Author Archive

Peanut Gallery


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Friday, June 4, 2010


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If you head down to the comic shop this week, make sure you pick up a copy of the free Jonah Hex comic. Why? So you can see for your very eyes how photo-referencing has taken all the fun, gesture and action out of comics.

Exhibit A: Here’s a panel where a kid is getting smacked in the face. Look at that movement! Isn’t incredible how it really feels like the action is occurring? So realistic!

Exhibit B: Just look at the FORCE at which the hand with the gun swoops through the second panel and clocks the guy’s head! Wow!

Exhibit C: Another amazing action sequence! See the knee to the face and the recoil of the victim! The feeling of motion just sweeps me off the page.

Anyone who’s read this blog long enough knows how I feel about heavy duty photo-referencing. Is it legal that so many mainstream comic books have shed cartooning in favor of such stiff stage acting? I know, I know, it’s a movie tie-in and they want it to look “real”, but man, this stiffness is so pervasive these days that it makes me just go… limp.

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Beto Mess


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Thursday, June 3, 2010


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Beto fan art from 1981

Hey True Believers, Frankie The Wop here. I think I gotta start a new series of posts for CC for when I come across something like this. Maybe call it “Diggin’ Thru the Bins” or something. This find is a real treat. It’s an illustration that I unearthed by Gilbert Hernandez in The X-Men Chronicles fanzine from 1981. It’s a nice drawing. But isn’t that Clea from Doctor Strange? Maybe it’s the White Queen?

Published by FantaCo Enterprises, this fanzine boasts an interview with Jim Shooter, an X-Men checklist, an article on comic book investments, and look at the similarities between the Teen Titans and the X-Men. Apparently there’s a curious parallel in the history of the two “super-kid” teams but the “visual repertoire” of the Teen Titans is lacking according to the article.

Heady stuff, but for me, 30 years later all that I care about is this wacky Beto sketch.

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The Ruined Cast


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Saturday, May 29, 2010


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“The Ruined Cast” / Dash Shaw – demo teaser from Howard Gertler on Vimeo.

Hey everybody, Frank Santoro here to update you the “not comics” project I’m working on: Dash Shaw’s new animated feature, The Ruined Cast.

We’ve made a three minute teaser and are presenting it here for your viewing pleasure. Check it out! And yes, I hand painted those waves rolling in from the ocean!

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Bruce Timm color guides


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Friday, May 28, 2010


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hand colored marker guide for the colorist

This one is for all you color nerds out there. I was leafing through the Batman Animated book and found a few color guides by Bruce Timm from his Mad Love comic. There are some notes for the colorist from Timm and I think they’re worth sharing. Remember this was 1994. Timm’s notes read:

“Basically, I wanted to keep the color as simple as possible. I feel a lot of the new, computer-separated books are way over-rendered, the “Image” books being the worst offenders. In particular I really hate that “hard-edged” gradation that Oliff & Chiodo use so often. Please try to keep gradations as smooth as possible & “air-brush”-y as possible.”

Hunh. Pretty interesting to think that Timm in ’94 was reacting against Image Comics coloring. Also interesting to think that his way of thinking, that his reaction has had its own influence on comics and on animation.

And beyond that the Batman Animated book by Chip Kidd seems to me to be a big influence itself. Dash never stops talking about it. Jim Rugg too. Something about identity or something. Bodyworld, Afrodisiac… seeing around a character, a setting, a story. Hunh. I feel like Joe Pesci in JFK, “It’s a mystery wrapped up in a riddle…!” What does it all mean? It means, the pledge drive is over, dear readers, thank you for your support.

Welcome back to regular programming.

Bruce Timm's color guide for Mad Love

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Sunday Sunday


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Sunday, May 23, 2010


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Remember when you’d look forward to the Sunday funnies in the newspaper? The last time I remember being excited to read the comics on Sundays was when Calvin and Hobbes was still running. But that was what? fifteen years ago?

And that got me thinking about the next fifteen years and if Watterson’s work will hold up. If we could go into the future will new, better designed collections come out? Probably. And will we all scrutinize it a little closer like we are with just about every other major newspaper strip? I dunno. Will we still like it? Who’s to say.

And what’s up with the documentary Dear Mr. Watterson or the biography that was written? I think I read that Watterson basically refuses all interviews these days. Although he did do a short interview recently, I guess I’ll have to reread my Comics Journal interview with him to relive the good old days.

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Frank’s Soapbox #4


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Friday, May 21, 2010


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SPX crowd


Howdy True Believers! Frankie The Wop here with a rant for your Friday afternoon. We’re in the middle of a pledge drive here at CC and we thought we’d keep you faithful readers peppered with some thoughts on our beloved little community (while you groan at the computer screen waiting for the pledge drive to be over).

I was over at Jim Rugg‘s house yesterday hanging out and talking shop. He’s got this cool new mini-comic called Rambo 3.5 and I asked him if he’d taken any by Copacetic Comics to sell. “I haven’t had time,” he said. “TCAF was a couple weeks ago, I’ve got this show in Indiana this weekend and Heroes con is coming up soon. I’m almost sold out of the edition just from doing shows. I want to sell them to stores but the shows are more important.”

A light bulb went off in my head when Jim said that the shows are more important. Since the late ’90s when SPX and APE and other small-press comics shows popped up, there has been this yearly schedule that many cartoonists operate under. I know I try and have a new book out by MoCCA (which used to be in June) or by SPX in the fall. Nowadays, there is a convention every few weeks. I think this is a good thing. But it makes me think about how getting work into comics stores has become less of a priority for many cartoonists. The shows are the priority.

Also, this is the part of the argument that I think is missing when we all wonder why there aren’t more serial alternative “pamphlet” comic books out there. Retailer Brian Hibbs often argues that if 20 to 30 cartoonists each committed to two or three releases a year, that a critical mass would form so that every week you walk into a comics store there might be something that tickles your fancy. I think he is correct but I also think the fact that there are so many shows nowadays that many alt cartoonists and fans of alt comics just do not go into comics shops that often anymore because there really isn’t anything for them. The fans of such work know that they can wait until SPX or MoCCA or TCAF or just order from the artists directly or through distros like Sparkplug.

The other reason, I think that there are less serial pamphlets is because the market determines the form. The Direct Market determined that the pamphlet form was THE FORM. Now, the form is whatever tickles the fancy of the maker and what they can sell at a show. I know 20 to 30 alt cartoonists who release two or three comics a year but they aren’t serials and they aren’t pamphlets. These works don’t engage in the Direct Market’s periodical model. These works reflect the demand of the market which is generally geared towards handmade zines or trade paperbacks that are not serialized.

Anyways, I could go on and on. I know there are a a lot of different factors that make up the current marketplace and that I’m missing some important points. But I just wanted to float this one out there. The Bridge is over. We live in the era of The Show.

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Lynn Varley Fan Club newsletter


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Tuesday, May 18, 2010


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Drawn by Trevor Von Eeden. Painted by Lynn Varley.

I was rooting around the internet and came across the cover art from Batman Annual #8 on Trevor Von Eeden’s website. This comic rearranged my brain as a youth. I think it’s the perfect synthesis of lines and color: the essence of comics, right? I know, I know, it’s Batman, but check out these pages over on Mr. Von Eeden’s site. The colors are by Lynn Varley. There’s a real tension in the art. There was something that always struck me about this comic. It was special. It took about twenty years to find out why. Here’s Von Eeden in his Comics Journal interview about this book:

“The Batman Annual was the culmination of many years of intense effort and serious dedication. Lynn and I finally consummated our relationship after I got this gig. I lost my virginity between pages 4 and 5. It was well worth the wait.”

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Paul Pope and Dash Shaw


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Thursday, May 13, 2010


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Pulphope versus Darth Shaw.

Robin McConnell as Emperor, er, moderator. From TCAF 2010.

Listen to all the pulse pounding action over at Inkstuds.

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Psych-Rock Spidey


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Sunday, May 2, 2010


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I am obsessed with the music from the animated 1967 Spider-Man cartoons. Not the theme music but the background music. Part jazz, part James Brown soul, part psychedelic rock—it’s all a big mash-up of styles that marvels the ears and makes me dance around. Anyways, Bill Boichel and I have been trying to track down the music sans voices and sound effects for years, but to no avail. Today Bill forwarded me this discovery (which had been sent to him by one of his regulars, Phil Dokes): two blog posts from WFMU’s blog on the subject.

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Chippendale interview


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Thursday, April 29, 2010


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Check out this Brian Chippendale interview from WRNI in Providence, RI.

Remember Chipper’s new book is due out in a few months, True Believers, so don’t despair. There’s a short video on the radio’s site that shows some new pages from his forthcoming book, If ‘n Oof.

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