Hi, Folks!

Over the years, as I have continued working on my art and webcartooning, I have been asked one question again and again: Why do you do long-form comics? Why not do a gag-a-day strip? Gag strips are easier to promote, and they are generally more popular, are they not?

Yes, gag strips are more popular, by many magnitudes, than long-form webcomics. There are a few exceptions, but none I can really think of. Girl Genius is long-form, but it usually has humor and often includes humor. The Dreamland Chronicles? Maybe.

Here are my reasons for doing a long-form webcomic.

• This is the story I want to tell. It’s tragic, dramatic, and edgy, but it’s rarely funny.
• I don’t know how to write jokes. In person I can be funny and I’m good at getting the laughs, but I have no clue how to communicate that in a comic.
• I grew up reading titanic tales of adventure, both in prose and comics. I didn’t read funny animal comics, or humor comics, so I don’t have much history with that.

Back when I read monthly comics, my favorites were usually team books, such as JSA, JLA, the Avengers, the Defenders, and the like. As far as the individual characters go, Batman, Captain America, Daredevil, Thor, Conan, these are what I dug. Later on, it was books like Planetary, the Authority, and Hellblazer. You can probably see elements of these teams and characters in Johnny Saturn.

Those are the kind of stories I loved. This is why I produce long-form adventures. I loved Calvin & Hobbes, Far Side, and Bloom County too, but I just didn’t feel the call to follow that path.

I know people who think that superheroes don’t lie, and that they would never fight other heroes.  It’s easy to see where they got this idea, because, outside of comics, superheroes are portrayed as one-diminsional, bright, optimistic do-gooders, sort of boy scouts in tights. They always do what’s right.  It’s never hard to decide what is right or wrong.  Good always wins over evil.  Good deeds never have unforeseen, bad consequences.

In comics it’s another story all-together.  Well before the “Watchmen” or “Dark Knight Returns” were published, comics had already shed much of its innocence and stories often pushed the accepted boundaries and dealt with drug abuse, alcoholism, pornography, addiction, and any other vice you can think of.  Most often these vices were dealt with tastefully, and moral conservatism won over depravity.  When heroes fought each other, it usually began with a cliché misunderstanding, a short inconclusive tussle, and then a congenial team-up to deal with the “real” problem.

I would argue that what ”Watchmen” and “Dark Knight Returns” brought to the comics scene was mental illness: the superhero as a sociopath, or psychopath, or some other such behavioral dysfunction.  For example, Batman has spent the last thirty years wound so tight and out of touch with his human emotions that he is regularly described as psychotic.

This war for the soul of the superhero is at the heart of Watchmen.  Dan/Nite Owl is a decent person, one unwilling to abandon his morals or dish out jackbooted oppression.  Comedian has completely surrendered to his dark philosophy of brutality, and he believes in stark, ugly “truths.”  Rorschach is a one-man judge, jury, and executioner.  Ozymandius exemplifies putting the ends before the means, and in service of his goals he has placed himself high above his fellow humans.

Dr. Manhattan is easier to nail down.  He belongs to the old archetype of the non-human who is more than human.  Pinnochio, the Vision from the Avengers, Data from Star Trek, and many others fit this role.  Dr. Manhattan believes that he is now divorced from humanity and their concerns, yet it is the tears of a woman (Silk Spectre) that change his mind and bring him back to earth one last time.  Still, it’s curious to note that for most members of this would-be human archetype, most aspire to become human, as if that were innately superior to their non-human status.  Not Dr. Manhattan.  We come away with the suspicion that he left for another galaxy and he would do well and good without his human traits.

The soundtrack to Watchmen is outstanding.  In addition to the original score for the movie, which is moody and a little threatening, there are old songs worked in to great effect, including Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A-Changing,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Simon and Garfunkels “Sounds of Silence,” and the Jimi Hendrix version of Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.”

Scott Kurtz of “PvP” labeled Watchmen as superhero porn.  I respectfully disagree.  Clearly, this movie is Superhero Noir, a dark, serious alley off the brightly lighted streets of traditional superhero fair.

It’s safe to say this movie isn’t for everyone.  If you expect that you are going to watch something like Superman returns, or Iron Man, or the Fantastic Four, you are going to be quite disappointed. Watchmen is darker even than Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Don’t take your kids.  The teenagers that shared the theater with me seemed less than diverted, and they came and went often to get refreshments.

Yesterday I went to Downtown Comics, my local comic shop, bought a few things, and gabbed with good friend Pete Kilmer, one of the DTC managers.  I hadnÆt been in a comic shop for a good while, and it was pleasantly overwhelming to see all the comics.  Really, if I could afford it, there are things I would buy: For example, this Dark Reign storyline and the Avengers line as a whole looks right down my alley.  It would be great to chart the rise, and eventual fall, of Norman Osborne, the key villain in the Marvel Universe.

Yet, I have to wonder, would it be that great to follow it?  Marvel has begun raising its comic prices from $2.99 to $3.99.  Four dollars is an awful lot of money for a magazine thin enough that you can read them in fifteen minutes.  Some fans would argue that you donÆt just read comics once, that you read and re-read them.  True enough.  I do that.

I stopped buying the monthly comics because of two reasons: It cost too much, and I was running out of room in my house to store them.  When I can, I pick up trade paperbacks.  IÆm not alone in this change of purchasing trends.

When I dropped away from the monthlies, and turned to trades, I discovered that my buying habits in trades are different from the monthly titles I collected.  Suddenly, I was not so quick to purchase Thor, or Fantastic Four, or Avengers, or JLA, or JSA, etc.  Now, in trades, I had quirkier buying habits.  Supreme, Black Summer, Watchmen, Project Superpowers, etc.  I still loved good superhero stories, but I wanted stories that actually had something to say and a witty way of saying it.

At Downtown Comics, I was pleased to see that they had set up Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Warren Ellis, and Neal Gaiman sections, and this had reportedly done well for sales.  These writers are the superstars of the comic industry, and with good reason.  Pete noted that he should put up a Grant Morrison section, and I heartily agreed.  Morrison is my favorite writer, after all.

Scott.

What a week!  I’ve been burning through episodes, and I’m really proud of what Benita and I have been producing.

I looked through a lot of my trade paperbacks this weekend, the ones I collect and read, and something became obvious to me: most modern inkers do not bother with line width.  Indeed, most “inkers” these days are colorists who darken pencils in Photoshop and maybe fill in the black areas, maybe not.  What’s worse is that this practice has become so prevalent that I actually got used to it and stopped noticing it.

Change is a constant, and I have the right to complain—“Why, in my day…”  This kind of complaining is pretty useless, of course, because change gains momentum and things will continue to happen whether you like them or not.  So, I won’t complain.

My big inking influences were probably Joe Sinnott and Tom Palmer.  Joe Sinnott inked the Fantastic Four over Jack Kirby’s pencils, and he used lush brushwork and line weight to lead the eye, aid in story telling, and separate the foreground, middle ground, and background elements in panels.  Tom Palmer inked the Avengers for a very long time, but I always remember him most fondly for his Tomb of Dracula comics, inking over Gene Colon.  Beautiful stuff, very dark and moody.

In the 90’s, I noticed a dead-weight inking style gaining use in mainstream books.  This style, with its unvarying line widths, used heavy lines on the foreground, and lighter lines in the background to establish depth of field.  This style, while not traditional American “comic book,” was very reminiscent of Art Nuevo inking, and the inks of Alphonse Mucha.

As the 90’s progressed, comics that skipped straight from pencils to colors became more common.  Now, the onus was on the colorist to provide the field of depth and spot the blacks.  Now, most pencilers don’t make any pretense of setting line weight, preferring to leave the heavy lifting to the colorists.  Without colors, these pencils look flat, confusing, and a little hard to figure out.

So, old guys like me moan about change; that’s fine, because that’s what old guys do.  But, I have to wonder if every change is good?  Dismissing the inker came mostly as a cost cutting move, not one based on artistic vision.

Inking originally became the norm for comics because early reproduction methods couldn’t accurately capture pencils, so the lines were blacked out with ink, making a bold enough line to transfer from offset printers to newsprint.  Once computers came of age, it was possible to scan art and capture it in the pencil stage without problems.  Yet, inking had become such an integral part of the process over the decades that it still persisted.  Western comic inking is unlike any other ink art in that it has developed uses and rules specific to the medium.

I would like you to note that I make no distinction between inking by hand or inking with a computer program, those usually being Illustrator or Painter, but also Flash and Photoshop and Manga Studio.  A good inker is a good inker, and whether he works with bottled ink or digital makes no real difference.  Both are appropriate tools.

Scott.

Working on turning the guest bedroom into my den is continuing right on track.  Today I cleaned out the glass cabinet of Batman goodies I stored there.  Handling this collection again made me smile—I mean, there are Batman bandages, Batman chicken & noodle soup, Batman cake toppers, a Batman night light, Bat signal projectors, Batmobiles, Batman Easter Egg set, etc. etc.  In my defense, most of the stuff in this collection was pretty low cost, all the Batman Pez dispensers, Batman tooth brushes, Batman suckers, Batman pencil toppers, etc.

But, back to my future den.  This is going to be my secret hideout, with a wall of shelves holding all my graphic novels, prose fiction books, and art glass, and maybe some upper end action figures.  When I’ve got it done, I’ll post pictures.  My grandfather’s easy chair is going in there, as well as my Alan Lee framed print.  Soon, we’ll paint the room (this room has never been painted, and still has primer colored walls) and tear out the nasty old carpet.

Today, at the Indianapolis Art Center, I enjoyed a three hour pose with a model dressed head-to-toe as a Roman Centurion.  The costume is impressive.  I kind of blew it, because I got in a hurry and didn’t take the time the picture deserves.  But, that’s OK!  I’ve got pictures, and I will pain this to my satisfaction.

Last night, I watched the video of Dr. Steven Greer’s speech to the exopolitical crowd in Barcelona, Spain.  The show was about an hour long, and it had some very intriguing moments.  I’m not sure what to think of Dr. Greer, to be honest; he is vain, self-impressed, and a name and innuendo dropper, yet he also seems to believe what he’s fighting for.  Much of the disclosure that has happened is a result of Greer’s pressure in the higher levels of government.  He is a showman and a committed believer at the same time, so I find him perplexing.

Are traced photos the future of comic book penciling?  I’m starting to wonder.  I understand that the minimum threshold is much higher now than it was, say, in the 1980’s.  I really became aware of this trend when Greg Land went public on his technique—the controversy has raged on to this day!  Well, as you can imagine from my work, I prefer hand drawn and inked comics, but traced comics, if done well, can be quite beautiful too.  Here’s the crux of it: If the traced photos are stolen from other media and photographers, that’s bad; if the penciler took his own photos and traces from those, that’s good.  I don’t really care for comics traced from Poser figures, either, but I reserve judgment on whether the artist can make it look fluid and good or not.  So far, my experience has been “not.”

I haven’t read any of this Blackest Night event at DC.  When the trades come out, I will probably read the main series, but skip most of the supporting series and crossovers.  I’m looking forward to it, though, because the concept is cool and Doug Mankes’ art is really impressive.  I’ve been a fan of his since the Seven Soldiers’ “Frankenstein” mini-series.  To be honest, I also hope they use Blackest Night to return some of their cooler dead characters to life.  While I was still buying the monthlies, it seems DC comics were all about death, death, and death, and it was getting me down.

What change will Disney’s acquisition of Marvel have on the content of their books?  I’d like to think “none,” because many of their titles (Captain America, Daredevil, Avengers (whichever title) are outstanding.  In fact, with this current group of writers, including Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Ed Brubaker, Greg Pak, and Matt Fraction, this has been the richest time in Marvel comics since the 60’s.  Needless to say, I’ve been bowled over by their books in the last few years.  Let’s hope Disney doesn’t mess this up.

Have I rambled enough?  Let’s say yes.

Scott.