In Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency there is a really clever bit with a very true idea. Explaining something to someone who knows less about it than you lets you figure out things about it you never thought about. In this case were talking about me, which I know more about than you (probably), and my webcomics.
I had to narrow it down to webcomics because I stay pretty busy. For example during the period of these next two comics I was doing a lot of writing. I was working on a novel (beginning of my unreadable character study novel attempts). I graduated art school and then took a bunch of English classes. I was writing a lot of short stories (I had a list of 50+ story ideas I was working through) and I was sending submissions to Marvel weekly for a couple of months. Sometimes a couple of pages and a pitch, other times full scripts.
My hope is that looking through this key hole of my development will help me flesh out some ideas I might have forgot about.
And You Thought X-Mas Was a Victimless Crime 2002 ( http://www.nilgravity.com/xmas.html )
This is the comic that first comes to mind when I have doubts about my progression as an artist. The draftsmanship is right where I want it. Yeah some flaws but they come off more as style choices and and interesting imperfections like the little bubbles in plates that prove that they were hand made by the indigenous people of...
The coloring is so pleasing. I even think my use of lens flair was well done. It is a constant nagging to me that I can't remember how I created half the effects. I have not been able to replicate it yet despite many attempts.
Another gap in my memory is whether or not I had read Scott McCloud's work yet. This piece was actually created as my gallery piece for my graduation from art school. The idea was to have a single nine foot wide piece. So I do not know whether or not I was inspired by McCloud's term "the infinite canvas".
Part of the reason I am doing Crawlers now to keep me from over planning a book. This comic is very good writing as far as I am concerned. I have often said that I am not talented. Talent is innate. I may have some skill because I have been working on my craft since I was four. Now I wonder if all that craft has gotten in the way of my talent.
I hope this is an interesting side note. During the gallery showing of this piece they made one of the other students remove his work because it was too offensive. Even though the artist who made it was (and may still be) a huge prick, I was infuriated. I worked for the School and know that they would tell the kids applying they were told they could freely express themselves there.
I told the other artists in the show that we should all take down our pieces in protest and they looked at me like I was crazy. I literally tore my comic from the wall and pulled chunks of drywall out with it. When told I needed to repair the wall I told my teachers (and bosses) that was my exhibit and it would remain up until the end of the senior show.
They later fixed the wall and never said a word to me about it.
The Colony 2003 ( http://www.nilgravity.com/colony.html )
I got a lot of strange looks making this comic. The physical drawing looks like a series of doodles. Most of the comic was drawn in my English classes. I would sit in the front row next to the teacher and have all my tools out and draw this (and alternately sketches for a comic about a drug dealer that I never fleshed out).
They were probably thankful because drawing meant I wasn't launching the class into a debate.
The Cement Truck comic posted in the first part was also drawn on several different pieces of paper and made whole in Photoshop. The layouts are clever in The Colony using the theme of an anthill in the design but I didn't really pull it off. I've never been pleased with it but I still like the idea. Like I've explained to people who've been privy to my novel writing "when you experiment sometimes you fail."
The Colony definitely doesn't have my current level of draftsmanship but if I were starting over I would do even more of these comics being told from nonhuman perspectives.
Side note: In writing this blog I discovered for the last 5 years the third page had been missing from this comic (and it's the best joke in the comic).
No comments:
Post a Comment