Issuu

NUMBER 16 FALL 2008

$6.95

IN THE U.S.A.

HOWARD CHAYKIN

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

INTERVIEW & DEMO JET CAT & TUTENSTEIN ANIMATOR

JAY STEPHENS

PLUS: MIKE MANLEY AND BRET BLEVINS’

82658 27764

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

FALL 2008

CONTENTS

VOL. 1, NO. 16 Editor-in Chief • Michael Manley Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Circulation Director • Bob Brodsky for Cookiesoup Productions Proofreader • Eric Nolen-Weathington Transcription • Steven Tice Front Cover Illustration • Howard Chaykin Front Cover Color • Glen Whitmore DRAW! Fall 2008, Vol. 1, No. 16 was produced by Action Planet Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Address is P.O. 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 2008 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. Tony Aurora and Borealis ™ and ©2008 Howard Chaykin • Jetcat, Oddville, Tutenstein ™ and ©2008 Jay Stephens • Oh, Brother! ™ and ©2008 Bob Weber and Jay Stephens • American Century ™ and ©2008 David Tischman, Howard Chaykin and DC Comics • Aquaman, Doomsday, Superman, Wonder Woman ™ and ©2008 DC Comics • Solo ™ DC Comics • The Beast, Crystal, Human Torch, Morbius, Phantom Eagle, The Punisher, Wolverine ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Argost, Secret Saturdays ™ and ©2008 Cartoon Network • Mr. Cooper Nincompooper ™ and ©2008 Viacom International, Inc. • The Escapist ™ and ©2008 Michael Chabon • Ultraviolet ™ and ©2008 Ultravi Productions, Inc. • Tomb Raider ™ and ©2008 Eidos Interactive Ltd. • chickaDEE ™ and ©2008 Bayard Presse Canada, Inc. • Felix the Cat ™ and ©2008 Felix Comics, Inc. • The Sims, Urbz ™ and ©2008 Electronic Arts, Inc. • Remo Williams, the Destroyer ™ and ©2008 Warren Murphy • Secret Agent Corrigan ™ and ©2008 King Features Syndicate • Kelly Green ™ and ©2008 Dargaud • Kiling ™ and ©2008 Ediciones Record S.C.A. • Dark Crystal ™ and ©2008 Henson Inc. • The Mummy ™ and ©2008 Universal Films • Killing Girl ™ and ©2008 Glen Brunswick • Superman/Doomsday ™ and ©2008 Warner Bros. Entertainment • Miss Fury ™ and ©2008 respective owner • This entire issue is © 2008 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. ISSN 19326882. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

HOWARD CHAYKIN: In the Service of the Story Interview with the writer/artist

The Not-So-Secret Anymore JAY STEPHENS

COMIC ART BOOTCAMP

THE COMIC CRITIC

Interview with the creator of The Secret Saturdays

“Working with Photos” by Bret Blevins and Mike Manley

Reviews of Comics, Cartoons, and Related Goodies by Mike Manley

FROM THE EDITOR s you read this the first wisps of the fall air should be upon us. Summer went fast; it always seems to after the 4th of July. Many, like myself, will be returning to school and getting back down to business—and this issue of DRAW! is getting down to biz-nez, too. The usual thanks go out to my main men, Bret, Eric and John for putting in a lot of solid work on this issue and helping it get out the door and into your hands. Thanks to Glen Whitmore for his great color job on this issue’s cover illo done by Mr. Chaykin.

Figurative interpretation by Bret Blevins

A funny story. Howard was one of the first pros I met many years ago at the local Chicago Comic-con, long before it was absorbed into the Wizard empire. Howard was running hard with his ground-breaking work on American Flagg at the time, and was a bit more cocky than he is now. Like many wanna-bes at that show, I was hauling my work around in my portfolio and showing my work to people in hopes of getting the big break. Howard was one of them. He was brisk and pretty harsh in his crit of my work, and to be honest, I didn’t like it much. It was sort of like an old newspaper guy ripping the young turk for dumb mistakes. But looking back, he was right, even though at the time it stung a bit. I did, however, take his words to heart when I was back at home doing new samples which next year at the same con landed me work. It’s important for the young artist or student to take in a good, honest crit, even if you don’t like it (and who does?), because that is the best way to see the mistakes and weaknesses and to, more importantly, learn how to correct them. Another funny story. Jay Stephens almost made me have a car crash. Years ago, back when Jay was doing his book, Land of Nod, he would do these funny little strips with his character, Captain Rightful. Well, after buying my haul of comics from the local shop, I hopped in my car and was driving back home. The comics I bought lay on the seat next to me in the back and a few fell out as I drove. On top of the comics that slipped out was the Land of Nod comic, and the back cover was a strip featuring Captain Rightful... and it caught my eye as I was driving—I know, I shouldn’t have been looking at anything but the road. That strip was so funny that I started reading it for a second and laughing at how funny it was—and almost rear-ended somebody! SCREEEEECH! So let this be a lesson: Always put comics in the trunk. On a serious note, a big thanks to both Howard Chaykin and Jay Stephens for taking time out of their busy schedules to do their interviews with DRAW!, and we’ll see you around Christmas time! Go DRAW! some comics!

E-mail: mike@drawmagazine.com Website: www.drawmagazine.com Snail mail: PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082 2

DRAW! • FALL 2008

HOWARD CHAYKIN In the Service of the Story

rom his earliest days in the comic business, to his exit into television and then his plunge back into comics, Howard Chaykin has continued to be one in love with the medium of comics. Few artists of his generation have been able to embrace change, yet stay true to the heart of their visions as Howard has. But no matter what medium he happens to be working in, or whether he’s writing, drawing, or both, for Howard it all comes down to telling a good story in the best way possible.

Interview conducted by Mike Manley and transcribed by Steven Tice

DRAW!: One of the reasons I wanted to interview you for the magazine is because you’re one of the few artists who have worked in a lot of various parts of the industry, not only in comics as a writer and an artist, but you’ve done illustration, you’ve worked in TV— HC: I just can’t hold a job. [Mike laughs] DRAW!: And one of the thrusts of the magazine is to show people that cartooning, or the kind of skills you acquire to be a good storyteller, a good comic book artist, can really apply to a lot of other venues. You don’t have to just draw Captain America, y’know? And even out of your generation, which I guess includes artists like Walt Simonson and [Bernie] Wrightson, guys like that, you’re one of the artists who really has, I think, sort of stood out as having done a wide variety of material. HC: Well, I have a limited attention span, and I need to keep myself interested, so I was always looking for something else to do, but never burning a bridge. I was able to spread myself a little thinner than a lot of guys, not out of any profoundly evolved skills, but more out of interest than anything else. DRAW!: When you were starting out, I know you apprenticed with guys like Gil Kane and Neal Adams. HC: Gray Morrow and Wallace Wood, as well.

think. We all palled around, and there was a lot of fellowship. We all promised ourselves that we would never become like the older generation, hating each other’s guts, and of course we all did. DRAW!: [laughs] Well, one of the things I take from looking over your career, and it’s funny you mentioned it, your career is not like a lot of the older guys. The old-time cartoonists who sort of had their gig, and they worked diligently, and then one day the companies said, “We no longer need your services,” and then many became bitter old alcoholics and drank themselves to death. That seems to be the story for, unfortunately, a lot of old cartoonists. But you’ve jumped around—you’re doing this, you’re doing that. You’re not letting yourself stagnate as far as your career, but also creatively. Your generation of guys who came in were also interested in fine art and illustration. Not that the older generation wasn’t, but that seemed to be a lot more of the thrust of, say, Jeff Jones and Kaluta. HC: I think what it comes down to is that we were spoiled brats. The generation that we came of age in, in retrospect—I was born in 1950. I used to not talk about that, but now, with Wikipedia and everything else, everybody can find out anything, so there’s no point in lying. DRAW!: Unless you go in and edit it yourself. [laughs]

HC: I was delighted to note that somebody actually went in there and cleaned mine up. The first time I read my Wikipedia biography and was, like, “What the f---? Who is this guy?” And then HC: No, not really. I was unaware of Neal’s I came back to it about six months background when I met him. All I knew about later, when somebody pointed it out to him was he was this incredibly hot comic book me, and I said, “Wow, somebody artist. He was also a very charismatic figure came in and actually cleaned it up Pencils. in his time, and there were a lot of guys who TONY AURORA & BOREALIS ©2008 HOWARD CHAYKIN and got it all right.” Now to the point were sort of floating around him, guys who where I check my IMDb database were both part of his orbit and guys who stuff, and they’ve even got informaweren’t really, but were sort of sucked up into the maelstrom. tion in there that I do not share publicly. Somebody that knows And we all sort of hung out, crossbred. A lot of it started at the me well went in there and cleaned it up. First Fridays, which began at Roy Thomas’ place and then sort of ended up at Jeff Jones’ place. That’s where I met Neal, I DRAW!: Wow.

DRAW!: Wow, I’m jealous! In the case of someone like Adams, who came really from the commercial art background, did that influence your thinking as you were working with him?

DRAW! • FALL 2008

HC: Pointing out that I have an adopted father and am illegitimate, stuff like that, which I was kind of impressed by. At any rate, one of the things, in the 1960s, we all were just so smug and self-righteous about our stuff. And then, of course, in maturity I’ve come to realize just what spoiled brats we were—just completely smug, obnoxious a--holes who never really were grateful for the world that our fathers had saved for us. We had this idea that the world was our oyster and we could do anything, and as a result of that we did. I mean, our capacity for the great commercial art from Neal, the fine art from Jeff, the level of pretension we allowed ourselves was enormous. And my one problem, I always felt, is that I wish—I first came to southern California in the early 1970s as a hitchhiker, and I wish I’d stayed, but I could not at the time translate what I did for a living as a comic book artist into making a career in show business. DRAW!: Really? HC: If I’d come out earlier, my career would have ended earlier, but I think I would have had a bigger and better career. DRAW!: When you went out there, you didn’t imagine that you could get a job working at Disney or— HC: I wouldn’t have wanted to do that. I mean, I never worked in animation. I work in live action. I never worked on highquality shows, but I had a good career, and I couldn’t visualize doing that in the early ’70s. DRAW!: Doing production art? An example of Howard’s layouts.

HC: That a guy with my skill set could conceivably make a living in television. Do you follow me? DRAW!: Right, yeah. HC: It wasn’t until I came out to California on a permanent basis in the mid-1980s, when American Flagg had sort of gotten me representation, that I was able to see how I could use what I was doing in comics and translate it into the show business. So it was a big change for me. DRAW!: I imagine going into that world, you could bring some of that back into comics, right? HC: Well, to a certain extent. The magazine you’re doing is called DRAW!, and I’m of the belief, and I believe this wholeheartedly, that the artist is a profound participant in the writing process, for good or bad, particularly in comics, because of the element of narrative provided to the artist, and what the artist has to then bring to the narrative. I believe the story is everything—good, bad, or indifferent—and that the artist’s job is to make a writer look good. And I work with writers who are terrific; I’m on a roll right now. I’ve been really blessed these past couple of years, because I decided to start working as an artist with other writers, while I’m also writing for other people, drawing other people’s scripts, and I’m writing stuff for myself to draw. I’m spreading myself in a different direction now. I’ve been working with Marc Guggenheim pretty steadily, and Marc’s just fabulous. Marc, I’ve said more than once, is one of the most artist-friendly writers I’ve ever worked with.

Jason Aaron on that Wolverine job we did was astonishing work, and I’m working with Garth Ennis, and Garth is also fantastic. So I’ve been really blessed. He has an understanding of how much to expect of an artist. One of the things I always tell young guys who are starting out as artists is to be prepared to be doing a lot of the writing. By that I don’t mean the text, I mean the subtext and content. Does that make sense? DRAW!: Yes. HC: I gave you a long answer for a short question. DRAW!: [laughs] Well, we like those long answers. I think I first became aware of your work on the “Dominic Fortune” stuff that you were doing when I was in high school. I was very impressed by that at the time, because it seemed there was a lot of critical thinking in the way you played with the page and everything, which, of course, you continued to really develop, especially when you got to American Flagg, and how you were incorporating the sound effects and everything. Was that something that you were sort of building towards? Were you studying certain artists that were leading you to— HC: What it comes down to is that I never subscribed, from my earliest, to the idea that the only way to do it was the grid. I mean, there are formalists, and there are anti-formalists, and the formalists object to what I’ve done. To a profound extent, I was trying to introduce—again, in retrospect, I don’t think I was DRAW! • FALL 2008

to n The t e r c so-se re o m y an

Y A J STEP HEN S

Conducted by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice

DRAW!: I’m glad we finally got to talk, I’ve wanted to interview you for a long time for the magazine because you’re one of my favorite cartoonists working today. JS: You’ve been teasing me with this for a while, Mike, but now there’s a really good reason, because it finally looks like I have a high-profile project. DRAW!: Well, you were always high profile in my book, Jay. JS: Awwww, thanks. And I know that’s true, because you were the first guy to write me a letter for Jetcat Clubhouse—I’m pretty sure yours was the first letter I got. So I know you’ve been looking at my stuff. But until The Secret Saturdays launch this fall, up until this point in my career, I’ve been working as a “cartoonist’s cartoonist” (if I dare say that), where I feel like the entirety of my fan base is other cartoonists. [laughs] DRAW!: One of the things I was very interested in talking to you about was the fact that you are a legitimate, real cartoonist, you’ve done almost every format I can think of, plus you’ve had a lot of success. It seemed to start with self-publishing and build up from there, at least that’s where I first became aware of your work. Then you worked for chickaDEE, one of those kids’ magazines in Canada.

or more, meeting other comic book guys, but comic books were just one of the things I really liked. So, to try to hook up with other strip cartoonists, animators, and illustrators, I finally found a place to meet them in the NCS. I’ve always identified myself as a “cartoonist.” From the beginning, I never thought of myself as a comic book guy, or an animation guy— DRAW!: Although you were actually doing comic books as opposed to doing comic strips. At least, most of the stuff that I was exposed to of your work in the beginning. JS: Yeah, definitely. I was definitely a comic book guy at the start, and yet I never really thought of myself that way. I think part of the reason was... and you listed all this stuff I’ve done, which, on one level, there’s no question that my career’s been a success in that I’ve been a full-time professional cartoonist for more than 15 years, and I’m supporting a family on it. DRAW!: That is the very definition of success for most I think. JS: That’s all I ever asked, that’s all I ever wanted, and I’m very happy and satisfied with the work I have done. But, looking at success critically, when I talk about being a “cartoonist’s cartoonist,” I’ve never had trouble making friends with other cartoonists who appreciated what I was trying to do in comic

JS: And lots of stuff for Nickelodeon Magazine, as well. DRAW!: Right, and now you are working on your third cartoon series. First, you had Jetcat, which was on KaBlam!... JS: Yup, animated shorts, right. DRAW!: And then you had Tutenstein, which was on the Discovery Channel here in the States. JS: Yup, 36 episodes, and there’s a new Tutenstein TV movie coming out. DRAW!: And now The Secret Saturdays for Cartoon Network. So you’re rocking up to a Frank Miller, buddy. JS: I don’t know. I think of myself as real blue collar, as far as cartooning goes. DRAW!: What, Frank Miller’s not blue collar? JS: [laughs] Well, no, I mean in the sense— the reason I’m all over the place is more because I’m interested in the work. I’m not showing off, Mike. [laughs] I’m interested in all different forms of cartooning, which is part of the reason I joined the National Cartoonists Society, because I was finding that the comic book convention circuit was getting a little boring for me. I’d been doing it for a decade

DRAW! • FALL 2008

books or elsewhere, but I’ve never had a real “hit,” Mike. DRAW!: Well, that brings up a very interesting topic, one that I’ve talked a lot about. It’s actually one of the focuses of the magazine, to cover all aspects of cartooning in the broad sense and to chip away the separations between them, because I think what happened long ago is that there was that separation of comic strips and comic books. The older generation of cartoonists—including guys like Kirby—were all inspired by the strips. And that was the previous generation’s idea of success, if you could sell a comic strip. That also meant that you could become very wealthy, and millions of people read your work, and you also weren’t looked upon as some form of social pariah because you were pandering smut to kids—all that stuff that seemed to kind of stick to comic books at least until the ’60s or ’70s. But now, when I talk to lay people, most lay people don’t distinguish between Superman and Charlie Brown. Comic book guys do. There’s really this ghettoization of, “Well, I just like superheroes,” or, “I just like indie or shoe-gazer comics,” or, “I just like manga.” And what’s interesting for me as a teacher, when I teach these cartooning classes, you never know what cross-section of people you will get. Most seem to kind of mix it up— it’s really mostly the superhero fans, who just like superheroes, that seem to have the most prejudice against other stuff. JS: That’s interesting, because we just had an NCS convention, and I was talking to Hilary Price, who does a great gag strip called Rhymes with Orange, about this and I was surprised to find that that stigma and stereotyping still works both ways. I was arguing that we have fewer comic book people in the National 24

DRAW! • FALL 2008

Cartoonists Society than we ought to, and it met with some resistance. That’s part of exactly what you’re talking about—a lot of comic book people assume that the NCS is all strip people, and it is. And comic book people seem to hate strip people. DRAW!: Well, dumb comic book people do. JS: I hear some vitriol about how awful they are, and it’s so funny, because it really is, like you say, the exact same art form at its core—the combination of words and pictures. But it requires very different skills. I think comic book creators and fans have very little idea of what real skills and challenges are involved in knocking out a daily three-panel strip. DRAW!: It is the most Puritan form of cartooning. I mean, you really have to hone everything down, and you don’t have as much real estate, as much space to do everything. JS: Absolutely, which can be a negative and a positive. There’s definitely some downside to working on a syndicated strip in national papers, but there’s something really beautiful about a strip that clicks. There’s a new strip out right now called Cul de Sac, by Richard Thompson—great comic and great guy, and he was up for best newspaper strip in the NCS Reuben Division Awards this year. So was my friend Paul Gilligan, who does Pooch Café. There’s some great stuff out there that I think comic book people are just unaware of. But I think what’s surprising is the bias goes the other way, as well, in that strip folk still frown upon the comic book crowd. With the change in the form of comic books, the gravitation towards bound books, the influx of manga and how that’s influencing comic sales, you find just as many graphic nov-

els in bookstores, at least up here in this area, as you do collections of comic strips now. I assumed they were gaining respect. DRAW!: Now, are you saying bookstores as in Barnes & Noble and Borders, or are you talking about comic book stores? JS: No, no, I’m talking about like Barnes & Noble. When we’re talking about a lay person, when we’re talking about cartoonists in the broadest sense and what people’s perception of us might be, I think you can find more graphic novels than you can find Garfield and Dilbert collections now in some major chains. DRAW!: Well, there seems to be, not only in the minds of the artists, but also the minds of the bookstores, still a separation between manga, superheroes, and what they would call humor, because all comic strips seem to be humor and are sold in a section often far away from the other comics. JS: That’s true, too, which is another reason I was driven out of comic books—banging my head against the wall for years trying to make a humor comic book. DRAW!: And comic book fans, superhero fans, have no sense of humor. At least, the direct market won’t support any humor books. JS: No. In fact, most of the underground cartoonists, or whatever you call them these days, they don’t have much of a sense of humor, either. I mean, Evan Dorkin and I have talked about this for years, how everyone just needs to lighten up a little. DRAW!: That even extends, honestly, to movies, like the Academy Awards. It’s never a comedy that wins, it’s always the drama about some horrible person with a tragedy or a personal affliction or something like that. Comedy, which is actually the hardest thing to do, and really the most universal of all languages, seems to get so little respect. My theory is that the baby men, as I call them, the cult guy, hardcore, mouth-breather comic fanatic is embarrassed on one level, so therefore any time you make fun of Wolverine, it’s like you’re making fun of him, and he’s already had enough people make fun of him in his life, so it’s like a defense mechanism. They like watching The Simpsons, they love watching Family Guy, but somehow if you take humor and you bring it into comics, it just doesn’t work for them. Or it works, but they have no appetite for it. It’s the same sort of post’80s apocalypse guy with beard stubble over and over.

Simpsons is a good example of something truly all-ages—that really honestly works on all levels, that’s really hard. I’ve found in comic books that nobody was trying to do that anymore. I used to post on comic book message boards a lot, five, six, seven years ago, when everyone was complaining, “Well, where are the comic books for kids? Where are the new readers? We’re just pandering for the older crowd.” And nobody did a damn thing about it! I watched that ship sail away from the shore, and I kind of left comic books with it. I still dabble, but the reason I left is that I realized that nothing was going to change. I kept saying, “I’m doing these kids’ magazine comics. Nickelodeon Magazine’s a million-plus seller. Disney Adventures sells tons of magazines full of comics.” It was a money-making opportunity that comic book publishers and sellers were intentionally ignoring. DRAW!: There is a huge audience out there. I mean Archie still sells well. JS: But kids aren’t reading “comic books” anymore, now. And it’s interesting, I think, that when we talk about rack space in bookstores, how people separate manga and the superhero stuff and the strips, what we’re talking about is format. Which is bizarre to me. It’s not even genre that divides them. It’s literally format. I mean, there are humor manga and humor graphic novels that should be racked with humor comic strips. And then there are serious comic strips that should be racked with the graphic novels. They’re not even being racked by subject matter, they’re being racked by how they look. DRAW!: Going back to when you were first getting into pro-

JS: Yeah, it’s strange, it’s really strange. Often the assumption is that humor is for a younger audience. I get that a lot. I was doing humor comic books that I thought were “All Ages” in the best sense of that term, meaning that anyone would find it funny, I would hope, and that automatically translated, as far as my career went, into me being a “kids’ cartoonist.” Certainly my drawing style is very open and friendly, but I just think that’s interesting, too, that if you’re funny, you’re automatically not serious, and therefore for kids. Which is just simply not the case. DRAW!: Right. Charles Schulz did not write Peanuts for sevenyear-old kids. The strips are all written for or to appeal to adults. JS: Exactly. And I think that trying to create something—and The

DRAW! • FALL 2008

WORKING WITH PHOTOS

By Bret Blevins and Mike Manley

DRAW! • FALL 2008

n the fields of cartooning and illustration, questions relating to the use of the photograph as a tool or aid in drawing is a topic that seems to come up quite often. Some artists employ the use or aid of photography extensively in their work in a variety of ways, sometimes to achieve a sense of realism, sometimes for the desired accuracy in depicting people, environments, lighting, drapery, etc. Some artists use photos sparingly, only for technical information and details—like the style of a military uniform—or as a visual spring board.

CHEATING?

cally, the result is the same. Many contracts you will sign when working for any major company will have a clause in it that states that you are not basing the work you do for that company on the work of anyone else, and that you hold yourself, not the company, libel in case you did and there is a resultant lawsuit. As to the question of whether using photos is cheating, that really is up to the individual artist and the type of work they do, what they want to achieve, their intent and their artistic statement or philosophy. Some artists are not interested in reality at all, nor in depicting things in an illusionistic fashion. Jack Kirby drew cars, and if he needed to draw a specific type of car, he used reference—a photo—but he drew from that photo, taking the information it contained and incorporating it into his own artist statement, as it were. Alex Ross, Neal Adams, Al Williamson or Alex Raymond—much more realistic artists— would use the photo in a different way, sometimes shooting the photos themselves and transferring them down via a projector to get them exactly as they are. Here is where the biggest differences come in with the use of photography between artists: those who want more of an exact statement of what the photo contains, and those who use the photo only partially, as more of a suggestion.

The question that comes up maybe the most often these days from younger artists is if the use of photography in this regard is some form of cheating? There is also the bigger question of copyright and legal issues in regards to using photographs in a work of art which have been taken or created by and are owned by another artist. There have been a few cases within the comics field where an artist has appropriated an image or photo from another source, usually a photographer, and used it as a “swipe” (the term given to the piece of reference art used: drawing, photo, etc.) to create a cover image. The most famous case of this might be the cover of Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #15, where the artist used the cover from an Amy Grant album as the “swipe” for a face drawn of the character Clea in the background. This resulted in a lawsuit. There was another case of this recently with a cover for yet another Marvel comic. This time the cover image was posted on the web for solicitation and a fan evidently spotted the swiped photo and hit the message boards with the news. It was a big stink for the artist who immediately had to redo the image and prevent what would have possibly been a lawsuit. It’s then important to deal with and understand this issue. It is illegal to take the work of another artist and use it blatantly to create another work and to sell it. That’s stealing, and A panel from Jack Kirby’s classic run on the Fantastic Four, featuring the Human Torch’s flashy if the artist went the extra step and registered his Corvette. It’s obvious Kirby, an artist most noted for his dynamic and exaggerated drawing, used or her artwork with the copyright office in photographic reference here to accurately draw the car, yet he also managed to incorporate it into Washington, it’s also a federal crime, and the his style so it didn’t stand out in an awkward, out of place way or look traced. government can assess fines if the case goes to CRYSTAL, HUMAN TORCH ™ AND ©2008 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC. court. When you sell that image, you break the law by profiting of the other artist’s work. You also open up HOW MIKE USES PHOTOS your client to a lawsuit as well. I break down using photos in two ways with my work. A) Now, we don’t want to make this whole article about copyWorking with a photo. B) Working from a photo. These are realright issues, but this is something that has to be addressed up ly quite different ways of working and the end result can also front. If you take somebody else’s work, whether it’s a painting, be very different. drawing or photo, and you blatantly use that image in a recogIn the next example is a page from an issue of The nizable way as the basis of your art and then sell it, you are Destroyer that I did for Marvel back in the late ’80s. I no stealing from that other artist and breaking the law. I think it’s longer have the photos I took for the truck and the backgrounds pretty simple to understand the concept that stealing anything is in panels one and six. But in this case I worked with the photos. wrong, but today, with the Internet and the piracy of music, After breaking down my page layouts, I went about gathering videos and just about anything else you can think of, it may reference and then deciding what I might have to shoot referseem very innocent to take an image you find on a website or ence for if I didn’t have something in my swipe file. even a magazine and use it. “Who cares?” one might say, “I’m Now some of you younger readers may be asking, “What is not hurting anyone, it was just up on that person’s site, and a swipe file?” Well before the age of Google and the Internet, there are a billion images,” and while you might not have actuartists used to clip pictures from newspapers and magazines to ally broken into the artist’s studio and grabbed the image physikeep for reference. I still have my old “morgue” or “swipe file,” DRAW! • FALL 2008

DRAW!: So you would think something like Night Fisher, or something like that?

DRAW!: Yeah, because I imagine the magic number is to get to 52 episodes for syndication, so you’re sort of halfway there.

JS: Night Fisher’s a great book. I just read Laika, which I really liked. And that’s sort of a chunkier, smaller format. Yeah, I mean, definitely. In fact, I’ve never really lost the jones for doing a graphic novel, and that’s one thing I haven’t done in comics. I’ve tried a lot of series, but I haven’t really done that one-off graphic novel format. That would actually be my next step, actually. I have a couple ideas in mind, and hopefully if the Saturdays take off and are relatively successful, it will buy me some time to create something personal again.

JS: Exactly. Yeah, and Tutenstein’s chugging along to that, as well. This latest TV movie we did divides into three episodes, which makes the total 40-something, so we’re getting close to syndication with Tut, as well.

ADVICE TO THE YOUNG ’UNS DRAW!: Because we have lots of young, aspiring comics artists and cartoonists and animators who read the magazine, what would your advice be to them—I guess even to the currently toiling, balding, aging cartoonists as well? JS: There’s a lot of us that read the magazine, right? I think that the one thing—I’m sure I emphasized it enough during this conversation—but I wish I trusted myself more, my own personal voice, earlier on. And I think I accidentally did take the right path, but you asking if I had a time machine, would I go back and take that TV writers job, and I think, y’know, no, I wouldn’t, because things have worked out, and maybe I wouldn’t have had my own work adapted, but certainly I spent a lot of years agonizing, trying to get work-for-hire gigs from Marvel and DC, and I think maybe I could have just trusted my own path more, looked at what other doors were opening and followed those paths. You may start off wanting to be a “comic strip artist” or a “comic book artist,” but you might be better suited to the opposite. So you need to... I don’t know, now, as an older guy, I’m very aware of my skill level, and my strengths and weaknesses. I think that’s really important, and it’s something I didn’t really pay attention to for years. What am I really good at? Yeah, you can draw, you can write, but what are your real strengths? And that’s a hard question to ask yourself.

DRAW! • FALL 2008

The

Critic BY MIKE MANLEY

his kicks off the return of DRAW!’s regular column on right—it was fantastically cool, and I loved Rocketo the second reviews of comics and all things related, like cartoons I saw it. When Espinosa launched the regular series I was there and animation, “how-to” books, etc. There are a few to scoop up every issue as well as the trade. things that stick out of the pile of comics I’ve bought in the Espinosa’s style is as kinetic as last six months or so. I have to Chinese calligraphy, with dashes of say my trips to the comic shops Robbins and Caniff, old Warner Bros. are few and far between these cartoons—bold, brushy, loose. And the days, but I do try and keep up air, negative space, design and color of with news via many of the web the book are equal to the drawing: sites like Cartoon Brew, The Beat sophisticated, slightly retro, and sort of and Newsarama so I can see what European, yet fresh, not frozen in might be coming out that I would amber, which can happen to so many be interested in, and if I might be artists copping a retro-feel. He is the missing anything cool. It’s harder to rare artist who realizes white is a color find small press books these days— in today’s overly muddy, dark sludge and even lower run titles by the bigthat passes for comic book coloring. ger companies—and if you don’t hit So I was pumped to see what he the shop the week those type of would be up to next and excited books come out, you often miss when I saw the preview and the news them. about Killing Girl and that Espinosa I’ll be up front, I buy comics for would be handling the art chores. art, period. Sure, good stories are The plot of Killing Girl is pretimportant, but I can read a horribly ty straightforward, the story tight written comic that has great art. and well crafted by Glen However, I can’t bear to read a great Brunswick. The series revolves story poorly told or drawn. Luckily this around a highly trained killer isn’t the case with the first two issues named Sara who doesn’t rememof the stylish Killing Girl by Glen ber her name or much of her Brunswick and Frank Espinosa, pubpast, except that she was abductlished by Image Comics. I’ve been a big ed as a child and became a prosfan of Espinosa’s art since I saw his styltitute until she was trained by UNSWICK 8 GLEN BR 00 ©2 D ish and bold Rocketo a few years back in the Mob’s elite killers to be a RL ™ AN KILLING GI San Diego. I was tipped off to it by machine in their vendettas. On a job Roque Ballesteros from Ghostbot (the guys behind the her hit goes wrong, and she finds out that her family she awesome Esurence commercials) who said there was this really thought dead is, in fact, still alive. This leads her to wonder if cool comic by this guy a few aisles over, and yep, Roque was she can get out of the job and reclaim her family and humanity.

DRAW! • FALL 2008

Draw! #16