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Home , Crossover (fiction), Danny Fingeroth, Noel Sickles

THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON , CARTOONING AND ANIMATION

IN THIS ISSUE! How to create a comic from script-to-print by MIKE MANLEY See the process from pencils, inks, & coloring to lettering, printing, and NUMBER 9 distribution! FALL 2004

95 PLUS: $5. Illustrator IN THE U.S.A. tutorials with ALBERTO RUIZ PVP’s SCOTT KURTZ y e l n a M

Bringing characters e k i

to life with M

&

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TOM BANCROFT o r e g n and i F

y n

ROBERT CORLEY n a D

4 0 0 Product 2 ©

& reviews with M T

e m

ANDE PARKS i T

f o

f e i h

NOEL SICKLES, T Father of realistic cartooning by BRET BLEVINS

CROS SOVER WITH

11994 --2004 www.drawmagazine.com THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING

WWW.DRAWMAGAZINE.COM

FALL 2004 • VOL. 1, NO. 9 FEATURES Editor-in Chief/Designer • Michael Manley Publisher • John Morrow COVER STORY Logo Design • John Costanza CREATING COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT WITH MIKE MANLEY Proofreaders • John Morrow & Eric Nolen-Weathington 3 Transcription • Steven Tice

For more great information on cartooning and animation, visit our Web site at: http://www.drawmagazine.com

Front Cover THE CRUSTY CRITIC PRODUCT REVIEWS BY ANDE PARKS Illustration by 18 Mike Manley NOEL SICKLES 22 BY BRET BLEVINS

CHARACTER DESIGN BRINGING YOUR CHARACTERS TO LIFE 34 BY TOM BANCROFT AND ROB CORLEY SUBSCRIBE TO DRAW! Four quarterly issues: $20 US Standard Mail, $32 US First Class Mail ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR ($40 Canada, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail). TIPS: BITMAP TEXTURE FUN We accept US check, money order, Visa and Mastercard at 41 BY ALBERTO RUIZ TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614, (919) 449-0344, E-mail: [email protected] ADVERTISE IN DRAW! See page 2 for ad rates and specifications. DRAW! FALL 2004, Vol. 1, No. 9 was produced by Planet Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Address is PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082. 49 Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, PRE-PRESS, PRINTING NC 27614. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet Inc. All contribu - tions herein are 2004 by their respective contributors. Action Planet & DISTRIBUTION Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submis - BY JOHN MORROW sions. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if work- for-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in said artwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; and PvP’s SCOTT KURTZ said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historical INTERVIEWED BY JAMAR NICOLAS purposes with no infringement intended or implied. ,Superman are TM 56 and © 2004 DC Comics • The TM and © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. • PvP TM and © 2004 Scott Kurtz •The Thief of Time © 2004 Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. This entire issue is © 2004 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. FROM THE EDITOR This issue of Draw! and the with our sister magazine write Now! was more than a year in the planning and the making. And what could be more natural than a re-teaming of write Now! editor and old writer Danny Fingeroth and myself, I ask you? A s

n DVD! Danny and I worked together back in halcyon days of the ’90s at Marvel on Darkhawk, i v

e with Danny on the writing and me on the art. When we both ended up working for the same l B

publisher again some ten years later, both doing “how-to” magazines, it seemed like a great t e r idea to combine the thrust of both of our mags to give the aspiring cartoonists and writers a B

y complete overview of the creative process of a comic, from the script to the printed page, from b the Pro perspective. Do a real in-depth coverage of our process. After some good give and take, n o i Danny and I came up with our The Thief of Time, and documented each step of the t a t creative process which you can read about in write Now! #8 and in this issue of Draw! e r

p As Danny and I got underway and were working on The Thief of Time , preparing to r e

t have both issues of our magazines ready to premiere at this summer’s San Diego Comicon, I n i

was contacted by Sputnik Studios from Toronto, Canada to see if I was interested in producing e v

i a “how-to” DVD. “Heck yes!” was my answer. A rapid series of e-mails and phone calls ensued t a

r between our publisher John Morrow, Danny, Sputnik and myself, and the deal was worked out. u

g We would now produce a “how-to” DVD covering our process and filming me live as I drew. i F This also meant we had a very short time to do this in order to get everything done to debut the DVD in San Diego. As you know by now, Draw! #9 was delayed in order to produce the art for the DVD shoot and John and I decided it was best to concentrate on the DVD. Shane McCracken, Jeremy McCracken and cameraman Sevan Frank piled into their car and headed south to my studio here outside of Philadelphia to film the DVD. Danny came down for an afternoon to shoot our discussion on scripts and plotting for the DVD, as well. Over the next three days in the humid Philadelphia summer, the swell guys from Sputnik filmed over 40 hours of video here in my studio documenting my working process, and the result is the How to Draw Comics from Script to Print DVD. I’m really proud of how it turned out! But the race was not over yet. As the Sputnik crew headed back to Toronto and their editing suite, I still had to finish the rest of the art and do extra work on the lettering and coloring segments and some extra voiceovers, as well as finish the rest of the The Thief of Time comic which had to be held off till the filming was done. So now you hold in your hands the fruit of all of our labors: Draw! #9, the second part of the crossover with write Now!, containing the complete The Thief of Time comic inside. The DVD premiered with great success in San Diego and the Chicago Con, so much so we are already planning several more DVDs on drawing fea - turing some of your favorite Draw! contributors. I also want to say thanks to this issue’s contributors Tom Bancroft, Rob Corley, and Scott Kurtz, who was interviewed by new Draw! interviewer and fellow Philly cartoonist Jamar Nicholas. Be sure to check our Jamar’s weekly web strip Detective Boogaloo— Hip Hop Cop on moviepoopshoot.com. Big thanks to Alberto Ruiz, Ande Parks, my pal Bret Blevins, and to my brother Dave and his friend Antony Bell for doing the music on the DVD, and of course to Danny and John. A tip of the hat to Ryan D’Angelo for redesigning the Draw! website, and of course you the readers and supporters of Draw! magazine.

See you in February!

Mike Manley , Editor

E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.drawmagazine.com Snail mail: PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082 ADVERTISE with TWOMORROWS

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GET THE TWOMORROWS TWO-FER! Send ad copy and check or Prepay for two same-size ads in DRAW!, Back Issue, money order in US funds to: We also accept Visa , Write Now!, or any combination, and save! TwoMorrows and MasterCard! Please (Display ads are not available for The Collector .) 10407 Bedfordtown Drive include card number Raleigh NC 27614 FULL PAGE : 7.5” wide x 10” tall — $500 ($100 savings) and expiration date. HALF PAGE : 7.5” wide x 4.875” tall — $300 ($50 savings) Questions? QUARTER PAGE : 3.75” wide x 4.875” tall — $175 ($25 savings) Phone: (919) 449-0344 INSIDE COVER OR COLOR BACK COVER : Inquire for availability Fax: (919) 449-0327 BULK AD PACKAGES ALSO AVAILABLE : Please Inquire E-Mail: [email protected]

2 DRAW! • FALL 2004 TALKING THIEF OF TIME Danny and Mike discuss the creative process PART 2 What follows is the conclu - sion of the conversation between Write Now! editor PART 2 Danny Fingeroth and myself (begun in Write Now! #8) out - lining how we came up with our Thief of Time character. We discuss what issues we were dealing with as we tried to make something original yet not completely unfamiliar, mixing genres to come up with new takes on well-traveled archetypes. Combined with the notes and e-mails printed in Write Now! #8 we pick up on the conversation in this issue as we conclude the dis - cussion of our creative process. Danny and I had a lot of open, honest, back and forth discussion, which is essential to the creative and collabora - tive process. —Mike Manley

[SPOILER WARNING: Details of Thief of Time are discussed here. It’d be impossible to not do so when discussing the creation of a new character.]

ABOVE: This was the original penciled version of the cover to the Thief of Time comic. In the beginning I was thinking of this as being maybe a comic in a slightly more humorous vein. I later repenciled the figure of Heather Brascomb after Danny Fingeroth (my co-creator and writer) defined the characters and the feel of the series more. We decided against a humorous or more cartoony feel in favor of a more straight-forward adventure. RIGHT: My initial quick sketches or drawings of the character. The first image that popped into my mind was a female thief being chased across the rooftops of some European city, pursued by ninjas. These were done quickly directly with a brush and ink, and it ended up being the gem of the idea that became the cover image. I flopped the direction of the sketch to read better for the cover.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 3 COMICS MIKE MANLEY that we have to put a limit on Heather’s time travel abilities. Otherwise there’s no problem the person can’t solve by simply saying, “Well, I’ll go back five minutes before that event happened.”

Danny Fingeroth: That’s right. We had this discus - sion about how time travel stories can become incredibly complicated, and the question always comes back to, “if you can travel through time, why not just keep going back in time until you get it right?” That’s actually the premise of Groundhog Day , I sup - pose, which is in a way a time travel story.

MM: We initially said, okay, it’s going to be a thief, and we decided we’ll make the thief a female character. Then we talked a little bit about the movie Entrapment , which was about a burglar, and looked at the elements that worked in that, and then we started talking about time trav - el. I actually went on the Internet and spent some time reading up on time travel. Some scientists believe there is a possibility, depending upon faster-than- light drives ABOVE : The final penciled version of the cover for The Thief of Time . or going the speed of On this page and the next page are some of Mike’s rough sketches and light, that it is possible designs for the thief’s costume and appearance. to do some form of This is the second half of the Write Now!/D RAW ! crossover conversation phone time travel. There are discussion between Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. The first half ran in others who believe Write Now #8. there’s time travel possibilities via worm - holes, or black holes. There’re a lot of dif - Mike Manley: In creating a drama, be it comics or a movie, ferent theories on it. So even though this etc., it’s probable all the paths that you’re going to walk dramat - is a , you still want to be able to ically have been walked by someone before. So, all you can do have a layer in it that has some basis in is try to put a little spin on the ball. There’s been a zillion stories science, so that at least you have some about pirates, or about private eyes, or guys flying through outer foundation on which to build a fantasy space, starship captains, and super-heroes. Nothing is really construct. going to end up being completely unique. I mean, you hope your idea is fresh, but in genre most ideas have probably DF: There was one logistical problem been tried now. we came up with what I think is an So with Thief , my concern, visually, was try to do some - elegant solution for. I was having our thing that’s interesting for the reader and that’s fun for me to heroine have to literally travel to draw. A story, that even if it’s time travel, not a unique idea cer - different parts of the globe by jet or tainly, has something that’s a little different in some way. Some something, to then go back in time kind of hook. In one of the conversations we had we discussed so she would end up in that part of 4 DRAW! • FALL 2004 COMICS MIKE MANLEY the world when she time-traveled. And you came up with the ing to find pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo (and I mean that in a good way) her father, about some kind of global positioning thing, where she could who invent - end up coming out in the correct geographical spot, which sim - ed this time- plified things nicely. vest that she wears, and MM: Well, I fig - he’s lost in ured since the the time Earth moves stream. She through time wants and space, and somehow, since she’s to locate her going to jump father in the through time, the time stream time-vest she and basical - wears would ly save have to have him. And some ability, then we had maybe in conjunction a big, long with some machine, computer program, a guy talk about working the machine back at the home base, how there tracking her in relationship to the Earth, so that had to be some reason why she couldn’t just pop in two sec - you can say, “When I’m going through time to onds before he turned the vest on and got himself lost April 14, 1876, at 3:00 AM,” you would in time, why didn’t she just do that? know exactly where the Earth would be in All of this is in my mind when I’m reading order to do that, or else you’d pop into your that you just sent, which was really space, because the Earth might be on the good. I was thinking, the dad’s time vest was damaged other side of the sun. and maybe there was something wrong with it initially, a design flaw maybe, so that he keeps skipping through time like a stone DF: This new version of the plot felt more organic to me. Does thrown across a lake, and every time that he pops into a differ - it work better for you? ent time, he sends out a slight “ripple.” And that slight ripple maybe subtly affects time after that. So he’s sending out slight ripples in time, that are generated by the suit “punching holes” MM: It does. And we were also trying to decide if the key time travel scene in her first story would take her to ancient Greece through time. And, since it’s a random thing and her brother or medieval Japan. Henry’s helping her track her father down, I was just thinking, maybe Henry’s job could be to track where his father goes when he’s using the vest. To see if there’s a pattern to the jumps DF: In this case, I think it’s more what you’re in the to in time that their father’s making as he skips through time, try - draw. The story point would be similar in either case, so it’s ing to triangulate where Dad will be next, so that he can say, what’s more fun for Mike to do artwise? “Well, we think that, based on this algorithm that I’m run - ning”—some chaos theory computer program—“we predict our So I settled on ancient Japan, because, for me, ancient MM: father will appear in 1776 in Malta,” or something like that. Japan and samurai or are going to be more fun to draw. I went through step-by-step, reading the plot and wrote Yeah. From The Time Machine to The to Back down what Heather’s key motivation is. The fact that she’s try - DF: to the Future , to just about any time travel story, I think you just have to establish the rules of time travel and figure the audi - ence will be willing to go along for the ride as long as the story points are compelling enough to make them want to. Otherwise, you go into territory where you’re trying so hard to explain how and why DRAW! • FALL 2004 5 COMICS MIKE MANLEY

wrong, she could really screw something up.

DF: You know, this goes back to our original discussion, the way that you even said, “Why doesn’t she go back a week and invest in whatever stock went up the following week? Why would she have to be a thief?” Which is why I put the message for the father in there. Because we’re back to that same thing, why go to such elaborate means just to generate money if you can know how future financial markets are going to turn out? Some character studies of Heather that explore her MM: Well, here’s the other plot idea I had in relating to the personality and father. Maybe via his skipping through time, he’s sort of set stylistic approach. himself up financially or science-wise. Maybe he’s trapped, maybe there’s some reason why he can’t take the vest off, maybe it’s bonded to his skin, whatever. So he’s always going to have to jump through time.

DF: Because if he takes off the vest, he loses any hope of ever getting back to his home time.

of something that’s impossible in the first place, that you end up MM: Right. And maybe he hasn’t been able to fix it because he sabotaging your story. Let’s face it, what do people remember doesn’t have the 2004 technology to repair the vest. Or maybe about Back to the Future ? The time-traveling DeLorean and the he’s working on it, it’s going to take him a while in the past to fact that Michael J. Fox had to make sure his parents got togeth - gather the materials he needs to fix the vest or something. Like er so that he would be born, which, when you think about it, he a stone skipping through time, so you never know where the must already have succeeded, or else how could we be watching next skip will send you. a movie about his character in the first place? But you don’t think about that as you watch the movie. You just take the film - DF: He has to triangulate where he’s going to be. So now the makers’ and characters’ words for it that what they’re trying to question still comes up, why is she stealing stuff in the past, if achieve—the McGuffin, as Hitchcock called it—is important. it’s not to find clues for him? If she’s on an assignment from the Emperor of Japan, that’s one thing, that specific favor, or maybe he has something she needs. MM: Sure, the more logically you set it up, the more chance the reader or viewer will buy into it. MM: That’s a cool idea. Maybe she’s trying to track him, so maybe by stealing this mask from the past and delivering it to DF: Agreed. the emperor of Japan in the future, he gives her some photo - graph or some information about where her father was in Japan MM: I did think, at the end, in our story, having the father at some point. show up was kind of a cool thing. Now, we could have some reason that that happened, we’ll to work that out, because we have a limited amount of space with the initial comic. BELOW: My thumbnail breakdowns. This is where it all starts as I DF: That was definitely going to be the . Because, as sketch out thumbnails based on Danny’s plot. These will go through a you were just saying, he pops in and out of time. There could be refining process but I want to get the visual images in my head down as a pattern to it, but one that maybe they haven’t quite figured quickly as they occur. out. Now, does he want to be rescued? That’s another issue.

MM: Basically, the main thing for me as an artist working on the story with you was to figure out logical parameters within this fantasy construct so if this person can travel through time, they can’t just simply solve every problem they encounter by just going, “Oh, well, I’ll just dial back before that happened, ding, problem solved!” So there should be some reason that every time they actually go into the time stream, there’s a real possibility that if they do something wrong, they could really screw up the present. I think it would be a good thing to have it set up at the beginning that there was a real consequence every time Heather jumped through time, and if she did something

6 DRAW! • FALL 2004 he vision and talent of Noel Sickles transformed and expand - sketched from life constantly and gradually coalesced his vision ed the possibilities of narrative art in fundamental into a personal approach to solving drawing problems. He began ways that are still apparent in current comic books and graphic his professional career before the age of twenty, cartooning for . After this accomplishment he left the cartooning field to local businesses and newspapers—in the early work reproduced spend several decades as one of the grand illustrators of his gen - here his skill and adroit mastery of then-common pen-and-ink eration, and ended his career painting historical western images styles is remarkable. In those days reproducing photography on for galleries across the Southwest. Sickles invented a technique newsprint was difficult, and newspaper artists were often visual combining naturalis - reporters, drawing people or scenes to accompany a news story. tic drawing, cinemat - When the opportunity to take over the comic strip Scorchy ic and Smith came along, Sickles used it as a vehicle to develop his realistic lighting that natural way of visualizing dramatic narrative images. At first he invigorated the art of was required to imitate the style of the strip’s creator John Terry, newspaper story who produced, in Sickles’ words: “...the worst drawing I had strips and gave birth ever seen by anybody.” In the early Sickles example reproduced to the melodramatic here, the evidence of Terry’s crude rendering technique is evi - visual intensity of dent, though Sickles cannot hide his own mastery of form, arial adventure-themed depth, perspective, and storytelling. Already we see here an comic books. In his important element of Sickles’ revolutionary contribution—a Scorchy Smith strip flawless, spontaneous sense of objects and living forms existing work we see the first and moving through real space, and a intuitive mastery of view - aggressive melding point and rhythm of scene choice—called “shot flow” in visual of cinema camera storytelling parlance. Sickles wanted to “...bring the art out of techniques with static the page.” He combined the pacing, cutting and camera mobility narrative drawing. of the black-and-white movies of his day with a graphic treat - Before Sickles, ment inspired by a set of illustrations creat - had created ed for Willa Cather’s “ Death Comes for the ArchBishop .” (See spectacular realisti - examples below.) cally drawn narrative sequences in his strip work, but his vision was a more formal theatrical sensibility. Foster used no speech balloons, enclosing dialogue within captions, and his compositions were rooted in classical salon art and early magazine illustration tradi - tions. The quality that was new in Sickles’ work was a convinc - ing impression of spontaneity, as if the viewer were witnessing the events in motion. This sense of immediacy in Sickles’ work was his special gift, and it invigorates LEFT: An illustration from Life Magazine . all his images. As a ABOVE: A young Sickles. RIGHT: The power and moody atmosphere of Von young teenager Sickles Schmidt’s high-contrast line drawings inspired haunted the public Sickles to introduce a similar approach to the libraries and studied all newspaper strip. Sickles pushed the simplifi - the artwork that cation of detail further and eventually broad - appealed to him, from ened the tonal range by introducing a the old masters to con - mechanical gray that allowed him to temporary newspaper white edges against the gray, creating a cartooning, but he also remarkable impression of depth and air in his pictures. In the early strip below Sickles is still imitating the crude parallel line rendering of his predecessor John Terry, but his mar - velous sense of spatial accuracy is already evident—look how surely the weight of the speedboat rides the heavy water—indicated so simply you can count the lines!

DRAW! • FALL 2004 23 BRINGING CHARACTERS TO LIFE PART 2: Expressions and posing BY TOM BANCROFT AND ROB CORLEY

This is the second in a series of articles by animators Tom Bancroft and Rob Corley on the subject of “Bringing Characters to Life.” This article will discuss the second step: expressions and posing. While we are traditional animators and the examples given will focus mainly on that style, we believe these articles will contain information that will apply to the , special effects, and comic strip industries, to name a few. ––Tom and Rob

Frank and Ollie’s Illusion of Life and Richard Williams’ book The Animator’s Survival Kit . These are excellent books and should be a permanent fixture in any character/story-driven artist’s reference collection. EXPRESS YOURSELF! Hey, all! It’s your friendly neighborhood animators Rob LET’S EMOTE! Corley and Tom Bancroft from Funnypages Productions here. (No, Rob, that’s not what you put on toast.) Thanks for the great response to our first article last issue on “Character Design.” This next article in our series of articles First things first. Let’s concentrate on the face. Normally, touching on the finer points of animation is entitled “Expression when you approach drawing a character, you should never sepa - and Posing.” rate the thought process between the face and body. This is Back in the early days, when an animated character had to because they are so integral to one another and the emotion you show a particular expression it rarely went beyond a few basic are trying to convey. That said, we do it here for ease of refer - designs, such as lines above the head to show surprise or tears ence and to concentrate on finer points. Later, we will add the pouring from the eyes to show sadness. These tricks worked for all-important body to “push” the expressions. many years on the old shorts, but as became more Your character must be real to you. You have to be able to sophisticated the animators soon learned that they needed to relate to what your character is going through in order to capture bring something more to the screen and to their characters. the right pose or expression for your scene. What is your charac - One of the most important things we learned at Disney was ter thinking or feeling? Are they , angry, or confused? to avoid the “cliché.” Try to avoid using the first idea, expres - Use a mirror and “” out the character’s mood or acting. Study sion, pose, etc. you come up with for your scene. Some artists/ your own attitude and ask yourself: “Does this pose feel right? animators lose an important opportunity to really push them - Does the drawing I’ve created feel the way my face feels?” selves as artists and—ultimately—their scene to the “next level” Choosing the right expression will make or break your scene or by settling for the easy way out. It’s time to lock up that old drawing. toolbox of tried and true tricks or formulas and start really growing artistically. Now we’re not saying that your first idea SOME BASICS: ain’t pretty, but it’s always nice to flex your artistic muscles Let’s go over some fundamental principals first. Here is a from time to time. You never know, you just might surprise basic cartoony face with no real emotion. ( fig. 1 ) Not all char - yourself. acters have cheeks and even pupils Ok now, you may be asking, “Where do I start if I can’t (like more “limited-style” charac - think of anything else to do for my scene or drawing?” Only ters) but for these examples we are through observing life around you will you be able to bring using a more realistic design to show something new and fresh to your arsenal of creative talent. more subtleties that can be achieved. Watch people and observe how they act, how they move and The thing you need to notice on all react to their environment. Peoples is such crazy animals, and of these examples is the “change” in nine times out of ten you will walk away with a library of infor - the drawings. Making sure there is a mation and material that could make your art/animation SING! clear “change” from one emotion Some of the suggestions that follow are based on our per - drawing to the next emotion drawing sonal experiences and can also be found in a number of books is vital. on the subject of animation. One of the most obvious would be

34 DRAW! • FALL 2004 EXPRESSIONS AND POSING BANCROFT/CORLEY

We can see this by using this “happy” expression example. In (fig. 2) there is little difference or “change,” it may be overlooked.

In (fig. 3) there is no escaping the change in attitude: notice how that TWO , the Eyelids. The lids are more the “Supporting Cast” in when the mouth goes up it pushes the overall emotion of the eyes but really help “push” an emo - the cheeks into the lower “lids” so tion. It should be noted that, though not shown, the compression that there is a compression on the of the cheeks below the eyes help create some of these eye eyes? The eyebrows go up. There expressions. (fig. 6) is even a slight stretch upward on everything on the face.

In subtle acting, all these things are very important. (fig.4) is an optional “push” if the character is “very happy.” As soon as a character shows teeth, the level of emotion increases.

THE “EYES” HAVE IT They say that a person’s eyes are a window to their soul. In Rob’s case, his eyes are a window to how much sleep he got writing this article. For the purposes of a person creating characters that they THree, is the Pupils. Eye direction can convey many subtle want to bring to “life,” the eyes are the MOST important part of emotions. Psychologists say that when we are thinking of the the expression. People look in your eyes for what you really past we look up and to the right, when we think of the future, mean or the context of what you are saying. In comic books or it’s up and to the left. Either way looking up and to the corner of any print media, they are especially important as you don’t have the eye “reads” as thinking. Looking down usually says you are a voice to hear to give more clues to the character’s acting. remorseful. Pupils in the middle of the eyes reads as attentive. There are three main components to creating acting with the Looking up can say “Here we go again.” While looking left or “eyes”: right in succession makes the character feel paranoid or sneaky. Wall-eyed or cross-eyed pupils makes the character look like Rob. (fig. 7)

TAKE YOUR “ORDER” PLEASE! Remember that you are creating a visual interpretation of a particular mood or attitude. For each attitude there is one key expression that will illustrate what your character is thinking or feeling. The thought process is revealed through the change of expression. What order and how many expressions you use will convey different things that your character is thinking—or not thinking. One example would be if your character is happy and suddenly becomes frightened but then becomes angry, you’ll ONe , and probably the most important, is the eyebrows. They need to plan out how you will get the best results as you move are the key to how the eyes convey emotion. How the eyebrows through each attitude. Timing in animation will help “push” compress and decompress the eye shape give the broad strokes what you are trying to convey but even in illustration the order of the emotion you are trying to covey. (fig. 5) and how many expressions you choose is vital. You’ll need to show that change from happy to frightened pretty quickly, but you may want to spend a few more seconds (or drawings) on

DRAW! • FALL 2004 35 DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION ALBERTO RUIZ

A

Importing photographic textures and effects to add dimension and excitement to otherwise flat vector art is a lot of fun and it couldn’t be easier. Adobe Illustrator lets you bring Photoshop generated bitmap images through its “Place” command, which can be transformed with a click of the mouse. In addition to textures, you also have the capability of placing inked drawings, black- and-white photographs and sketches for easy coloring and tinting. A bitmap file looks deceptively like a good old high-contrast, black-and-white image. Its magic, however, lies in its transparency properties, the “black” part of the bitmap is opaque and can be recolored at will, while the apparent “white” area is actually 100% transparent, allowing for a myriad of design possibilities.

HIGH SPEED COLORING JOB I scanned the above inked drawing as “line art/text” at 600 DPI, and saved the image in TIF format. After creating a new docu - ment in Adobe Illustrator, I placed the file by choosing “Place” from the File menu. By the way, most high-resolution TIF bitmap files are under a megabyte in size.

NOTE: It’s important that you keep all TIF files associated with the work you are doing in the same folder along with the main Illustrator document as AI keeps track of the linked files’ location. I then locked the current layer (Layer 1) and created a second layer which I re-named “coloring” and dragged directly underneath.

You should also keep in mind that you can change the default grayscale (black) bitmap to any custom, CMYK, RGB, or PMS color you wish, but you can’t fill the image with patterns or gradients.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 41 DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION ALBERTO RUIZ

APPLYING FLAT COLOR AND/OR GRADIENTS With the inked drawing placed securely in the layer directly above, I drew the different shapes that make up the car with the pen tool in a carefree manner and the girl was drawn freehand using the pencil. Ellipses were used where appropriate and also to speed things up.

For this particular piece I offset the colored shapes a bit, but you can color yours as tight or loose as you want, knowing the black line or layered colors will overlap and hide any inconsistencies.

THE FINAL ILLUSTRATION

42 DRAW! • FALL 2004 DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION ALBERTO RUIZ

COLORING A QUICK SKETCH After scanning in Grayscale , the contrast was improved using the level slider in Adobe Photoshop—Command+L (Mac OS), Ctrl+L (Windows)—and the image was inversed—Command+I (Mac OS), Ctrl+I (Windows). The mode was converted from Grayscale to Bitmap using the Diffusion Dither Method at an output of 600 pixels per inch.

These settings worked fine for this image, feel free to experiment.

In a layer directly underneath the bitmap image, I drew the “inner color” shapes using the pencil tool and added the logo.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 43 From the WEb to Print Comics, catching up with PVP’s Scott Kurtz Z T R U K

T T O C S

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© AN EARLY LINE-UP OF THE CAST OF PvP. Who better to interview one web strip cartoonist than another web cartoonist? Jamar Nicholas, who does JN: Did you have any art-related jobs outside of comics? Detective Boogaloo, Hip-Hop Cop over on moviepoopshoot.com, turns the mike on the always funny, sometimes contro - SK: I worked as a graphic designer at a couple of sign compa - nies out of college, and eventually landed a job as a webmaster versial Scott Kurtz. Kurtz has turned his PvP internet for KLTY radio in Dallas, Texas. comic strip into a critical and financial success. JN: Were you always attracted to this type of material as a kid? Interview by Jamar Nicholas, edited by Mike Manley SK: Yeah. My dad would bring me home comics from the GROWING UP newsstands after work and I was addicted to cartoons growing up. Around the fifth grade, I had this friend named Jans Jamar Nicholas: Where were you born? Dykehouse who’s brother seriously collected comics. We snuck into his room and read all the Byrne/Claremont X-Men he had. SCOTT KURTZ: Watsonville, California: salad bowl of the Afterwards we would run to the kitchen table and create our world. It’s Northern California near Santa Cruz. I still have own comics on reams of graph paper they had. family there. JN: What was it about cartoons that made you want to do JN: Are either of your parents artistically inclined? them? I know that I used to like because of Jim Davis’ line-work, not necessarily his plots. SK: My dad is. He wanted to be an architect and studied as a draftsman. He’s more inclined to draw a building or a blueprint SK: Probably the feedback. When I would draw super-heroes than a cartoon, however. and show it to my dad, I would get anatomy lessons. When I drew a cartoon, I would get a laugh. Sure, in fourth grade, they JN: Did you draw as a kid? If not, when? Did you always want weren’t the funniest , but they were clever and the to be a cartoonist? response on a four-panel cartoon was immense . Especially if it was about someone everyone knew or a topic we were just dis - SK: I always drew as a kid, but it wasn’t until my mom bought cussing that day. I didn’t get that, drawing super-heroes. The me the first Garfield book that I decided I wanted to be a car - simple, less complex line art was something I was always drawn toonist. My first comic strips were all about fat cats. That was in too. Never liked the rendering and crosshatching as much. the fourth grade. JN: What other comic strips did you study when you were that JN: Did you have any art schooling? age? I used to read Doonesbury that early. I didn’t get any of it, but I was entranced with the art style. SK: Just the normal art classes one would have throughout high school. I studied advertising art in college for three years before SK: I didn’t discover Doonesbury until college. My newspaper dropping out. I did take a cartooning class one time at the West had Garfield , and older strips I didn’t care for. But I could go to Des Moines Civic Center but I never got much out of it. Waldenbooks and find comics that weren’t in my paper.

56 DRAW! • FALL 2004 WEB COMICS SCOTT KURTZ

SK: I remember having a heart-to-heart with my art buddy Scott Gordinier. He loved to draw, too. I would go over to his house and we would just draw super-heroes. He also had nudie-mags to reference for girl super-heroes. And I couldn’t get the hang of drawing super-heroes. But I was great at cartooning. It came natural to me. And I remember getting all choked up and decid - ing not to draw super-heroes and concentrate on cartooning. It was a choice I made in junior high.

JN: “The decision.” I remember that. I think a lot of strip Z

T cartoonists have had that talk with themselves. R U K

T

T SK: I was heartbroken over it, because all my were O

C making comic books and I was not going to be a part of the S

4 imaginary comic book companies we would create each week. 0 0 2

© JN: They’re very different elements to doing strips vs. comic books. I don’t think people know how much effort goes into it LEFT: An early cast drawing of the PvP characters. ABOVE: Kurtz’s and that both aren’t totally natural to each other. website. BELOW: A Pin-up of Atari Nouveau.

SK: I knew that the secret to cartooning was to learn to simplify and observe and those skills were going to take practice, and I Garfield was first, then a comic called SNAKE! Then couldn’t do both I felt. If I studied cartooning, I was giving up came Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes. That was the studying super-hero art. progression. JN: But on the same hand, a lot of comic book people couldn’t JN: I’ve never heard of SNAKE! . Tell us about that. tell a gag in four panels, either. It’s like developing a muscle.

SK: You can probably find it online. It was this cartoon about a SK: Yeah, that’s the other thing. My buddies didn’t care about snake in prehistoric times. He was always lamenting having no writing. They weren’t looking to create a complete package. hands. And the girl snake had huge boobs. I’m not joking. The They were just working on portfolio pieces. art was similar to Garfield .

JN: That sounds BC- ish.

SK: But not as preachy.

THE DECISION

JN: You seem to have a direct sensibility tied to comic strips, with your timing and delivery. Did you have any comic book love growing up?

SK: I didn’t really get into collecting comics until high school. My dad would bring me some occasionally, but I didn’t know the collector subculture existed. I didn’t know that people fol - lowed creative teams, titles, etc. I was taught all that after meet - ing some collectors. The first comic I collected was Alpha Z

Flight and I started with issue 11. The ad for issue 12 had the T R

whole team lined up and said “NEXT ISSUE ONE OF THESE U K

HEROES WILL DIE!” I lost it. That was the longest month of T T O

my childhood. C S

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JN: So you didn’t want to be a comic book artist, growing up, then? Most people would think that everybody wanted to draw © Spider-Man when they were young.

DRAW! • FALL 2004 57 WEB COMICS SCOTT KURTZ

JN: Let’s talk about family LEFT: A pin-up of Skull the troll as the support when you were Dark Knight. coming up. artist used the tree book for refer - SK: My dad would criticize ence. always and my mom would dote always. Dad would read a JN: That’s great. You didn’t see strip and nitpick. Do this, what he was getting at then. change that, add this. I would say, “What do you think of SK: He taught me that cartooning the ? Don’t focus so is about breaking the rules of art, much on one detail” and he but that you had to learn the rules would say, “Do you want the first before you can break them. critique or not?” JN: Did you have any art books JN: Criticizing your art abili - given to you at a young age ties, or the fact that you should from your parents? I think the be “doing something else”? How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way was a staple. That was back SK: No. He would never push when the Borders didn’t have a Z me to do something else. He T whole section on comic art. R U

was huge on having a backup K

T plan... he never discouraged T SK: I bought that one myself. My O me, but he was honest. C

S dad had a stack of art books. Draw

4

0 people, horses, trees, birds, dogs. 0 2 JN: And mom? All art books. Mom bought me a © cartooning book that I hated. I SK: Mom would laugh at the think it was written in 1935. It had strip. Then I would look at her and say, “Do all these flappers in it. you get the joke?” and she would say, “No, but I can just tell it’s funny.” JN: Did you actively try to use your dad’s books to work on your craft, or were they too “old” for you? JN: A lot of creative people know what they want to do at a very early age. Usually the rest of your SK: I used Dad’s books to draw when I wasn’t in a mood to family unit don’t believe you until you’ve accomplished it. draw cartoons. Or as reference.

SK: Dad would always be realistic and tough on me. I would JN: What kind of school student were you? say, “I’m ready to be a cartoonist,” and he would say, “Not yet. You need to be able to effortlessly draw this with a couple of SK: Horrible. I had a very public rivalry with my high school pen strokes. You’re not there yet, but you’re improving.” art teacher.

JN: That’s classic right there. “That’s nice dear.” My mother JN: Were you good when you were younger, then deteriorated? still does that. SK: I was good student through elementary. But I was distract - SK: And Dad was huge on art, having studied to be a drafts - ed all the time. man. So he would push me to learn how to draw horses and trees and I didn’t want to do that. JN: So what happened?

JN: Wow. That’s a huge plus, Scott. Some would kill to have SK: I was too busy thinking about cartoons and comic strips. that kind of person in their corner. Ms. Allen was my art teacher and she hated cartooning. Hated it. She discovered a student named Andy who was brilliant with SK: God, this one time.... He brought me a book on trees and pottery. Just... really talented. And she practically adopted him. told me to draw all the different bark patterns, and after 10 min - Like, he lived at her house for a while. And she gave him the utes I said, “ENOUGH! This is stupid. I don’t need this for kiln room—like, converted it into a private studio. drawing comics.” And he pulled a comic off my desk (the first one he grabbed), flipped through it and found this monster. He JN: Couldn’t get away with that these days... put the comic right up against the tree picture. I swear to god the skin on the monster was identical to the bark. It’s like the SK: Yeah, these days she’d be in jail. He was from Korea and 58 DRAW! • FALL 2004 WEB COMICS SCOTT KURTZ his mom held me back for three years and I won, but I couldn’t spike the went back ball at the end. My personal victory was all I got. Which of and he course is enough. didn’t want to JN: When did that happen? go. I’m sure it was SK: Early 2000. PvP was still small. It wasn’t like I had “made all official it” officially. But it was enough that I was full-time at that point. and legal, I had great teachers who all saw my talent (other than the one but still. teacher that was paid to develop it). Yeah, my best teacher was So she Jeff Grim. He saw I was different. He wrote a recommendation would letter that got me into college. It said, in part, “You won’t see give him Scott on the Dean’s list, but you’ll see his art making an impact preferen - on the students.” Basically, saying, “His ACT and SAT scores tial treat - suck, but he’s still worth taking,” and that letter got me in. The ment, and college told me as much. enter him Z T in all the Wow. So did you go to a Liberal Arts School for College? R JN:

U art shows K

T and that T SK: Kind of: UNT (University of North Texas). I took ad art for O

C was total

S three years and dropped out. I was wasting my parent’s money

4 BS. And I 0 and these teachers were bitter ex-ad execs. I thought... “Do I 0 2

hated him.

© want to be a part of this world? Do I want to be this smarmy I hated guy? Or some production monkey? What am I doing here?” him with the heat of a thousand burning suns. And he hated me. Of course, when he introduced her to , she was thrilled. JN: That’s very self-aware of you. So why didn’t you just fin - Then cartooning was okay. So I got to enter a comic book into ish it out for the degree? the big senior art show, and sparks flew when I won best of show over Andy’s pots. She hated me. SK: My stomach would hurt every day going to class. I would skip class and it would hurt more. I had no clue what I wanted JN: Do you still have that comic? to be and all my choices seemed wrong. So I quit and got a job at a sign company my friend’s dad ran. And that’s where I met SK: Somewhere, yeah. And, here’s the really sad thing: I went [Scott’s Wife]. back to gloat afterwards. Here are my comics and take a look at my checkbook balance. And she was so small and frail and JN: Did your dropping out cause problems at home? defeated. She cried and told me her husband died of stomach cancer, and I lost it. SK: Yeah. My dad was devastated. Mom, just... she was a mom. More worried about making me and Dad happy and smoothing JN: That’s the opposite of what you wanted. things. Dad never went to a full four-year university and his mom (my harpy of a grandmother) brow beat him constantly SK: I realized it was time to grow up emotionally, I think. It about it. He got a two-year associates degree and no matter how was more important to focus on making good choices at that great a dad, or how great a provider, it was never good enough point. Life is short, you know? I was pissed, too, that day, for her. So he was huge on me getting into a university and because I felt she even robbed me of my gloating. Like... she

ABOVE: A PvP daily strip from early on and a recent one (LEFT) clearly showing the evolution of Z T Kurtz’s style and the devel - R U

K opment of the characters.

T T O C S

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DRAW! • FALL 2004 59 by DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY

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