Thursday, October 24, 2013

An Interview with Jeremy The Artist

Jeremy The Artist is a comic book maker, caricature artist, graphic designer and a prolific doodler.  His web comics can be found over at mytalkinghead.com. His output is astounding and he is consistently sharing it with the world. Last year I started to archive Uncle Staples's collection of Staplegator sketches and solicit new ones. I got allot of help form all quarters of the indie comic scene.  I am grateful for everyone's support but Jeremy just blew me away check out four of his submissions here. Jeremy The Artist has his own set of artist interviews that can be read here.  You can follow him on twitter @thetoonman and/or like him on facebook.com/jeremytheartistguy

What formal art training do you have?

I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, with a concentration on Graphic Design. I was the Editorial Cartoonist for my college newspaper for the whole of my undergraduate years- that experience in itself has helped a lot with the techniques and styles I use.
 
I still freelance graphic design stuff, but as you can see from my current portfolio- I've deviated quite a bit from formal design.

You work in a couple of mediums, both analog and digital. What do you see as the biggest advantages and disadvantages of each?

I have been inking by hand since I was about 11 years old (hopefully I’m a bit better now at it), and digitally drawing/inking since about 6 years back, though nothing really solid until about 3 years ago.

I don’t think anything will ever replace creating by hand- no matter what technological advances we may experience.

I received my first (and only) tablet in 2008 as a graduation gift- I had a 3 month trial with it, got frustrated and put it up for 3 years…and now, I think its God’s gift to the Illustrator.

The tablet’s fluidity allows for faster, “cleaner” production- creating multiple layers within a program and identifying one as “pencil” and another as “ink” eliminates a few steps that you always have to take when hand inking your work and physically erasing any left over pencil work.

Tablets are becoming so advanced that they can simulate all types of mediums now including pastels, oils, paints, inks, pencils and charcoals, with only more added to the list every update.

There’s a certain quality that tablet-produced work has, and by far is the most efficient.

With all  that said, when I work by tablet- there’s a certain “connection” I lose with my creation. As I have a Wacom Intuos, I have to draw while keeping my attention on the computer screen while my hand draws on the tablet…it’s a skill you develop as you practice with the tablet, but one that keeps you somewhat detached from your work, or at least for me.

When drawing in your sketchbook or just on paper while sitting at a table somewhere- the connection is instantaneous. No longer do I feel like there’s a barrier between me and my work…we’re as intimate as can be- and this relationship that is created with pen and paper versus computer drawing is something I could not live without..no matter how advanced we become.

Does your diversity of style reflect a diversity in artistic influence? Who would you say influenced your work in what ways?

At the age of 10 more or less, I can distinctly recall telling myself I wanted to become a comic book artist. At that age, that meant the guys who drew up Spider Man, Wolverine and the rest of the X Men.

Now at 27, I do comics, cartoons, web comics, freelance illustration and caricatures.

My influences range from Robert Crumb to Todd McFarlane. I remember picking up my first Spawn at age 12 and loving the style of the book…I had never seen a comic like that produced, that was in the heyday of Image and of the “McFarlane Style”. Spawn made me set my initial goals and I bought a Dynamic Anatomy book done by Burne Hogarth (artist for original Tarzan), who I grew to admire. Jack Kirby is always a favorite of mine, but I really draw from and admire these days Mike Mignola (Hellboy & BPRD are a couple of my FAVORITE comics) and Frank Miller’s work.

A couple years back I had an epiphany I really wanted to become known for my cartoon work and web comics…and discovered Ivan Brunetti, Jaime Hernandez and Art Spiegelman… revolutionaries in the world of “Underground/Indie Comics”… two of the bigger influences from this genre are Charles Burns and the iconic underground artist himself, Robert Crumb.

All these artists have various styles and techniques they use as well as tools…some of my favorite guys here use brush while another couple use micron pens and rapidographs…seeing this difference in style, especially within the same genre of art helps me to understand the variety of the form and helps me to grow as an artist personally. This in turn motivates me to try different approaches as well- learn the pros and cons of each style and tool.

I’m also quite the admirer of fine arts, a huge favorite of mine being German Expressionism, but I do fancy Contemporary as well as Abstract. I’m naturally a minimalist in style and admire works in this style.

Why monsters and why comics?

Monsters Ive been a big fan of since I can remember. Growing up, my dad and I would watch a lot of horror movies together,  including a bunch of older monster movies like the 1950s Wolfman, Frankenstein and Mummy. My dad also was the one to introduce me to Greek Mythology and I do believe Norse Mythology as well…exposing me to mythical monsters like griffins, Cyclops and frost giants.

Watching these movies with my dad and talking mythology with him are precious memories I hold so I think that’s why years later monsters have such a hold on me.

Comics and sequential art in general is such a wonderful way to tell a story. The beauty about that story is it can be any story, including your own, dressed in a different suit, however you may want it.

Comics allow an artist to create entire universes of characters..characters that have their own characters in their lives….all involved in their own bubbles of life, which stem from what the artist created, even daresay birthed from the creative production of the artist, but not necessarily directly created by the artist him/herself.

Comics, as time goes on, are being understood as more of a fine art vs the “low brow” category its unfortunately been classified as since their creation. I find comics to be one of the more formidable fields of art and still has great potential-  I cant wait to see what the future brings for comics.

I know that you’re a big fan of Reservoir Dogs but is there another reason so many of your monsters are in semi-formal wear?

The criminals of Reservoir Dogs and the hitmen of Pulp Fiction definitely influenced the look as those are my two favorite movies by one of my top favorite directors. Another reason, and probably the bigger reason, is the aesthetics of the imagery. Using contradicting elements/subjects: suits, classy attire and wild, horrific creatures- it’s almost a contrast of “light” and “dark” elements- the interaction which then produces a unique image.

Simultaneously, dressing up the monsters, they become “humanified” to some degree. For me, having the monsters dressed in something maybe I would dress in then helps me to empathize/connect with them on a level I wasn’t able to before.

In general as a rule of thumb as well, suits are just plain cool.
  
Why do you think Monster comics came back into main stream popularity after decades of comics as a one genre medium?

With a resurgence in the interest of monsters like vampires into the mainstream (in both books and shows like True Blood or Twilight) and zombies (the comic Walking Dead and tv show based on comic), monsters are becoming “cool” again.

With Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim movie and Godzilla 2014, we are seeing the comeback of “Big Monster Movies” as well- which will help the comics based on these monsters back into popularity.

In other words, we are heading towards the golden days my friend.

Personally I want to know when we can expect another issue of Security! it is by far my favorite of your comic books so far.

Ah! Security! was a definitely fun comic, but a rushed one based on my experiences based on my day job experiences in the security field. I wanted to add so much more to the book and just ran out of time as I wanted the book done in time for Staple! 2013.

I’m definitely going to do another security-based comic, but for this next one I want it to be a waaay bigger book.  I have a couple other books planned beforehand however, a second print issue of My Talking Head, which is based off my webcomic site, My Talking Head ( www.mytalkinghead.com ) and a relaunch of my Kickstarter for my graphic novel, Monsters In Ties (looking to do the kickstarter in February)

I regularly update my facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/jeremytheartistguy and looking to update my blog more as well with current news, which you can find here: www.jtabloggin.blogspot.com

You’re doing your own artist interviews at My Talking Head. What is your favorite part of that?

As an artist interviewing artists, I tailored my interview questionnaire with some fun questions (or at least I hope they are fun) and tried to think what I would like to be asked- thus far, it’s been working!

I post the interviews every other Sunday on My Talking Head, all current interviews can be read here:

This has to be my favorite part- the actual reading of the replies- I also personally pick each interview out, and its always work I really admire and people I respect- so its neat to be able to interact with these people in this way specifically.

What is your connections to Five-Line Graphics?

Five-Line Graphics is managed by one of good friends who also creates comics, Paulo Hernandez.

I met Paulo at Staple! 2012 and since then we have done both fan art for each other’s publications and have collaborated on a couple others.

Through Five-Line Graphics, “The Axeman #1” (created by me) was funded and is considered under the Five-Line Graphics branch of comics.

What has been your most memorable caricature request?

I’ve been caricaturing now for about 5 years, the last 3 here in Austin. Definitely most interesting caricature requests have been here in Austin. I have 2 that stick out in my mind at the moment:

1.) Back when I was zombie-caricaturing down South Congress for First Thursdays, as I was setting up I was asked by a young couple to zombify their dogs.

I ended up drawing the dogs on their back feet, with their front paws stuck out like arms in front of them (similar to a “Frankenstein or Mummy Walk”) and zombifying the now-humanoid looking animals. That, was interesting.

2.) Another gig that I was actually hired to do zombies for, one lady requested not only to be a zombie- but to drawn riding a unicorn, which would also be zombified. Very fun picture, I believe I have a picture of that somewhere on my portfolio site.

-Last note on this question, this doesn’t technically count, but I was caricaturing at The Volstead one night (VERY fun caricaturing at a bar) and, asides all the drunken caricatures, I had 2 girls (maybe under the influence) insist on me getting caricatured by them. AND, one of the girls would pay me. So, I ended up in the other chair while one of the girls drew me- turned out she was an artist too. I prefer to  be paid and drawn, less effort on my part, haha.

What has been your favorite Staple! experience so far?

So far I have to say, having a beer with Kevin Eastman, the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, at the after party. I didn’t know how to introduce myself to him and was working up the courage to just go to talk to him, when one of my friends who came along to support me (and who was already a smidge drunk) shouted out to me, “HEY JEREMY, KEVIN EASTMAN’S HERE! COME OVER!”

She had gone up to him with some other friends and were talking him up before calling me over. Me and Eastman then ended up talking about a buncha art stuff and the business of comics. That whole memory in itself holds a place in my heart.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

2014 Exhibitor tables now available! Go to the Registration page for forms and info!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

An Interview Jon David Guerra

At the time of this interview Jon David and Nicole Guerra were completing their fourth issue of Nightmare of Professional Wrestling and had released a black and white ashcan of Ghost King.  The Nightmare of Professional Wrestling web comic is on-line at nightmareprowrestling.com.  The books along with the Ghost King Preview are available for sale at the site's shop.  You can also follow him on twitter @jondavidguerra and should like the NightmareProWrestling Facebook page.


As a couple what is the division of labor on these books?
Usually bounce ideas off each other during the writing process. We talk about dialog and make sure it works well with what we want to convey to the reader. I also like for Nicole to look over the page and make sure every thing makes sense with the story and art. 

As indie comic book creators why did you settle on an all-ages story?
 We wanted to create something that anybody could get into and enjoy together.  Our ideal setting is parents reading NPW to their kids and both really enjoying the comics. 
Do you think all-age books are under represented in the mainstream, on-line or at conventions?
 I think a lot of times mainstream books do tend to take themselves too seriously and market all ages books as just kids books. Online and at conventions seems to be better places to find them as you're able to find more and more independent creators that want to do all ages books. 
You use very stylized caricatures not just in Nightmares of Professional Wrestling and Ghost King but also in your poster work.   Whose work would you say influences you caricatures. 
A french artist by the name of Fabien Mense has really been influencing a lot of my work lately. He has an interesting take on caricatures. I would also say Bill Wray and a lot of Ren and Stimpy, and Looney tunes cartoons.  
It seemed like hyperrealism or New Yorker minimalism dominated a lot of American comics when I was a kid.  How much has the success of anime and 3D animated kids films affected the appreciation of more diverse styles of cartooning?   How much has it affected your work?
I've been into anime since I was kid. That has definitely influenced a lot of the way I do action in my comics as well as some of the comedy. I would say I'm actually influenced by 2D classic Chuck Jones cartoons rather than any 3D animated films. The cartoons comedic beats and character acting has definitely influenced those same things in my comics

Am I correct that you are working exclusively digitally?  What are the strengths of working digitally, like having back-ups of every stage of your work?  What are the drawbacks, like not having original art to sale? 
Yes, I now work completely digitally. I find it a lot more freeing. Not so much for having back ups but more for being able to control your work a little more. For example, if the characters head is to small or too large I can adjust the size to the way I want it. Not having original art to sell is one big draw back. I've had a few people ask for original pages but I didn't have any. Another would be problems with the technology you're using. I used to work from a lap top that would crash every now and then. I've had to start a complete page almost from scratch, in the early days of the comic. 

In sitting down and writing this I pulled up the archive page of Nightmares of Professional Wrestling on a non-portable devices.  I was surprised how much storytelling was conveyed in the inch tall thumbnails.  How do you keep clean narrative flow in your layouts? 
Cool! I'm glad to hear you say that. I try to make it so you would be able to understand what happens in the comic even if it didn't have any dialog. Like I said early, my wife and I examine the page and make sure every thing is readable with the images and enhanced with the dialog. 

The Ghost King ashcan from Staple! 2013 got me hooked.  What is next for Casey and the crew?
I'm glad you like it! I'm planning on doing thirteen issues of the mini-comic to coincide with his thirteen ghosts. At the moment that been put on pause for a little bit as things move forward with Nightmare Pro Wrestling being the main focus of what I do. 

What really attracted me to Nightmares of Professional Wrestling was the amount of motion in your layouts and the energy through the continuity.  That and your dynamic panel shapes remind me of pre-war Jack Kirby.  Who has influenced your action sequences?
A lot of the action is inspired by the creative team known as Catfish deluxe. They include Fabien Mense, who I mentioned early, Bill Otomo, and Gobi. Anime has also played a big part in my action sequences too. As for the dynamic panel shapes and layouts, my biggest influence is an indie artist called Jerzy Drozd. Who always pushed cartoonist to use panels and layouts as part of telling the story in the comic. 
Finally, besides the tale of the spunky team of Grave and Lobo, there is a playful x-factor to Nightmares of Professional Wrestling.  Some of my favorites are the great Dr. Nightmare’s Referee race scene in issue four; the Luna sup-plot in issue two; and the Nightmare Tortoise itself.   Are there any deployments that we should be keeping and eye out for? 
Funny you mention the Luna sub plot.We've actually gotten rid of that! It pulled the focus away from the story we wanted to tell. It was available in the first few copies of Issue two but now is only available through the collected edition as bonus material. Recent issues have been reworked so it reads fine without it. It was also up on the website for a while but has since been updated. 

We will find out where the NPW Referees come from. I'm even planning on doing a short story from their perspective. 

The Nightmare Tortoise will eventually be mapped. I want to include a detailed drawing/map of what is on the tortoise and where everything is located. I'm planning on putting that in future collected editions. 

I have big things planned for NPW's future. Right now I'm in what I like to call "Phase 2" of the comic and it's ideas. Some big characters will switch sides and others who aren't used to losing will lose, big time. There is also a BIG thing happening for Nightmare Pro Wrestling that I can't reveal quite yet. Be on the look out for some major announcements soon.

Friday, May 17, 2013

An Interview with Jeanne Thornton

As a co-founder of FictionCircus.com , author of the novel The Dream of Doctor Bantam, an editor of Rocksalt Magazine, and an inddie cartonist for about a decade Jeanne Thornton is a  Renaissance Woman when it comes to the narrative arts.  She was kind enough to sit down and give us some insight into the nature of the medium of the comic strip. 



Q) There is a narrative nesting doll effect in The Man Who Hates Fun as well as many classic comic strips.  Every strip stands by itself while often being part of a larger story arc at the same time advancing the larger themes and style of the whole project.  What have you learned from the years you worked on The Man Who Hates Fun and how has it informed your plans for Bad Mother?

A) This is pretty much entirely what I initially liked about comics formally, and at this point it’s entirely what I still like about ‘em.In the early Man Who Hates Fun strips, pretty much all I was trying to achieve was this hideously fast narrative pace in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, one of my inspirations for doing comics in the first place. Every week, the basic premise of any given storyline would completely change: in the strip’s 1940s heyday, conflicts were brought up and took at most two or three strips to resolve. (Later, as the comics shrunk in newspapers, this pace became impossible to maintain, and the strips dropped both detail and speed. Later Li’l Abner is an entirely different strip, one I really don’t like.) I tried to do the same thing with The Man Who Hates Fun early on, where every storyline was as close to four strips long as I could get, and the basic premise of the strip would change frequently. You go from the MWHF working in a library to like living off of the Ellison family to working as a kindergarten teacher. I don’t think it holds up well because the reader never gets to spend enough time in any given place to really enjoy it. It’s like this character moving through a cardboard world of malice. But I think if the artist in question keeps up a good update schedule (which I swear I used to do, for about three months nine years ago in 2004), it ends up being the best experience for readers.
In the more recent MWHF strips I tried really consciously to spend a lot more time dwelling in environments and situations: there are a bunch of sequences that are just the MWHF and Dascha Rand like wandering around Dascha’s underground lab or the MWHF and Elvira talking. I did this pretty much because I realized that I didn’t care as much about the daily updates; that as much as I wish doing webcomics was the only thing I had to do, I do have a day job and will for a long time, and I’m not as good as other people at doing both consistently along with writing prose. So a good update schedule just wasn’t going to happen, and the only way anyone was really going to get to read the stories without losing track during gaps between updates was in the books. And the quick pace just doesn’t work as well in the books. It’s far better to spread out, to have pages that one can just kind of dwell on or think about or whatever.With Bad Mother, I want to work a lot more by accretion, because you have the central plot kind of established: this girl is going to grow up, some stuff is going to happen to her during that process. Thus I don’t have to have a good “flow” between strips as much, and can just dip in and out of scenes as need be to make sure all of the character dynamics make sense, to really enjoy interactions between characters, to try to present the world as fully as I can. I wish I updated it more, but already in like fifty or so strips I’ve finished I think the world and characters are a lot more solid than the MWHF crew were at like 300 strips.

There’s also this firm advantage in that the characters grow up in real time, so it’s sad to miss weeks of updates for me in the same way that it’d be sad if work kept me from like spending any time with some actual daughter of mine for like months on end. The bummer thing about the strip is built into the format. I think that’s important.



Q) On the one hand, there are hard compositional constraints to the 3-5 panel traditional print comics.  On the other hand, where webcomics are theoretically unbounded the variety of potential screens/browser and possibility of future print editions provide their own set of constraints.   The Man Who Hates Fun started out with the strict compositional constraints of 4 panels and then became more experimental  Bad Mother seems a little more compositionally conservative.  What are the big factors that have and are currently informing your compositional choice?


A) As far as why I’ve chosen these theoretical constraints: this form appeals to me, and others don’t. That’s the obvious answer, but I think it’s a deeper answer than it’s given credit for. Ideas really only make sense when suspended in a form like sugar in a glass of liquid. I don’t think it’s possible to have a REALLY NEAT IDEA and then to consider which form that idea might work best in. It’s not the same idea in a different form; a seed doesn’t grow the same way in a different soil.But if I did have to justify the format from like first principles: I guess three panels is a really easy format to write for in some ways. (It’s even easier to lay out the strips, saving one of the most tedious tasks from MWHF during its more experimental layout phase.) If I have ideas that can’t be done in three or four panels, I reserve the right to break out one of the larger strips, like the one where Inez and Mona are talking while getting ready for bed. I consciously wanted to go back to the earlier, more conservative style because it’s a little bit easier to establish a world with some hard format constraints, but I did reserve that right to expand when and if the story demanded it without feeling guilty. There are a lot of early MWHF strips where the idea was just 100% destroyed by the format and I wanted to avoid this, because life’s too short to botch ideas for the sake of consistent formatting.The major factor is, again, just thinking of the eventual books as being the real “format that matters,” but I also do want each strip to be as strong as it can be on its own.One of the great strengths of narrative media is that you use the same fairly small formal vocabulary to build fantastic worlds. The video game Earthbound is great because it has a deceptively simple graphic style—outlined graphics, very simplified faces in terms of detail, strict isometric perspective—but because of the simplicity of the style, it really does feel shocking when you go from visiting a small town to traveling through a volcano, or a neon hell dimension, or a cloud castle. It’s some kind of equivalent of parallel structure in prose: you can achieve great effects by setting a context and an expectation, and breaking that context.
The best thing I think I’ve done with Bad Mother are the strips with Mona driving Betty to the gas station at night or Mona slumped on the kitchen floor, one hand on the handle of a pot, talking to the cat about how she feels incapable sometimes of being a decent parent/human being. It works because it uses the same graphic vocabulary of the strips where like Mona’s being a jerk to her girlfriend or Betty’s saying something cute about dinosaurs: this safe family comic world is also the world where there’s real despair breaking through. This is a theme that I want to work with a lot more as the strip going forward, which I’m sure fellow despair fans will appreciate.


Q) Do you feel there are opportunities for certain types of stories and character development that comic stirps are particularly good at?


A) Yeah totally: growth over time. It’s the same thing novels are good at, and I think newspaper comics are possibly better than novels at this. The only thing you lose are the tight control over the pace one gets with a novel, since comics restrict you to rendering every emotional moment visually, which generally means “constrained in time.” There might be a way to get around this—like shojo manga is good at representing abstract emotions. I just mistrust things presented in abstraction, or I’d experiment with those formal tools more, maybe. I want the camera to be pulled back to some extent.What you gain, though, is what I talked about above: you get a very extensive world built with a very small number of graphic elements. There’s something really appealing about that to me, and I think it’s ideal for telling stories about people’s interactions. There are a lot of epic sci-fi/fantasy style webcomics that really don’t do a lot for me because of the same process: over time, the initial narrative energy of The Big Quest gets lost because the characters, their psyches, and their interactions become a lot more compelling to the creators than the question of when the fourth Power Ruby of seven is found. Which is the right thing to happen—we all should become more interested in fellow human beings—but if you’re telling a story conceived from the outside as a quest with a definitive end, it doesn’t work. (I’d actually totally love to see a fantasy comic that’s designed as a picaresque, where each installment is just a snapshot from some larger, stranger quest, and we slowly watch a group of fantasy adventurers grow old and find larger or anyway different things to do in their lives than just attempt to overthrow the Singular Dark Lord. Maybe that exists somewhere already? It oughta.) Comics ought to be about exploring and discovering who your characters really are, what they’ll do over time: this is what interests me about them, anyway.



Q) The traditional newspaper comic stips are highly contextualized by the surrounding news, adds, strips and the daily rhythm of the print deadline.  With webcomics the artist has total control.  How does publishing and promoting your web comics with blogging platforms affect your work?  Also, how does it affect your editorial choices in Rocksalt Magazine.  


A) I guess I don’t think in terms of such contextualization, except the rhythm of deadlines? I can’t possibly think about such concerns without going crazy when I’m actually doing the strip, and usually I just think about how the strip will eventually show up in the books, which I think of as the most permanent medium (even if, realistically, the website is going to last longer and be seen by more people.) Sometimes if I know I’ve got a finished weak strip next in the hopper, I’ll refrain from updating for sometimes hideously long periods of time until I get a good strip finished, so there’s not a weak strip sitting up as the only thing casual site visitors see for days. It’s different practical things like this.For Rocksalt, editorial choices are often just like acts of situational malice. My favorite page is probably the one in issue 4 where literally every ad was on the same page as a comic that said in huge black text, “We demand a refund!” I didn’t even notice until Geoff pointed it out to me. All these things are more a matter of instinct than of consciously thinking about every possible cultural/symbolic valence the position you stick a comic strip on a page might have.


Q) There is a very dry wit in The Man Who Hates Fun and  Bad Mother, who would you say had the biggest impact on your sense of humor?
A) Who could answer such a question! Bill Amend was pretty important, or at least FoxTrot was the comic I read a lot as a kid that made me consciously think it was a good idea to have a second anticlimactic line after the “punchline.” For characters who respond deadpan to absurd situations, again it’s Al Capp and Li’l Abner. Bill Watterson is really important. Dan Clowes. My dad has a pretty dry wit.

I don’t know! I mistrust honest hilarity, I guess.


Q) The style of caricature evolves throughout The Man Who Hates Fun sometimes simplifying and sometimes becoming more baroque.  Am I correct that the experimentation has settled down a little in Bad Mother, and if so, what have you decided to pair down and what are you keeping.  


A) Basically the experimentation is just me learning to draw, and most importantly learning that I’m probably not as awful at drawing as I think I am, and that I can trust things to be more simple and still to seem “good.” This is not something I can take for granted, but I think it’s the necessary place to get to in order to do any work that’s worthwhile. Before, I’d worry that a drawing wasn’t “good enough” and ruin it with a lot of extra details and lines. Learning to trust that people won’t think you’re stupid if you’re honest with them is this basic lesson in life.I think the rule is to keep the faces simple yet as expressive as possible, and keep the background as clean as possible while keeping as much detail as you can. I want environments to get more complex, at the same time, to present as complete a world as I can within the small working space of a comic strip.It still isn’t where I want it to be, but it’s closer, I guess? With prose writing I can get the level of detail I want in scenes easily, and maybe some day I’ll hit this with comics also. Details are vital.


Q) I love that you are working with a 2nd color tone in Bad Mother.  It creates a slightly greater sense of depth and contrast without distracting from the line work.  What was influence and the final push to adopt it?
A)  I’ve wanted to work with multiple tones pretty much forever—there are a couple of Man Who Hates Fun strips that have gray tones, actually. (Here:http://fictioncircus.com/mwhf/comic.php?date=20070410
I’d have done it much earlier, except I was trying to be “pure” and do like zero work in Photoshop, so the gray tone experiments were always with like Prismacolors, and there was no effective way to scan them (or at least I didn’t find an effective way.) One of the big exciting things about starting Bad Mother was the worry that doing anything in Photoshop at all was not going to work out, and realizing that yeah it did work; it worked Better.In retrospect, I think I’ve been trying to get the look the extra tones give all along: the rampant crosshatching in MWHF was in some ways an attempt to get at the look of tones, but there’s really no way to get that in a world that’s just made up of black and white. In some ways I really prefer the early MWHF strips where they’re all crazy looking and muddy with crosshatching, just because it’s somehow closer to that toned look. (A NOTE: the tone stuff is going to become more complicated than  you realize! Keep reading)














Saturday, April 6, 2013

Giving Away eBook Downloads

Hello Staple friends!

I'm giving away FR-EE downloads of my ebook Travel With Me. The idea is to get as many downloads as possible in the next few day.

Follow this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Travel-With-St-Malo-Michel-ebook/dp/B008KPDPEA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1365253611&sr=1-1

 
Leave a review on Amazon for a chance to win a paperback copy.
Thanks! Feel free to pass this on too.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

STAPLE! 2013 Table Assignments

 

 
Names Company Table #
After Midnight   1
ECPrinting   2
Chelsea Hostetter Koumori Comics 3a
Mark Nasso The Underground Forest 3b
Dan Price Latex Avenger Comics 4
Bonn Adame Latex Avenger Comics 4
Robert Wilson IV   5
Tim Doyle Nakatomi 6, 7
Robert Stikmanz Confabule 8
Amanda Kimmerly Confabule 8
Paul Elard Cooley Shadow Publications 8
Tommy Pons, Lou Pons   9
David Lamplugh Bivage Salvage, Ltd. 10a
Leo McGovern Antigravity Magazine/Crescent City Comics 10b
Jason Horn   11
Andy Hirsch Andy Hirsch 12
Amanda Michael Kluck Amanda Michael Design 12
Austin Tinius Bogus Publishing 13
Robert Salinas Bogus Publishing 13
Alan J. Porter   14
Rick Klaw   14
Kennon James Kennon James/Mohagen 15
Ryan Biddle Laser Diagnostix 16
Pat Davis Pat Davis Illustration 16
Jeanne Thornton, Geoff Sebesta Rocksalt Magazine 17a
Josh Lesnick Shotgun Armadillo 17b
Diana Nock The Intrepid Girlbot 17b
Jamie Kinosian   18
Jessi Jordan The Class 19
Robert Kinosian   19
Sasha Blaschka   19
Jessica Grundy   20
Andy Moore Flying Fortress 20
Chad Hopper  PALFLOAT 21a
Amy Pacheco The New Movement Theater 21b
Michael Mauro www.michaelvmauro.com 22a
Richard Alexander   22b
Jon David Guerra Nightmare Pro Wrestling Webcomic 23
Nicole Guerra   23
M. Austin Bedell Skweegie Island 24, 25
Chris Sweet Effing Decaf 24, 25
Zach Taylor Gnourg Press 24, 25
Diana Sprinkle   26
James Hanrahan   26
Keith Quinn Local Heroes 27
Anthony Rezendes Cranium Comics 27
J. Michael Stovall Stovepipe Art and Design 28
Sean Ivie Berryhill Buttons 29
Sarah Ivie Berryhill Buttons 29
Elizabeth Weaver Big Big Truck Productions 30
Brett Weaver   30
Matt Gordon   31a
Jordan Gipson   31a
Brendan Kiefer   31b
Timothy Danger OMBG Podcast 32
Brea Guettner OMBG Podcast 32
Allynn Garcia OMBG Podcast 32
Scott Free  Apples For Eyes 32
Crystal Dee Mohla Strange Glitter 33
Kealy Racca   34
Molly Black Rather Dodgy 35
McLain McGuire, Sam Lofti, Rita Moore, Chris Beaver, Rob Bass, Eroll See CCP Comics 36, 37, 38
Robert Bienvenu Baton Rouge Cartoonist Society 39
Chris Cashio Cross Contour 39
J Hause Studio Ghosthause 40
Fabian Rangel Jr.  215 Ink 41
Austin Rogers   41
Bill Williams Lone Star Press 42
Chris Staros Top Shelf Productions 43, 44
Wayne Beamer Top Shelf Productions 43, 44
Bernie Wrightson   45
Steve Niles   45
Scott Chitwood Red 5 Comics 46
Sean Wang   47
Mary E. Golding Hellmouse Studios 48
Tom Golding Hellmouse Studios 48
Jenner Carnelian GINCK Press 49
Linda Wandt GINCK Press 49
Ies von Hebal Sir Reel Comics 50
Douglas Brown Sir Reel Comics 50
Garrison Stone Sir Reel Comics 50
Kayla Davis   51a
Brad McEntire Dribble Funk Comics 51b
Ruth Engel Dribble Funk Comics 51b
Jeff Hernandez   51b
Amanda Lafrenais   52
Leticia Rocha-Zivadinovic Stabwool 52
James O'Barr   53
Jim Terry   53
Mark Schmidt Stratum Comics 54
Vince Chuter Stratum Comics 54
Henry Melton Wire Rim Books 55
Dylan Edwards Feeping Creatures/Studio NDR 56
Dax Norman   57
David Olive   57
Tim Wheeler Microcosm Publishing 58
Chuck Porcheron Warhound Art Studio 59
Gabrielle Faust Nightshade Vampire Boutique 60
Brandon Britton Nightshade Vampire Boutique 60
Jeremy The Artist Los Terrible Dos 61
Megan Solis Los Terrible Dos 61
Taffeta Darling   61
Perry Alter  The Tale of Tamarind 62a
Kim Scoulios Nancy Nebula 62b
William Kauber Raw Paw Publications 63
Francisco Salinas Team Zero Productions 64
Zip Alegria Team Zero Productions 64
Paul Hanley Paul Hanley Studios 65
Mitch Clem My Stupid Life/Turnstile Comix 66
Nation of Amanda My Stupid Life/Turnstile Comix 66
Ben Snakepit Snakepit 66
Courtnee D. Blackmon   67
Rodney Barry   67
Griffin Mauser   67
Devin Lawson Spicy Donut 68a
Rondal Scott III Strange Kids Club 68b
Robert Botello   69
Alfonso Mata   69
Margaret Greco   69
Miguel Aguilar Miguel Aguilar 70
Ryan Thies Ryan Thies 70
Nouri Zarrugh   71a
Will "The Mangler" Rodriguez Mangled Studios 71b
Michael "The Bunny" Moreno Bad Apple Shirts 71b
Rischa Leinweber Lucky Day Hats 72
Eric Michener Fishboy 73a
Greg Shrader Greg Shrader Illustration 73b
Melissa Stewart Meow Kapow 74
Emily Rose Romano Death's Pale Horse 75
Christine DeRosa Death's Pale Horse 75
Tommy Munster MUNSTER 75
Paulo Hernandez FiveLine Graphics 76
Seth Witfoth   77
Cody Schibi   78
Rob Perez   78
Zachary Quebodeaux Brass Comics 79
Rich Dana Obsolete Press 80
Don Rock Chaos Card Co. 80
Matt Frank   81
Caleb Straus Snout Productions 82a
Dustin Johnson Snout Productions 82a
Jeff Dee UNIgames 82b
Talzhemir Mrr  UNIgames 82b
Jason Morningstar Bully Pulpit Games 83