Draw! #14 by TwoMorrows Publishing

NUMBER 14 $6.95

SUMMER 2007 IN THE U.S.A.

THE MONSTROUS ART OF

DOUG MAHNKE

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

PIGTALE’S PIGTALE’S

OVI NEDELCU SAM & MAX CREATOR CREATOR

STEVE PURCELL

PLUS

82658 27764

THE THE THIRD THIRD INSTALLMENT INSTALLMENT OF OF MIKE MIKE MANLEY MANLEY AND AND BRET BLEVINS’ BRET BLEVINS’

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

SUMMER 2007 • VOL. 1, NO. 14 Editor-in-Chief • Michael Manley Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Proofreaders • Eric Nolen-Weathington and Chris Irving Transcription • Steven Tice

FEATURES

COVER STORY INTERVIEW WITH DOUG MAHNKE

For more great information on cartooning and animation, visit our Web site at: http://www.drawmagazine.com

Front Cover Illustration by Doug Mahnke

WELCOME TO THE FUNHOUSE SAM & MAX CREATOR STEVE PURCELL

SUBSCRIBE TO DRAW! Four quarterly issues: $26 US Standard Mail, $36 US First Class Mail ($44 Canada, Elsewhere: $60 Surface, $72 Airmail). We accept US check, money order, Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal 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! Summer 2007, Vol. 1, No. 14 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 2007 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 work-for-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, Birds of Prey • Black Adam, JLA, Major Bummer, Plastic Man, Spawn of Frankenstein, Superman ™ and © 2007 DC Comics • Stormwatch ™ and © 2007 WildStorm Productions • Hulk ™ and © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. • King Tiger, The Mask, Motorhead ™ and © 2007 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. • Pirates of the Caribbean ™ and © 2007 Disney Enterprises, Inc. • Sam & Max, Toybox ™ and © 2007 Steve Purcell • Big Wheels, Gumball Seeds, Inima, Pigtale ™ and © 2007 Ovi Nedelcu • Death Jr. ™ and © 2007 Digital Eclipse Software, Inc. • Pink ™ and © 2007 Will Vinton/Laika • Maniac Mansion ™ and © 2007 Lucasfilm Games • Juniper Lee ™ and © 2007 Cartoon Network • Felix the Cat ™ and © 2007 Don Oriolo • Tarzan ™ and © ERB • Scorchy Smith ™ and © 2007 Associated Press • Rip Kirby ™ and © King Features • Akira ™ and © Manga Entertainment • This entire issue is © 2007 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.

BEHIND PIGTALE AN INTERVIEW WITH THE SERIES CREATOR OVI NEDELCU

COMIC ART BOOTCAMP SPOTTING BLACKS BY BRET BLEVINS & MIKE MANLEY

ON THE ROAD TO CHINA THE STATE OF THE COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY IN CHINA BY MIKE MANLEY

And don’t miss the FREE PREVIEW of our sister magazine ALTER EGO #70, on page 80!

Figurative interpretation by Mike Manley

FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to our annual summer issue of DRAW! Some of you may be reading this issue after picking it up at one of the many conventions, like the annual Comic-Con International: San Diego or Wizard World Chicago. TwoMorrows will have booths at both shows as well as the Baltimore Comicon, September 8th and 9th. I’ll be attending the Baltimore show so stop on by. It seems everywhere I go I meet more and more people interested in learning how to draw, paint, animate and cartoon—and that includes China. In this issue I cover a bit of the international comic scene, fresh from my two-week trip to China. My fiancée, Echo, and I spent a grand vacation in China, and one of the things I was most interested to see was what the comic business in China was like. It seems that outside of Hong Kong there isn’t much of one, but the walls of the local comic stores were lined with fan art and there were kids interested in learning to cartoon, so check out this issue’s travel article for more.You can also check out more about my travels on my blog: http://www.china-manley.blogspot.com. I was pretty stoked this issue to interview Doug Mahnke; he’s certainly one of the best artists out there today doing super-hero comics, and it was really interesting to find out he’s also a competitive powerlifter! It’s always fascinating to find out what other talents people have away from the drawing board. The Ovi Nedelcu article I was happy to run this issue after having to bump it last issue. His work is so charming and appealing I know many of you readers out there will love it as much as I do, and many of you may not have been aware of his series, Pigtail, which was published Image. Get out there now and search for the issues—you won’t be disappointed. My good buddy Jamar Nicholas conducts another great interview this issue, this time with Sam and Max’s super-talented Steve Purcell. Steve is another great example of how a good and flexible artist can cross platforms, genres and job titles. It seems he’s done everything from comics to games, animation, movies and more... what’s left? Also in this issue, Bret and I return with another installment of our Comic Book Bootcamp. This time we cover “spotting blacks,” something that will make any comic drawing or page stronger. We are on the verge of a big announcement here at DRAW!, something I know that many of you regular readers have asked about for a long time. Part of that big change has taken place with this issue with our slight change in format, but that is only the beginning for what we have planned here. Over the course of the next year we plan on releasing a few more “How To” books on figure drawing by Bret and myself, as well as follow-up DVDs. The big-BIG announcement will have to wait till next issue though, which is our big “Back to School” issue, out in October. In the meantime, have a great summer and get out there and draw something! E-mail: mike@drawmagazine.com Mike’s Blog: http://drawman.blogspot.com/ Snail Mail: PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082

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DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

NEXT ISSUE: DRAW! #15 It’s time to head BACK TO SCHOOL, and DRAW! Editor MIKE MANLEY is here to drop some knowledge! He’ll be covering the major schools that offer comic art as part of their curriculum, including interviews with faculty, students, and graduates in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Also, a “how-to” demonstration and interview with SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE and B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS! Plus DRAW! Editor MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS bring you another installment in their Comic Art Bootcamp series, and more! 80 pages with a 16-page color section, $9 US POSTPAID Ships OCTOBER 2007

Conducted by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice

oug Mahnke is an artist’s artist. He does all of the hard things well, and makes it look easy. He’s one of the rare artists in the medium of comics who can flex between funny, fantastic action and horror. From Seven Soldiers of Victory: Frankenstein to The Mask, Major Bummer, Superman: Man of Steel and the JLA, Mahnke’s powerful figure work has always stood head and shoulders above many other artists working in the field. It’s not surprising to find out that the man who draws such powerful and dynamic heroes is also a competitive power lifter. DRAW! Editor Mike Manley catches up with this busy artist and father of six from his home studio in Minnesota.

DRAW!: What is your typical workday like? DOUG MAHNKE: It has varied quite a bit over the years, but I’ve settled into some fairly regular habits, as it has become obvious to me what gets the job done. I could divide this up into two different days, which is the productive day vs. the unproductive day. They do their best to coexist, although I feel

the unproductive day always gets the better deal as the productive one has to pick up the slack. Productive day: I get up by 5 a.m. and go right down to the studio. The first thing I tend to do is turn on the computer to check e-mail and let my brain warm-up by visiting some of my favorite sites, all of which tend to be weightlifting-oriented. By 6:00 or 6:30 I get to work penciling or inking, whichever is the DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

DOUG MAHNKE

COMICS

priority at the moment. I might just sit in silence or turn on the radio. I get into ruts where my “atmosphere” is concerned, and will go for very long stretches doing one thing then suddenly shift and do another. It might be talk or sports radio for a month or three, then some local music station for a while, then I might listen to a Greek or Italian station on the net for days. I will also put in a movie to keep me company. Most recently on a long productive day—which actually stretched into two days—I watched the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies over and over again. I’m not actually watching it very often, just listening to it. Oddly, I did this recently with the Jet Li movie, Hero, which is in Chinese. As I sit and work I hear the house wake up, as one after another my six kids and my wife rise until the house is full of noise. Usually after seven I go upstairs for a quick breakfast with the family, then back downstairs. It might be a bowl of oatmeal and some eggs or a protein drink. Coffee is a major player in my regular day, although I try to drink green tea now and then at the recommendation of DC editor Peter Tomasi. I also drink Yerba Mate. The bottom line is THIS PAGE: Batman pencil sketch. NEXT PAGE: Cover to Dark Horse’s King Tiger & Motorhead #1.

DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

caffeine, which I am pretty sure is the secret to the success of the human race as we know it. Back to work after breakfast, and I try to get at least one page finished by 10 a.m. I eat a snack then... probably a piece of fruit and more protein. Back to work and try and get a little more done before lunch, which can happen at any time between 11:00 and noon, or whenever my kids have lost their minds with hunger. After lunch I will goof around on the computer for a little bit, but I keep it down on productive days. I find keeping off of the computer the best way to get work done. The computer can kill your day. I don’t play any games or do much with it, but time flies even when you’re looking for reference. After my goof-off time, it’s back to work, which will be more of the same, penciling or inking. If everything has gone well, a productive day can have me finished with my work by 3:30. I’ll knock off then and lift weights until supper. I don’t have a set pattern for the amount of penciling I will do before inking, although I do know it’s best for me to mix the two, so I can make realistic projections of when I can finish a page. Unproductive days for me are almost identical to productive days, except everything is slower. I get to work later, I eat longer, I linger on the computer, I get distracted by some pointless Internet thread. I could be looking up some military reference, then discover myself an hour later looking up information on the old Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down cartoon. I might find myself paying too much attention to some facet of a page that will probably end up covered in a word balloon, or using some ink that is so thick I can barely get it to pour from the dropper, let alone flow from my nib. Out of a five-day work week, if I have two slow days it takes a couple of ultra productive days to make up the difference. The problem lately has been to turn the heat up on the productive days, as they feel they contribute enough. Occasionally I will work late, but I just function better in the morning work-wise than in the evening. Recently I’ve gone through a very long “anti-productive” slump, possibly the worst I’ve had in my 18 years of comic drawing. I chalk it up to a couple of things... one is coming off of an enormous productive stretch that lasted a couple of years and left me mentally exhausted. When I say “antiproductive” I mean in terms of quantity, as the quality is pretty high. I also was in a car wreck one year ago on October 14th, which is the date of my anniversary. My wife and I were going to go out for a quick bite at one of our favorite restaurants. To do so we were driving our kids to my sister-in-law’s place. About one mile away from our home we were rear-ended, while waiting to turn left off of the highway. I saw the car coming at the last moment in my rear view mirror and hit the gas, getting us moving just enough to diffuse a little of the impact. The driver, a young guy, nailed us at 45 to 50 miles an hour. My seat broke and threw me backwards, the back of my head smashed into my oldest daughter’s head, just above her right eye, severely fracturing her socket and the bones on the right side of her face. (I’m happy to report a full recovery by the way)... it could have been pretty grim. I received a concussion, but being the true professional totally behind the eightball with a big deadline, I went home that

COMICS

DOUG MAHNKE

night while my daughter was in the intensive care unit and finished five or seven pages if I remember correctly. The injury also effected my sight for a while, but I managed to work. Honestly, there are a few months that are merely a blur for me, but when you have a job to do you have to do it. DRAW!: What’s your drawing pace like?

DM: In all actuality, when only penciling and if the pressure is on, I can pencil a page every two to three hours of straight work. If it’s reference heavy, that can slow me down, but if I know what I’m doing, I can knock them out fast. I’m very fast with drawing and pretty accurate with laying out perspective without ruling lines. The only problem is it can fatigue me pretty bad these days, and leave me a mental pile of mush. I’ve penciled a complete book in a three-day tear with the help of my old assistant Shawn Moll. This is all fine and great but a sensible person would never put themselves into a position to find that kind of output necessary. Having to work that hard and fast is usually the result of taking on too much work—which I’ve done—or too many unproductive days. DRAW!: What is your studio set up like? DM: Very unimpressive. My studio is fairly small; it’s in a 12’ x 12’ room in my basement. Thankfully I have a nice window. My most recent addition to it is a large desk where I can organize my paperwork and store books and supplies. The last time I bought something for my studio was 18 years ago. I’ve always been terribly frugal where my studio is concerned, and it wouldn’t hurt me to invest in some new stuff now and then, but I’ve been comfortable enough to work with what I originally bought those many years ago. My desk and chair have seen better days, and I rule lines with an angle that is broken in two pieces. The angle has so many chips and dings in it that I have to watch out for the irregularities when inking with it. It does add character to a straight line though. There is an old tabby tray on the left side of my desk that is nothing more than a glorified pencil holder and graveyard for old erasers. I also have a picture of my wife and my mom there, and a cool little piece of artwork one of my kids made for me that I always liked. Sitting next to me on my left is an old child’s school desk that I use for a table. Reference material, opened ink

bottles and scratch paper is usually sitting here, while inside is a nice hand mirror that I swiped from one of my kids as well as my old broken one. Whichever ends up in my hand first is the one that gets used. Right behind me is a little piece of furniture with three open shelves, which I clear off a few times a year and slowly pile stuff on for the rest. I also tend to set coffee or food back there. I have a shelf that I line with knick-knacks and photos of my family, a Swedish horse, a little Greek vase, a Hmong tiger carved out of ivory, and my prized Lou Martin/Major Bummer Inaction Figure that my friend Joel made. I have a second desk that I bought a few years ago when my friend Shawn Moll started to work with me as my assistant. Since then Shawn has gone on to do his own work, but the desk stays. It DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

WELCOME TO THE

Conducted by Jamar Nicholas Transcribed by Steven Tice Edited by Mike Manley

JAMAR NICHOLAS: A lot of my interviews are about trying to really get into the artists’ head, and since I’m an artist, too, a lot of it’s just process junkie type stuff, the things only we would care about asking, like how do you hold a pen versus...?

From comics and animation to Lucasfilm, Pixar to video games, Steve Purcell has worn many hats and used many different palettes, digital and traditional, in his career. DRAW!’s Jamar Nicolas conducted this interview with the busy, multi-medium artist just on the cusp of the new hit game release based on his Sam & Max characters.

STEVE PURCELL: Those are kind of hard questions sometimes, because you don’t normally have to think about the way you do that stuff.

DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

JN: Right, right. Are you that type of person? Do you devour up other people’s working styles, or do you just kind of do your own thing? SP: Not at all, I tend to always try to reinvent the wheel. I’m kind of stubborn that way. I don’t like to ask for help. It’s good for me when I do, but I like to try to sort things out on my own.

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STEVE PURCELL

JN: Do you keep a network of people around you, or are you the solitary artist? SP: I like to make my mistakes in private, so working in a collaborative environment at an animation studio means you end up having to show stuff before you want to sometimes. But it’s good for me to have people looking over my shoulder from time to time. At home I’ll show projects to my wife, Collette, but only if I want to get feedback because she’ll give it. JN: I’m sure you have a studio at home, too, right? SP: Yeah, I do. JN: How much does that differ from your work environment? SP: Physically not too much. My studio is full of a bunch of crap that’s all around me. I have lots of artPREVIOUS: Concept art for the Sam & Max TV show. work hanging up, I’m surrounded by toys, books and ABOVE: Steve at age 5 in Magnolia, Massachusetts. musical instruments. I keep a really messy desk. I have things right in front of me where I work, and I kind of JN: Yeah, that’s true on a couple of levels. I always forget who have to shove things out of the way. And my office desk is pretty said this quote, and it’s probably somebody who’s still alive, but much the same. Somehow things just pile around me, and I’m they said, “When you work at home, you’re always at work.” always digging through the strata, the layers of junk to find what I need. SP: That’s true. That’s true. Whenever I was doing freelance, which is most of my career, I spent about 20 years doing freeJN: I just started a new day job, and I’m finding that my worklance stuff, I always felt like I couldn’t get going until late in the space at home looks like a disaster area, but I keep my workday. I would end up working late into the night, and it would be, space at work really clean. I don’t know what that’s about. like, a twelve-hour work cycle, into about three in the morning or something like that. And I felt like I had to do a lot more SP: Is anybody looking over your shoulder ? hours at home because of distractions. I kind of like having a structure of knowing that my day is this many hours and whatevJN: It just, it kind of makes more sense at work to have a noner I can get done in that block of time is the work day, and then I chaotic space. But in the house, it all makes sense. can come home and kind of create another workday for my own stuff. SP: Once in a while I’ll take the time to go, “Okay, time to clean all this junk out.” I go through it all and I’ll actually manJN: Even if you have to walk a couple yards to home, still age to put it where it should go, but over time it always builds there’s that difference, right? up again. It’s like, right now my paint jars are all over my desk, I’ve got your magazine, I’ve got a lot of sketches and other stuff. SP: Yeah, I’ve known people where it’s worth it for them to rent Somehow that all ended up on my desk, and it hasn’t been a space in town just so they can leave the house, and they go to thrown away in about a year. this place and they feel like there’s structure, having to go someplace to work. JN: That’s awesome. I have very random things laying around my space, too. Now, let me ask you a question, since we’re talking about work areas and things like that, do you find that you spend more time creatively at work versus home, or vice versa?

JN: Do you find time to do a lot of commissions? Do you do a lot of commission work?

SP: Well, we built this studio at home. It took a lot of last year to do it, and it moved me out of the house, freeing up one of the bedrooms upstairs. Somehow having this little separate space that I have to walk twenty feet from the house to has been more productive as far as creating anything. This last year I’ve been able to do more paintings and things on the side than I have previously, and I don’t know what the difference is, really. It’s something about having a separate space. It feels more fertile for creating stuff than the old studio inside the house.

SP: Not so much private commissions, but I do a few illustrations from time to time. I did a Death Jr. cover for a trade paperback. It’s something that I normally don’t do, but they needed one in a hurry, and I like the character, and I like the creator, Mike Mika, and agreed to do it. And it was fun, because I don’t do a lot of that. And then I agreed to do the digital color, which I also haven’t done a lot of either, because I figured I’d take a stab at it to get better at doing it. I had an idea in my head to see the whole thing through. I always find a way to make the job more complicated for myself. There’s another guy, Jai Nitz, he DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

OVI NEDELCU

ANIMATION

DRAW!: Why don’t you tell us a bit about your background, education, etc. Did you go to art school at all? OVI NEDELCU: Sure, I left high school in 1997 and went straight into art school at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I was an Illustration major, but only managed to finish two years out of the four I was supposed to be there. Mostly because I got a job offer from WB Animation down in LA, but also because I just couldn’t afford to keep taking classes. My funds were just about empty and I had no job or other means to keep paying tuition with. So it kind of all worked out just in time, which was fine with me because I never went to art school for a diploma. I got what I needed and got out. Although I have to say there are one or two classes I wish I could have taken, but for the most part I’m happy with what I got. I have a big problem with paying $2000 for a “required” academic “career search” class. If you’re paying that much for school and you don’t know what you want to do for a living, you’re in trouble. The school recommended you take three art classes and three academic classes so that your workload wasn’t too overwhelming. But I think this is just another way to get you to take worthless expensive classes you can take at a community college

for a fraction of the price. But some art schools won’t let you transfer the credits. It’s an evil monopoly. I only took art classes while in school. I took six art classes every semester, for two years. I got what I needed, and left the expensive “required” classes behind. Wow, this interview is starting out on a good note. [laughs] Just making friends. DRAW!: Can you tell me a bit about how you broke into the animation business? What was it you were aiming for job/career wise? ON: Well, back when I was in art school and even before that I wanted to be a professional comic book artist/illustrator. I would always attend comic book conventions and show my portfolio to pros and editors trying to get advice and a job like every other 18-year-old aspiring artist. I continued to attend the shows through college and still do to this day. Although I loved animation and the art form, it was never something I saw myself doing or getting into. I just didn’t like drawing the same thing over and over to make it animate. After I got into the animation business I realized there where plenty of other things to do besides in-betweening.

RIGHT: Pink development art, pencil on paper.

DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

OVI NEDELCU

try and learn everything possible about the art form. I was like a sponge just taking it all in. I wasn’t good at it by any means, but I was getting better and was hungry to learn. After a while I felt I was up to speed. My perception about animation changed once I was in it. I always thought you had to be an in-betweener for like five years before you got to do anything else. I didn’t know you could just come in and be a story artist, character designer, a visual development artist and so on, which I really loved doing. Although my heart was and still is in sequential art—comics—I felt I had found a second home. I could design characters and do storyboards just like a comic book. It was great.

DRAW!: It’s that type of pooling of info and talent that places like Disney benefitted from. I think without that “think tank” type of atmosphere they would have never been ABOVE: Sketchbook art, pencil on paper. able to raise the craft so high. But for many BELOW: Character design for Cartoon Network’s artists it’s hard to supplant the ego, to learn Juniper Lee. Pencil on paper. from another artist. Sometimes we artists are too egocentric. It can ruin or lessen you I was in art school in San Francisco and happened to go to to have that type of personality, especially since animation is a the Wonder Con that year. One of my friends that went along collaborative medium. came up to me while I was waiting in a portfolio review line at DC’s booth and said that WB Animation was upstairs doing portfolio reviews. After my DC rejection I decided I might as well go show WB my work since I wasted nine bucks for admission. So I get up to the review room and there’s around 20 people waiting in line to get a review. And all I hear from the front of the line is “no, no, no, sorry, no,” and so on. At that point I felt I was wasting my time. Here I was trying to get comic book work while standing in an animation portfolio review line—with artists who actually wanted to work in animation—anticipating my rejection. So I get up to the review table and sitting there is Shawn McLaughlin [associate producer on Batman Adventures/Batman Beyond]. I show him my work and he quickly responded to it. He gave me his card and told me to call him. That’s pretty much how I got into animation. Couple weeks later Shawn sent me a test to see if I had the chops to work on Batman Beyond, and sure enough, I didn’t. Although they liked my test, it still wasn’t strong enough to do clean-up and character turns for the show. But what Shawn did do—which in my view was even better—was show my portfolio to the creative executives, who were developing five or six different shows for the upcoming season. I got a call from Linda Steiner and she asked if I was interested in moving down to LA to do some visual development for some of their projects. I was pretty excited and really didn’t believe it was happening until I was there in the studio. For the first month or so I didn’t even have an apartment, I would just sleep at the studio. After work I would study everything about animation and its history for hours and hours. Some nights I wouldn’t even sleep; it was like boot ©2007 CARTOON NETWORK. camp. I read all the books and asked a lot of stupid questions to DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

By Bret Blevins and Mike Manley

SPOTTING BLACKS

The Use and Placement of Black to Empower a Page elcome to the third installment of our continuing Comic Art Bootcamp series, where Bret and myself instruct on the basics of cartooning and comic art. If you’ve been working toward breaking into the business for any time, be it by reading an interview in DRAW! or standing in line to get a personal critique from a pro or an editor at a con, you have almost certainly heard the term “spotting blacks.” I remember the first time I

COMIC ART BOOTCAMP

heard it myself; it was at a local comic-con in the Detroit area, and the artist, a pro, who I was showing my work said to me I spotted my blacks pretty good on one page but could use them better on the others in my samples. At first I wasn’t exactly sure of what he meant, but he took his pencil and showed me. Taking his pencil he added a few shadows or pointed to where on his original art he used big areas of black to lead the eye to something important, to frame something, to push something forward or make it stand out. This is, in essence, 2-D design—using the contrast of certain elements of a design (in this case blacks) to focus the attention where you, the artist, want the viewer to pay more attention, to make something stand out or “pop.”

What is “spotting blacks” you ask? Simply put, “spotting blacks” is the placement of black as a design element in a composition (panel, splash page, cover or page) which directs the viewer’s eye to the focal point(s) of the composition and helps achieve depth, separating figure from background, background from foreground objects. The use of black as a design element also helps lead the reader’s eyepath across the comic page as a whole, for the arrangement of panels on a page must be considered not as single panels but as a unit, the master composition we use to tell a story in a sequence. The smart, planned use of black, the placement of word balloons along with the direction of the elements in the panels themselves help create a road for the eye to follow across the page. Most readers are unaware of this “magnetic path,” but the artist must be; he or she must purposefully plan this out carefully. Poorly planed or poorly used placement of black or lack of black can reduce a dynamic drawing or page to an unreadable, boring hash or flat, lackluster drawing. In pen-&-ink drawing, which comic art clearly is, the amount of middletone rendering is usually at a minimum, even the most rendered comic style usually has a minimum of halftone, therefore most of the range of tonal value is either black or white which reads as light or shadow—two values. The middletone, or third value, is reserved for a slight “feathering” between the light and the shadow areas on a form. The feathering can be done in a variety of styles but they all achieve the same result: a halftone between the shadow and the light. But the greatest achievement of depth or shadow is created not by the rendering, or half-tone rendering, but by the careful placement of the shadow, or black. Unlike a charcoal drawing or other medium where we can achieve a highly sensitive passage of values, light to shadow, in comic art we are reducing the values down to a very narrow range, often to just black-&-white with no middletone value. The exception here might be the few black-&-white comics where the artist can achieve a more rendered style since they don’t have to worry This page of Felix the Cat by Otto Messmer is a classic example of clarity about the color muddying up things or covering up the linework. and charm. This clear-lined comic style is employed with minimal use of rendering and fluxuation of line weight, the center of attention in each panel is But for color comics clarity is essential, as one has to take into clearly Felix whose solid black color is a prime example of “local color.” account the color will probably have as much if not more to do in some cases with the clarity and how well a page reads. This “high contrast” style or approach in comic books came from comic strips first, and the more photorealistic approach is clearly evident in the masterful drawings of the comic strip masters Noel Sickles (Scorchy Smith) and Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon) who were the first to employ this approach along with Hal Foster on Tarzan before he created Prince Valiant. Later artists like Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) as well as many others came along to follow in the realistic tradition of comic strip art and there became a few distinct styles or “schools” as it were. The Caniff School and the Foster-Raymond school. DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

CHINA

INTERNATIONAL COMICS

ON THE ROAD TO CHINA DRAW! Editor-in-Chief Mike Manley recently returned from traveling for two weeks in China and gives you DRAW! readers a glimpse into the comic book business—or manhua as comics are called in China—as it exists today.

ack in June I spent two great weeks in China with my fiancée, Echo, who is from Beijing. It was a great trip and a wonderful experience, especially visually as an artist. I snapped a ton of pictures from our trip through Beijing, Kunming and Dali. One of the things I was interested in seeing when visiting China was what the comics situation was like there. Echo had done some comics for a publisher in Beijing before she moved to the US—we even passed that publisher one day riding to the Forbidden City in a cab. The only Chinese comics (manhua) I had been exposed to previously were some I had picked up downtown in Chinatown here in Philly. They were basically comics where dudes were fighting each other, like some kind of Dragonball crossed with Fist of the North Star. Echo said these are comics from Singapore, Korea or Taiwan. The father of Echo’s friend, Summer, ran the dorms for international students, and he was able to hook us up with a dorm for a week for a ridiculous price of about $170 US. The dorm wasn’t bad and had air conditioning, something none of the other far more expensive hotels we stayed at had. Being near several universities, like the Schools of Language, Geophysics, etc., had a lot of benefits, as there were many Internet cafés, bookstores, etc. One day after having breakfast at the local McDonald’s, Echo and I noticed a sign for a comic shop called Cool Comics. Echo said that there really wasn’t much done domestically comic-wise in China, as the publishers didn’t last long and most Chinese readers wanted Japanese comics. Also the government would crack down on anything that was deemed too far-fetched,

DRAW! • SUMMER 2007

lewd, etc., and there really wasn’t the local fan support. The shop was located in the small mall in the bottom of the same shopping complex at the McDonald’s at a busy intersection about a half mile from our dorm. There was also a jewelry store, music store and a calligraphy shop where some artist did signs and gave lessons. When we showed up the comic store wasn’t open yet. We peered into the dimly lit shop, which reminded me of the trips my parents took us on to Ann Arbor from Detroit as kids. Before we moved to Ann Arbor we visited often, and always on a Sunday as that was my dad’s day off. We’d often pass a comic shop which was always closed. I’d longingly stare into the door wanting so bad to be able to go inside. Years later I did visit that shop, sometimes a few times a week after we moved to Ann Arbor. We both looked around the mall a bit then to wait till the shop opened at 9:30. Our hours were pretty screwed around still as Beijing is a 12-hour difference from Philly, so we’d wake up at 4:00 a.m. and were a bit out-ofsorts as nothing was open yet except for places like McDonald’s, as it was open 24 hours a day. Soon the shop owner came by and we were able to go into the shop. I was a bit let down to see the store was stocked with pretty much just all Japanese comics, in fact the same stuff you’d see here in the States, though translated into Chinese, of course. I didn’t see one single American comic, no Hellboy or Sin City even, though I did see a TMNT figure. As we perused the shop a few more teenagers came in and shopped. I had Echo introduce me to the shop owner whose name was Lai Yongxiang, which translates to something like Eternal Peace. They did have some manga drawing supplies, so I bought that up, Zip-a-Tone, paper,

INTERNATIONAL COMICS

pens, inks—just to try and for presents for friends back home. Echo’s comments about there not being many, if any, local Chinese comics seemed to be proven true when we looked around the shop. I didn’t see one local Chinese comic as I scanned the shelves, but instead walls filled with figurines, buttons, cosplay costumes, book bags, backpacks—many featuring Nightmare before Christmas characters. Maybe there were, but I didn’t see any; we asked the shop manager and he said he didn’t really sell any. The only other comics I had seen on the trip were a few bagged Disney comics in the local newsstands. The Chinese LOOOVVEE Disney. One of the things that happened comic-wise was that we noticed on the CCTV English channel we had on the cable in our dorm, a news story about popular Japanese manga, Death Note. As I reported on my blog from China, it seems the popularity of both the manga and the movie have caused a little controversy in Beijing, at least. It seems the local authorities had become upset over the comic, especially I think the licensing, specifically the Death Note notebook which had been made. I guess the idea of disgruntled teens writing down the names of people they wanted to “punish” didn’t sit well with the authorities. The funny thing was in the news story they showed books being taken off shelves, DVDs confiscated and they were interviewing LEFT: A merchant I bought a few little kids, kids under 10, brushes from in the market in who the book certainly Kunming. isn’t written for nor I imagTOP: The Cool Comic store in ine would appeal to. I had Kunming. to laugh, it was the sort of ABOVE: The manager of the the Chinese version of the Beijing Cool Comic shop and me. lame old story we see here: RIGHT: A calligraphy shop that “Bang! Zap! Comics are was located next to the comic shop. not just for kids anymore.”

CHINA

I asked the manager about this, or had Echo translate for me. I asked him why he still had copies as I had seen on TV that the local authorities had been removing copies from stores all over. He said that they really only wanted the notebooks, not the comic. He had a full set in his comic shop. I’ve read many of the volumes so far and have enjoyed the story, and I was curious why it was so popular with the Chinese fans. So I asked one who was shopping who appeared to be in his early 20s. He said that he liked the story because it required thinking and strategy over super-powers or some other type of magic ability. That thought was also echoed by the manager and the other teen shopping. It seems that the more cerebral approach really appealed to the readers. This wasn’t the Naruto crowd, though clearly he seems as popular there as here in the US—they even had a ready-made cosplay Naruto costume hanging from the ceiling of the shop. This store was part of a chain, and when Echo mentioned we were traveling to Kunming, the manager gave us a card and said they had a sister store there. Like I said in the first post I didn’t see any American comics my whole time in China. I guess you could call the Disney comics I saw in the kiosks and newsstands American, but since I never opened the bagged issues I saw I am not sure where the material originated. Disney does have studios around the world that produce comics, so perhaps that work was merely reprints. That’s what I imagine anyway. I saw no Civil War, 52, Hellboy, Sin City, Batman or even Spidey comics in either shop I visited nor on the newsstands I saw. I did see ads for DVDs of the Batman/Superman cartoons and Tom and Jerry that Warners Bros. is releasing in the big bookstore I shopped at in Kunming.

DRAW! • SUMMER 2007