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DRAW! (edited by MIKE MANLEY) is the professional “HOW-TO” magazine on comics, cartooning, and animation. Each issue features in-depth INTERVIEWS and DEMOS from top pros on all aspects of graphic storytelling, as well as such skills as layout, penciling, inking, lettering, coloring, Photoshop techniques, plus web guides, tips, tricks, and a handy reference source—this magazine has it all! NOTE: Some issues contain nudity for figure drawing instruction. INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS.

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

DRAW! #20

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DRAW! #17

DRAW! #18

DRAW! #19

An in-depth interview and tutorial with Scott Pilgrim’s creator and artist BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY on how he creates the acclaimed series, plus learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS creates the fabulous work on his series. Also, more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Features an in-depth interview and demo by R.M. GUERA (the artist of Vertigo’s Scalped), behind-the-scenes in the Batcave with Cartoon Network’s JAMES TUCKER on the hit show “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” plus product reviews by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and Comic Book Boot Camp’s “Anatomy: Part 2” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY!

DOUG BRAITHWAITE gives a demo and interview, pro inker and ROUGH STUFF editor BOB McLEOD offers a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, JAMAR NICHOLAS’ “Crusty Critic” column reveals the best art supplies and tool tech, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP gets your penciling in shape, plus Web links, reviews, and more!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

DRAW! #22

DRAW! #23

DRAW! #24

WALTER SIMONSON interview and demo, Rough Stuff’s BOB McLEOD gives a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, Write Now’s DANNY FINGEROTH spotlights writer/artist AL JAFFEE, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the best art supplies and tool technology, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS offer “Comic Art Bootcamp” lessons, plus Web links, comic and book reviews, and more!

Urban Barbarian DAN PANOSIAN talks shop about his gritty, design-inspired work with editor MIKE MANLEY, DANNY FINGEROTH interviews “Billy Dogma” writer/artist DEAN HASPIEL, plus more of MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, product and art supply reviews by JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

PATRICK OLIFFE interview and demo, career of AL WILLIAMSON examined by ANGELO TORRES, BRET BLEVINS, MARK SCHULTZ, TOM YEATES, ALEX ROSS, RICK VEITCH, and others, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

GLEN ORBIK demos how he creates his painted noir paperback and comic covers, ROBERT VALLEY discusses animating “The Beatles: Rock Band” music video and Tron: Uprising, plus Comic Art Bootcamp on “Dramatic Lighting” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, Crusty Critic JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies, BOB McCLOUD gives a Rough Critique of a newcomer’s work, and more!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $3.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

DRAW! #25

DRAW! #26

DRAW! #27

DRAW! #28

LEE WEEKS (Daredevil, Incredible Hulk) gives insight into the artform, YILDIRAY ÇINAR (Noble Causes, Fury of the Firestorms) interview and demo, inker JOE RUBINSTEIN shows how he works, “Comic Art Bootcamp” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, “Rough Critique” of a newcomer by BOB McLEOD, “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies and software!

JOE JUSKO shows how he creates his amazing fantasy art, JAMAR NICHOLAS interviews artist JIMM RUGG (Street Angel, Afrodisiac, The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Janes in Love, One Model Nation, and The Guild), new regular contributor JERRY ORDWAY on his behind-the-scenes working process, Comic Art Bootcamp with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, reviews of artist materials, and more!

Top comics cover artist DAVE JOHNSON demos his creative process, STEPHEN SILVER shows how he designs characters for top animated series, plus new columnist JERRY ORDWAY presents “The Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the ORDWAY!”, “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies, and hit “Comic Art Bootcamp” with Draw editor MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS!

FAREL DALRYMPLE shows how he produces Meathaus and Pop Gun War, director and storyboard/comics artist DAVE BULLOCK dissects his own work, columnist JERRY ORDWAY draws on his years of experience to show readers the Ord-way of creating comics, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

(84-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING WWW.DRAW-MAGAZINE.BLOGSPOT.COM FALL 2014, VOL. 1, #29 Editor-in-Chief • Michael Manley Managing Editor and Designer • Eric Nolen-Weathington Publisher • John Morrow Logo Design • John Costanza Front Cover • Dave Dorman DRAW! FALL 2014, Vol. 1, No. 29 was produced by Action Planet, Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial address: DRAW! Magazine, c/o Michael Manley, 430 Spruce Ave., Upper Darby, PA 19082. Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet, Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2014 by their respective contributors. Views expressed here by contributors and interviewees are not necessarily those of Action Planet, Inc., TwoMorrows Publishing, or its editors Action Planet, Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. 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 said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational, or historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied. This entire issue is ©2014 Action Planet, Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. ISSN 1932-6882. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DAVE DORMAN

The master illustrator wields his brush like a Jedi master as he demos his unique process

comic art bootcamp This month’s installment: Concept & Design

LESEAN THOMAS

RIGHT WAY, WRONG WAY—ORDWAY!

Jamar Nicholas interviews the renaissance man of animation

Challengers of the Collaboration

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

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DRAW! FALL 2014

-ING AHEAD

he Force is strong with this issue! I was so happy to finally get to interview Dave Dorman and cover his process on his fantastic illustrations. Dave has been at the top of the game doing illustration for 30 years, and it was great to talk about how things were in the beginning compared to how they are now, as technology changes the face of illustration faster and faster. A big hat off to my publisher, John Morrow, and my main man Eric NolenWeathington for making this issue look great. Kudos to my regular contributors Bret Blevins and Jerry Ordway for their articles and Jamar Nicholas for his great interview with LeSean Thomas on his career in comics and animation. By the time this issue reaches the U.S. shore from our printer in China, the first few leaves of Autumn will be falling and the fall con season will be upon us. I’ll be attending both the Locust Moon Comics Festival in Philly and the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. I attended my first comic convention in seven years this past summer, the Wizard World con in Philly, thanks to my buddy and former Darkhawk writer and Marvel editor, Danny Fingeroth. It was a fun time. It had been so long since I last trod the floor of a con. I did enjoy it a lot more than the last few shows I attended seven years ago, but did notice that fandom has changed in my time off the grid. It seems that everybody wants and is buying and selling prints as opposed to original art or books. I suppose we are seeing the continuation of the crowd broadening out into a general entertainment audience with TV and movies being dominant and comics almost being a subculture within that. The upshot for us artists, though, is that there still is a heavy demand for good art from all comers—comics, games, films, and more. So take out you pencils and paper (traditional or tra-digital), and get to drawing! Best,

NEXT ISSUE IN JANUARY! DRAW! (80 FULL-COLOR pages, $8.95), the professional “how-to” magazine on comics and animation, crosses the 30-issue mark with a great set of interviews and demos from today's top comics creators! We start with an interview with Eisner and Harvey Award-winning artist CHRIS SAMNEE (Daredevil, Batman, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Captain America), the creator who's on everyone's radar with his current Daredevil work. Then we kick the can over to comics veteran JACKSON GUICE (Captain America, Superman, Ruse, Thor) to talk about his creative process and his new series Winter World. PLUS: "The Right Way, the Wrong Way, and the ORDWAY!" with new columnist Jerry Ordway, and "Comic Art Bootcamp" by Draw editor Mike Manley and Bret Blevins! NOTE: May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; suggested for Mature Readers Only. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Four issues US: $34 Standard, $41 First Class, $11.80 Digital Only Outside the US: Canada: $43, Elsewhere: $52 Surface, $141 Airmail SUBSCRIBE NOW At: www.twomorrows.com

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interview conducted by Mike Manley and transcribed by Jon Knutson

At this moment in our very own galaxy…

Draw!: So, what are you working on today? Dave Dorman: Today, I’ve got some juggling on a couple of things. I’m putting together a small art book for San Diego, featuring some of my Aliens and Predator artwork. It’s all production work—just gathering the art, putting it together, getting it ready for the printer, and sending it out tomorrow. I’m also laying out a comic book story, a 20-page comic that’s going to also be available at San Diego, featuring some characters from my Wasted Lands graphic novel project. The comic book is called Red Tide, and it’s a prequel to a three-issue series we’re going to do in the fall.

ave Dorman is an Eisner Award-winner, an Inkpot Award-winner, and a favorite among Star Wars fans—including George Lucas himself! He’s worked on practically every major science-fiction, fantasy, and horror licensed property at one point or another, and he’s learned a thing or two about slinging oil paint. So gather ’round, young Draw!: And are you publishing this yourself? padawans, as the master teaches us the ways of the DD: Yeah, I’m doing the whole thing myself. I have a writing partner, Mike Bawden, who’s doing the scripting, but I’m Illustrator. DRAW! FALL 2014

(left) Dave: “‘The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan’” was commissioned for a book on fantastical places. From the start I wanted to do something different for this piece. The first was not to show Khan from the front. The piece is about the pleasure dome, not him. But I wanted it to exude strength and eroticism. This is the pencil art for the 20" x 30" painting.” (right) Dave: “After I transfer the drawing I begin the oil underpainting, adding textures in the paint by pulling the paint form the board and using the transparency of the oils and white of the board to add depth to the background.” The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan © Dave Dorman

plotting it and doing all of the artwork and production, and sending it off to the printer. I’m laying out the pages right now so I can start on the pencil work tomorrow. I’m also juggling a couple of logistic things for San Diego, and intending to go to Austin for the Capital City Convention—I’m working on that. So basically, partial art, partial business. Draw!: Is that a fairly typical day for you, to have the business side, and then the art side? DD: No, that usually happens maybe two or three times a month. Most of my actual work time is penciling, drawing, sketching, preparing the artwork—that type of thing. This type of book production stuff comes up occasionally, I’d say maybe three or four times a year. Mostly around this time, in the late spring/early summer, getting ready for San Diego and the convention season. I look to have new product out for when I attend the shows. So, that’s usually when this type of thing happens. But my regular work day would be get up,

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check my email, see if anybody’s ordered anything, answer fans’ questions, and then get to drawing, whether it’s drawing preliminary roughs, doing a layout, getting a painting ready, or actually sitting down and laying paint on the board. Draw!: Do you have a fixed schedule, as far as you’re usually up by a certain time, to work by a certain time, or do you sort of roll with the deadlines? DD: It’s rolling with the deadlines. I have a son in elementary school, so during the school year, it’s getting him up and off to school, and that’s the start of the day. It used to be, before we had Jack, our son, I’d get up and basically just start working, and then take a break for lunch or whatever. If there are some errands or things to be done around the house, then come back and just work again until it’s time to go to bed. But with my son it changes—good changes—the whole day, and as a matter of fact, I had to adjust the schedule to fit family life. So I work a little bit more at night, when everyone’s gone to bed, and the house is quiet.

(left) Dave: “Two more layers of underpainting give me a solid base to work from.” (right) Dave: “I begin rendering the details, this time mostly in oils as I want to be able to blend parts of them back into the background while it is still wet.” The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan © Dave Dorman

Draw!: I take it you don’t pull too many all-nighters anymore, unless it’s an extreme deadline? DD: Unless it’s a very extreme deadline, I don’t pull an allnighter. Yeah, I find that pulling all-nighters causes a lot of anxiety, obviously, because you know you’re running late, so I just basically try my best to stay on schedule, make sure that I know when the deadline’s going to hit. After 30 years in the business, I’m pretty good at approximating how long any particular piece is going to take, so I know that if it’s going to be close to a deadline, I need to work another hour or two at night to make sure I can hit those deadlines. I’m getting a little bit too old to pull those all-nighters. Draw!: [laughs] Yeah. The other thing is I know sometimes when you push the all-nighter, you also run the risk of making a mistake that takes you actually longer to go back and correct, where if you just stop and get a little rest, you would actually move much faster, and you would avoid... DD: Sure. You just don’t want to compromise the integrity of the art. You don’t want to send anything out of the studio

that you’re not happy with. If I haven’t learned my lessons through the years in the industry now, I’m never going to learn. I learned very early on it’s better to paint when you’re rested then when you’re falling asleep and ending up with a forehead covered in oil paint from dropping on the drawing board while you’re snoring away. Draw!: Do you give yourself time after you’ve finished a job to get away from it to look at it before you send it out, or does that really just depend on how hot the deadline is? DD: Exactly, it depends on how close the deadline is. Usually, I would take a day or two to let it set, so that I can turn away from it, and then come back with a fresh eye and make sure that it’s exactly what I wanted, whether additional detail needs to be made, or colors need to be adjusted, or something to make it just a little bit tighter, and a little bit more of what the client expects. Obviously, some of the things now, with the digital technology, I can sort of paint to a point, and then not have to worry about maybe shifting a color a little bit, or doing a little bit darker tonal thing on the page. I can just

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Dave: “Finished art including the last elements—Vader’s lightsaber and blaster bolts flying through the fight.” Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd.

Draw!: I suppose it’s the age you’re exposed to things. DD: To Lucas’ benefit, I think he sees that in Disney. Disney has built a reputation of understanding generation after generation, and keeping things fresh with updating storylines, advancing the technology of filmmaking and their amusement parks, and LucasFilms has done that with its films. With our generation it’s the first three, and two generations later with the prequels, and in-between that, letting Dark Horse put out books, the paperback novels, the toys, all of that was in that sort of in-between generation. And then six or seven years later, after the prequels, Clone Wars comes out, which gets little kids excited. So, I think it’s a good fit, LucasFilm and Disney, and they’ve been working together before, obviously, with the Indiana Jones Experience and Star Tours in the parks, so it’s not like they’re coming in not knowing how it works. I have a big feeling it’s going to be a fun movie, and I think we have to look at it like how we experienced the films in our generation. I’m looking forward to doing more Star Wars artwork as the years go by, and adding a whole new group of characters. Draw!: I’d imagine they’re keeping it all tight-tight, but do they work ahead a year with licensing and all that stuff? DD: Yeah, it’s still early in the licensing end of things. We’re still 18 months out from the films, so we’re not going to start getting licensing stuff going until probably late this year. I have my fingers in the pie on that, and I’m looking forward to doing that. I think the big thing is Marvel taking over the comic book license from Dark Horse, and right now very few people know what Marvel is doing with the storylines, and how they’re going to package the books. Obviously, they’re doing it with Disney, so Disney might have a large say in how Marvel packages

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them. We don’t know if they’re going to go on a different look than Dark Horse did. I don’t know if I’ll still be involved in the comic end of things. I hope that I still will be, because I’d love to get the work, but they could take a different tack completely with the material. A lot of us in the comics industry that have done Star Wars art for 25 years, we’re very interested in seeing what Marvel’s going to do with that material. Draw!: From what I was reading, they’re still deciding what is and what is not canon now—all that other stuff you were talking about that came out between the films. DD: There’s a lot of stuff going on with the Expanded Universe and other material that resulted from that time. You know, I can see both sides of it, and I really don’t have an answer that I can give to how I feel about it, because I just understand both sides. I’m a fan as well as a realist, and it would be sad to see them throw away 25 years of hard, creative work because Disney and Marvel want to go in a completely different direction, but from a business standpoint, that’s their choice to do, and maybe they won’t. I kind of think what they’ll end up doing is keeping some elements from the Expanded Universe, and incorporating those into what’s going on. I think most of what we’ve worked on in the past 25 years is just going to be “Earth-2.” Draw!: I’m sure they’re going to say, “Some of the stuff works,” and, “I shouldn’t have approved that story.” Some of the stuff is going to drop out. I was just wondering in general how you felt about the new Star Wars. DD: I’m very much looking forward to it. It is very exciting, and I’m definitely going to be first in line! [laughter]

Design C

by Mike Manley and Bret Blevins

oncept Art is an ever growing field that today plays an important role in every film, television program, video game, and yes—comic book. Look at the recent Marvel movies as an example. The core visuals are built on the visual language and designs of the great Marvel artists, but especially Jack Kirby and the hundreds of comics he drew in his teaming with Stan Lee during the prime Marvel period. The initial character and concept designs for the Marvel Universe are chiefly the result of this visual dynamo, one of the most important artists of the 20th century, whose work fuels the fantasy designs of the 21st century.

Every cartoon I have worked on has contained as part of the design pack a style guide for backgrounds and character designs, etc. It is essential in the early parts of the development of a show to get everybody on the same visual wavelength. You can’t have the dozens of artists working on the cartoon running in every different direction, and in the movies and video games you now sometimes have hundreds if not thousands of artists spread across the globe working on the same project. In the very earliest stages of the design and concept process of a movie or video game, the artists, art directors, and people in charge of visual development pull together style boards to help create the visual talking points that lead to the building blocks that form these new universes. Ralph McQuarrie’s concept illustrations for Star Wars (1977) are probably the best example of the way modern filmmaking employs the use of this concept of creating a grand visual narrative in the preproduction story stage. Some companies may even go further, as Disney did with Mulan, by sending the development team to a location— in Mulan’s case, China—to One of Kirby’s concepts that’s become a major visual backbone of Marvel’s do research, to draw, sketch, 21st century movies is the S.H.I.E.L.D. and take pictures for authenhelicarrier seen in its original design ticity. In the case of Mulan, a (left) and the Avengers and Captain very important story and herAmerica movie version (above). oine in Chinese culture, DisS.H.I.E.L.D. © Marvel Characters, Inc. ney wanted to get the visual The Avengers © Marvel Studios. details correct.

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he artwork presented here tracks the development stages of promotional material for a project created and written by my son Timothy, and executive produced by Renie Sweeney. It will a fantasy graphic novel called Epoch. I don’t want to spell out too much before the project is finished, but there are Fairie elements and characters alongside humans and futuristic technology. I began by trying to find the proper look and attitude for the main characters. In the following pages, Tim’s original descriptions are accompanied by some of the sketches I made to find a workable design that I liked.

Belas the Hobgoblin Goblins are shorter than humans and very skinny/lanky—they have skinny arms and legs with slightly enlarged, webbed hands and feet, and large heads with large eyes. Goblins have rubbery, amphibian-type skin—they like damp, dark places. Goblins’ skin coloring varies from muted, desert-toad tones to wild, poisonarrow frog coloring. Belas being a hobgoblin/half-human, he’s a mix of human and goblin qualities. Belas is pretty for a goblinoid—a less attractive Hob probably wouldn't be hired by a posh Elven corporation. He's proportioned like a human, and has human-looking hands. Belas has no hair— few Hobs do. Being chief of security for a billion-dollar company, Belas has an admirable military background, and comports himself in a military fashion. Being a distinguished veteran and chief of security, Belas dresses more like his high-ranking Elven employers than the other security grunts. For Belas’ acting, he has something to prove, as do most goblinoids. Goblins have been outsiders throughout history—elves and humans and dwarves historically shunned them, orcs periodically enslaved them. As such, goblin culture revolves around ideas like self-sufficiency and guile. ART NOTES: The descriptions were so clear I had a handle on Belas quickly—only a few sketches nailed him down—then my mind obviously wandered to the setting, as you can see on this sheet.

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Tia Hollow Tia’s human, about 5' 7", thin and athletic. She has violet/purple irises, as she’s an eighth elf. Tia has short hair; it’s a dark shade, maybe an organic color or maybe dyed—maybe her hair changes color often. You choose. Tia’s stealth-suit is concrete-grey and “aesthetically padded.” She carries a few small, flexible tools. The stealth-suit has a hood because I like the shape—she needs a balaclava or mask or something to prevent her face being caught on camera—the more I think about it, the more I think her face-cover should have some kind of cheeky modification, like a stitched on scarecrow smiley-face or something. Tia moves like a leaf in the wind—the harder you swipe at her, the more she flits out of the way. Tia is an upbeat person, but as her criminal career implies, she has some baggage hidden beneath her cheeky exterior. When not in stealth gear, Tia dresses in comfortable, notparticularly stylish clothes. When she dresses sexily, it’s usually for work-related purposes. ART NOTES: I was unusually lucky here. Tia is based on my lovely friend Claire Louge (right). I wish every character design was this easy! Tia’s attitude was pretty clear at the beginning. I did a rough sketch and costume suggestion (left), Tim drew his costume ideas over the sketch (figure at far right) and Tia was done.

Tarkus The majority of orcs live in poverty in the modern world—their inherent characteristics as a species put them at odds with the culture of personal compromise and bureaucracy. Many orcs end up in organized crime—orcs are smart enough to handle money and conduct business, they just don’t have patience for non-violent conflict resolution. Tarkus moonlights as a Dragon follower, but his “day job” is being an enforcer for an orcish street gang/clan. Tarkus, like most orcs, is about 7 feet tall. Orcs’ skin is colored in earthy tones, from off-white to dark green to brown to black. Some have tuskteeth that jut out from their upper or lower jaw, some don’t. I’ve yet to find any ref on the Internet for orcs that I’m happy with, maybe you can come up with something better. Orcs are usually “built,” but Tarkus is REAL muscled. Orcs are fond of tattoos—in the old days they kept your honor and clan beyond question, even after death. Tarkus has tattoos identifying his membership, rank and job in his gang/clan. Tarkus is either bald, or has hair done in some kind of gang or clan style. I imagine him being shirtless, wearing cargo, maybe military-surplus pants held up with studded suspenders and great big head-stompin’ boots. Tarkus wears studded leather bracers and heavy-duty rings on his fingers. Tarkus has no cybernetic parts—neural implants can be a disadvantage in his business, and he can’t afford cybernetic organ replacements that’d make him physically stronger. Tarkus wields a pipe wrench that’s been modified into a crude mace—I imagine the wrench clamp clasped around a ramshackle piece of custom-welded metal that completes the mace, maybe tangled around with barbed wire, and spraypainted with Tarkus’ clan’s symbol. Maybe the wrench handle is wrapped with electrical tape to make a more ergonomic grip. For acting, Tarkus is frustrated, angry, and not very bright. His whole life has been a sequence of bitter disappointments, watching prissy elves, weakling humans and puny dwarves get stronger and richer while he and his people get more scattered, disenfranchised and demonized. Once inside Sylvan Genomics, Tarkus acts out on his desire to smash the Elves and their trappings of social superiority. ART NOTES: Tarkus required a bit more searching. I wanted something hulking, sullen, and potentially brutal, but eventually pulled back from the more extreme notions to allow for greater subtlety of acting. Again Tim nailed down the costume details (far right figure below).

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Boom! Goes the Dynamite

an interview with

Interview conducted by Jamar Nicholas and transcribed by Jon Knutson JAMAR NICHOLAS: Tell me a little bit about when you were in grade school. Were you a decent student, or were you distracted from always thinking about drawing? LeSean Thomas: I was always really distracted as a kid. It wasn’t that I didn’t have good grades, or that I didn’t do well in school, I just wasn’t interested. I wasn’t one of those kids that would do everything I was told. Any chance I got to draw, I would, so that got me in a lot of trouble. I got in trouble more for being mischievous, for not doing what I was told, than anything else. My friends didn’t help at all either, because they were mischievous too. And we didn’t do anything bad. We didn’t do anything super-crazy. It was primarily, “Okay, LeSean should be studying pages 247 to 263,” and you pull the textbook back, and I wouldn’t be reading, I’d be drawing. The other thing too, looking back, a lot of my teachers, as nice as they were, didn’t live in my neighborhood, so for me, there was a disconnect with the teachers I had. I knew they were important because they were white, they were somebody to be listened to and respected, but I didn’t understand why I never really related to them much. The only teacher I really related to was my art teacher, Mr. Light, and ironically, it wasn’t because

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of art—because I actually hated that class. It was just the way he treated me, and the way he would talk to me in a language I understood, if that makes any sense. He made things fun for me, he made things interesting, and it made me want to learn what I was learning in his class. And I felt like, in my other classes, there wasn’t a lot of interaction. It was, “Sit down, be quiet, read these pages.” And I didn’t know who these people were. As a kid, I was like, “Who are you? I’ll be with you eight hours a day, and then I’ll go to the real world when class is up.” I wasn’t too interested in my teachers per se, and I think it had an effect on my behavior in class. JN: I think that’s interesting. Being a teacher and knowing a lot of teachers, I don’t think a lot of teachers really think that hard about the students and where they’re really coming from, and how they interact with the teachers. It’s either you’re good or you’re not good, or you’re a problem or one of the good kids. LT: I think that’s just a by-product of our system, and I don’t want to get too deep into that, just lightly touch on that. I think it’s indicative of the culture at that time—this was the ’80s. A lot of the teachers that I had were very young, and I never really thought about them being young people, because I was so young myself. But these people were in their mid-20s, late 20s,

30s. Some of them had been there for a very long time, so obviously they were much older. My principal, Mr. Raggio, was actually in his mid-60s; he was an old dude. They didn’t come from my world; they spoke a different language than I did. It’s not a knock on them, I just felt like... it doesn’t seem like it’s changed that much today from then, but teachers, to me, were just there to get their paycheck. They weren’t paid very well. They weren’t from the neighborhood. They were from nicer neighborhoods, a lot of them, and they came to the projects in the South Bronx from 152nd between 10th and Union. They’ve got Pirus, they’ve got Latin Kings—this is dangerous, B! This is the crack era. It was just get in, get out. “I don’t have time to get to know you. This is what you have to learn. Oh, you’re not learning this? There’s something wrong with you. You can’t learn, so you need to go to Special Ed class.” And it’s dumb! The system was set up to leave people behind. If you judge a person by their ability to do something that may not be in their personality or learning curve to do, and then you automatically categorize them as not being able to learn, or as inadequate, or damaged goods... I never really adhered to that. Everybody learns differently. Some people are more hands-on, other people can just read something and get it, and then other people, you kind of need to repeat it to them a bunch of times. Everyone is different. What’s that Einstein saying? “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” That statement is profound to me, and it correlates to a lot of these children, and I think that part of it is a cultural thing. You have a lot of teachers that are not from that culture, who are not speaking that language. The other thing is there aren’t a lot of African-American males teaching, either. Especially in my community, growing up, there weren’t a lot of African-American males. There were a lot of broken families, a lot of single-mom homes, and there weren’t a lot of black male teachers. A lot of people don’t know this about me, but after I wrapped up working on Lizzie McGuire as an assistant animator in New York City—this was before I started working on Arkanium for Dreamwave and started doing some freelance for Warner Brothers—I took some time off. I taught at a charter school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, not too far from my apartment. I had a brownstone I lived in across the street from Boys and Girls High School, Fulton Street Subway Station. They used to have the African-American Arts Festival there in Fulton Park. I lived right across the street from that, and there was a really dope charter school right down the block from me, and I taught in an afterschool program. I didn’t have a teacher’s license, but I think my girlfriend at the time had hipped me to their looking for some extra help for afterschool, and I was like, “Oh, why not? It’ll be a cool opportunity.” So I taught there for about a year, and the whole school was run by black parents! It was crazy, and I was one of the only brothers there, you know what I mean? They had a lot of young moms, single moms, so they see a handsome 6' 3" black man handling their kids, they’re like, “Oh my God, this is what’s up!” There was a need for that, a male... I didn’t have that in my school. I think that was another reason why I felt the need to act up. It could’ve been some kind of subconscious plea, like I needed a man to put me in shape every day, because my dad was around when my mom got divorced, but he was only around at really, really important times. He wasn’t there every day. I don’t know, I think I said a lot just now, but I think it’s all tying in to a point of... because I didn’t have that attention, I used that as an opportunity to act up. It could’ve been a plea for help or attention, but just thinking about that now, for the first time in many years, I think I kind of sum it up to that. JN: All those things tie together in weird ways, when you look back at them all. I’m sure you weren’t a “bad kid.”

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LT: Not at all. No, I wasn’t bad, I was just bad by behavioral standards. “Oh, you’re not listening, so you’re a bad kid.” When I wasn’t in school, what was I doing? I was staying out of trouble. I didn’t like going outside at a certain point—there were drugs out there. I knew not to stay around drugs. I didn’t stay around drug dealers. I was a pretty good kid, I was just mischievous. I was like any other kid, “Okay, what happens if I say no? Let’s see what happens.”

JN: You’ve done some amazing stuff in your career, and you’re still young. You speak different languages, and you’ve been all over the world, but your background is not the narrative you’re using to go through your life. You just do your thing. I know some cats who are kind of like, “Look, this is where I came from. You don’t have to be like these other people. You can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” and that’s kind of like a calling card for them. And one thing I’ve always dug about you is that you’re where you came from, and that’s kind of your backstory, but that’s not the narrative that you lead your life by. LT: There was a period in my life where I was really angry in my early to mid20s. My mother passed away in 2000, and that was a big deal for me. My mom was really young when she passed away. She was 42, and I was 24 at the time, so I didn’t really handle it well, and I was really angry. I wasn’t angry to the point where I was getting arrested, or hurting people, I was just really... angsty. And at the time that happened, I’d gotten more in tune with my heritage, and I was questioning things, and learning things about African history, and African diaspora, and it was just a time when I was angry at white people, just angry all the time. And I had no reason to be! Because there were things I could do to better my situation, but at the time, it just felt better to me to blame somebody. And I was on that trip where, “I’m from the streets, I’ve seen some f’ed up stuff, and life is hard.” It wasn’t like, “I’m from the streets. I’m a thug. We were really poor, and I pulled myself up by the bootstraps. You really need to be that too.” But when I got older, I started traveling more, and I started seeing the world, and I was like, “Man! I’m actually pretty privileged!” My first experience with real poverty—I’m not talking the projects, because we’ve got running water, we’ve got a roof over our head, the government’s giving us money every month, and what have you. I went to Ocho Rios in Jamaica. I went to Montego Bay with my girlfriend when I was about 20, and it was the first time I’d seen real poverty, black poverty. These were shanty towns. It just blew me away. I think it was the first time that I got humbled, and I started to see that everybody’s pretty much the same. We’re all trying to live, and be with our families, and keep a roof over our head. That was actually my first glimpse of, “It’s not all that bad.” If you just paint your world as being Planet South Bronx, just your block, yeah, that’s pretty f’ed up at that time period, but you step outside and start to see the real world, and you start to travel, and you start to see other people live and be much happier with so much less... it just really changed my perspective. It allowed me to go from a position of just using my past as some kind of prop to stand on and have a soap box to then be like, “Yeah, that’s where I come from, and I’ll never forget that, but there’s so much more I can add to my story, add to my chapter.” I think it was even more prevalent when I went to South Korea. I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Thailand, I’ve been to China, to parts of Europe—London, Paris, Rome. I’ve traveled a decent amount—not a whole lot, but enough to say that I’ve traveled—and it wasn’t until I went to Korea where I actually had to live there and learn the language that I got really, really humble. It really humbled me. Because it’s one thing to visit somewhere and go, “I could live here.” Well, of course you could, if you lived there for three or four weeks, and you’re not working, and you’re on vacation! “I could live here!” But when you get down to it, could you really live there? Could you get up every morning and deal with traffic and people and trying to buy groceries and doing

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basic stuff when you don’t know the language? And office politics, what are people saying behind your back if you don’t know the language? They have certain images of Americans, and you don’t want to be the representation of what they view about Americans, or African-Americans to another extent. It was a completely different experience for me. I don’t know, there’s just so much else worth talking about. People are always surprised when they talk to me, they go, “Oh, you grew up in the Bronx? That sucked!” But I get where that comes from, and I usually get that “Oh!” from other African-Americans. It’s not something that is constantly on my mind. For me, it’s like, “Okay, what am I going to do this year? Where am I going to go next year? What am I trying to accomplish?” JN: That was a great answer. I remember when I was younger, I never really wanted to go to anywhere. “What do I want to go anywhere for? The pizza spot’s up the street. Why do I have to get on a plane?” And that kind of messed me up for a long time! [laughter] Did you ever go through anything like that, or were you always excited about traveling? LT: My mom was really, really active in our lives when we were children, and I don’t give her enough credit. My mom was very active in what we were exposed to, as best as she could. We were on welfare and she had two jobs on the low light. She was getting it! My mom was really about the hustle, and she used to take us to the... I don’t know if you’re familiar with any programs in New York City. There was a program way back in the day called “The Fresh Air Fund.” Do you remember the Fresh Air Fund? JN: No, but I’m sure there’s something like it in Philly. What was it about? LT: I’m pretty sure there is. The Fresh Air Fund was basically a two-weeks-long summer camp. I’m not talking about a daycare where you’d go to a community center, and you had some kids from the projects look after you, and you’d go to the local public swimming pool and stuff like that, I’m talking about real daycare. I was 10, 9, 8 during this time period, and my mother used to enroll me and my brother and my baby sister— I think my baby brother wasn’t born yet—and we used to get on this big bus and drive way up north. It had to be Connecticut or somewhere, but it had heavy, deep woods. There were giant cabins with different daycares from different cities—huge groups of kids. And our counselors

A billboard advertising Black Dynamite. LeSean assembles his penciled sketches digitally, then digitally inks the piece. The main figure is inked and colored on a separate layer than the background. Black Dynamite © Black Dynamite, LLC

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The Right Way, The Wrong Way, and The

OrdWay ! Challengers of the Collaboration by Jerry Ordway

n this issue, I will go into detail about working with a collaborator on a comic, and the give and take necessary to accommodate each person’s vision of the story. In this instance, I was asked by Dan DiDio, one of the head honchos at DC Comics, to co-write and draw a “New 52” reintroduction of the classic DC comic Challengers of the Unknown with him. Dan knew I was a big fan of the Jack Kirby’s Challengers, but did not want a “retro” comic book here. This would be a new origin and setting for the existing characters.

We started by having a few conference calls with the editor, Wil Moss, where Dan outlined his basic premise of mixing the team’s origin in with Nanda Parbat, a mysterious land in the Himalayan mountains. This brought to mind James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon, and the great movie version directed by Frank Capra. (I later took the DVD and made some screen captures of the settings and the palace for visual reference.) By the end of the call, we had mapped out the five-issue story to our satisfaction, and I began writing longhand notes before typing my draft of the first-issue plot. Somewhere after the first issue was plotted, I was informed that editorial had cut the story to three issues for scheduling reasons. This forced us to re-think our pacing, and ultimately forced storytelling restrictions on me as the penciller. This, along with other editorial edicts often Jerry’s handwritten plot notes. happen in the course of any project, and you need to be flexible, and think on your feet to make the best of things. Part of being a professional is to do your best in any situation, and not to abandon a project when you don’t get your own way. Of course everyone has their own threshold for just how much they can take. I make no judgments.

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Jerry’s copy of Fairburn Faces & Heads: Ethnic & Character Types, part of the Fairburn System. Fairburn System © Fairburn Publications Ltd.

After this we went back and forth, finetuning story elements, until I felt prepared to start working up breakdowns for the first three pages of continuity. The story would hit the ground running, with the characters and backstory filled in before their plane clips the mountain on page 3. It’s very tight, and I had a big cast to establish. When I first start any assignment, I try to gather visual reference, especially character reference. I often go to a set of books I have called the Fairburn System and choose a set of model faces for a given character to remain consistent over the course of the project, and keep the art readable to the buyer. You don’t want confusion as to which character is talking on a page. It helps the reader. For Challengers I tried to match the Kirby visuals with distinctive reference. It’s often simple to take a TV series and scan through episodes, grabbing screen captures of an actress or actor from different angles. I can then combine as many heads of that person as will fit on a sheet of printer paper, and I have a sort of reference guide for June or Red or any of the Challengers. I don’t use these for likenesses, as direct models, just as a “type” to keep each character consistent. I recommend it as a practice, so long as the reader doesn’t have a moment where they spot Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood in your comic! That would take them out of the reading experience, I believe.

Jerry gathered still shots of actor Mike Mazurki, who was usually cast as a thug or gangster, as photo reference for the Challengers’ Rocky. photos © respective owner(s)

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