Ben Caldwell’s WONDER WOMAN pitch features unlikely slant
A version of Wonder Woman aimed at teen-aged girls and not 40-year-old men? That will never fly. BTW for everyone who is always wondering "How should a pitch look???" Here's an example. Of course, being able to draw as well as Ben Caldwell really helps.
Continue ReadingO’Malley’s lettering lessons
Via his blog, Bryann Lee O’Malley shades the wisdom of cartooning and good balloon flow: Try to avoid layouts that make as little sense as this one. Also try to avoid hiding your weak layouts with trickery, such as arbitrarily wider gutters (top right) or dropping panel borders to create the illusion of clarity (bottom middle). A [...]
Continue ReadingTodd Klein studies the HULK logo
Letterer supreme Todd Klein presents another one of his logo studies, this time looking at the HULK logo through time from Herb Trimpe's previously unknown contribution through the modern "exploded logos" worthy of Zaha Hadid.
Continue ReadingListen to John K
John K's blog is always entertaining, which is why we periodically dip in. In this post he explains some cartoonist warm-up exercises: "I strongly recommend to every growing cartoonist to do warm up exercises every day. Athletes warm up before stressing their stiff joints, musicians practice their scales every day before jumping right into their performances and I think cartoonists can benefit from limbering up their pencils and brains before they attack their work. I should follow this advice and I did this morning."
Continue ReadingI’m Comic Sans, As*hole.
Listen up. I know the shit you've been saying behind my back. You think I'm stupid. You think I'm immature. You think I'm a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I'm Comic Sans, and I'm the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.
Continue ReadingTwo very good pieces of advice
Two pieces of excellent advise from Brigid Alverson and Shaenon K. Garrity.
Continue ReadingJim Lee’s iPad art
Chronic early adopter Jim Lee is already finger painting on his iPad, vuia Sketchpad Pro: Its fun and frustrating at the same time cuz half the time yer going this would be so easy to do by hand or wacom but was digging the primitive feeling of using yer hands. Another Joker piece shows a bit [...]
Continue ReadingCARTOON COLLEGE documentary trailer
CARTOON COLLEGE is a documentary by Tara Wray and Josh Melrod about the Centre for Cartoon Studies. They’ve just released a new trailer, and while the film’s not finished yet, it is looking good. There aren’t any titles or names in the trailer, so how many cartoonists can you recognize?
Continue ReadingThree for the letters: Twilight, Thoughts, Breath
More than a few interesting posts that discuss the lettering side of comics of late. At Comics Alliance, Chris Sims demonstrates the horrible, amateurish lettering style, that puts balloons right over the characters’ faces in the bajillion selling TWILIGHT: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL. This is kind of odd, since publisher Yen Press has many very knowledgeable [...]
Continue ReadingColor Quandaries #2: The Barks Affair
Excitement ran high on various message boards when an Amazon listing was found for The Carl Barks Collection Set 1, to be published by Gemstone. It’s here – a ten-volume hardback set collecting Carl Barks’ complete Disney comics cycle! Remastered in more exceptional quality and color than earlier editions, the great tales of Donald Duck, [...]
Continue ReadingColor Quandaries #1: Killing Joke
There’s a handsome new hardcover edition of THE KILLING JOKE by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland out, featuring remastered color by Bolland. PopCultureShock has done a side by side on the color, and some people, like Chris Butcher, find the new version less than compelling. This seems like a “changing tastes” thing. One style is more [...]
Continue ReadingEditing notes: Shonen Jump, Brevoort
Shonen Jump editor in chief Masahiko Ibaraki recalls his career, including the early years: Each editor is assigned a mangaka to work with. The first mangaka assigned to me was Akira Miyashita. I feel as if my training as an editor came from working with the mangaka, not my superiors. When I was assigned to Mr. [...]
Continue ReadingSo you wanna break into comics…
Tony Lee’s He’s Only A Writer column at Comics Bulletin surveys a bunch of folks, including Lee Nordling, Andy Schmidt, Rob Levin, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Keith Giffen, Andrew Foley and even (gasp) The Beat on pitching and how to convey yourself during the long, grueling task of selling yourself as a writer: [Nordling]: Ask for advice, [...]
Continue ReadingSound advice from Brian Wood
Speaking of SPLAT, the New York Post (!) previews the event with a cheeky lede: BESIDES all the usual dreams young people move to New York to chase – singing, acting, sleeping with the governor – you can now add authoring graphic novels to the list. but then gets into a very serious discussion with Brian [...]
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