“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!
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
Today is the last official day of the Comics Comics pledge drive. Act fast if you want to grab hold of any of the amazing stuff we have for sale. Everything from Bushmiller and Frank King originals to Paper Rad and Jim Rugg prints. Dash Shaw. Matthew Thurber. PictureBox multi-book packs. Mini-comics curated by Jason T. Miles and back issues selected by Frank Santoro. And Johnny Ryan is still taking commissions. Don’t let these opportunities slip away…
Look here and here and here for more details.
And thank you so much to all of you who have already given to us. You can’t know how much we appreciate it.
Before you go any further, please take a look at the ongoing auction in support of this blog….
As Jog noted, there is a new Little Orphan Annie volume out this week: the fifth in the “Library of American Comics” series edited by Dean Mullaney. The volume covers the years 1933 to early 1935. As usual, I’ve foisted one of my longish introductions on the book. In writing my introduction I was immeasurably helped by Jeff Kersten, a scholar who is doing research on Chester Gould. Jeff provided me with a series of letter that Harold Gray wrote to Chester Gould in 1933. In these letters Gray complains at length about the policies of the Tribune-News Syndicate, especially that of publisher Joseph Patterson and Vice-President Arthur Crawford, who Gray thought were “chiselling” their staff cartoonists out of royalties from spin-offs. Gray also gossips a bit about their other cartoonists in the Tribune-News Syndicate such as Sydney Smith. These letters give us an unprecedented look into the business side of the comic book industry, and both Jeff and I will be mining them for future research.
I strongly encourage anyone interested in the history of comics to pick up the books in the Annie and Dick Tracy series. As an appetizer, I’ve decided to share an excerpt from the first letter Gray wrote to Gould with some annotations:
Harold Gray to Chester Gould, May 23, 1933:
Dear Chester; —
Your letter written Sunday arrived just now and I am delighted to hear from you. Also I am considerably embarrassed, for I have meant to write you long before this and now you’ve beaten me to it. Time and time again in following your strip I have sworn to drop you a line to tell you how sincerely much I like it and how dam glad I am to see you going over with such a solid success. It’s a whale of a strip in every way, and it has tickled me a lot watch you avoid many of the pitfalls many wise guys predicted for you in the handling of the strip and in the handling of yourself.
In The Anime Machine, Thomas Lamarre has a smart, cute way of describing the difference between full and limited animation: “Drawing the movement (full) vs. moving the drawing (limited.)” Limited animation is sliding planes of drawings, done by moving a drawing a little bit, taking a picture, and then again. This has created so many interesting, inventive ways of communicating depth on a two-dimensional playing field- as opposed to moving through space like in Pixar animation or Tekkon Kinkreet environments where the drawings are somehow (I have no idea how) mapped onto three-dimensional spaces for the camera to move around in.
The most common example is when a camera zooms out from a drawing and objects in the foreground slide from the sides to the center of the frame. Obviously, this doesn’t happen in real life; nothing is flat. We’d see the side of the objects as we move past them. But our brain fills in the gaps and it creates the illusion of moving backward in space. This is aided by our acceptance of live-action camera zooms, which flatten the picture plane (like in Barry Lyndon.) (more…)
They aren't very likable.
Please feel free to poke holes in the following:
Numero UNO: Since when did everyone decide that “likable” characters were important? Because nine-tenths of all Wilson reviews (from comic-book enthusiasts, that is—interestingly enough, “mainstream” critics largely seemed able to take this aspect much more easily in stride) make a big deal of how the book’s flawed because the protagonist is an asshole. At first I just chalked that up to ignorant posturing, but now even the estimable and usually astute R. Fiore is getting into the act, and taking the philistine position. Something is happening here, but I don’t know what it is. (more…)
That’s right, what can we do for you? So many wonders are available right now for just a few thin dollars, although I am legally obligated to mention that they do not involve a worm coat, unless Johnny Ryan elects to involve one in your personalized erotic violation; $100.
Speaking of which, the above image hails from issue #10 (Dec. 1979) of Warren Publishing’s notorious 1984 (later 1994), an “illustrated adult fantasy” magazine released in the wake of Heavy Metal and succinctly characterized by contributing writer/occasional artist/eventual momentary editor Jim Stenstrum as “a beaver-fest” in TwoMorrows Publishing’s The Warren Companion. Stenstrum wrote this piece, The Whatever Shop!, a sarcastically patriotic American-consumer-vs.-dangerous-foreigners 12-pager that also pokes some fun at unattainable beauty standards as promoted by society at large (and, as it goes, the rest of the magazine). Hammered critique was typical of his work, best remembered in harsher form via the Neal Adams collaboration Thrillkill (from Creepy #75, Nov. 1975), but exemplified in 1984 by Rex Havoc and the Asskickers of the Fantastic, a short-lived Abel Laxamana-illustrated recurring feature in which a crew of consummate action professionals confront strange, typically parodic beings and kill them. In these segments, the magazine becomes less the Swank of late ’70s newsstand comics than a Mad-informed American cousin of 2000 AD. But future developments were not forthcoming – when Stenstrum left Warren in 1981, he left comics entirely.
The art seen above, of course, represents another stream: it’s the great Alex Niño, who eventually became the standout regular of 1984, crafting increasingly elaborate spreads as swirling cartoon puzzles, stretching outward toward Warren’s bankruptcy in 1983. Such visual expansion is also a pertinent theme for this week’s highest-profile deluxe item:
On Your Wall for $20!
In the meantime, between now and the end of the week, we’re going to keep bringing you incredible new offers.
First up, check out our eBay store. We are still offering many of the same great items from before (though note that some have already sold—you have to move fast!): Paintings and drawings from Dash Shaw and Frank Santoro! Rare prints from Ben Jones and Paper Rad! An incredible one-of-a-kind Profanity Hill pledge pack from Jason T. Miles! Original Frank King comic strips! Drawings from Matthew Thurber! And various pledge packs of PictureBox books and comics!
And new today, the following four BUDGET-priced incredible options:
1. A Jim Rugg / Frank Santoro signed silkscreen poster featuring Castle from Cold Heat — TWENTY DOLLARS!
2. A signed copy of the third volume of Frank King’s acclaimed Walt and Skeezix — TWENTY DOLLARS!
3. A signed copy of Dan’s Art in Time: TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!
4. And, an extra-special offer for those of you who have always wanted to browse through Frankie’s famous long-box sales, but haven’t been able to attend any of the shows where he offers them: a mystery grab-bag of five awesome hard-to-find back issues specially curated by Frank himself.
That’s right: five superb back-issue-bin gems hand-chosen by Frank — TWENTY DOLLARS!
4A. Not a budget item, but a new addition: A page from Jim Rugg’s incredible Cold Heat Special #4 – NINETY NINE DOLLARS!
*And don’t forget!* As the headline should remind, you, for a mere $100, the great Johnny Ryan will draw an 8 x 10 portrait of you, the Comics Comics reader (or person of your choice), being “erotically violated.”
This seems like the perfect gift for any occasion. Dedicated readers choosing this option should first order this “item” via PayPal. Send $100 to orders (at) pictureboxinc (dot) com and include your address and a message. Please also send a photograph to the same email address. Mr. Ryan will then get to work. Allow at least 60 days before delivery.
Finally, if for some reason you’d like to support us, but don’t feel like buying anything in particular on offer, you can tip us any amount you like via the PayPal button below.
Thanks again for your continued patronage!
First of all, I would encourage anyone reading this to take a look at the on-going auction in support of the fine work being done on Comics Comics by my co-bloggers.
Below are some entries from my Seth notebook. Earlier excerpts were published in the magazine Sequential Pulp, which was released at TCAF and can still be found on line by clicking to the link I just provided to the fine website Sequential. The version of the notebook provided below is expanded from what was published in Sequential Pulp.
Without further ado, here is my Seth notebook:
The Englishness of Seth. Seth is of course quintessentially Canadian. Look at all his investigations into the rolling landscapes of Ontario and Prince Edward Island, his work in mapping out a Canadian cartooning tradition through the Doug Wright Awards and the Doug Wright book (among other projects), his indebtedness to Canadian artists like Thoreau Macdonald.
Still, no less than the United States or Argentina, Canada is a creole nation made up of the mix of many ethnicities. Like most Canadians, Seth is a mutt but one strand of his heritage is worth a closer look. His mother was English, a war bride who came to Canada after marrying Seth’s dad.
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.
