Comic Student

“At The Still Hour Of Midnight The Graves Shall Open And A Vast Multitude Shall Rise”, 12"x16", gouache & watercolor on paper. This piece is sold but you can still visit the original at Nucleus Portland until June 22nd!

Isaiah West Taber

Female artists in their studios

Gallery from the Silver Surfer Annual #4, published by Marvel Comics, 1991. Pin-ups by: 

1. Joe Brozowski (including original) 

2. Kevin Maguire and Bob Wiacek

3. Klaus Janson

4. John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson

5. Joe Jusko

6. Denys Cowan

Irises

Hokusai, c.1820

Mo Xiaosong（莫晓松 Chinese, b.1964）

Wan Jin GIM

Planning and structuring the pages of my long comic

Commicstudent do you have any idea how much I love you?! Your questions are so awesome, and I am so impressed with your dedication to investigating all aspects of the medium. Also, I often find this stuff hard to articulate but I think writing about it helps me understand my own work better. 

To answer your question: My go-to guys (and gals, since I think it was mostly women working as colorists in the pre-code era, most notably Marie Severin) for color inspiration are the colorists from classic EC horror and war comics. They used lots of non-local color and their aim was more to create drama than to represent things as they are.

Here’s an example:

http://raggedclaws.com/tag/fantagraphics/page/3/

I use black-spotting in my work, but I don’t use it to create volume with light and shadow the way that living gods like the Hernandez brothers or Charles burns do. Their work doesn’t need color because all the volume is there in the blacks. I’m more influenced by “funnies” artists like Milt Gross and John Stanley in that respect. I use wackier, more basic lines to create movement, and then the color helps provide depth-it hopefully helps the reader to understand the space a little better. My goal is to make the work easy to read and eye-popping.

Here’s some beautiful John Stanley for you:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/comics/john-stanley-20563.html

Thank you so much for replying again and giving your answer so much thought and consideration! Your comments on volume really helped me to articulate my analysis of ‘Black Hole’, and you definitely made me consider colour and composition from a different angle after considering your strips in relation to Kurtzman‘s ‘Dying City’ in the above link. 

My dissertation has now been finished and handed in so I’m really grateful for the insight you gave me into the comics medium from an artist’s perspective as it has made me appreciate all the work that goes into the creation of comics a lot more! Also, my essay ended up focusing on ‘Black Hole’ by Charles Burns and ‘Gaylord Phoenix’ by Edie Fake, the latter I would not have come across if you had not suggested it, so your help really was crucial to shaping my finished essay!

ALPENGLOW

by Alyssa Berg