character El Yo from the storyboard rough at right, for the episode “El Dia Gigante.”

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

The Artist, Kyle Baker, the Comic Book Maker COMICS

KYLE BAKER

Part Deux

DRAW!: So who are you reading today? What gets Kyle Baker excited when he goes into a book store or a comic book store? KB: I’m waiting for the Victor Moscoso book. I’m very upset that it’s late. DRAW!: Really? KB: Yeah! I’ve been waiting for that Victor Moscoso book for, like, the last five years. He’s been promising it on his website. Fantagraphics, they were supposed to put it out in June, and it didn’t happen. I also really look forward to everything Joe Kubert does. DRAW!: Talking about another guy who is one of the smartest guys in comics. KB: Yeah. Eisner’s dead, but I used to look forward to his stuff. Frank Miller. And that’s about it. I like Sergio Aragonés. He doesn’t seem to be working as much these days. I mean, he still does his two pages in Mad, but I’m not going to buy a whole

This interview is continued from DRAW! #12, where DRAW! Editor Mike Manley had caught up with the busy artist as he was in full production on the second issue of his slavery epic, Nat Turner.

Mad issue just for two pages of Sergio. I don’t like anything else in there. I like Bill Wray in Mad, but I’m not going to buy Mad just to read “Monroe” and Sergio’s two pages. My favorite stuff is really the funny stuff, and nobody anywhere is doing funny stuff right now. [laughs] I still read For Better or For Worse. I still like that one. DRAW!: So you still read newspaper strips? KB: I only read For Better or For Worse, and I like Dilbert, and that’s about it. I think the rest of them are pretty rotten. DRAW!: Are you reading them online, or will you buy the paper? KB: No, there’s usually a newspaper at the place I get my coffee on Sunday, so usually I just pick up the newspaper, read the funnies, and put it back. DRAW!: And what about animation, TV, do you watch any cartoons on TV? Are you a fan of any of that stuff? DRAW! • WINTER 2006 33

KYLE BAKER

COMICS

a funny idea about my kids this week, I’m in the middle of Nat Turner, so I’m not going to be able to work on the kid idea, so I just rough it out into some kind of a sketchbook. I’ve got, like, two or three, or maybe four or five, sketchbooks around here. Less for practicing technique, they’re more for keeping track of ideas, because I forget stuff. And usually when it comes time to draw, I usually have a lot of ideas. If I’m working on Nat Turner it’s going to take me away on that this week, away from Plastic Man jokes, because that’s my next job. So when it comes time to put the plan together, it’s often a matter of just going through my lists and finding 22 pages worth of jokes. Like, when it comes down to do the next Bakers book. The next book I’m doing is titled The Important Literary Journal, which is just a bunch of gag cartoons. I’ve decided that I’m never going to do a second issue of any book that I publish.

FAN’S TASTES AND CROSSOVERS DRAW!: So in the future you look to publish just all-new, unique, standalone books? KB: The first Cartoonist book did so well that I immediately rushed out a second book. And the second book, in my opinion, is superior, because I had figured out the formula. Like, the first book, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but the second one, I put in more of what everybody liked and got rid of all the features everybody hated. So it was a better book, but sold worse. And the only thing I can think of was that it was a #2, because I’m still getting orders for #1! KB: Um, I like what Genndy Tartakovsky does, and I like what Craig McCracken does. I don’t have TV, so I usually see everything about five years after everybody else. It has to come out on DVD so there can be bootlegs, so I can download it. Like, I just finally got around to seeing the Justice League. DRAW!: Oh, okay. [laughs] So you’re going on KaZaa or whatever and downloading stuff? KB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s where I see—it depends on what it is. A lot of times, if I like the show, once I see it, then I’ll go out and buy it. But 99% of the time, the stuff’s not very good.

SKETCHBOOKS DRAW!: And what about drawing and sketching on your own? Do you do a lot of that just to keep the sketchbooks going? KB: Sort of. I always write down ideas, and a lot of them are visual ideas. If I think of a funny picture, I usually write it down. I try to write everything down just so I don’t forget it, because I’m usually in the middle of something. Like, if I have 34

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

DRAW!: Again, it’s one of those mysteries that seems unsolvable despite even some publishers overshipping second issues in the direct market, is you could sell 5000 copies of #1; #2, everybody immediately slashes all their orders on it; and then, maybe with issue #4 or 3, they’re ordering based upon what they know they actually sold of the first issue. It’s just infuriating. It just doesn’t make any sense. But again, if they can stick your #2 up on the wall, because there were less copies of it, for more money, then it would make everybody want to “order more Kyle Baker, because that stuff’s really hot!” “Let’s slab it!” [laughs] KB: Who knows? This is such a weird market. But in that audience, there are subsections. And most of the people I meet, who like my non-super-hero stuff, tend to be Dan Clowes and Hernandez Brothers fans. Y’know, they’ll say, “Oh, yes, I loved Why I Hate Saturn,” and what have you, “and I buy Drawn & Quarterly comics, and Chester Brown,” and whatnot. And then there’s the guys who like Captain America and only buy my super-hero stuff, and they want to know if I’m going to do another Batman story. And there’s not much crossover. But that other section, that Fantagraphics crowd, it’s a significant portion. They’re not driving the market, but they are—I’d say they’re 10

COMPOSITION Does Your Drawing Pass the Test? By Bret Blevins and Mike Manley

elcome to the second installment of our continuing series, “Comic Art Bootcamp,” which is a direct response to many of you regular readers of DRAW! who asked for us to give more tutorials covering some of the basics of drawing for comics and animation and its various disciplines. This time around Bret and I decided to cover what may be the most important element of any drawing—the bedrock or foundation, if you will—the “Big C”: Composition! Now, we have covered the subject a bit before in previous issues of DRAW!, but as Bret and I discussed what we feel are the universal issues with many of the examples we both have seen, critiqued, and continue to see from aspiring artists, we both came to composition as the biggest issue we see artists struggle with. Composition is often an artist’s weakest skill, and it hurts so many artists’ work. Their use of composition often weakens, clutters, or confuses the design, and therefore the impact and the success of their drawing. It is also the one big problem most students I teach struggle the most with, and like building a house, if the soil is weak and the plans poorly designed, the house will fall down no matter how beautiful it looks or expensive and detailed the wallpaper. Detail and rendering can’t save a bad composition. Cartoonists, comic artists, and storyboard artists are required to draw dozens and dozens, sometimes even hundreds of compositions in the service of telling stories, so you can see how vitally important composition is. If the average 22-page comic has six panels on a page, that is an average of 132 compositions per issue!

What is composition, you ask, and just why is it so vitally important? Well we are glad you asked. Simply put, composition is how a picture is built—the plan, the design. It is the organization of shape, line, texture, value, color, as well as pattern arranged in an appealing design or arrangement that uses the design principles of dominance, subordination, balance, harmony, and rhythm, to focus the eye where we, the artist, want the eye to go in a drawing or painting. Poor planning—meaning poor design—means poor composition, which weakens the effect we artists want to give our pictures and stories. In a good, strong composition all the pieces are in the right place; moving one element or placing it in the wrong spot or arrangement would seriously weaken or destroy the design and thus the effect we want the composition to have. Compositions also have emotional impact and the arrangements of the elements in a design contribute to the emotional meaning of the design—happy, sad, danger, peace, power, etc.

Over the course of teaching and reviewing many, many portfolios I have come up with a checklist to help you troubleshoot your compositions to see if they pass the test. What test, you ask? Well, the clarity and design test. Put simply, does your composition work to tell the story in the best fashion?

COMPOSITION: A Simple List of Do’s and Don’ts DO: make a clear pleasing composition. DON’T: crop important storytelling elements. DON’T: have bad, lazy staging. DO: when planning out a panel or drawing, draw a frame around it. You’d be surprised how many artists try and design a composition without defining its proportions, by drawing a border around it. Without a border the elements of design wander and float away across the paper like cows out of the barn. ■ Is this layout/composition clear? Can you look at it in a second and tell what’s going on? ■ Are the gestures of the characters clear and strong shapes or silhouettes? ■ Can you push the design more? Create more contrast in shape and size relationships? ■ Did you explore more than one possibility to solve the design problem? Did you try another angle, another composition? If your drawings don’t pass these tests— START OVER! No matter how well you draw, you can’t save a bad composition with lots of detail and rendering.

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

COMIC ART BOOT CAMP

COMPOSITION

In the disciplines of cartooning, illustration and animation, good pictorial composition is an arrangement of shapes that convey the subject with visually appealing clarity. Line, tone, color, gradation, or modeling of form and space can strengthen clear composition, but the flat contours of the shapes that create your pictures are the strongest, most fundamentally effective means of controlling the impact of your images.

Control is the basic requirement of composition. Good composition is intentional—you design the edges and placement of each shape of every element to create effective relationships that clearly communicate your intent. Choice and discernment are essential—subconscious, instinctive composition can be excellent, but good accidental compositions are as rare as accidentally successful surgery or tightrope walking. If you don’t have or develop a strong understanding of visual clarity and techniques for composing it, your pictures will always be weaker than they can be, either in variety or effect. There are basic visual principles that will be described on the following pages, but it’s also important to realize that composition is as personal and particular to each artist as any other facet of picture making; subject, rendering, color choices, idiosyncratic accents, or distortions of form, storytelling rhythm, mood, and pace, all these elements are supported and defined by the compositions devised to present them. In essence an artist’s “style” is a direct expression of his taste, inclinations and skill in composition.

The contrast between these two depictions of the same character by Moebius and Jack Kirby is more than a difference in rendering—the essence of each artist’s personality informs every choice of shape and its placement, which in turn creates and reveals their individual “style.” In each case their composition choices are the ones that most effectively convey their ideas and preferences.

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

COMIC ART BOOT CAMP

COMPOSITION

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

COMIC ART BOOT CAMP

COMPOSITION

Before we explore the basic principles of good design and composition, I must mention an important but elusive, mostly subconscious aspect of composition that is very difficult to explain with rules or simple, inclusive directives. In our endeavor of creating narrative storytelling artwork, most effective compositions emerge from a personal “sense of drama”—an instinctive identification with the heights and shallows of the subject, story, characters and situations we are visualizing. I’m not sure this sensitivity can be taught, though it can certainly be enriched and deepened into greater subtlety and strength through effort and experience. As you continue to make images, you will find a particular sensibility of effect emerging in your “sense of composition” that becomes a characteristic mark of your “style.” Notice and nurture it by experiment and exploration—as with other tenets of making pictures, it’s easy to become complacent and fall into the habit of repeating formulas that work, which dulls your capacity to express. Don’t settle for automatic thoughtless solutions to every composition problem—it thins your art into a predictable shallowness. There are two main challenges to manipulate in a typical composition: the relationship of shapes, rhythm and contour within the content (subject matter) of the image; and the relationships of these to the containing border—the limits of your picture area. A vignette is a borderless variation, but the chief interior elements of any good composition should also be able to stand alone without a border.

The ability of the foreground figure to stand alone as a strong clear vignetted design is not an accident. Every element of Rockwell’s compositions can be extracted this way and function beautifully.

DRAW! • WINTER 2006

Draw #13