Hi, Folks!
I’m coming perilously close to finishing Johnny Saturn no. 9. It amazes me how quickly these issues come about. It must be a function of updating three times a week.
I just approved the proofs for Johnny Saturn no. 8, and I will say once again that Ka-Blam is a great POD printer! I’ve never gotten a messed up or poorly printed order from them, and I’ve used them exclusively for several years now. If you are a cartoonist looking to self publish, please check out Ka-Blam first.
Today, as you probably already know, Rich Johnston of Lying in the Gutters at Comic Book Resources ends his seven year run of writing this column. Over the years he’s reported good and ill about many people I know, and I am going to seriously miss LITG. Frankly, it’s been a long time since I’ve done much work for the print comic industry, so I’m not really sure what my relationship is to it anymore. Still, LITG was a juicy little lifeline to that world for me.
I’ve been thinking about artistic styles lately, and my development as an artist. All artists are works in progress, and they keep changing and being affected by the world around them. For ages, my goal has been to make my comics as real as possible. This means that I looked to creators such as Alex Ross, Bryan Hitch, and Brent Anderson for direction. I still do. Yet, I have continued to be intrigued by the purely graphic elements of comics, things like speed lines, sound effects, Kirby crackles, and all the iconic symbols used to tell a story. I recently did an in-depth study of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Saga, volume 1, to get a handle on and perhaps categorize Kirby’s incredible symbolic language. Maybe someday I’ll post my findings.
Consequently, I still want my characters and scenes to be as realistic as I can make them, but I also want the maximum storytelling impact of those great graphics.
Scott.
