Posts tagged Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?
Twist Street
Sam Westing, Barney Northrup, Sandy McSouthers, Julian R. Eastman, & Me
Preview of Moth City, by ex-WETA designer Tim Gibson.
I think one of the things that surprised me was there’s an artifice—that’s not the right word—there’s a construct, and when you step out of it, it reveals how false exactly that construct is. There is a great sense that what you do matters enormously when you’re working in comics. Yes, they matter to some people, but in the grand scheme of things? On a smaller level, when you’re inside the apparatus, and you are feeding the apparatus and you are part of the mechanism, you will be rewarded and welcomed for it, you know, you’re proving your worth, and your self-worth, in a way—and the second you are not, nobody has the time for you. At all. And I think that was one of the things that really took me by surprise when I left was, wow, all these people who said they were friends, claimed to be friends, they absolutely weren’t. I mean, I dropped off their radar entirely. I was naive enough to believe they had been my friends, and that did not help. That was a dark place for a really, really long time.
[T]hey often dealt sensitively with themes the writers weren’t officially allowed to touch, as in the 1986 New Mutants story “We Was Only Foolin’,” about the suicide of a teenager bullied for being a mutant. Work like this made up, kind of, for less-enlightened treatments of homosexuality in comics, like the completely insane ’80s issue of Rampaging Hulk — written by Jim Shooter, who was then Marvel’s editor-in-chief — where Bruce Banner narrowly escapes a sexual assault by two effeminate thugs in a YMCA shower.
At Moebius’ funeral/memorial. :(
Darrow is 2nd from Right side, Tanino Liberatore on far right, Milo Manara in middle.
Wally Wood, Romance Comic Book Cover Preliminary Watercolor Illustration Original Art (c. 1950)
(via franksantoro)
I gave my first ever commencement speech to the graduating class of 2012 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. I think I told them everything important that I knew about going out into the world and being an artist, so I may never need to give another one.
(Source: vimeo.com)
Ha! Never saw this before, I don’t think— a BMX Ghost Rider page by Brandon Graham and written by John G, way back from that Epic phase Marvel went through. !!
Evening Stroll
Click for larger, readable version.
Surrealist Argentinean comic from 1991 drawn by Enrique Alcatena (Wikipedia: “the most successful Argentine artist to work for such major American comic publishers” in the 1990’s). (Bigger). Googling turned up a blog filled with some interesting pages— e.g. whatever’s going on here. (Also, turned up these Gary Kwapisz Conan drawings, which aren’t as interesting but amused at the end of a long day, at least).
Don Flowers, Glamor Girls
I feel like 90% of old cartoons are about creepy rich old men cheating on their wives. Single-panel comics from pre-1970-something? I feel like Adulterous Old Creepy Fucks used to be this major genre of American cartoon humor. …What the hell was that about? Why was that shit ever funny???
When it’s an old comic, I just feel like I’ve seen that kind of joke more than any other kind of single-panel comic except maybe ones where some obnoxious shitty kid says something rotten. It’s always some old lech-y dude saying, “You have to earn that promotion by letting me insert my penis into your vagina, honey”; or two secretaries are talking and one of them says, “Any time I look over when I’m typing, Old Man Peters is staring at me and jerking himself off” or whatever. Except, it’s said in old-time-y language, so it’s all in code. It’s still sexual harassment but it’s really jaunty about it. ”I doff my hat to rubbing up against you in a subway, darling— it’s the bee’s knees. Tippecanoe and Tyler too!”
The comics are always pretty enough— people knew how to draw, back when. But … why did so many dudes find that shit funny? What’s funny about it? Was it just the guys who bought old comics, the editors, back when, that’s what they thought people could relate to? ”Phil, yer makin’ comics about how desperate young girls will fuck wrinkly old dicks for money. Joey— yer makin’ comics about how women should stay in a kitchen and make us some babies. Tommy, where are my comics about how we have to keep the minorities out of our country clubs?” Who were these assholes?
No matter how cool and stylish you think your art is, it’s going to be sucky and horrible and mutate a lot when you have to tell a whole story, drawing lots of stuff you don’t care about (houses, cars, trees) and new problems you never worried about before (drawing someone from behind, from above, drawing someone hugging someone else, kissing, touching, fighting, etc). In general i think a lot of young artists use the “character design and style definition” period as a tool for procrastination. This period is undoubtedly important. But it has to end as soon as possible, because you have a story to tell. In answer to the other person, you’re going to be thinking really hard about how to draw every leg, nose etc possibly forever, but at least for the first few years / 300-500 pages of comics. Drawing is a nightmare. Get comfortable with it by doing it. You can’t get perfect before you start.
Sketchdump from a Russian artist/student “Phobs”. Example of one of his comics here. (c/o Kate Beaton) Very slick work— see also and also. Also: preview of the new Vincent Giard. Also, I like the cover to this Sophie Bedard comic, and this Penelope Bagieu comic looks interesting but i can’t read it— I like the layout though. Oh, and this Kate Beaton one, speaking of her work. (OH ALSO: this Boulet, if you hadn’t seen it yet).
OH AND ALSO ALSO: Oh and sorry if this is self-promote-y, but I really, really enjoyed the Nathan Bulmer comic underneath me babbling, in this week’s Comics of the Weak.
Fab Five Freddy.
