Issuu

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

No. 10 FA L L 2 0 0 8

$6.95

82658 27766

Volume 1, Number 10 Fall 2008

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics! EDITOR

Bob McLeod PUBLISHER

John Morrow DESIGNER

Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington

FEATURED ARTISTS 26

Matt Haley

Jason Paz

Alex Raymond

Andy Smith

COVER ARTISTS

Ron Garney and Bob McLeod Pencil scan courtesy Gabe Fieramosco

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions SPECIAL THANKS Ron Garney Jim Clancey Matt Haley Ronald Sonenthal Jason Paz Graham Goss Tom Roberts Scott Hawxhurst Andy Smith Jordan Martin Neal Yamamoto Kenneth Lieb Bill Rienhold Elizabeth Leonard Jason Keith Melissa Mueller Kevin Nowlan Matt McDonald Gabe Fieramosco Pennsylvania College of Art & Design

ROUGH STUFF™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Bob McLeod, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: ROUGH STUFF, c/o Bob McLeod, Editor, P.O. Box 63, Emmaus, PA 10849-2203. E-mail: mcleod.bob@gmail.com. Fourissue subscriptions: $26 Standard US, $36 First Class US, $44 Canada, $60 Surface International, $72 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Central cover art by Ron Garney and Bob McLeod. Batman copyright DC Comics. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2008 Bob McLeod and TwoMorrows Publishing. ROUGH STUFF is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

ISSN 1931-9231

ROUGH STUFF FEATURE 38

Sequential Art 101 Bob McLeod

ROUGH STUFF INTERVIEW 3

Ron Garney

ROUGH STUFF DEPARTMENTS 2

Scribblings From The Editor Bob McLeod

Cover Stories Andy Smith and Jason Paz reveal the process of creating a cover.

PrePro Art by Jason Paz, Matt Haley, and Andy Smith, done before they turned pro.

Editor’s Corner Samples from editor Bob McLeod’s comic book career.

Rough Critique Editor Bob McLeod critiques an aspiring penciler’s sample page.

Rough Talk Comments and opinions from our readers.

FALL 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

SCRIBBLINGS FROM THE EDITOR:

utumn is a time of endings and beginnings. The calendar year is winding down, but the school year is just beginning. The warm weather is gone, and the cold weather is coming. Publishers are bringing out new books which will push older books off the shelves. So in the spirit of Autumn, this issue features an article about some young art students’

first attempts at drawing comics, a critique of an artist hoping to start a career in comics, and another wonderful new artist just beginning his comics career, but also a celebration of one of the great legendary comic artists tragically cut down at the height of his career. His style of graceful figure drawing and masterfully flowing inks is seldom seen anymore in today’s comic art. We open this issue with an insightful interview of our cover artist, Ron Garney. Ron infuses the power of Jack Kirby with a European flair. His art appears primal and raw yet at the same time it’s tight enough to be printed from the pencils. Wait ‘til you hear about what all Ron can do. I’ve always liked his pencils, but he really surprised me with his many other talents. We then have a couple covers from inception to finish by newcomer Jason Paz and veteran Andy Smith. Following that is a feature on writer/illustrator/designer Matt Haley, the artist and creative consultant for Stan Lee’s Who Wants To Be A Superhero. He does a bit of everything, and does it all very well. He works digitally on commercial jobs to save time, but still prefers paper and pen for his comic work. For the last couple years, I’ve been teaching sequential art at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, and this issue I want to share that experience with you by giving you a feel for what it’s like, and showing you some art my students did. There are so many disciplines involved in drawing comics that trying to teach comic art can be very difficult, but also very rewarding and enjoyable. It was while I was teaching at PCAD that I was googling animal images and discovered Jason Paz, who had done an amazing, intricately rendered drawing of a sea turtle. Months later, I was very surprised to learn that his real interest is in drawing comics! His extremely detailed art is sure to blow you away. What can I say about Alex Raymond? Where do I start? When I was first trying to learn to draw dramatic comics, I looked back to study the early pioneers of the art form. It was only then I found Flash Gordon and Alex Raymond. Years later, I discovered his Rip Kirby work. Although Raymond created Rip Kirby, I grew up reading it illustrated by his successor, the great John Prentice, one of my favorite artists. I then found and fell in love with Secret Agent X-9 illustrated by the amazing Al Williamson, only to later learn that it, too, was created by Raymond! To top it all off, I was shocked to find out he had also created Jungle Jim, the hero of one of my favorite childhood TV shows! But Raymond’s career extended even beyond all of these, as you’ll learn in a fantastic new book by artist Tom Roberts, The Life and Art of Alex Raymond. I’m thrilled to bring you some excerpted art from this book, with new comments by Tom written especially for Rough Stuff. This issue also features an artist who’s done it all, from pencilling to inking to editing to art directing to writing best-selling books, the multi-talented but simply named Andy Smith. When does he find the time to watch TV? Closing out the issue, we had some extra pages this issue so I offer up another sampling of my own artwork I hope you’ll enjoy. You didn’t think all I did was write editorials, did you? Then a critique of promising young artist Neal Yamamoto, followed by your letters of comment. Don’t stop there, though, go to my web site and see even more art and comments that I couldn’t fit into the magazine: http://www.bobmcleod.com/roughstuff.htm And remember we now offer every issue of Rough Stuff in digital form as a PDF download at http://www.twomorrows.com, including many images in full color, for just $2.95 (free for subscribers!). Also, please visit our guests’ web sites: http://www.matthaley.com/ http://www.glasshousegraphics.com/creators/pencilers/michaeljasonpaz/index.htm http://www.tomrobertsstudio.net/ http://www.andysmithart.com/

ROUGH STUFF • FALL 2008

Bob McLeod Editor mcleod.bob@gmail.com www.bobmcleod.com PO Box 63 Emmaus, PA 18049

INTERVIEW

RON GARNEY

R E N A I S S A N C E

M A N

By Bob McLeod

on Garney has worked on JLA, Amazing Spider-Man, Civil War, Captain America,

RON GARNEY This was a sketch for a

X-Men, Silver Surfer, Hulk and other books. He’s a guy who likes to have fun, and it comes through in his art. You can tell he’s having fun drawing. But as I

found out in this interview, he’s also a musician, actor, athlete and painter. I don’t know if there’s anything he’s not good at, but if there is, he’s probably working on it! McLEOD: That’s true. The Internet

nerd who would have been sitting alone in his room

and video games today must use up

drawing all the time as a kid. How did you find time

a lot of the spare time of many kids

between chasing girls and playing sports to

who might otherwise be drawing. I

RON GARNEY: I think a lot of comics nerds are going to take umbrage with that statement!

Spider-Man in his new Tony Stark created armor from Civil War…

JIM CLANCY

BOB McLEOD: You don’t look like the type of comics

develop your drawing?

fan at a convention of

myself played a lot of baseball and softball when I could have been improving my drawing. Did you play sports very much?

I got this from Ron at the first NY Comic Con. It was done right after the Amazing SpiderMan issue that first showed the Iron Spider costume came out. I remember how cool it was to get the sketch. The show was buzzing

McLEOD: Ha! No doubt. I

GARNEY: Neither

just think many people

my mother nor stepfa-

have a mental picture

ther were into sports,

of artists as not exactly

so when I played in

“buff.”

school I did so out of

GARNEY: Seriously though,

my own desire. Early on

that’s tough to say. I

before my mother mar-

wasn’t always the “non-

ried my late stepfather,

nerdy-looking” type, I

we moved around a lot,

I like a slender, sinewy

suppose. Where I grew

then basically settled on

Spidey, and it’s cool

up it was very rural, and back

eleven acres in the country in

how Ron was going for

then, there wasn’t the Internet,

the seventies, and all I had was

and one of the many conversations was about the new Spidey. It was an easy choice in a commission to ask for.

BOB McLEOD

a trompe d’oeil effect

my imagination, the outdoors

with the wall shadow.

There were comics, records, monster magazines

and my ability and desire to

Up-lighting is such an

and Star Trek.

draw. There was literally

easy, effective way to

MTV or arcades to occupy a kid’s time.

courtesy Jim Clancey

FALL 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

nothing I could even walk to for stimulus or to hang out

painter however, and my earliest memories of drawing

with friends regularly. My younger brother and I had each

were of her and my aunt teaching me to do Bugs Bunny

other. I played sports as well in school, but in the down

heads, and not long after that I was doing Batman and

time that’s what I would do.

Superman drawings.

McLEOD: Does your younger brother draw at all?

McLEOD: So drawing and sports—did you have any

GARNEY: No he doesn’t, but he is an engineer. He’s

other hobbies or interests growing up?

very technical. My late grandmother was an avid oil

GARNEY: I was also into music, so I was experimenting with a lot of things I found interesting, and I guess as I reflect on that, each of those pursuits served a different purpose for my evolving personality. I still do all of those things. I write music, play piano and guitar, train in jiu-jitsu and boxing, ride my Harley, play tennis or lift weights, or hike. Now, it just happens that I draw for a living. I had a rock band for a while as well, and we played all over New Haven county and recorded a couple CD’s, and that was some of the most fun I ever had, and we started developing quite a following for a while there. But it was just like the “behind the music” stuff you see on VH1. Too much drama and ego and the band split up. I continue to write new music and material and plan on doing that again as well. McLEOD: No kidding! I played the trumpet in school, but I’ve always thought writing music is pure magic. I’m even more impressed that you can do that than draw! I also play tennis. Otherwise I’d probably weigh 300 pounds. And with boxing and jiu-jitsu

and weights, it’s no wonder you’re in

RON GARNEY Any chance I get to draw a fight scene on a New York City street is fun for me. I enjoyed the confrontation between Iron Man and SpiderMan during the Civil War run, and when I was drawing it I got rather nostalgic, for instance, about how excited I’d be when I’d pick up a Marvel comic from the sixties or seventies like Daredevil vs. the Sub-Mariner or the Thing vs. the Hulk on the GW bridge (Kirby). I felt this confrontation had that same flavor to it and is what helped make the story so successful.

ROUGH STUFF • FALL 2008

such good shape. What formal training have you had?

few plays and actually went back for a course a few

Did you go to art school or college?

years ago and really enjoyed it. It’s just having the time I

GARNEY: Yes, University of Southern Connecticut.

suppose with everything else going on in my life like fam-

McLEOD: Where did you work right out of school?

again.

ily and work. Someday, though, I’d like to do local theatre GARNEY: Well, I was a bouncer and bartender for a while in college, and continued that trend right into the

McLEOD: So I was right. You were acting, playing music

management of nightclubs after college. That’s where it

and sports; you weren’t just sitting alone in your room

became the most difficult to maintain myself as an artist. Not only professionally, but socially. McLEOD: When did you decide to try to make a living as an artist? GARNEY: Well, I was always trying in the eighties, and even had jobs as a teen doing murals and things in the seventies, but I started to get serious about it and comics between 1985 and 1988. I had gotten interested in the comics thing as a career by around 1985 and started working on samples and honing skills in that area. That was a very unique time of my life, however. I was working and living the life of a vampire basically. Going to work at six at night ’til four in the morning. It got so bad that at the crack of dawn I would catch fire and have to sleep under six yards of dirt. If I drove by a catholic church my eyeballs would start to bleed… but, I digress.

McLEOD: Well, as long as you didn’t drink blood.... A lot of artists work through the night and sleep during the day, but to work at another job like that and then also try to draw must have been tough. GARNEY: I did have some art jobs: I worked for a women’s newspaper, doing illustrations and the like. I also acted in some theatre productions, was a waiter, and... McLEOD: Acting? How was that for you? Do you ever consider doing more of that? GARNEY: Yeah, actually I loved it really, but didn’t have the balls to pursue it the way I would have liked. I acted in a FALL 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

COVER STORIES

hether a cover is inked or painted, it still needs to be approved in sketch form, then a finished drawing is done. But even after the sketch is approved, the artist may come up with a better idea and make some unexpected changes.

ANDY SMITH Claw #3 For issue #3, I did four different rough sketches to show my editor. As you can see, I don’t do much detail in the sketches. They are just for composition and to give a general idea of what is going on. The idea was Claw being attacked by someone off panel that we obviously can’t see, with a shadow of the attacker looming over him. In the first sketch I did a down shot of Claw but I didn’t want to give away that the attacker might be that much larger then Claw and I felt too unattached to the scene. There was just not enough drama for me. Sketch 2 is cool with the camera angle lower, but I wasn’t feeling it. Claw is standing, which doesn’t give me the feel of impending doom looming over him—just too casual. Sketches 3 and 4 were the ones I really liked. He’s backed up against a rock in sketch 3 and is seated on the ground, which would make it more difficult for him to get away. Sketch 4 looks like he was just knocked down and is really in trouble, which I also thought was really cool. However I went with sketch 3 because the composition works better for the logo placement and I also liked how I framed Claw’s face within the bow and bowstring. 22

ROUGH STUFF • FALL 2008

ANDY SMITH Claw #3 My next stage is to take the rough sketch and enlarge it to about half-size of the original art and trace it off to tighten up the sketch.

ANDY SMITH Claw #3 From there I enlarge that to full size and trace it off on my light box to the tight full pencils. This job was being printed from pencils so I was careful not to smudge it up too much while tracing it off.

BOB McLEOD Here we go again with “…printed from pencils…!” And it looks fine! But of course it helps that Andy’s also an inker, and is just using a pencil here instead of a brush. Claw TM & ©2008 DC Comics.

FALL 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

Sequential By Bob McLeod ell, we call this magazine Rough Stuff because we usually bring you BOB McLEOD

the rough preliminary art of the top pros, but this issue I also want

Jordan Martin was really the only one in the class who nailed the couch scene. It has a lot of depth and good characteriza-

to share with you a different kind of rough stuff; some work done by art school students I’ve taught. Regular Rough Stuff readers are familiar with my Rough Critique feature in the back of every issue,

where I take a sample page sent in by an aspiring comic book artist and critique it,

tion, and I really like the low camera angle, putting us in

trying to be constructive and show how to raise the page up to a more professional level. Every page has its own problems, and every artist has different things to learn,

the room at their height, not ours.

but there are many recurring problems I see in all of the sample pages. The most important thing that is invariably lacking is the figure drawing. You just have to draw a lot of figures and memorize a lot of anatomy before you can draw good figures from your imagination, and then you still need to learn how to make them move dynamically. There are also always several problems with composition, many unique to comics and therefore new to illustration students, and comic book storytelling techniques. And most young artists don’t have much of a grasp of perspective. I do my best to offer knowledgeable advice in my Rough Stuff critiques, but I always wonder if the artists actually improve after hearing my critique. Does it all sink in, or is it too hard to absorb all at once and change the way you’ve been doing things? I have this vision of them reading my critique and a light bulb flashes over their head and suddenly they’re able to draw great pages and go on to become superstars. In reality, it usually takes a lot more than one critique to get someone up to that next level. They may not want to make the effort to actually read those figure drawing books they have and practice drawing the manikin poses. They might not want to study and work at it because

Courtesy Jordan Martin

that’s too much like real work. So many artists just want to draw Spider-Man, and they think drawing comics should be fun, not work. My own attitude at age 20 was frighteningly similar to that. There were no schools I knew of teaching cartooning or comic art in 1969, and I was never able to find some38

ROUGH STUFF • FALL 2008

Art 101 one to teach me how to draw comics, and never had a

what a human looks like and draw it in dif-

real critique. Even after I started renting space in Neal

ferent poses and viewed from above or

Adams’ Continuity Studios, I never got one of Neal’s infa-

below with no reference! That was a new

mous, ego-shattering critiques (Neal was the top artist in comics at that time, and known for making wannabes cry). The closest I came was when I first approached DC Comics and then-art director Joe Orlando (of EC Comics fame) told me I needed to go back to school and learn how to draw! I wasn’t about to do that. Instead, I stubbornly went back to my room and started cranking out more sample pages. I learned most of what I know from studying other artists and through trial and error. Drawing has always come easily to me, but it took me years to get competent at penciling superhero comics, which is why I did mostly inking in the early years of my career. Unlike most comic book pencilers today, I was not a superhero comic fan before I started in comics, and had intended to draw for Disney or do a comic strip in the newspaper. I just wanted to draw humorous cartoons. But once I decided to give comic books a try, I was willing to study as hard as necessary and would have welcomed a rough critique to show me the way. So I now try to teach others what I’ve learned, and hopefully spare them those many frustrating years of trial and error. To that end, I recently began teaching as an adjunct instructor at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in Lancaster, PA, which I was very pleased to learn is a very good art school, with an excellent staff and excellent students. In the fall semester of ’07 I taught a class in “sequential imagery” (the fancy collegiate term for drawin’ comics), and most of my students majors, and when I had them draw figures with no reference the first day of class, I realized I had my work cut out for me. Most of them had talent, but it was very undeveloped with regard to drawing comics. Their prior instruction had mainly all been drawing from a model or from reference. I

Courtesy Graham Goss

were juniors. Not all of them were even illustration

BOB McLEOD

don’t think they had ever been asked to draw figures

Graham Goss is an excellent artist with much more experience in painting than in inking. We

totally from their imagination, because most illustration

discussed whether splitting the explosion into two panels worked, and decided that it did. I was

careers don’t require that. It’s one thing to draw a figure

impressed by the way all of the students were trying to break new ground in various ways,

while looking at a model. It’s quite another to remember

rather than taking the easier, more obvious route.

FALL 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

ALEX R AYMOND

s been an x Raymond ha The great Ale s of comic e on generation nc ue fl in ng ri endu standard that g a very high in tt se s, st ti ar meet ever 34. That have tried to h Gordon in 19 comic artists as Fl ng ti ea cr st known for on to also since. He’s be l, but he went ta or m im m hi JIM, ve made IRBY, JUNGLE K alone would ha IP R , -9 X T GEN aw SECRET A create and dr THE TOILER. , and TILLIE K C LU e from a ’S R LE TIM TY a small sampl st ju e ar s ge these pa m Roberts The images on d by artist To on m ay R t ou book ab also supplied wonderful new AND ART. Tom FE LI IS H — D AYMON called ALEX R . for the images the comments

TOM ROBERTS

All scans courtesy Tom Roberts

Preliminary study for Grasshopper Dance This image bears no major changes from the study to the finished piece. Obviously, Raymond felt the need to fully resolve all the contrast between the elements before starting the finished version in ink wash. The composition is very much in the style popularized by Albert Dorne, with the figure in the foreground turning to look at the reader, and therefore pulling the reader into the scene as an additional participant.

ROUGH STUFF • FALL 2008

Preliminary study for Hard Work With the horizon line dividing the picture plane in half, it is interesting to note and study Raymond’s use of perspective, and the grid system he uses to establish the different planes on which the man and woman are standing.

BOB McLEOD An excerpt from Andrew Loomis’ Figure Drawing For All It's Worth shows you how to do this on my web site here: http://www. bobmcleod.com/loomisp40.gif

TOM ROBERTS Preliminary study for Sirenade Raymond, in his attempt to fill the spot vacated by George Petty for Esquire magazine, labored to imitate Petty’s style of pin-up. Raymond was apparently uncomfortable with the awkward look of the partially hidden right foot peeking out from behind the opposite leg, and hid it under drapery in the finished image.

TOM ROBERTS Preliminary study for Sonnet for a Bride This lovely drawing was framed and hung in Raymond’s home studio. The original drawing is now part of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, and was obtained in 2003 as a part of the J. Arthur Wood collection of original comic strips, drawings and cartoons. FALL 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

Rough Stuff #10