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I would never have been able to attempt a project this large without the strong support of my family.

I would like to thank Mum and Paps for inspiring me to work hard and work well.

I would like to thank my wife Karen for her courage to see my dreams through to the end.

I would like to thank my brother Robert and all of my brothers interviewed in this book—you all continue to inspire me.

Finally, I would like to thank my kids at the Savannah College of Art and Design and Indiana University— Keep telling your stories.

Edited by

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KAREN HANKALA

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MARK KNEECE

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Design Assistance by TRISHA UTTENREITHER COPYRIGHT © 2002

BY

TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614

Cover Copyrights: Dastardly Villain art ©2012 Crazy Magazine Titan ©2012 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Tellos ©2012 Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo Xenozoic Tales ©2012 Mark Schultz Bruce Wayne TM & ©2012 DC Comics Hellboy TM & ©2012 Mike Mignola Thor, Black Widow and Daredevil ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. Big Man ©2012 Rubber Blanket Press Trevor Faith ©2012 Chris Moeller Piece of Wood ©2012 Byron Preiss Visual Publications X-FilesTM ©2012 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation See You In Hell, Blind Boy ©2012 George Pratt The Spirit TM & ©2012 Will Eisner

All characters and artowrk reproduced here are ™ & ©2012 their respective owners, and are shown for historical and journalistic purposes only.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in Canada isbn 978-1-893905-14-6 First Printing

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Chapter One

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D AV I D M A Z Z U C C H E L L I Chapter Ten

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“Where do you get your ideas? What kind of paper do you use?

What do you ink your pages with? Is it a pen? A brush? Do you use photographs? How long does it take you to do a panel?” Familiar questions to most comics creators. But they’re all really just one question: “How do you do what you do?”

And in the eyes of some, the ones who would love to draw comics for a living, the unspoken, but more crucial—“How do I get to do what you do?”

Durwin Talon knows the value of hard information. As a Professor of Sequential Art he’s helped hundreds of students improve by imparting information that may seem dry and overly technical to the layman (pronounced lame-one if referring to

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the bored student in the back of the room who can’t understand why he/she needs to

learn perspective, color theory, anatomy, etc.). He also knows that great comics aren’t

reducible to formula and that inspiration owes as much to happy accidents as it does to

training. (I’m reminded of the joke about the guy who prays every night that he’ll

win the lottery and after years finally berates God, “Why, Lord, why have you never let me win?!” And God answers, “Meet me half way—buy a ticket!”)

And so here we have Panel Discussions in which Professor Talon asks

“the” question of a group of fellow comics professionals. Only—he’s sly about it. He

doesn’t gather us all around a table where consensus might be reached, but gets us off

on our own as efficiently as the wolf separates the unwary sheep from the pack. But

that’s not really a fair analogy—Durwin has a good soul and means no one harm, least of all those of us here representing the professional community. No, a better way to

put it might be to say that we are all eye-witnesses to an amazing event who’ve been secluded from one another and asked to describe our impressions. There are many dis-

crepancies. You may wonder if one or two of these people might not have been in an altered state when the wonderful event took place. Still, every one of these witnesses is sincere and, hey, it’s not as if there isn’t some general agreement. It’s just when you come to those fine points that the thing starts to grow hair. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

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But isn’t God also in the details?

Scott Hampton, April 2002 Chapel Hill, NC

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M O N S T R O U S M U TAT I O N I S F I N A L LY C O M P L E T E D !

M AY B E E V E N I C A N ’ T S AV E H I M N O W ! ”

– Batman dialogue, written by Frank Robbins D E T E C T I V E

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# 4 0 2

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

There was a corner store in my

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Figure i: Cover to Detective Comics #402 written by Frank Robbins, with art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano.

neighborhood that supplied all the

things any good Canadian boy needed to grow up with. There, I bought my

flavored potato chips, Aero bars and hockey cards with money made from cutting grass. But just past the postcards and tacky maple leaf adorned souvenirs, I

made the discovery that would forever change my life—a spinning wire rack stocked with all types of comic books.

I was awed at the sight

of these bright gods who could fly, heroes

falling in love with women from other

dimensions and mutants who fought to protect the earth. I still remember the first cover that grabbed my attention.

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Introduction

“KIRK’S

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It showed the Batman, bedraggled and beaten, but still fighting

with—and this was the part that I had a hard time wrapping my 6-year-old mind

around—a man who had somehow mutated into a giant bat! Complete with hair and wings! I thought to myself, this is not like anything I’ve ever seen on television! I quickly plunked down 15¢ and purchased my first comic.

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Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the story was well-crafted. It told the story of Kirk Langstrom’s profound tragedy: a man whose quest for knowledge backfired and now he was literally turning into a giant bat. Bruce Wayne, a man who only dressed up as a bat, heroically tried to save the mutating creature. The book held my feverish little mind at bay until I simply ran out of pages. Not being able to find out what happened in the next issue (extra cash was hard to come by until snow shoveling season), I simply re-read the book continually making up my own conclusions.

I read the book so many times that I could virtually describe every scene backwards and forwards, complete with sound effects. I especially remember the scene where the Caped Crusader was holding onto Man-Bat’s legs for dear life as ManBat flew crazily, high above the Batcave ceiling. I remember a particularly nasty bank that broke Batman’s grip of the creature and sent him falling headfirst into the ground.

My head still rings thinking about how anyone could survive such a nasty fall.

My copy of Batman Detective Comics #472 eventually got lost, traded, or burned in a freakish ‘playing with matches’ incident (a long story). I continued on with my life, stopped reading comics, went through college, got married, started a career, picked up reading comics comics again, and then started going to conventions.

I was at San Diego Comic Convention one year when I realized I longed to read the first comic I ever bought. I started hanging out at the tables who specialized in silver age comics and many a dealer would listen to me, eyes glazed over, as I informed them about my quest: “I’m looking for a Batman comic that had Man-Bat in it, and Man-Bat found his way into the Batcave, and there was this part where Batman was holding onto his legs, and then he got slammed into a wall…” For two years, no luck, until this one dealer said “You know, that sounds like a Neal Adams/Dick Giordano issue, right… here.” And he handed my long lost comic book back to me (which is worth considerable more than 15¢ these days). I tore through the plastic bag to re-read the story.

Funny, when I revisited the comic, I didn’t remember all of the word balloons, caption boxes, sound effects or panel breakdowns I must have read as a child.

What I remember, in my mind’s eye, was a fluid story—much like a movie. The cliffhanger ending still drove me crazy, even when I knew it was going to happen. From my childhood, I remember these characters interacting, breathing, full of life—like a world beyond my wardrobe.

The comic seemed static compared to my memories of the story.

My young mind must have filled in all of the gaps between the panels and somehow, the story became real. My memories of this Batman story were fluid as my memories of my first experience driving a car (which should be turned into a comic book story, let me tell you).

This illustrates the power of good comic book storytelling. To create a good piece of sequential art, be it a comic book or a graphic novel, you have to be more than just an excellent illustrator or writer. You have to be able to find a way to completely immerse the readers into the story’s reality and let the story become as vivid 6

I as a memory. Successful comics are the complete synthesis of art and writing, and are designed to best intrigue and involve the viewer.

Successful storytelling is best served by solid design, since a story must find a vehicle to clearly communicate with the reader. Of course, there are many graphic devices necessary to a comic book that also have the potential to distract the reader from the story: everything from word balloons to the physical turning of the pages. If the art is not intriguing and if the story makes no sense, then the reader will most likely put the book down and walk away.

When these devices are successfully added to a comic book, they will more than likely never be remembered. Which is why when I recall the Man-Bat story, I can recite scenes like an avid movie goer, though I don’t remember the word balloon placement or panel layouts. Yet all of these devices exist within the comic—they must in order for the story to be told.

The analogy that comic books are simply movies on paper is often heard. Both mediums rely on many of the same techniques to tell a story as well as the same vocabulary to describe these techniques. There are so many similarities between the two art forms that it is no fluke many practitioners of comics are avid movie goers and also the harshest critics of cinematic technique. Despite the similarities between the two, few movies make great comic book adaptations and even fewer comics turn into great movies. As similar as the two art forms are, they are also miles apart.

These differences make comic book storytelling a unique and powerful medium. Sequential art, or comic books, relies on the participant to make it successful. This interaction with the audience is what an artist strives to achieve or the reader will lose interest. Razzle dazzle pyrotechnics and scantily clad heroes are not enough to engage a reader.

Great comics means great stories.

Storytelling is the great equalizer in comics. Clear, concise direction of action, placement of text boxes or consistency with colors can make or break a comic book. It cannot make a weak storyline or bad artwork better, but it can simplify or elevate the experience of reading the work. If the art and story are solid, then the project gains a higher level of excellence raw talent alone couldn’t achieve.

Communication and story immersion are the ideas that can be driven home with good storytelling. Sequential artists strive to design a story so absorbing that the reader cannot tear themselves away from it. To achieve this, the artist makes sure the viewer’s attention is directed towards the story as a whole and not insignificant points, which enables the viewer to remember the entire forest and not just a few impressive looking trees.

It starts with an idea, but ends up as complete as a movie—a movie on paper. This book investigates all of the design considerations needed to create a finished comic book. The solution to the problem is very simple: clear communication.

The goal is to communicate the story in the most effective way… and strong design will ensure enjoyability and memorability.

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Sequential artists are a rare breed. Unlike other professionals,

they like to share their knowledge in the hopes to make the art form stronger. There are a few universal rules to create good storytelling. But sequential art is a relatively uncharted yet vibrant field, so experience becomes the best teacher of many professionals in the field. This is one of the reasons comic book conventions exist: professionals travel far and wide to share their art and storytelling techniques with their fans and each other. Within the convention, this sharing of ideas and insights is called the Panel Discussion.

This book brings together fifteen renowned sequential artists and investigates their techniques, styles, procedures, and beliefs in the business of comic book storytelling. They are creators, painters, pencilers, inkers, colorists, writers and editors. Visual storytellers all, they are leaders of their profession and, most importantly, welcome the opportunity to share their insight into the complexity and power which is sequential art, comic book storytelling.

These creators are heads above their counterparts in the industry because they know how to make the words and pictures work together in such a way to communicate a clear story. When stories are easy to understand, the reader does not have to struggle and they can enjoy the worlds created before them.

No special skills should be required to read a comic book; anyone can enjoy them. But from the mechanics of turning pages to dealing with word balloons hovering above the characters, there are many forces that can throw the reader out of the world created within the confines of a comic. The reader is an active participant in the experience. And this is the cornerstone of successful storytelling.

Everyone involved with the creation of comic books uses his or her own personal styles to achieve successful storytelling. Though their methods differ, they all strive toward the same goal while maintaining their unique visions. I have had the distinct pleasure of seeing all of the industry greats interviewed in this book delve into the nuts and bolts of creating comics. All of these individuals are unique within the field in that they are great craftsmen as well as communicators. Having seen these creators expand my students’ horizons, I knew they would make the perfect resource for any student and lover of the artform. Mike Carlin, Randy Stradley, Mike Wieringo, Mark Schultz, Dick Giordano, Mike Mignola, Brian Stelfreeze, Scott Hampton, David Mazzucchelli, Chris Moeller, Walter Simonson, Mark Chiarello, John Van Fleet, George Pratt, and Will Eisner comprise the panel of this book. Their topic: design in sequential art storytelling.

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Designing pictures and words in such a way to continually entertain,

challenge and satisfy the reader is the hidden glue that binds all of the best in the business. The creators interviewed for this book understand this.

To create a comic book, the artist must design a story in such a way as to maximize the interaction with the reader. This means careful thought must be given throughout every step of the book’s creation; total immersion into the creator’s worlds depends on the design of all of the necessary graphic elements comics employ.

For sequential art stories to be effective there has to be an audience and the audience has to respond or interact with the story. If done correctly, all of the design fades away and the reader is left with something as powerful as a memory.

The different steps needed to create this kind of memorable story are highlighted in each chapter under the Focus Panels section. The topics dissected are as diverse as the storyteller’s section that precedes it including: concept, script, panel grids, line dynamic, spotting blacks, eye movement through words and acting, pacing, word balloon style, sound effects, lettering, focus and storytelling with color, digital storytelling and synthesis.

Every creator in this book has mastered all of the mentioned techniques needed to create sequential art. But some creators have unique and specialized ways to solve these design problems—and so the creator and their solutions serve as perfect examples to be analyzed. All of these solutions, when taken as a whole, solve the problem of storytelling… connecting with the reader throughout the entire experience of reading a comic book. Focus Panels concentrates on the basics of visually telling a story and the getting the basics right can be hard enough.

Fancy trappings and obscure goals can lose the audience. These creators keep the goal simple—to tell engaging stories clearly and effectively—and thus reach the widest audience possible. If a story can be told with the same unified voice— art with words and design—then clear communication of the story is not defined by language, it becomes boundless.

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Superman and all related characters © DC Comics

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A M A B L E T O S P O T T H E W E A K N E S S E S I N M Y O W N S T U F F. . .

THIS HELPS ME S P O T W E A K N E S S E S I N O T H E R P E O P L E ’ S W O R K .

– Mike Carlin C H A P T E R

Figure 1.1: From Adventures of Superman #453, edited by Mike Carlin.

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Mike Carlin went to the High School of Art and Design in New York, making full use

Carlin

of their cartooning and animation department. While there, he was selected for an intern-

ship at DC Comics. “It was awesome and, in a funny way, convinced me not to do comics,”

Carlin says, “not because DC was a hassle or disillusioning, but I was photocopying Jack

Kirby’s Kamandi pages… and Bernie Wrightson’s Swamp Thing pages. I’m a dedicated guy, but

I’m not stupid… I decided that I was going to have to try to make a living as a humorous

illustrator and give up on the superhero stuff. I don’t think I was wrong.”

Carlin then enrolled at the School of Visual Arts to study under Will Eisner

and Harvey Kurtzman. “Eisner gave me my first paying work in any kind of field that was not

just slavery; he paid me $1 a joke to write jokes for books he was doing for Scholastics.”

From joke writing, Carlin’s first paying comic work was with Marvel

Comics’ Crazy magazine. “Larry Hama [the editor of Crazy] leveled with me and told me

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he wasn’t crazy about my art… but he liked the jokes and he liked that I was able to get

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across my ideas in my limited drawings.”

After proving his reliability around the Marvel offices, Carlin became

Mark Gruenwald’s assistant. “They asked me to interview, though it never occurred to me to be an editor of anything,” recalls Carlin. After Marvel, he returned to DC Comics where he developed critical success as a writer and editor. Currently, he serves as executive editor for DC Comics. “When Will [Eisner] handed me my Eisner Award a couple of years ago

for the [Return of Superman] stuff, I just told him, ‘from now on, the rate is $2 a joke—because

now I’m an award-winning comic book creator.’ He got a kick out of that.” Though he has won numerous awards, Carlin still maintains that his greatest reward is his paycheck.

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To Carlin, editing is about using common sense. “The editor’s job is literally to

make the people I’m working with do their best work or to help them do their best work.

However we get there, whether it is a painful struggle or the smoothest thing in the world, I want to feel like my advice, my coaching, my badgering is making the actual book better than it would be from anybody else. I look at myself as a ring master because [editing a comic book] is kind of like a three ring circus where you’re trying to steer the audience’s eye toward the most important thing at the moment—that can sometimes be a word or it can sometimes be a picture.”

Superman and all related characters © DC Comics

“Editing is not something I wanted to do when I was a kid—I didn’t know what an editor was. I think I gravitated towards editing because I was good enough at a lot of things but not good enough at any one of them to actually make my living. I keep my hand in a lot of different areas... I call us editors ‘jerks of all trades.’ You need to have just enough knowledge to push along the guy who is really doing it, bring inspiration to the table, and not overshadow them at the same time. It really is not about what my accomplishment is as an editor.”

To be an effective editor, the essence of a story must be formed quickly.

The editor determines the story’s goals and the creative process that will make it reality— from developing a consistent look to assembling the creative team. Obviously, different sequential art projects require different editing processes.

“The first thing I try to do with a writer is agree on the goal of the project. If you’re writing an issue of Superman, the goal is different than if you’re doing Batman.

The goal is different on Superman even compared to other Superman work done in the past because of the way we try to evolve the stories together these days by having a lot of writers and artists actually cooperate with each other. So once we all agree on what that is, then the rest of our job is geared towards, ‘are we hitting our mark—are we hit-

Figure 1.2: Cover to Adventures of Superman #453 edited by Mike Carlin.

ting the goal?’”

The level of artistic freedom an editor gives an artist or writer depends on the subject matter and the story. “If you’re writing Superman, you’re not going to be given carte blanche because it’s somebody else’s reality that you’re playing with—it’s been somebody else’s for sixty years, and you are, hopefully, perpetuating and strengthening what that universe is all about. But something that’s creator-owned where an editor is there solely as an advisor—there’s tons of leeway and freedom.”

Carlin believes comic book writers enjoy less artistic freedom than movie or television writers, even with an established book such as Superman. “Comic book writers can’t do whatever they want. When we killed Superman, we had to get permission from way on high to make sure that was cool with them. And we had to make sure that we had our punchline explained so that they knew what we were getting into and how we were getting out of it before we even started.” Limiting story elements is not

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necessarily a liability to the creative process, either. “As long as everybody is on the same page, you can do some amazing things, even within the constraints. Personally, I find putting some limitations on a project is the best way to make the project get stronger because solving problems is really what storytelling is about: making stuff as clear and as powerful as possible without muddying the water.”

The way a writer creates a story concept for DC varies as well. “In the case of the Superman stuff, we got fifteen people in a room every year and hashed out what we all think will be a good idea for a path. There’s not one story in the Superman books that I edited that I thought of, but I definitely was the guy who stopped some stoSuperman and all related characters © DC Comics

ries from happening, or maybe enhanced some stories by pushing the concepts or ideas.

To me, it’s very important that the story come from a creative team.” Sometimes, stories are hatched in unorthodox ways. “At times, it would be the artist who came up with an idea, and that is a little unusual in this kind of a collaboration. We even had a couple of stories that the colorist generated: Superman Red, Superman Blue. Glenn Whitmore, the colorist on Superman for over ten years, didn’t come up with any part of the actual story itself, and frankly, I believe he mentioned it as a joke, that the story be kind of about the colors. But it definitely, for whatever reason, inspired the guys in the room that day and we had a good concept of making it into the book. We can all argue whether or not the execution paid off, but that can happen to any story. It can work, or it can’t work.”

On a creator-owned project, the writer usually collaborates with an artist and they come up with the story concept. In this case, Carlin is brought in after the concept is created and is “literally the world’s first reader of this comic book. I will point out things that slow me down or steer me wrong; I raise questions. I’m really there just as a sounding board and maybe as an advocate in the office for the series. But I have less at stake there on behalf of the company, so I really do try to let it be the work that the creators intend it to be. You set your gauge at a different point depending what you’re doing.”

A title that has continual story arcs and requires consistency through

Figure 1.3: Cover to Death of Superman, edited by Mike Carlin.

many issues, such as Superman, has an even more complex creation process. “Part of the Superman meetings would be to have a chart on the wall which had little squares for every single issue for the year—you would have 52 squares up on the wall. We would gauge, by our guts, how long we felt [a story arc] should go… and what particular issues needed to have a certain point emphasized. Some of that was based on, literally, who came up with the idea—whoever thought of it should get the privilege and pressure of executing it. But we would not leave that meeting without fifty-two boxes filled in at least. Sometimes we would go a little further and then when we come back next year, revise the leftover boxes to match wherever we were at that point.”

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The scripts pencilers use to break down a story are either a full script with

dialogue or a simple plot form. Carlin uses both types of scripts. “There are people who are better at doing full scripts than plots. The writer’s script is not literally what the world sees, it’s still the penciler’s, the inker’s, and even the letterer’s work that the world will see… and ultimately judge. I never thought about it, but that might be one of the reasons why stuff like Jack Kirby’s contribution to what Stan Lee was doing really put it over the top.” The type of script used changes from comic to comic. “Ultimately that’s just worked out between the editors and writers and artists. At DC they do full scripts and vice versa depending on the artist and just the needs of the job that they’re working on.

So it really does kind of go all over the mat now.”

When Carlin worked on Superman, plot form was the method of choice. “We did a plot form because it was easier to make revisions. It was easier for me to write in an instruction to an artist: make sure this guy has a mustache or don’t forget that he has to be wearing big shoes to leave the right kind of footprints for the next Figure 1.4: Captain Contradiction vs. the Evil Gainsayer, from Mike Carlin’s Page O’ Stuff, a regular feature for Crazy magazine.

story,” Carlin explains. “The other reason we used plots was because we had a lot of artists on Superman who would be part of coming up with the ideas and also were fairly strong storytellers themselves (guys like Jerry Ordway and Dan Jurgens). So, it was natural to

Metal Men and all related characters © DC Comics

leave some of that pacing up to the artists. That to me is the difference between a full script and a plot: it is more about the pacing, not about literally the story itself. I think that clearly the writer is still making up the story, but if the artist is deciding where closeups go and where page breaks come to some degree, I think that they are much more a part of directing the story that way.”

“I also personally feel it is a truer collaboration…to have the writer then go back in based on the expressions and scenarios that the penciler put in and play off of what drama has maybe even altered or changed. That’s not everybody’s favorite way to do it, but I personally like that because I do think that whether we like it or not, it is a collaboration and we should actually play to the strengths that come from that.

The editor always plays to whatever strengths are available within the collaborative team. If the artist is excellent, for example, it may be easier to change the script to match the artwork. “Without meaning to put particular pressure on any individual creator or not, I do think that there are guys who will just be better at certain things than others. I mean Alan Moore writing a full script is definitely still coming through on the page [once it is penciled]. But he is definitely an unusual creator in that respect. It is not what every other Tom, Dick and Harry is able to achieve.”

Figure 1.5: Metal Men #2, written by Mike Carlin. A good editor is well versed in all aspects of sequential art.

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When the final artwork has been turned in, there are still many graphic elements

editors have to tweak to finish the comic book. Choosing the proper pagination, word balloon placement, lettering—these elements can unify the entire storytelling experience and sometimes it falls upon the editor to choose wisely. “Good lettering is a little like good background music for movies—I think it should not draw attention to itself. We’re trying to create a little reality here, and all these wisps of smoke that come out of people’s mouths Metal Men and all related characters © DC Comics

don’t ‘exist.’ So you want people to kind of look through balloons and still see the world behind it. If the lettering is a little too flamboyant, I think it draws away from the attention on the characters and the art inside the panel.”

Part of the editor’s job is to adhere to the style dictated by the story and assemble the perfect team of creative artists that complement each other’s work: pencilers, inkers, letterers, colorists and designers.

“I do think that there are certain letterers whose style goes better with certain pencilers or inkers, and an editor should have an opinion about that… if you have heavy lettering on [delicate] artwork, it really will fight the art.”

Typography in comics also applies to sound effects—graphic elements

(Left-hand page) Figure 1.6: An example of an effective use of typography aiding in storytelling. Sound effects are used to define sounds but they also lead the eye from panel to panel.

Word balloons are also used to move the reader’s eye to the appropriate panel. Notice the overlapping of balloons on panels two to three to help steer the eye down that right side.

that do more than simply show the sound an object is supposed to make. The location, size, style and placement of the effect is just as crucial as with word balloons. “Obviously it is important to put the sound effects in the panel near the thing that’s theoretically causing the sound,” says Carlin.

The size of the effects relate to the placement and imagined volume of the objects as they lead the eye to the next panel (Figure 1.6). The ticka tak effect emitted from the controller in the second panel, leads the eye toward the first word balloon

(Right-hand page) Figure 1.7: An example of the difficulties an editor can face placing word balloons on a page. Too many characters, too much dialogue and complicated page layouts can confuse the reader.

on the top of the third panel. Though a small sound effect, it helps to bring attention to the wrist control. This counters nicely with the robot busting through the room defined by the Kraka-THOOM! The type style representing the special effect adds to the oddity of the machine it represents. “I thought if the oooloo thing had more curve or a bouncy line… it would make it a little more ethereal in a weird way.”

Word balloons are a crucial element in storytelling and incorrect balloon placement is a personal pet peeve of Carlin’s. “There’s an element of common sense that goes into ballooning, I can’t understand when people don’t see it, and it gets me rankled a little bit. Maybe it’s not common sense. Maybe it is a language that needs to be 14

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taught like any other language. I learned balloon placement by osmosis: from reading comics and realizing that when I was reading a comic with horrible balloon placements the balloon could have easily been moved over here and made the story very clear.”

Referring to following page (Figure 1.7), however, Carlin believes “…that, unfortunately, there are places where I failed the ballooning test because there are just so many characters—and they’re all such varied personalities. You do want to have them all comment all throughout the story, but that caused a couple of places where I think it was a little confusing.”

Narrative flow is always the prime concern when laying out a page— typography and balloon placement can take the story only so far. The transitions from the first ray gun in the sixth panel to the ray gun in the seventh panel was problematic.

“I think this is not good ballooning because you skip—or you could skip the seventh panel very easily. Now, it is not as essential to the story, so we may have just thought it was okay if you did skip it—you could go right to him firing it in the last panel. But if I was doing this again, I might have raised the ZZT part from panel 6 up next to the KLIK in panel 7 and have it overlap as well.”

Panel shapes and page layouts are crucial if a reader is going to understand the story. “I tend to prefer straight-panel, grid-shaped storytelling to giant overlapFigure 1.8: (top) For Adventures of Superman #453, Mike Carlin penciled roughs directly on the board for Jerry Ordway to finish and ink. (Bottom) The completed page.

ping panels and things like that,” says Carlin. “I do think that as an industry, we manage to confuse some potential readers by being a little too creative. This sounds really creepy and bad, but I definitely think that we’re not really playing fair—reading a comic is like reading another language to a lot of people. They’re used to reading only words or seeing the pictures move. There is a logic in it to all of us, but frankly, we’re steeped in it. We’re specialists. I was very happy when Watchmen came out and proved that you could do a

Superman and all related characters © DC Comics

story with a nine-panel grid and have the whole world understand it. I think that was really major, especially at the time.”

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As an editor, Carlin relies on his extensive sequential art background

to get his point across. Even with the simplest of forms, good storytelling can still be communicated. Though many artists start off comics pages with roughs or thumbnails—Carlin never shies away from these duties as well. “I didn’t need to do that with any of the guys on Superman, except if Ordway or Kerry Gammill were a little behind schedule. Then I would do stuff just to help and get it done. But not because they couldn’t do it or they would do a poor job, or whatever. I’d have created roughs with some newer guys—I have literally done thumbnail guides for issues of Hawk and Dove from beginning to end—stuff like that. I have done it; I’m not against doing it. I think I do understand the drama that we’re going for and I think I have a good sense of that kind of pacing, which, because of my limitations as an artist, I don’t get to use often. ”For Adventures of Superman #453, Mike 15

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Carlin penciled roughs directly on the bristol board for Jerry Ordway to tighten with pencils to eventually ink. In page 7 of The Adventures of Superman #453, Superman lies on the asteroid, running out of oxygen (Figure 1.8). The way the panel borders are drawn bring us in and out of a dream sequence. Straight borders show reality while the wavy borders create fantasy. The pacing becomes key to transition to his dream sequence.

“Pacing this sequence was very simple to me. First introduce a big establishment of the predicament, then a close acknowledgment of the person who was in peril… then a very basic… paced… zoom in on something that musta been important at the time to the story.”

But all of the elements were there to set up the elaborate dream sequence in later pages. “This page served all elements of basic storytelling. Place.

People. And drama. In one page.”

When we are ready to delve into Superman’s guilt, design and shot selection become crucial to the storytelling as seen in page 11 (Figure 1.9). “It was mostly in tight shots on all three of Superman’s personas [at the time]. It was him being haunted by trying to be too much… Clark Kent, Superman and then, Gangbuster! It was too much for him—as two personas would be too much for most of us—and that was the effect I wanted

Figure 1.9: (top) Once characteristics are assigned to a scene, narrative can be told easily. Wavy borders define Superman’s dream state, while straight borders define Superman in real-world perils. Only panel 4 happens in real-time making snapping out of his “Phantoms” only for the briefest of moments.

(Bottom) The completed page.

in as simple a way as possible. It really is just basic simple panel counts and layouts here.

“There is a beat in the second tier that focuses on the real Superman… with two blank areas next to him… which we filled with balloons. This was to make him feel isolated and surrounded by the panels all around him!”

Panels often serve a story like beats serve a song—the larger the beat the grander the action, the smaller the beat, the quicker the action. Even in rough form, these decisions are deliberate and must serve the story. These small panels create a visu-

Superman and all related characters © DC Comics

al rhythm that varies only when the notes change, in this case by infusing different shaped panels, or beats, into the story.

“We then cut to his imagined struggle in wide-shot to drive home his mental battle… before ending on him looking lost.”

All early stages in the creation of a comic book story are important. A tight plot will create tighter writing. Clear but rough roughs can produce beautifully rendered visuals. But for the writing, penciling, inking, lettering and coloring to come together, a clear foundation must be created.

Any process begins with a clear and brilliant idea—and creating comics is indeed a process. Without this brilliance to keep all of the stages focused, the end result can wander away from the idea. How many stories are created with beautiful art propping up a weak story? Or how many brilliant stories are destroyed by art that fails to maximize the moments and throws the readers out of the story? Comics stories are about total immersion. You can tell a clear story with words and stick figures. You can tell a detailed story when you elaborate on these good ideas. This is why the business of creating comics can be both challenging and rewarding.

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Continuity between issues is a major challenge to any comic book and Superman’s

varied story arcs are complex and difficult to keep under control. “We didn’t set out to keep continuity as much as people might think. We just wanted to make sure that from one week to the next, we weren’t contradicting ourselves. With just two books it was fairly easy to make sure that everything matched.” But with the growing popularity of Superman, the Superman titles grew as fast. “With more and more issues needed to tell a story, continuity became a monster that got out of control and, at the same time, it is a monster to me that is a necessary evil. Whether we like it or not, continuity is valued in comics, in superhero comics anyway. And stuff that’s not confusing or contradictory is a desire. So, it was definitely a hassle and harder, but when we had a victory, it was way more worth it because we had the biggest victory you can have.”

Carlin says his ability to look at each job’s individual challenges, no matter how many parts contained in the job, has kept editing exciting and interesting for over twenty years. “Every single issue, every single panel, every single word balloon, every single millimeter of a comic book is its own new problem. And some of them are problems that you’ve dealt with once or twice before or are similar to things you’ve done

Figure 1.10: In the last panel, the audience gets a glimpse of Cyborg’s true nature.

before, but every inch of a comic needs to be examined.”

Putting together a story line that runs through several issues is no easy trick and The Death of Superman and The Reign of the Supermen books were no exceptions for

Superman and all related characters © DC Comics

Carlin. The most important problem the editors had to deal with was hiding plot elements from the public. “The Reign of the Supermen plot lines were the best kept secret of anything that had been done in the mainstream during the last fifteen years of comics.

We have to solicit orders ahead of time and the fans are seeking advance info on the internet. Sometimes the talent was excited about what they knew and they talked. So we worded our solicitation copy very carefully—solicitations have a tendency to hurt the enjoyment of reading a story. This is an element of storytelling that nobody even thinks about… it’s like a movie trailer that tells you the whole story. So it’s good to avoid that happening if you can. At the same time, you have to play fair because the retailer is basing his orders on what you say will be going on.”

Despite the public’s attempts at finding out about the Superman plot, DC managed to hide three major story elements from The Reign of the Supermen that succeeded in surprising the reading public. “We managed to surprise people with the four new Superman comics; we kept the books’ visuals under lock and key for a good long time and we hid the fact that the Cyborg was going to turn out to be the big bad guy of the story. That was very important; the fact that it was a surprise, made it work better,” explains Carlin.

“This is really the first scene where you get to see the Cyborg’s true

Figure 1.11: Soon after, Cyborg finds the Eradicator, one of the four new Supermen. He morphs his body into a laser…

colors (Figure 1.10). Panel 5 is a powerful shot of Cyborg, this new bad guy—he’s just basically a black skull.” Though editors do not necessarily write or draw the stories, they 17

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do direct the story arc. They can adjust concepts or tweak words or art to get the maximum effect. Or the minimum effect. Setting up just how tense tensions can or should be is also a task of the editor.

“Cyborg meets the Eradicator, who is definitely the cold fish of the new Supermen—the most neutral… and monotone as far as personality goes. It was important to have the big bad guy really stand out against the more mundane Eradicator character. But just watching the Cyborg turn his abilities against one of his own was very important… we see him getting his weapon ready for the big blast…” (Figure 1.11) The blast itself is the pivot for the story arc—the Cyborg Superman turns on his own. When he does turn on the Eradicator, it happens in a large splash panel that kicks off one of the defining moments in the DC Universe (Figure 1.12). “I think the big blast is given the appropriate amount of power. Then, it really is just a question of setting off those explosive globes while throwing in the close-up here or there of the humanity that was being dealt a blow. You know, somebody’s talking on the phone—then the next instant they’re totally gone—it is kind of horrifying in its way. It really is just about the level of destruction and how big it got starting from a simple good guy/bad guy scene to a twopage spread that is literally still affecting the DC Universe right now.” (Figure 1.13) Carlin feels he didn’t need to influence the layout of the devastation

Figure 1.12: … and turns on the Eradicator.

The explosive globes detonate…

sequence at all. One of the more important duties an editor can have is to let things hap-

Superman and all related characters © DC Comics

pen naturally. “I guess, unfortunately, I do rely on gut instinct a lot, and that’s why I’m me. It just seems like the sensible way to do it. If the art comes in and it is good, why mess with it?

That sounds pretty lame, I feel like maybe I should think about my job more than I do, but if it makes sense and it is clear, then that’s the way it is supposed to be.”

An editor should surround himself with people whose work he likes and trusts, Carlin says. “Everybody who I hired, except for a random fill-in guy here or there, I really did like what they did and trusted what they did. And I think there are guys who could maybe have done a slightly more powerful job every now and then, but at the same time, if somebody is giving you 90% of a good job, why bust their chops about it? Let it be some of their Figure 1.13: … and destroy Coast City and its 7 million inhabitants. From this point on, the lines are drawn for the rest of the series.

personality that steers it. It was never about ‘what do I get out of it?’ I got a salary and I got a lot of attention. It was not sought after attention, but it definitely was enough to keep me happy. I was on Entertainment Tonight 13 times. Or so the publicity person tells me. And I will always be introduced to people as the guy who killed Superman. I think that’s cool.”

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To Carlin, sequential art appeals to people because “they can dig it

when it is done well, whether you’re the king of England or the king of Brooklyn. I really do think that’s some of the appeal of it: you don’t have to know anything to get it, if it is done well, and you can learn something concrete or ethereal if you choose to. I do think that… people respond to simpler artwork, simple comic strips or whatever. People do comics… because they love it. Some people have made very amazing livings doing comics, but that’s not the norm. Most people spend their life making a decent living, nothing amazing, maybe even struggling. Nobody got into comics to make a million.”

The idea that “anybody can do comics” appeals to Carlin. Though he insists he can’t make a living through his own artwork, Carlin still enjoys drawing. He created and produced Ratman 2000, his own creator-owned story. “When I write something, like Metal Men or the Flintstones, I totally hand it over and the artist and editor are in charge. With something like Ratman—which is a personal, fun thing—I can do whatever I want. I worked on it with Joe Calchi, an old friend from high school and we had a hoot doing it. That’s all it is meant to be and if anybody else gets a kick out of it, then hooray for them, but I’m certainly not paying any bills off of it.”

As an editor, Carlin realizes certain types of artwork are appropriate for specific stories. “I would not buy art like mine for Superman. I love Don Martin’s artwork, Figure 1.14: Ratman 2000. Though Carlin edits comic books for a living, he still enjoys all aspects of creation. Ratman is a clear example of this love and desire to create comics.

but I couldn’t use him on Superman. There’s a right place for everything.” Though the production values of Ratman can be considered bare-bones, this is not the point to creating the character.

“We have high tech coloring and fancy painted things but the concept of doing a sequence of drawings to get across an idea means you can do stick figures: it’s

Ratman and all related characters © Mike Carlin

about getting across ideas. It’s interesting to me that movies and comic strips kind of evolved around the same time; I think that one thing did lead to another. Everybody talks about how cave drawings had a sequential theme to them and hieroglyphics certainly told a story. Sequential art has been around for a long time.

“I think that the art in Ratman does its job—it gets the story across. And I do think that my draftsmanship is good enough but I certainly wouldn’t ask a lot of people for money for it.”

In its purest form, sequential art is a powerful medium. Carlin feels it is a communication art form. “Whether any of us like it or not, comic creation is a commercial medium, commercial art. It is not fine art. We can strive for finer art. We can strive for things to do well and break barriers and all that kind of stuff, but at the same time, if it is not paying somebody’s rent or mortgage, it is not going to last very long because why shouldn’t guys who write and draw comics make a living?”

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Figure 1.15: The plot synopsis for one of the most eagerly anticipated stories in the DC Universe can be read just in the title: The Return of Superman, as edited by Mike Carlin.

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Character motivations, themes and other plot devices have a better chance

of being interpreted correctly by the reader if their basic storytelling environment is set up correctly. Storytelling parameters are timeless and limitless. Worlds and universes can be created within the pages of comic books if the storyteller can clearly define the set-

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ting. No matter how bizarre these imaginary worlds may be, a clear vision must be created to ascertain how plot elements can be layered to create the story.

Writers and artists should collaborate in a joint effort to create a comic book and if the writer and the artist are the same person, the plot still must be focused. Because the project starts with the written word, its success is measured by the quality of those words. Writers and editors are the first to tackle the concept of the story and a comic book cannot be good if this foundation is not solid.

A successful plot is a concept that often relies on simplicity. It then becomes further developed and refined by the hands involved in the project—not more complicated.

To create a plot for superhero/adventure comics, Mike Carlin states that brevity is key: “for me, the best concepts and plots can be boiled down to a sentence or two! If it takes more than that it will be hard to get across! Even if a story is told in a complicated way—ie: the movie Memento—it should be able to be summed up

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in a sentence or two: A man with amnesia struggles to solve the mystery of his predicament. Backwards.

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“When dealing with ongoing continuities—soap operas, comics, the B U T

Simpsons—the same rule applies. What matters to the characters you know in one sentence… all the rest is technique and virtuosity!”

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There is a theory in movies that to create a good concept, character development is key. In comics, where fans fall in love with the characters they follow

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favorite character?

Mike Carlin answers: “It can… but it can also confirm what a

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personal through the character and his/her reactions/actions.”

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changing if that’s the point of a story. Or the character can change and the world not change if that’s the point... It’s not about change to me; it’s about pertinence! Does what’s happening in a story pertain to a reader/viewer?”

Developing a good, simple plot is complicated. Having the ability to play god with your creation is an awesome power, but with power comes responsibility and in comics, that means responsibilities to the readers. Stories shouldn’t be created to showcase a character in a shallow, safe way; there should be growth and consequence, life and death, and triumph of the human spirit—all of the elements of the greatest stories ever told.

“It is about all of the above in varying degrees every single time! There is no one element we seek! The best stories cover all the bases... though good ones can cover a couple of elements already mentioned!

“Idea alone is not enough, but combined with point of view, technique, character, etc… a good idea becomes a brilliant read!”

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Figure 2.1: Titan from the twelve-issue Will to Power.

YOU’RE G O I N G T O TA K E T H E T I M E T O D O I T, TA K E T H E T I M E T O G E T I T R I G H T.

Stradley

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– Randy Stradley C H A P T E R

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Long before his successful career in the comic book industry, Randy Stradley

had a strong interest in film making. However, he felt the creative process involved in movie-making was too crazy and lacked the control that sequential art offered. “I wanted to tell stories, wanted to do it visually, and I had a background in film. I went to a local art museum film school in Portland, Oregon. The more I got into it the more I realized there can be literally hundreds of other people involved. Comics are more hands-on, so more of your original vision makes it to the page. I guess if I could draw, even more of it would.” In the summer of 1995, Mike Richardson—who owned several comic book

stores and a restaurant—decided the time was right to start a comic book publishing company. He asked Stradley to join and together they created Dark Horse Comics. At its inception, the third largest publishing company in the industry was managed out of a

comic shop in Beaverton, Oregon after shop hours. Starting from scratch and learning all

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he could about every aspect of comic book production along the way, Stradley edited the

company’s flagship title: Dark Horse Presents.

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Stradley remains one of the most respected writer/editors in the industry today.

Known for his integrity and professionalism, he is both an editor at Dark Horse and a creator of comics. “I was very happy with the first Aliens series we did and a lot of that goes to the good creative pairing of Mark Verheiden and Mark Nelson. Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot, all of the Paul Chadwick’s Concrete stuff, and Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow: I’m happy about all of those. As a writer I was really happy with the three issues that I wrote of Will to Power. A lot of the credit goes to Chris Warner, because he told the story—he knows how to do that.“ Like many writers and editors, Stradley experiences some disappointment upon seeing the final outcome of his books. “I’m always excited about all the new stuff I’m working on but, by the time it comes out, something’s happened to it.

I’ll be like, this could have been better if I’d done that. When I look back, those are the things I see; I see all the things I should have done, could have done, rather than what was right at the time. Sometimes you’ll look back on past projects sort of knowing what you know now and feel like, well, I could have done that better. Things that were considered cool a couple years ago… nobody even thinks of now. It’s just a different look.”

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Editing a comic book can sometimes be a thankless, if not misunderstood, task.

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Different editors have different working methods: from editing text and art, to dealing with deadlines and printing pressures. Ideally, these talents are geared towards creating the highest standards in the craft. The best editors understand that though comic book fans tend to be loyal, they also are literate and want to read a good story. “To me, the editor’s job is to play the part of the reader long before the reader ever gets to see the comic. Chris Warner once said that the editor has to be stupider than the material. You look at it and question everything: where did that character come from? is that how a gun really works? where are we going? Everything that happens in the story you’ve got to question: is that right? is that correct? is that making sense? The other thing that’s important… for an editor to know is everything. Because in addition to being stupider than the material, you’ve also got to be smarter than the material. If you’re going to take the time to do it take the time to get it right. If you don’t know if something’s right, then you better check; don’t assume that just because the writer wrote it or the artist drew it that they know what they’re doing. Why turn the editing over to them?

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with an eye toward whether the artist is going to understand what the writer wants: what needs to be added to clarify this panel or did the writer try to cram too much into a page; or can I cut this story up so there aren’t seven panels on a page and… it looks like a brick wall?

“I really think in every story, in every comic, there needs to be some place where the story opens up and there’s a big action scene. There’s that moment when the reader comes into a comic book store and sees the book on the stands, picks it up and flips through it, just looking, they haven’t decided to buy it yet. If they come across some big action shot or some impressive panel, it’s a visual point of entry into the story and at that moment they make the decision, ‘OK I’m going to buy this.’ I think that’s important. I’m not adverse to going in and cutting stuff in order to open the story up as long as you’re not cutting story from the issue.

Entire contents © Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

“When the pencils come in to the editor, you look at them and say, alright do I need to send anything back because the artist didn’t understand what he was supposed to draw? Then you’ve got balloon placements: did the artist draw the characters in the correct position, because we read left to right. It’s astounding the number of artists who don’t think about that and they draw the character who has to speak first on the right and the character who responds on the left. Now figure out how to put the word balloons in there so they read in the correct order. The development’s the fun part, the editing, that’s the work.”

When he reviews portfolios or receives pages from artists, Stradley often notices storytelling no-no’s. He understands how objectivity is lost when working on a project as complex as a comic book story, but mistakes are still mistakes.

“There are common mistakes artists make like getting so involved in the story that they forget to establish where characters are in relation to each other and their backgrounds.”

Movies and comic books have always been linked together as similar mediums, but Stradley proves it otherwise. “Another thing I see people doing all the time is trying to break action down into too many panels. I always hear the same thing, and Figure 2.3: Example of setting up pace in comics. In the first two panels, Titan flies towards the dome which protects Block 13. The first panel’s POV is slightly underneath Titan.

The second panel is an easy moment-to-moment transition from the angle established in panel 1 as the reader now assumes Titan’s POV. Upon impact, the camera is outside of Titan again with a completely new camera angle.

The transition from panel 2 to panel 3 is jarring and seems quicker and more unexpected, where panel 2 was merely the next logical progression of action from panel 1 and the pace seems slower and more deliberate.

writers do this a lot: ‘We want this to be a series of quick cuts.’ In a movie you can do quick cuts because film unrolls at 24 frames per second no matter what’s happening on screen. So quick cuts last as long as the film editor decides they’re going to last. In comics, the reader controls the pacing, and they’ll spend as much—or as little—time on a panel as they want to and, in fact, readers spend exactly the same amount on each panel regardless of its size. So when you take an action and break it down into a bunch of smaller panels, and show different aspects of the action, what you’ve done, instead of speeding things up, is that you’ve actually slowed the experience down for the reader. It’s like going into slow motion film. You get exactly the opposite effect that was intended.

And to me, it’s amazing that creators don’t see that. The analogy between film and comics has been stated so many times that people try to force film terms or film effects into the comics medium that don’t work.”

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Having a good relationship within an art team and a trust between the writer

and the artist is invaluable to a successful story. “When I first started writing, I used to have to draw little diagrams of panel breakdowns just for myself to figure out how the page was going to work. Now I don’t have any trouble sitting down with a blank page and writing a page of panel descriptions and script while keeping in my mind throughout that process what I think this page is going to look like. Unless there’s something really specific I’m trying to accomplish, I don’t write directions to the artist like ‘put this panel on the middle tier, make it wider than it is tall.’ To me, if you start doing that sort of thing, the artist has every right to come after you. That’s in their territory. What you want to do is give the artist a real sense of the important things

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that have to happen in the panel: the mood you’re going for, the setting. Try to give them something more than just ‘Titan and four guys talk to each other.’ That’s not

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writing; you’ve given up everything to the artist at that point. The writer should indiI N F O R M A T I O N

cate what expressions the characters have, what their body language is, or some

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indication of what’s going on in their minds, if it’s something different than what T H A T

they’re saying. Give the artist enough information so that he or she can make intelligent decisions, but without telling them specifically how to draw it.”

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When writing, Stradley tries to invoke mood and setting to give the artist a direction for the story. He wants his writing to “make the artist feel a certain way

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about the story, as opposed to writing with a flat, cold, diagram of physical detail: ‘the D E C I S I O N S

room is 11" x 13" and there’s a coffee table on one side.’ If I were the artist and I got a blank, cold description like that, I’d probably end up drawing something that was as life-

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less as the description.”

Artists face numerous design and storytelling decisions when they

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are many teams in the industry and the artist/writer team is an important one. When these individuals work together, the artist interprets the script instead of drawing it out

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verbatim and regurgitating visually what has been described in words. Conversely, a good writer avoids creating scripts with too much information or too little direction. “I think that if there’s a trust between the writer and artist it certainly helps the process of creating comic books. The artist knows the writer is not going to give him something that can’t be drawn. The writer’s got to be happy with what that artist draws and the artist has to be happy with what the writer has written.”

“I think writers can be artists, in a sense. When writing, the job is not to just fill the pages. I see writers who’ll say, ‘the rest of the page is a spectacular fight scene, have fun with it.’ I get scripts like that from writers and send them back. The writer should know what he wants to happen on each page, and what needs to be accomplished in each scene.”

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Entire contents © Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

Will to Power was a twelve-issue mini

series created for Dark Horse’s World Greatest Comics line. It was an ambitious project utilizing several creative teams which were in charge of charting the rise and fall of a hero named Titan.

Stradley wrote the final three books in the saga with Chris Warner penciling the pages. “We had done something with the story in a similar method the previous year, where it had been a real round robin thing with all the people who had worked on creating the characters. We got together and we knew where the story was going, and the details of the story kind of fleshed themselves out as

Figure 2.4: Cover to Will to Power #11 by Mike Mignola.

we went along because somebody wrote the first chapter and somebody else wrote the middle chapter and somebody else wrote the end.

“We had a fairly tight outline, so we knew what had to happen in each segment and we knew where it was going to leave off, what sort of loose ends we were leaving for the other people. We took the outline and turned it into scripts, fleshing it out with things that each individual writer wanted to accomplish.

“On Will to Power, I was writing the end, so I was juggling all that information, keeping the continuity correct but also making sure that enough information was in there that somebody could pick it up and understand what was going on even if they hadn’t read the previous issues or they just weren’t intimately familiar with all the characters. When picking up story lines from other writers, you’re always left with things like: ‘Ah! I would have done that different, or that’s interesting the way he did that.’ I really felt inspired by this because I had to follow Chris Warner, who had written one of the middle chapters, and he had done things in the writing, in some of the point-of-view captions, that really made me feel like ‘I’ve got to match that, I’ve got to make sure that this stays the same level as that.’”

Trust is important between writer and artist. Sometimes an artist will add a visual nuance or push the narrative to a level that can surprise even the writer. Inspired writing encourages inspired art, which in turn is the creative process. “It’s great when you see your story as art and say, ‘I would have never thought about that.’ It would never occur to me to write a scene from that point-of-view! [The success of page 9, issue 11] is all Chris, that layout (Figure 2.5).”

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“The artist is the one who has to draw the piece, and I try not to get too involved in people’s decisions on layout or stuff like that—as long as they’re serving the story. Telling the story is the most important thing. As long as what’s important about the story is all clear on the page, that’s fine. One thing I do, especially with newer artists, is to discourage them from really wild layouts. I tell them to relax, try drawing on a sixpanel grid and try and make the drawings, rather than the panel shapes, dynamic. To me, the most important thing about comic book art is that what’s going on on the page be instantly clear to the reader. It should just flow into the reader’s brain and they shouldn’t have to stop and figure out, ‘what panel do I read next?’ or ‘what’s going on here?’ They should be instantly assimilated.”

Entire contents © Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

PAGE NINE (six panels)

Panel 1. We’re cutting back to the interior of Vortex’s lab, where Vortex has created an “air television”—a sort of amorphous floating viewscreen—on which he, Anderson, and Grace are watching the events taking place outside.

Vortex has an unlimited budget, so he’s created a really big-screen image. He probably has his hands up, sparking with energy, to indicate that he has created this view. They’re seeing a scene similar to that in the last panel of the preceding page.

1 VORTEX:

THE ARMY HAS ENGAGED YOUR TITAN.

3 VORTEX:

AS I PREDICTED.

2 GRACE:

HE’S… HE’S KILLING EVERYONE!

4 ANDERSON (very quietly):

BEN’S OUT THERE…

Panel 2. A different angle on the action. Grace has grabbed Vortex by the arm and spun him around to face her.

She’s mad as hell, and in his face. He’s probably more annoyed by the fact that she’s touched him than by what she’s saying. Behind Vortex, and unseen by him, Anderson is heading for an exit. She’s obviously distraught, half-stumbling, half-running. Depending how you stage this, Anderson’s line can come first, or last, in this panel.

5 GRACE:

6 GRACE:

YOU MONSTER! AN ENTIRE TANK DIVISION IS BEING WIPED OUT, AND ALL YOU’RE CONCERNED WITH IS THE ACCURACY OF YOUR PREDICTIONS?

YOU’RE WORSE THAN TITAN! I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU OUT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT ASKED ME TO!

7 ANDERSON (quiet):

BEN…

Panel 3. Close on Vortex and Grace. She’s still boiling mad, he’s his usual infuriatingly emotionless self.

Emphasize his coldness as much as you can, because in a short while he’s going to lose it.

8 VORTEX:

9 GRACE:

YOU WOULD HAVE FAILED.

I WOULD HAVE DIED TRYING!

Panel 4. Still in close two-shot. Vortex, still calm as ever, cuts the legs out from Grace’s argument. Grace is stunned.

10 VORTEX:

NO. YOU WOULD NOT HAVE.

12 VORTEX:

YOU WOULD NOT HAVE FOR THE SAME REASON YOU DID NOT FIGHT THIS TITAN TO THE DEATH. YOU THINK TOO HIGHLY OF YOURSELF --

11 GRACE:

Figure 2.5: Script and final art from page 9, Will to Power #11. Within the script, Stradley asks Warner to “emphasize (Vortex’s) coldness as much (as possible).” In the final panel description, Stradley says that Grace is drawn in panel 6, to make her insignificant.

Warner decides to eliminate the secondary character entirely and highlight the coldness found in Vortex’s personality.

WHA --?

Panel 5. Vortex turns away from Grace, apparently bored with the discussion. This is more than Grace can stand.

13 VORTEX:

14 GRACE:

-- YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THAT YOUR WORLD CAN GET ALONG WITHOUT YOU. IN TRUTH, IT CAN. IT WILL.

WAIT A MINUTE! AREN’T YOU THE ONE SAYING THAT YOUR “WORK” TOO IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO TAKE TIME OUT TO STOP TITAN?

Panel 6. Focus on Vortex. If we see Grace, she’s small, in the background.

15 VORTEX:

16 VORTEX:

YOU KNOW NOTHING OF MY WORK. WHAT DOES IT MATTER IF A FEW LIVES ARE LOST HERE IF IT MEANS SAVING COUNTLESS WORLDS FROM DESTRUCTION?

LEAVE ME NOW. EILEEN ANDERSON WILL TEND TO YOUR WOUNDS…

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PAGE THREE (five panels)

3 RIKKI:

NO, MILO. I TOLD YOU, WE’RE GOING TO HOYO GRANDE´.

THAT’S A RELIEF, I GUESS. BUT WHY THE HUR -HEY, WHAT’S THA --

YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE SAY, “HIS PICTURES DON’T DO HIM JUSTICE”? THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT. TIMES TEN.

3 CAP/MILO:

FOR ALL HIS SPEED, I GET A MENTAL SNAPSHOT -IN 3-D WITH SURROUND SOUND. STATIC CRACKLES AROUND HIM LIKE CHAIN LIGHTNING. FLAMES LICK HIS SKIN WHERE IT’S GOTTEN SO HOT FROM THE FRICTION THAT IT IGNITES THE AIR. HIS CAPE SNAPPING IN THE WIND SOUNDS LIKE THE ROAR OF AN M-60.

4 CAP/MILO: 5 CAP/MILO:

6 CAP/MILO:

4 MILO (burst): LOOK OUT!

TITAN. I’VE SEEN HIS PICTURE BEFORE, PLENTY OF TIMES. BUT THERE’S A LOT THOSE PICTURES DON’T TELL YOU. LIKE HOW BIG HE IS. OR HOW FAST.

BUT THE THING THAT REALLY STRIKES ME IS HOW SEEING HIM MAKES ME FEEL. IT’S CRAZY, BUT HE MOVES ME. SOMETHING ABOUT HIS SIZE AND HIS POWER AND HIS… WELL, MAJESTY -IT ALMOST MAKES ME FEEL PROUD. UNTIL I GET A LOOK AT HIS EYES.

THEN I JUST FELT INSIGNIFICANT… VULNERABLE… AFRAID.

Panel 2. First of three panels down the right-hand side of this double-page spread. Our main focus here is on the car and its occupants. Titan has already sped by, and now Tiger and the others are being engulfed by the wall of dust and the shockwave caused by Titan’s passage. Dust is everywhere, obliterating the background, blotting out the sunset. The car’s windshield is shattering… well, exploding, more like. Our heroes are cringing, or otherwise reacting to the dust and shockwave. Milo’s cap is airborne.

Panel 4. Optional. Tight on one of the car’s tires as it screams and smokes against the asphalt roadway.

SCREEEEEECH

7 CAP/MILO:

Panel 5. Largest panel. Across the bottom of the page. Looking down at the car, from no more than about fifteen feet up. The sudden stop has the car skewed diagonally across the road so that the white lines down the middle of the highway lead right to the driver’s side door. Rikki, Milo, and Tiger are all looking up, and if we were taking their picture, they’d be looking right into the lens. Rikki and Milo look as though they’re getting the shock of their lives. Tiger looks as though he’s staring at somebody he’d like to kill. As we’ll see when we turn the page, this panel is from Titan’s POV. 6 CAP/MILO:

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1 CAP/MILO:

2 CAP/MILO:

Panel 3. Wider angle, looking at our trio through the car’s windshield. Milo’s face has become a mask of terror. Rikki, too, looks startled. She’s turning the wheel to her right, and jamming on the brakes. In the back seat, already braced for what’s happening, Tiger’s expression doesn’t change.

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Panel 1. Big panel, taking up most of these two pages. This is almost a reverse angle from the last panel on the previous page. In our immediate foreground we have the Thunderbird. We’re looking from the passenger’s door, across the width of the car, and up. From left to right, we see Tiger, Rikki, and Milo. They’re all three looking up. And why not? Almost directly above them, frozen in mid flight, is TITAN. He should dominate these two pages. Mythic proportions barely contain him. His cape is straight out behind him like it was made of sheet steel, vibrating in the wind. Mini-lightning from the static build-up flashes around Titan, and flame dances on his fists and forehead—the air catching fire from the friction heat of his skin. If this was Superman, this might be one of the most dramatic, heroic shots ever seen of him. But since it’s Titan, the heroism is undercut by the unmistakable glare of madness in his eyes. I’m not asking for much, am I? You’ve got two light sources here: the glow of the setting sun behind Titan, and the white glare from the Thunderbird’s headlights.

Panel 2. From Tiger’s position. Milo is turning back around to face front. Tiger’s answer has apparently satisfied him that they’re not rushing into danger (Milo should learn to ask the right questions). Rikki is pointing toward something up ahead. Through the windshield, in the distance, we can see a dark shape against the sunset, about ten or fifteen feet above the highway (it’s Titan, but the readers shouldn’t know that yet). I know this is a little clumsy, since Milo (on our right) has to speak before Rikki (on our left), but see if you can make it work.

2 MILO:

S E Q U E N T I A L

PAGES FOUR & FIVE (four panels, double-page spread)

Panel 1. Close on Tiger from Milo’s POV. Tiger’s still looking into the distance, not at us. He should look more serious than when we saw him last year.

He knows how serious this is all going to be before it ends.

1 TIGER:

I N

8 RIKKI:

THE SHOCKWAVE THAT HITS A SECOND LATER COMES AS A RELIEF. IT MEANS HE’S GONE. NOT AGAIN! MY CAR!

Panel 3. The wind of Titan’s passing carries the dust (and Milo’s cap) with it, as Tiger and the others turn to watch the now-tiny figure of Titan recede into the distance. They’re standing up in the car (on the seats).

9 MILO:

10 RIKKI:

MY GOD… DO YOU KNOW WHO THAT WAS? THAT WAS TITAN! MAN!

WHERE IS HE GOING IN SUCH A HURRY?

Panel 4. Reverse angle from last panel. Tight on Tiger, but maybe we can get a hint of Rikki and Milo behind him.

TIME STANDS STILL.

11 KING TIGER: CINNABAR FLATS… THE VORTEX.

Figure 2.6: Example of scripts and the final pages as printed in pages 3 - 5 of Will to Power #10. Note the meticulous shot descriptions and the addition of optional panels.

Many times a writer sets a storytelling idea into motion only to have the artist put an unexpected spin on the same scene. It’s a natural occurrence in the field of comics, especially when working within a teamwork structure. “One of the things we were really trying to do with Will to Power was make a distinction between normal human characters and superheroes (Figure 2.7). If superheroes were in the real world, they’d be amazing, godlike creatures. You wouldn’t just react to them like ‘There’s Titan, I wonder what he’s doing today?’ You’d go, ‘Holy sh*t, it’s Titan!’”

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Figure 2.7: Working from script, Chris Warner was left to visualize the text. Whether or not to tilt or overlap panels—these kinds of decisions are best left to the artist, but meticulous planning on the part of the writer helps make this happen.

In Will to Power #10, Warner visually added pacing elements only alluded to in Stradley’s script. The words Stradley used to set up his scene descriptions for King Tiger in panel 1 gave Warner an idea of how to draw the scene (Figure 2.6).

The description “He knows how serious this is all going to be before it ends” sets up a calm, reflective panel. The words give the artist no indication to go crazy with the panel and there is no need to because it’s a serious moment. Warner’s treatment uses even, solid borders and gives the main character’s expression a serious tone.

Verb usage in a script also suggests appropriate art. Panel 1 contrasts sharply with panel 3 where the border disappears and the windshield and characters are tilted on an angle, as if the car is suddenly swerving to avoid something. The script text sets up the chaotic scene: “She’s turning the wheel to the right, and jamming on the brakes…”, as opposed to something less stressful like ‘pressing’ or ‘applying’ the brakes.

By starting with an orderly grid and slowly falling into an angle, the pace builds up for an explosive double-page spread once the page is turned.

When we move to the splash spread on the page turn (Figure 2.6), the script best describes the artist’s new visual challenge: “Almost directly above them, frozen in mid flight, is TITAN. He should dominate these two pages. Mythic proportions barely contain him…” This type of carte blanche allows the artist to come up with a solution that seems larger than life and explosive. None of these shot descriptions will ever show up in the final art, but it’s an effective way for the writer to become a director of sorts to help the artist maintain their vision.

Having panels span over two pages can be a difficult feat for an artist.

Stradley wanted such a panel with the Titan spread in Will to Power #10 and Chris Warner 29

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delivered. “I think one of the things that helps it work is the fact that so often we see where artists have taken advantage of the full bleed and so every panel on the page bleeds off the edge. One of the things it does is distort your perception. Both of the panels on this double-page spread where action bleeds across the pages are set up nicely where there’s motion within the panel that leads your eye in the direction that it should go and there’s enough of the figure crossing the middle line that it solidifies that as a single panel as opposed to ‘OK here’s this page and here’s that page.’ Of course this had to be planned (Figure 2.8).”

This double-page spread is also memorable for the way the action builds up to the release. As Stradley says, “one of the few tools that the writer and the artist have is to control the reader’s perception of the story. There’s a really well-known writer that I was having a conversation with. We were talking about one of his scripts and I said, ‘if you move this panel to the next page, then on the page turn you’ll get this great reveal.’ And the writer said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I said, ‘You should withhold that image, the reader won’t see this panel until he turns the page.’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t get it. What do you mean?’ He literally never thought about the physical effect of turning the page.”

Entire contents © Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

Within the first tier of information, the figure moves over to the second page of the spread to quickly clarify the eye movement.

Though originally the two pages were not supposed to be a double-page spread, once the decision had been made, visual tricks like this helped to make it effective.

Sound effects and other graphic devices can be specified in the script but how they are used

depends

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writer.

“Generally I think sound effects are much more effective for indicating small sounds. Big things like a rifle going off or an explosion are fairly apparent from the art. Whereas somebody flicking a light switch or punching a button on a computer needs a

Figure 2.8: Because there are no page registration problems, the center spread promotes action carrying into a double-page spread.

sound effect to help indicate that something’s happening because you don’t have any movement.”

For larger, more meaningful sounds, like climactic explosions, Stradley decides to skip the sound effect all together. In Will to Power #12, no indication for a sound effect was given for the scene on page 11 in the script, so the ubiquitous “KABOOM” 30

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R was not added (Figure 2.9). The effect is more powerful and interactive since the reader decides the extent of the the superhumans’ explosive impact. Silence can be challenging to an artist, and having developed a working history with Warner, Stradley felt comfortable writing such sequences.

“I wrote Will to Power with Chris in mind, so I asked for some things that were really difficult because I knew he could pull it off. I really wanted that [page 11] to be a silent sequence and I wanted that crazed look on Titan’s face during that quiet moment. Here he is and his victory is practically complete—he’s destroyed everything on this army base—but instead of being content about it, he looks ready to explode.

Figure 2.9: Final art from page 10 and script and final art from page 11, Will to Power #11.

Even without without captions or dialogue on the printed page, the writer writes through his visuals.

Chris really pulled that off. If I was going to give that same story to another artist I might think about changing some stuff, to kind of safeguard against bad decisions.”

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PAGE ELEVEN (four panels)

Panel 1. Anderson is in our foreground, looking more or less in our direction. The tank is behind her. Titan is frozen in mid-power dive, mere feet above the tank. As hard and as cold as steel, Titan is a human missile.

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Stradley says his fascination with the sequential art form stems from what he calls

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the magic of the blending of words and pictures. “The written words have a certain

Panel 2. Big panel. Titan has struck the tank, exploding all of the munitions on board. The massive armored machine is torn open from within, like a milk carton blasted by a twelve gauge. Anderson is lifted off the ground by the force of the explosion and hurled like a rag doll. The air around her is peppered with shrapnel from the tank. It should be clear that there is a very strong likelihood of her being dead.

power and the pictures have a certain power. You could have the same image take place on a movie screen with a voice-over narration, but it wouldn’t have the power that the combination of the printed word and the illustration have. I think the power comes from the blending of the two in the reader’s mind. Just like the action in a comic all takes place in a reader’s mind. It doesn’t actually happen on the page, because there’s

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no movement. You get one picture, and in the next panel you get another picture so

Panel 3. Ground level view. Anderson’s battered body is lying on the ground, her face in our extreme foreground. Her eyes are closed, her nose bleeding.

Beyond her, Titan is rising majestically from the burning metal ruins of the tank. Lit from below, he looks scary… dangerous… pleased with himself.

that looking at those two pictures in succession will create movement or action within the reader’s mind. That’s the real magic of comics—no matter how brilliant or how beautiful or how great the writing is, the real magic takes place between the panels in the reader’s mind.”

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Panel 4. Close on Titan. He turns his head, startled by something off-panel (in the direction of the dome). He’s not quite afraid, but he certainly wasn’t expecting whatever it is he’s seeing.

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PAGE TWO (two panels)

Panel 1. Large panel. Dusk. The sun is setting directly behind our position. This is a low angle, looking up at Rikki Boyd’s newly repaired ‘63 Thunderbird as it roars down a two-lane blacktop, either coming right toward us, or angled slightly, heading toward the lower right of the panel. This particular stretch of road runs ruler-straight through the Nevada high desert and, if you followed it back the direction from which the Thunderbird has come, you’d end up at Cinnabar Flats. Somewhere along the way you’d come to the dirt road that branches off and eventually leads to King Tiger’s cool, isolated adobe-style home. That location, however, is best left for another story. If you stay with the speeding car and its three occupants (blonde, pretty, game-for-anything RIKKI BOYD at the wheel; holding-on-for-dear-life, burnt out exhippie cum weapons caddie MILO, riding shotgun with the golf bag full of arcane weapons between his knees; and, leaning forward from the back seat–maybe standing up–a for-once serious KING TIGER) and you’ll be in Hoyo Grande in another ten minutes. Tiger is urging Rikki to greater speed.

Here’s what each is wearing: Rikki: tight, faded jeans, t-shirt, doe-skin jacket (with matching driving gloves), cowboy boots. Milo: baggy chinos, tshirt, plaid work shirt, baseball cap, tennis shoes.

Tiger: essentially the same thing we saw him in last summer. Lighting and coloring notes: they’re driving straight into the sunset, and the car’s headlights are on.

Figure 2.10: Example of a full script, complete with panel breakdown and scene descriptions.

Script for page 2, Will to Power #10, written

by Randy Stradley.

1 CAP/MILO: THE SUN HASN’T EVEN REALLY SET. NOTHING WILL BE HAPPENING IN HOYO GRANDE’ FOR HOURS YET, BUT THAT’S WHERE TIGER SAYS WE’RE GOIN’. AND IN A HURRY, TOO.

Character and scene descriptions are meticulously detailed.

2. CAP/MILO: NO WARNING. BIG RUSH. HE JUST MADE ONE PHONE CALL AND WE WERE OUT THE DOOR. NOT EVEN TIME TO CHANGE CLOTHES. MAYBE THAT’S WHAT HAS ME WORRIED. TIGER USUALLY DRESSES UP FOR A NIGHT ON THE TOWN –

The thought given to storytelling is evident through use of shot selections. Notice the last panel directs the action to move right to keep the reader going in the correct direction.

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The words “comic” and “book” when placed

together suggest a powerful artform. The first word implies the visual world while the latter calls to mind the literary world. Separately, the two words describe totally different things, but together the meaning is clear: words and pictures must work in tandem to tell a story.

Though the process of creating comics starts with words, one must keep in mind that most sequential artists love to tell stories not just write or draw stories.

In the comics industry, most successful artists are literary people and they tend to be well-read. Some sequential artists write and draw their own stories.

Conversely, some of the best writers happen to be some of the best visual artists. Though they do not draw, through their words they can visualize scenes, characters and environments so complete and believable that

3. CAP/MILO: – BUT HE’S WEARIN’ HIS SORCERER’S OUTFIT.

any artist can read the script and immediately

5. RIKKI:

important to art in general but in sequential art,

4. TIGER:

FASTER, RIKKI!

YOU GOT IT, TIGER!

Panel 2. Closer. Side view of the car as it rushes past our POV, heading toward the right panel border. Milo has turned all the way around so he can speak to Tiger. Milo’s long hair is held in place by an old baseball cap, which he has to clamp down with one hand to keep it from blowing away. Tiger is staring straight ahead, as if he can see something no one else in the world can see.

6. CAP/MILO: LAST TIME TIGER DRAGGED US OUT LIKE THIS, WE WENT CHASING AROUND THE DESERT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, FIGHTING DEMONS.*

7. CAP/MILO: RIKKI’S THUNDERBIRD GOT ALL SMASHED UP, AND TIGER CAM THIS CLOSE TO GETTIN’ HIS ARM CUT OFF. RIKKI TOLD HIM THAT IF EITHER OF THOSE THINGS EVER HAPPENED AGAIN, SHE WAS GONNA LEAVE HIM.

8. CAP/MILO: I HOPED HE BELIEVES HER. 9. MILO:

Uh, TIGER… WE’RE NOT GOIN’ JUNGLE CRUISIN’ AFTER DEMONS AGAIN, ARE WE?

10. BOTTOM CAP: *IN LAST SUMMER’S KING TIGER – BACK-ISSUE BRICKER.

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“see” the project before him. Clarity of vision is the clearer the initial vision, the truer the story is from beginning to end. The initial stages of writing is important in telling a story.

A writer must develop character, motivation and plot. These are things that must be planned out, struggled with and finally written down in script form as a blueprint for the artist to build from. In full scripting the amount of panels per page begins with the writer and it is important to note that a writer should not ask for too many panels on a page—in standard comic page format, 5 to 7 panels is considered a good amount of information. Cinematic techniques and shot selection are determined in the scriptwriting stage. The writer must be able to stage the actions that take place and then flesh out the scenes with dialogue.

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R A full script involves setting up the scene through background, characters, mood, camera directions and dialogue. Scene descriptions can be exhaustive— understanding gravitational pull and artificial gravity as well as the space station—or they can can be simple—a run down hotel room. Shot selection and camera angles generally are included at this step, helping the penciler “see” what the writer sees. References to famous movie scenes, historical notes or actual places may even be supplemental information, since the script is often the only form of communication between the writer and artist. The story works more smoothly if there is communication between writer and artist, however.

Once the action has been directed, word balloons, thought balloons, caption boxes and sound effects are written. Artists can plan effective panel and page layouts when they know how much written text there will be. Obviously, the more written words there are in the panel, the less room the artist has for drawing and no artist wants to labor over artwork that will eventually be covered with a text box. Economy and quality of words are important for a writer; unity of text with image is the key to a successful story.

During the scripting stage, it helps the artist if the writer adds visual clues to further define the context of the words spoken. Gesticulation, attitudes, facial expression and other body language is crucial in creating believability. The writer must always be on guard to make the characters and their actions seem believable so that the

Figure 2.11: The completed page, pencils by Chris Warner, inks by Tim Bradstreet.

artist breathes life into the characters.

Next, believable and poignant dialogue should propel the story along.

Originally, the script called for two panels, but Warner added a third to better establish pacing.

This enabled the caption boxes to be evenly distributed throughout the page.

Consideration must be given to who speaks and when. Artists will generally arrange their actors in a panel depending on which character speaks first—readers from Western countries read left to right, the first line generally appears leftmost in a panel.

Captions can provide the reader with further insight into the story.

Almost anything can be described in a caption box: time references, narrative exposition or internal monologue. Poorly created captions merely reiterate an action or situation that is being shown. Knowing that the artist will draw and define the action frees the writer to concentrate on caption copy that will deliver new and deeper information in conjunction with the visual. Redundancy can kill a story.

Above is an example of one page of script by Randy Stradley (Figure 2.10), and the art interpreted by Chris Warner (Figure 2.11).

There are a variety of slight adjustments between the script and the finished page. Writers understand that the script is not the finished product. Often the artist suggests changes for both the visual and written elements. This give and take between writer and artist gives the story room to grow.

During the complex production of a comic book, there are many opportunities for brilliant ideas to come to the forefront. Once the germ of the story has been conceived, it is up to every creator involved with a project to lend a creative hand.

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Figure 3.1: Koj, Jarek and Serra, from the ten-issue Tellos, created by Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo.

– Mike Wieringo All characters © Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo

Wieringo

LIKE MY STORIES TO BE AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE… I SACRIFICE SUPERHERO DYNAMIC

BY DOING CLEAR STORYTELLING.

C H A P T E R

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A perennial fan-favorite, Mike Wieringo made a name for himself in the comic

industry during the 1990s. Even as a child, he always had a strong interest in the comic book

art form; he was constantly making up stories. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in

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Illustration from Virginia Commonwealth University under Donald Early, who Wieringo

says taught him more than he would have learned on his own. Wieringo cites college as a

“catalyst for me getting into comics. Everyday, I’m thankful for the experience.”

Wieringo is known for his control over the exaggerated heroic form,

though it was his mentor who pushed for him to be well-grounded in the traditional

human form. “Early made me break all of the comic book figure drawing habits I had formed and made me learn from scratch. A lot of people say that an artist needs to learn

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the rules before you break them.” He works primarily in pencils and is known for his

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work on such titles as The Flash (his first major work in comics), Robin, The Sensational Spider-Man, Rogue, She-Hulk/Thing, Superman and the Fantastic Four. He enjoys developing

characters and stories for his own projects and is best known for co-creating Tellos.

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the sensational spider-man #23 “the spirit is willing…” plot

PAGE THREE Cutting back to SPIDEY, we find that BUEL is finishing his statement from page one, punctuating it with a magikal blast at our most agile WallCrawler!

As SPIDEY dodges the bolt of energy, BUEL’S shot accidentally hits one of his GREMLYN Minions… …and turns him into a puddle of gooey flesh… …while a shocked SPIDEY and the other GREMLYNS look on!

Wide shot as SPIDEY, ducking another blast, realizes that he’s gotta get outta there but that BUEL is between him and that glowing door… Uh oh! SPIDEY’S the coolest, but he’s still in trouble! (MIKE – if ya can, also put in the other door BEHIND SPIDEY that he came through from the previous Snowscape. Thanks. t.)

When approaching a project, Wieringo feels that he is not just the penciler;

he’s a part of the creative team. The majority of work Wieringo has received over the years has been from Marvel Comics due to his teamwork mentality that the Marvel method inspires. “The difference between storytelling and being a writer/artist is that I do the storytelling with the visuals but I don’t do the overall storytelling of the comic book. It’s more of a collaborative thing. That way I’m more able to be a part of the team.

I’m more of a collaborator; I’m the visual end of the collaboration.”

Much has been said about the Marvel method of creating comics. The Marvel way is a departure from traditional script form; the writer controls every aspect of the storytelling environment. Wieringo enjoys the challenges of working within a plot

Figure 3.2: Example of a plot-first script (also known as Marvel Style Script).

system: “There are two methods—DC and Marvel. DC involves a full script where the writer gives you everything: dialogue and often times camera angles, whether it’s a down

Above: In this unique comic book creation style, a short plot synopsis without dialog is written.

Script for page 3, The Sensational Spider-Man #23, written by Todd DeZago.

shot or a shot from above, a long shot, or whatever. Depending on how complete they want to be, [the writer] sometimes will write a 10-page description for one panel. The Marvel method is where you get a plot outline. Usually we get the story page by page.”

Each written and outlined page translates into a page of artwork. In a

determine by the strength of the artist. The artist has the opportunity to augment the

Below: The artist then takes the plot (usually a paragraph) and creates an entire page. The page will then go back to the writer who creates dialog to fit the art.

story because it is not held fast by a deadline-determined script. With the Marvel

Pencils by Mike Wieringo, inks by Richard Case.

bare bones system like the Marvel method, it’s the artist’s responsibility to flesh out the characters, environment and solve pacing issues. The completeness of the final story is

method, there is room to play around with the pacing of the story. “If you think, well, this could use a couple of extra panels, you’re free to throw in a couple of extra beats in Spider-Man and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

this particular scene and stretch out a moment in time,” Wieringo explains.

“The story structure is given to me, I just get to pace it in a way that feels comfortable for me: emphasize certain panels by making them bigger, add panels if I think that I can stretch out among them to make it more of an impact visually, that kind of thing. You’re given props and backgrounds and sometimes the postures of the characters. Working [within] the Marvel method, the writer suggest actions, character motivations... and it’s up to the penciler to convey them. I prefer using the Marvel method because it gives me more input as opposed to DC’s full script method where you’re sort of just a hired hand asked to draw the writer’s vision and not able to put any of your own in it.”

At all stages of production, successful comic book creation is about teamwork. Sometimes working with a writer who may not understand the importance of storytelling can be difficult, especially in the Marvel method, the structure is so loose that a writer with real storytelling experience must be able to be visual enough to get production rolling.

“Sometimes I wish I could work with a writer who started out as just a penciler and understands not to smash so much into one script. But so far I’ve worked 35

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only with writers who aren’t visual storytellers. They have all these things going on in their minds that they want to see down on a page—this would be great and this would be great and that would be great. They don’t realize they have a guy who has to draw all that. Sometimes it’s too much to draw, but I want to put it all in and I feel bad about not being able to put it all in. That’s the frustration of working with someone else instead of writing and drawing it yourself. [If the artist writes the story he] knows how to pace something and stretch the moment... or make people flip through the pages very quickly. You’re not of one mind with this other person. They have their ideas and you have your ideas and it has to hopefully come together smoothly.”

“Every different situation calls for a different solution. Sometimes I can talk to the writer and say, “Can we cut this out? You know this isn’t necessary, this seems kind of superfluous, I think we can do without this.” Sometimes if you really like the scene you’ll add a page and stretch it out.”

Working with Todd Dezago on The Sensational Spider-Man made Wieringo really feel like a part of a team and they were able to concentrate on producing good stories. “Instead of doing a 22-page comic, Todd and I, working together on Spider-Man, did 23- and even 24-page stories. We just told the editor to cut some ads out or some editorial space and they’re usually fine with that. Sometimes, if I don’t think a scene or plot works visually, I will call the writer and think of a tactful way to Gen 13 and all related characters © Aegis Entertainment, Inc., & WildStorm Productions

say ‘we don’t need this.’ Todd’s an easy guy to talk to and is always amenable to making changes. But I would never make changes without consulting the writer. When you are working with a writer, it’s best to communicate and not make arbitrary decisions—it’s part of the collaborative process.”

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The grid is one of the standard sequential art conventions that Wieringo utilizes.

Relying on the grid helps him keep the story straight and flowing and allows him the freedom to utilize his time in the pencil stage. “I usually end up going by the traditional grid system just so that I can get the layout done in a decent amount of time. I mean it’s all about time. When you’re doing monthly comics unfortunately it’s all about getting a page done a day.”

By dividing the layout into even levels of information, Wieringo is able to emphasize only the panels that need to jump out. Great emotion or action merits emphasis, and Wieringo creates the panels in such a way that involves the reader. In a collaborative effort, there are discussions with the writer over which panels need to

Figure 3.3: By utilizing the grid and dividing the panels into even moments of time, it becomes easy to generate a focus panel. Here, in Gen 13 Bootleg, Wieringo opens up the last panel so that the pace slows down and the reader enjoys Grunge’s excuses.

jump out for attention. “When I was working with Mark Waid on The Flash, every panel that he wrote... was so powerful and deserved to be emphasized. I wanted every panel to be the biggest panel. But some of them had to be smaller... that’s where I got into the grid system, working with Mark. Because every panel was so powerful that I ended up 36

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Flash and all related characters © DC Comics

doing a kind of a standardized grid so that they would all be the same size. Sometimes I’d do a big close up for one, sometimes I’d do a long shot but every panel ended up being kind of the same size because they all had something in there that I thought needed to be shown as clearly as possible. So sometimes you get into that situation and sometimes you get into a situation where I know what I want. And sometimes I get lazy.

All right, this page has to go fast so the closeup’s going to be the biggest thing on the page and everything else will be really small because I have to get this page done today.

Sometimes you have to compromise because of that.”

The grid helps in Wieringo’s storytelling because of the ease information can be taken in by the reader. He relies on the grid for speed and clarity of reading. “[Some] artists don’t use the grid system and do panels that are set at an angle and another panel that’s set at an opposite angle and sometimes the storytelling gets really confused. But that’s where the grid system I think could help people. People who have these really wild, crazy layouts could benefit by starting out using the grid system and moving outward. But I’ve never been able to do those crazy layouts. I’ve tried but it usually ends up looking pretentious.”

Storytelling clarity is terribly important to Wieringo. Even as early as the roughs stage, he is attuned to what the reader will take in and he always tries to ensure that the story will be a very clear one. “If you go to see a movie and you’re Figure 3.4: Final pencils created for the Flash (above). The use of the grid keeps all of the chaotic action contained and manageable. When action breaks out of the panel, a focus is created.

As the page printed in Flash #88 (below).

enjoying it and the story is captivating and you’re really enjoying it, you suspend your disbelief. It’s the same when you read a comic book or a novel. If you’re used to seeing something in a certain way and all of a sudden a monkey wrench is thrown in there or something that just changes it completely, you either have to find a new way of looking at it, a new way of seeing it to adjust to that, or you just give up. Most people don’t want to invest the time or the mental effort in trying to figure something out. Especially

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with comic books.“

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The roughs stage is the most crucial stage for Wieringo when he starts visualizing the

story. He takes time to peruse the story in its entirety before rushing out to create pages.

“I usually read the whole plot and get a feel for it. I start thinking about the beginning pages, how I’d like to get started. Every time I start on a new comic book I’m always dead cold and it takes me a good week or so to get a few pages done because I feel cold going into it. I’ll read the whole plot and start getting some mental images and then I’ll start from the beginning and just start laying out page one and usually that’s the very hardest page.”

During the roughs stage, Wieringo uses an interesting technique in creating his pages. He creates the layout on small premade, photocopied grids, each page reducing to about the size of a trading card (Figure 3.5). “I work this size so that I 37

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can get a feel of the overall page and it’s a whole lot easier for me working small to do the anatomy than doing it full-sized. Starting with a head here and going all the way down to the feet. You’d being doing like a full-sized page, you may end up running out of room for the feet or thinking by the time your sketching up here and you get down there and say, ‘Oh man, this layout sucks.’ It’s a whole lot easier to see it small. I take it to a Xerox machine and blow it up and put it on a light table.”

While working in the smaller size, Wieringo worries about pacing and emotional issues rather than how great the figure looks on the page. The art of storytelling is demanding because it is not just about drawing. “I just think about the overall page and what I want to have on the page and how many panels I think it’s going to take to tell the scene on that page. I think about which panel or expression, or whatever I want to emphasize, which panel I want to make the biggest, how do I want to break up Spider-Man and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

a certain part of that scene into several little panels, etc. A lot of it is mental and there’s a lot of erasing. I often start with something I think is a good idea, get halfway through the layout and say, well this isn’t working and start over. Usually, by the time I get halfway through the story, I’ve got kind of a rhythm going and I’ll just start going through the layouts and... do them a lot quicker. In the beginning it’s very difficult. It’s not very easy for me to do layouts. I doubt myself, my abilities, all of that.”

“Sometimes it will take me a whole day just to do the layout.

Sometimes I get it done in an hour. It all depends on how inspired I am.” This process is the real work in creating comics. “I wish that I could just come in here and start working. If whatever I’m putting down is what I like, that’s great. Whip out a page in a couple of hours and be done. But sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. Sometimes it comes really easily and sometimes it doesn’t. But I feel like I can’t allow myself to just say O.K. this page isn’t working and go on to the next one. I don’t like to do them out of sequence. I try to do each page as it comes.”

Breaking down a story visually tends to be a spontaneous process and Wieringo finds the physical act of drawing the page to be a breeze. “That’s sort of mind-

Figure 3.5: Example of roughs created for page 6, of The Spectacular Spider-Man #21.

The roughs are baseball card-sized and have a good amount of detail. Once comfortable with the layout, Wieringo enlarged the roughs, applied a piece of bristol board on top of the photocopy, and cleaned up the art, using a light table.

less. Once I have the layout down that I want, then it’s tweaking things here and there that aren’t drawn in completely. But it’s a whole lot easier tracing out the finishing pencil stage—the hardest stage is doing the layouts. The absolute hardest stage. I used to do it in actual size [11" x 17"] and I would draw everything pretty completely. Then by the time I traced it up I wasn’t interested in drawing it again. I’ve already drawn this once and I don’t want to do it again. So I’m doing it smaller, and every line is not complete.

When I’m doing it smaller there are a lot of areas where they might be sketchy in part, where I’m not completely sure what I’m going to do with the background. I leave a little work for myself in the other stages.”

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A good case in point is The Sensational Spider-Man #21. Written by Todd Dezago

and penciled by Mike Wieringo, this issue continues the legend of everybody’s favorite wall-crawler. This is not a big action scene—something that Marvel is most noted for— rather, it’s a very introspective point in the story where Peter Parker searches his soul.

“It deals with Peter’s feelings about his clone [which Peter considered himself to be] before the clone died. There was a time when Peter thought he himself was the clone so he started thinking of Ben Reilly, the real clone, as his big brother. And since they were the same person, they sort of really emotionally bonded and hung out together. In this revelation storyline, the clone ended up dying at the end. At the beginning of it they had sort of a quiet moment together in the attic of Peter’s Aunt May’s house. So this is a page where he’s remembering they had played Battleship, they had Spider-Man and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

some of their old toys out and were reminiscing. Peter, thinking he was the clone had said: ‘I wish I had been alive or I’d been you at this time. I have these memories but not the actuality of it.’ He’s just remembering this and feeling really sad and missing his “big brother” as he called him. And I’m trying to get the emotional impact of it across. That was fun. Not every scene has to be about action and some of my favorite stuff is more character driven.

To begin the page, Wieringo digests the script to gain an understanding of the storytelling. The writer creates the script by describing the scenes that the penciler to translate into art.

“That’s all every page of script is: a paragraph. Or the page is broken down into sentences of his idea for each panel, or the idea that he wants to get across.

So basically this page information I was given is that Peter’s taking his mask off on the previous page and he just scans the attic seeing boxes and some toys and in particular he pointed out he wanted the Battleship game because they were playing Battleship before they had to leave the house. Some other things that were established in the pre-

Figure 3.6: The finished inked page. At this stage, the page would be scanned and colored.

At the end of the production process, a writer and editor placed the word balloons into the page and it went to press.

vious comic book. The tricycle hanging on the wall, that kind of thing. Setting up things like the mirror, because he wanted to have him look in the mirror on the next page and see Ben. Todd told me he wanted him to pick up a piece from the Battleship, look at some of the books that they had looked at together and then… I threw this in myself. I just thought that was a good way to end the page. He gave me about 5 or 6 sentences of what he wanted on the page and I just had to bring that our visually. And that pretty much goes for each plot, each page he gives me a paragraph of sentences of what he wants on a page. Sometimes if it’s a real complicated fight scene he might ask for something more. Or he might give me more words.”

After the plot has been mulled over, the roughs process begins. A lot of the meticulous details found in the final page can be seen in the roughs (Figure 3.5).

But this does not leave things etched in stone. “Nothing’s going to change as far as the content of what’s on the page. But things do change [from roughs to pencils]. I realized 39

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Figure 3.7: Page 6 as it finally appeared, from the Sensation Spider-Man #21.

at one point that I started to make the attic much too big. I ended up drawing it in so I extended the height of the door of it to make it closer, give it more of a claustrophobic feel. Because when I started I said ‘Well I think it’s a pretty big house, but I don’t know of that many houses that have attics that big.’ You see these slasher films where a lot of the ending takes place in the attic and it’s huge, it’s like a carnival tent it’s so big. But I didn’t think that they would have that big of a house. I drew it in a little bit, made it a little more claustrophobic so I extended these out a bit pulled things in a little bit. I did that in a stage when I was transferring out with the blue pencil. But everything else is pretty much the same.” (Figure 3.6) This is a rare occurrence considering the amount of planning at the roughs stage. But Wieringo constantly reevaluates the effectiveness of the visual 40

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solution, even up to the finished pencils. “Sometimes the layout or the particular panel might be something I didn’t like and I’ll just change it completely in blue pencil.

Sometimes I’ll just draw right on the page. But very rarely.”

Spider-Man and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Pacing issues are continually solved. Knowing when to add detail or leave out detail, knowing when to open a border or how to position a figure, all of these things can add visual interest and make for a more enjoyable story.

“It’s just to make it a little more subtle. Yeah, it’s for drama. I like a lot of things that are sometimes implied. I don’t really get into the idea of drawing gratuitous violence. Sometimes if somebody is doing something particularly dastardly to someone like cutting them or something, I’ll show it in a shadow on the wall.

I’m not so much into selling the visceral you know—I’m stabbing you. I’d rather see violence implied rather than hitting somebody over the head with it time after time.

“As far as emotion goes, you can already see here that Peter’s feel-

Figure 3.8: In this panel the border was left off to slow down the pacing. This gives the reader pause to connect with Peter’s emotions. By obscuring the face, the reader participates in determining Peter’s struggle with his identity.

ing a little sad or introspective, by the time you get here it’s not necessary to do it every single panel. This let’s the reader interpret it in their own way. You know he’s putting these books back and it’s like a simple beat right before he shows an emotion with his body language (Figure 3.8). It allows me to fill in the scene anyway I want to. He could be kind of stoic right here and then here he breaks down and starts to cry. Or his face can be starting to crack right here and then he starts to cry. It gives the reader some interaction. Also it was supposed to be dark. So I started just to indiscriminately throw in some shadows.”

In panel six, the panel is borderless and stands out from the rest of the frames on the page. Wieringo speaks of pacing: “Again, I think for the effect of the beat.

The beat between him looking at the book. It keeps the reader there on that panel for a beat longer before going on.”

After the pencils are sent off, the inker, colorist and letterer bring the project to a close. When Wieringo receives a final copy of the book, not everything is always how he imagined.

Spider-Man and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“In [The Sensational Spider-Man #21], there were some thought balloons. I believe [the writer] was making some mental comments about Ben and how he missed him here (Figure 3.9). And then I think these were actually some silent panels and the thing that broke the flow for me, that I didn’t like, was in this panel with an open silhouette of Peter. It’s pretty clear he’s distraught. He wrote in “God, I miss him.” The biggest pet peeve I have about comic books is when the panel or the dialog that’s in the panel is just echoing what’s going on in there. It’s just saying what is happening with the visual and that’s not necessary. It’s too much like the reader being spoon fed. Dialog should not echo what’s going on in the panel.”

“When I saw this page it was the finished product. I don’t get to have

Figure 3.9: (Bottom) Example of text restating the emotion in the panel and the original (Top) without text. Peter’s pain still comes across in both treatments.

final dialog approval over what gets done. And when I saw it I said ‘Huh, well, you know…’ That kind of cheapened the impact of the end of the page.”

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Making the transition from being part of an art team to becoming a creator

can be difficult. Though Wieringo has drawn almost every major character for both DC and Marvel Comics, the project Wieringo has been most proud of is Tellos, a 10issue limited series co-created with Todd Dezago.

“I had an idea of doing a story. I had always wanted to do a fantasy story and Todd wanted to do fantasy as well. We did some fantasy in Sensational SpiderMan when we were working on a three-issue story with Spider-Man teaming with Dr. Strange and fighting an evil sorcerer from another dimension. We both liked Lord of the Rings and other fantasy books—it was something that I was really into as a child.

“It was a Sunday afternoon in the middle of Summer 1999 and one day on the phone we just created a vague sketch of an idea of a deposed prince that was on the run from his uncle who had killed his father in almost a Hamlet type of way. He was being protected by a captain of the guard—and that was basically all that we had. We ended up talking for about 4 hours on the phone and we ended up fleshing out pretty much the whole story.”

Figure 3.10: The misadventures of Hawk and Rikk in Tellos #4. This Buster Keaton, slapstick story serves as a highlight for Wieringo.

“I really didn’t want to do it. But Todd was really insistent. I said ‘What the hell, I’ll go ahead and do it.’ It ended up being as difficult as I thought it would be, but it presented a whole lot of really cool challenges. But coming up with ways to solve them is always a good experience.”

After developing the entire plot in one afternoon’s sitting, Wieringo began to visualize this world. Knowing that this was a tale to be told to a younger and broader audience, he needed to find a visual style that could communicate the story effectively. He turned to his love of Disney and animation as starting points.

“Tellos has a real animation feel to it even though it’s highly rendered with color. Different things call for different styles. This is a bright fantasy adventure.

I’ve always loved cartoons and animation and it’s just what comes naturally to me; it’s

All characters © Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo

what I naturally gravitate toward. With Tellos I felt free enough to expand a little bit, open up and do more cartoony artwork. This has helped to carry over into the stuff that I’ve done for Marvel and DC since Tellos. It helped expand my horizons and helped me connect with what I thought my work should be.

“I guess that’s why I’m so dissatisfied working on superhero books—a lot of people want their superheroes to be super serious. They think that because it’s a superhero book it needs to be drawn in a realistic manner. I’m just the opposite. It’s just as much fantasy as Tellos is and I think it should be fun, cartoony, animated and over the top.”

Developing the character design and personalities is another fringe benefit of creating your own world. “I was able to design all these characters from the get go. They were all my characters, so I didn’t have to go with what someone else thought these characters should look like. They all came out of my imagination.”

The experience of putting together a series of books was a pressurefilled one. “It was liberating, although I put a lot of pressure on myself. Each issue I felt like I was setting up expectations for the next issue and trying to add more to it to make it better. Instead of feeling completely free to do whatever I wanted to do, I felt like I 42

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had to top the previous issue. I’ve never found that ideal situation where it’s just fun from beginning to end. There were some intense parts working on this book that were a little frustrating but for the most part it was just a lot of fun.

“Having total creative control makes you appreciate what corporations do to put a comic book together. I wish we had an editor who handled all the business aspects of the book. It was difficult coordinating with the other parts of the creative team—like trying to get the inker to get his part of the job done within a certain period of time—because you had to get it to the colorist who then needed to get it to the film output people. Just trying to push it all through the pipeline was draining and took away from the creative side of things.”

Even though the experience was difficult, Wieringo maintains that the entire experience of creating Tellos was rewarding and important for his growth as a storyteller. Moreover, Wieringo was able to alter his artwork toward a style that was animated and freer. Not only was this important to the artist, but it was important to his readers.

“This is the one project that I would like to remembered for more than anything else I’ve done… at least up to this point. Tellos is more indicative of what I’d like to do as far as opening up my work and being more cartoony.

Figure 3.11: After the quick staccato of the chase scene in the water sluices, Wieringo uses panel shape and length to slow the pace down.

“The pace speeds up a little bit as Rikk falls through the hole. But then I slow things down as we pull back, pull back and pull back as he realizes that it’s a floating city. This whole middle section is what I’m proudest of in this issue and I even got away from the grid.”

“I know we got a lot of mail from people who were thanking us for putting out a book like that that they could read to their kids or that they could give to their kids. They just felt like it was something that adults could appreciate but kids could really enjoy too because it had the fantasy aspects. I just wanted to make Tellos something that the whole family could enjoy. I was surprised at how many fans we had that were children. I didn’t think that many children were reading comics—what was really gratifying was that we had a lot of kids bringing us comics at shows to sign.

That was really nice. I guess that’s why anthropomorphic characters appeal to me because animal characters appeal to kids. It brings out the child in me and I guess that’s why I like to draw them.

“It was a wonderful experience and if I could still be doing it, if Tellos could pay my mortgage, I’d still be doing it. I haven’t really enjoyed anything that I’ve worked on since. After having control over every aspect of a project, just going back to being hired pencil just doesn’t have a lot of appeal.”

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Figure 3.12: The panel grid in action.

In this example, Tellos #1, page 18, Mike Wieringo uses the grid to keep the story’s flow energetic. In panel 1, the chase is established.

When Serra lands in panel 2, the pacing slows down because it is a wider panel than 1.

Moving to the 2nd tier of information, Wieringo chose to stretch the panel over the width of the page to show that the chase has moved onto the rooftops. Because it the panel is much shorter than the others, the action happens quickly.

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Focus Panels

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Finally, in the 3rd tier, the panel borders are stripped and the figure breaks out of the panel into the preceding panel. Even within rules defined by layout, you can break the occasional rule to emphasize a moment. If every panel on the page broke the grid, than the last panel couldn’t stand out. This is the first time the reader gets to see Serra in action, so Wieringo has made it memorable.

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When a narrative becomes complex, good panel arrangement can create order.

Good panel design is often an overlooked part of storytelling with many sequential artists.

Abstract panel shapes, too many panels on an angle, and haphazard placement of panels

can detract from the pacing and eye movement of the story. It can create confusion which can distract a reader.

Panel arrangements should never be arbitrary. Comics storytelling is

designed around a finite number of pages. Within each page, many actions and plot points need organization. For Mike Wieringo (Figure 3.12), working within a grid layout is vital. Good panel grids allow the reader to easily follow the action. The story dictates

the panel arrangement for an artist; and the artist strives to group many thoughts, actions, and scenes on a single page.

A common mistake is to place too many panels on a page. In doing so,

visual clutter occurs with too many graphic devices or panels vying for the reader’s attention. Five to seven panels per page is considered the average needed to clearly convey a section of storytelling. If more panels are used, more demand is placed on the artist’s time and faculties to ensure that the page still communicates effectively.

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Figure 3.13: The grid used to promote pacing.

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Figure 3.15: The grid over a story. Horizontal gutters help to group moments together in tiers.

The vertical gutters help create emphasis in the panels working in the grid system. With a clear layout, the action has the opportunity to breathe.

Page 1: The largest action happens in panel 1, so it is the largest. In the second tier, incidental action takes place. In the third tier, our new combatants observe the situation which is not as important as panel 1.

The grid format allows the artist to assign value to panel information.

In a basic 6-panel layout, for instance, there is a clear horizontal line that separates two sets of panels (Figure 3.13). All panels start off with equal importance (far left), but by simply moving the vertical gutters left or right, panel emphasis is spotlighted.

Modulation of panel size effects how the story reader interacts with the story. The eye moves quickly over smaller panels and pauses when presented with a larger panel. If the action is of minor storytelling importance, make sure the panel reflects this. Only when a major plot point needs to be emphasized do you utilize the large panel.

Figure 3.14: Tiers used to group panels of action, scene or information together.

Page 2: The 1st tier establishes where all of the characters are.

In the second tier, the missing actor shows up in a very small panel to promote speed. The last tier is dominated by red as the pacing hits a crescendo.

The artist is given even more options with which to work when tiers of information are defined (Figure 3.14). Horizontal gutters serve to separate scenes, actions or thoughts. For this example, the three levels of information will be kept equal in height. To move from one scene to another, group the panels in as many tiers as possible. A scene can take place in two tiers, but as soon as there is a change of scene, the artist simply can start in the third tier.

When both the horizontal and vertical gutters move, this is when the magic happens. Panels now modulate in service to the story. So now groups of actions or certain scenes can be emphasized over others (Figure 3.15). Vertical gutters help to emphasize the actions while the horizontal tiers can group or separate these actions.

The grid format is successful because it is simple to follow. There is no confusion about moving from left to right, then top to bottom. Experimental layouts can may lend excitement to storytelling, but it takes a great deal more work to achieve clarity. A structured grid, whether six panels or some other number, promotes clear storytelling because the reader automatically knows which panel to read next. This allows the information to be told on its own merits.

All characters © Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo

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Page 3: The pacing now becomes active.

In the first tier, the action is broken down.

In the second tier the spell is cast. In the third tier (most important) the spell didn’t work and the heroes are still standing.

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THE

Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

MOST I M P O RTA N T THING I CAN DO IS E N T E RTA I N PEOPLE.

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Figure 4.1: Jack and Hannah from Xenozoic Tales #14.

Mark Schultz

Schultz

C H A P T E R

F O U R

Mark Schultz began reading comics at the age of six and quickly became entranced.

“As a kid, one month you’re into one thing and the next month it’s something different,

but a recurring theme was to become a cartoonist.” Schultz always loved storytelling and drawing, but by the time he went to Kutztown State University, other interests took over. “At the time I was at college, there wasn’t a lot of sympathy for cartooning as a career.” Schultz graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in painting.

During college Schultz learned the fundamentals of art (life drawing

and composing) which were important for a career in sequential art as well as commer-

cial art. After graduation he had steady work with advertising and book illustration, but found the experience dry. Even in fine art, Schultz was continually trying to communicate stories through his painting. “After a while, I thought ‘what am I doing?’ This isn’t the way to tell stories… there’s a better way to do it—through comics and sequential

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art. My mind was roaming all over the place, so I developed Xenozoic Tales.”

In the early ‘80s Schultz became interested in independent comics. “I

had three big boxes of DC and Marvel stuff from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and one

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day decided: ‘I’m going to take them into the comic shop and get what I can. As luck

would have it, someone had just sold the owner a huge collection of EC comics. It was

the ultimate kid-in-the-candy-shop type of thing. And having these originals pushed me

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over the edge, made me decide that comics was something I want to do, something I

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want to spend my life doing.” It opened his eyes.

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Schultz is known for creating intelligent adventure fiction. Xenozoic

Tales entertained his audiences through comic books, compilations, a children’s cartoon and fine art prints. Schultz was recognized for his efforts by winning three Harvey

Awards for best cartoonist.

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Brevity with both page count and storytelling are important considerations to

Schultz when working on a piece of sequential art. “The problem is always how to tell your story in the number of pages allotted. Generally, I do 22 or 20 page stories. And the reason I picked those limits for myself is I know I can get that done in a set amount of Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

time or less; if I allow myself more pages it could take too long to get the comic done. I need to get the art done as often as I can—which isn’t very often. So for commercial reasons, I set a page limit for myself. You’ve got to convey the information you’ve got to tell in your story within that set amount of pages, as opposed to a movie or television show which is restricted by a set amount of time to tell the story. What I try to do is jam in as much storytelling as possible into a limited number of pages. But you’ve got to think ahead—you’ve got to figure out the pacing of your entire story, or you’re liable to find out three-fourths of the way through that you haven’t enough space in your allotted pages to reach a satisfactory conclusion. You must figure out a way of expressing all the necessary information in a limited number of pages.”

Schultz relies on several techniques to design his stories. “Sometimes I’ll do roughs, but generally I know the story I want to tell. I just write out a synopsis of the story in longhand or on the computer. Then I lay out, thumbnail-size, 20 to 22 pages, however many pages the story has to be, and then I figure out how to… fit that story into those number of pages in as interesting a fashion as I can. You’ve got a story and that

Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

breaks down into X number of scenes and the idea is to make, ideally, every one of those scenes interesting and compelling, visually grabbing and interesting as far as character development and plotting and pacing go.

“Things just seem to suggest themselves to me as I go through this process. I start breaking down roughly the number of panels I need per page. Let’s say I’ve got 20 pages to tell the story and let’s say there are 8 different scenes that are going to be in that story, then I’ve got to decide how many pages each scene needs… so the reader can follow the story. And then you start taking, let’s say, a sequence that needs three pages to develop. How can I most interestingly tell this scene in those three pages?

You get rid of anything extraneous in there, anything that does not advance the plot. You must be ruthless, you must ask: is it really communicating what the reader needs to know? If it isn’t, generally that goes, which makes what needs to be in there that much stronger because you’ve got more room to play with.

Mark Schultz is a writer as well as an illustrator. This can be a mixed blessing as several advantages and disadvantages pop up during the creative process. “It gives me advantages in that I get to decide exactly what I want to show on the page. I’m not trying to execute someone else’s vision. But that brings disadvantages, too.

Figure 4.2: Examples of the development of the splash stage. (Top) Note the experimentation with camera angles in the roughs stage to utilize all of storytelling options. (Bottom) Final pencils for the opening splash page.

Sometimes a team allows for fresh ideas—you’re not limited to one set of brain waves.

But generally, I prefer to work on my own, because my feeling has always been… too many cooks spoil the pot. The fewer people involved in a project, the less chance of the 47

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original view… getting diluted. Another obvious disadvantage is that it takes a lot longer to do an entire story by yourself. You can get too wrapped up in what you’re trying to say. It becomes too personal. That is a problem I have, I become too involved in trying to be really specific in what I’m trying to say and flesh it out to a point where it really slows me down.

“Despite this I’m just much more comfortable writing my own stuff. I like the storytelling aspect more than anything else. I’d rather write for someone else and not draw it if I had to make a decision between the two. I’d rather give up the drawing aspect than give up the writing aspect. It’s practical too, because I can also write much faster than I can draw. But I like creating that initial vision, that’s the most fun I have in Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

doing a story. Whether I’m developing a concept for myself, or someone else is coming up with it and I’m working from the framework, figuring out how to tell the story is the important thing. The actual writing the script and then drawing it panel by panel is kind of laborious.”

The kind of detail Schultz demands from his own work is phenomenal.

A renowned brush artist, he uses many techniques to arrive at the final piece. No mark is too small to escape his fullest attention. Schultz uses a painstaking inking process after developing extremely tight pencils on a board. The process takes a long time, and fans of Xenozoic Tales often waited a year or longer in between issues. The result was always worth the wait.

Due to the care he takes with his artwork, Schultz feels this is the most difficult part of the creative process, even more so than the initial concepting of the story. “The techniques I use, the way I’m inking is very time consuming and laborious, whereas designing and creating is just pure creation. It’s just fun. It’s just coming up with ideas and fleshing them out, that’s just pure fun. When you actually have to execute things, it can get tedious. Especially working the way that I work. Long, long hours.

Figure 4.3: The final page as it appeared in Xenozoic Tales #13. Even after tight pencils, figures were added and adjusted.

“I love what I do and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else, but relatively speaking my technique gets rather laborious at times. The long hours of just sitting by yourself doing a panel over and over again till you feel you’ve got it right. There’s that spark of creation and spontaneity and that electric buzz you get when you’re creating things, when you’re developing things.

“I think in the end, the hard work is worth the effort. Especially with your own work because you are not subject to the same rules that everyone else is under when they do work-for-hire. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been with a publisher for a long time who gives me free reign. There’s luck involved in that but it’s also like that when you do your own thing. On the economic downside, you don’t have any big marketing machine behind you that the bigger companies do. Creating your own vision spoils you.

I can’t blame anyone else but myself if it doesn’t turn out right.”

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Because of the self-imposed quest for perfection, the smallest details become important details with Schultz’s sequential art storytelling.

“Everything you see on that page has been considered compositionally as well as storytelling-wise, part of the whole. That’s what comics are. Comics aren’t just the pictures, they’re the word balloons, they’re the lettering or the typefaces you use, they’re the way you structure panels, they’re the spaces around the panels, around the borders of the page or the lack of them. All these things have to be considered.

That’s another advantage of doing it by yourself as opposed to having a team working on it. I know and can figure out exactly where I want my word balloons and my Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

captions to go.

“In companies that create by means of assembly line process, the artist most of the time has no idea of where those word balloons and captions are going to go. He’s got to trust that he has a sympathetic editor who’s got a good eye for spotting balloons. Much of the time the editors aren’t all that sympathetic, or able to discern where the proper place to put the word balloons should be.” These are all elements intrinsic to the visual language of comics, these are important details that need to be mastered. “It’s a skill just like anything else, but apparently it’s just not considered a priority in most of the larger companies.”

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# 8

Growing up reading action adventure comics, Schultz has become one of the most

talented practitioners of this genre. Developing the adventures of Jack Tenrec and Hannah Dundee, Schultz sets the background in a post-apocalyptic earth where dinosaurs roam the earth with humans in a world filled with high action and intrigue.

Figure 4.4: Page 10 of “In the Dreamtime,” Xenozoic Tales #8.

In 1989, Xenozoic Tales #8 was published through Kitchen Sink Press.

In this story, Jack and Hannah are delivering a message to a road gang out in the Xenozoic wilderness. When they reach the site, they find the entire work group dead, as well as the surrounding animal life. Since dark has settled, Jack and Hannah decide to set up camp near the killing field (Figure 4.4).

“There’s a lot that’s in here that I would do differently today. As a caveat, I think there is a juxtaposition of panels that’s confusing. If you’re going to juxtapose panels right against each other without the benefit of a gutter to separate them, you’ve got to be real careful about how you compose them in terms of your blacks and whites. They can be confusing to read because the reader’s not apt to be sure where one panel ends and the next begins. That can be a problem… in general. Specifically I bring that up because on page 10 there’s an inset panel across the bottom, the two panels on the bottom tier where I think it’s a little too confusing. That inset panel doesn’t jump out enough. I think I would have been able to use an inset panel, knowing what I know today, much more effectively.

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“[The first two tiers] on page 10 are what is referred to in the business as talking head panels, panels that just convey information in the dialogue balloons. A lot of the information is abstract, back story information that would be very hard to show visually—unless you wanted to spend a good number of pages. I would say 95% of all the information that you’d want to get across in comics you can convey visually.

But it takes a lot more space to convey most things visually then it does in a word balloon. I’m contradicting the ‘picture’s worth a thousand words’ statement. You can tell things visually but sometimes, working within a set number of pages, it’s just much more efficient to tell things in writing with balloons. But that can get awfully dry, too.

“Balloons just aren’t as attractive as pictures, so when you’ve got one of those talking head pages where you’re just trying to convey a lot of written information, it’s important to vary the pictures that accompany those information-conveying balloons.

It’s important to keep those panels as interesting as possible. It’s very easy to fall into the Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

trap of having a repetitious image in every panel: one head talking to another. So on pages like this where you’ve got to convey that information in a talking head type of format, I try to get the environment involved as much as possible in the story. Instead of just showing the people talking to each other’s face, I try to show the environment that they’re in. And I think the top two panels of that page do that. Then… instead of showing the characters just standing there talking to each other, you show them doing something that maybe has nothing specifically to do with this story but still conveys information. It’s something that people would do under the circumstances that your characters happen to find themselves in, like, here they’re building a campfire and kind of warming themselves around it. Something visually interesting that enriches the page even though it has nothing to do with the story, it just fleshes out your characters and I think makes it seem a little more real, a little more believable. It just makes it seem like the world that you set your story in is bigger than just that specific story, that your characters have lives beyond conveying the information necessary to tell the story.”

Like a good director, Schultz designs the actions within the panels to effectively communicate the story. “It’s important that whatever the characters do Figure 4.5: Page 11 of “In the Dreamtime,” Xenozoic Tales #8.

doesn’t mislead or confuse the reader. You can’t have them do something that looks so significant that the reader thinks he’s being given information that’s going to be pertinent later and then nothing happens with it.”

In the last three panels of page 11, Schultz slows down the action, and sets up a slower pace to lead into the dream sequence (Figure 4.5). “This is an old Harvey Kurtzman trick—repeating an image and pulling the camera closer every time on that image with maybe some subtle changes happening on that panel. You can show a time lapse that way. A purely comic book convention, you’re letting the reader know that you’re going into the mind of this character. You become more identified with the person or the object, whatever it is that you’re moving in on.”

In the first panel of the triptych, Jack is alert by the fire but becomes more and more sleepy. “I’m not exactly sure if I’d do it today, but to reinforce Jack 50

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M becoming unconscious I put the standard “ZZZZZ” sleeping word balloon there. I also wanted to emphasize, as this pertains to what happens to Jack and Hannah later, these tendrils of smoky, gassy substances getting thicker about Jack’s head as he goes under. I also wanted to bring in the background the two moons becoming more and more prominent. The goal here is to hopefully get the reader to feel that the moons are exerting some sort of control over him. Using this kind of a convention as you get closer to Jack’s head means you’re identifying more with him. Then, on the next page, we’re in Jack’s head and he’s dreaming.”

On pages 12 and 13, when you are in the main character’s dreams, graphic representation helps keep scenes apart (Figure 4.6). In this example, the line quality is thin with few spotted blacks. Outside the dream state, Schultz uses heavy, graphic shapes and thicker line quality. “To emphasize [the shift from dream world to real world] in the middle panel of the top tier, I flash back to Jack asleep in real time.

Graphically I wanted to keep the panels in the dream sequence different from the panels in the real world, the waking world, in a harsher, chiaroscuro black-and-white and the rest of the stuff is more tonal. A lot more gray tones and thin lines building up to the appearance of gray tones. To emphasize that this is not the real world, I dispense with the solid panel borders and just leave the panels borderless. I have my letterer switch to a different typeface. The balloons are turned into captions, and all these things hopefully clue the reader into the fact that the dialogue that appears in each

Figure 4.6: Page 12 & 13 of “In the Dreamtime,” Xenozoic Tales #8.

caption box is happening inside Jack’s head, and is a dream or a message from someplace else.”

Typography is also used in this scene to differentiate between the two mental states. “It’s important to me that all aspects of any story I do reinforce each other.

Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

Getting the right typefaces is important—I want those to work in a design sense with the artwork. And vice versa. I want a typeface that works with my kind of illustrative drawing. There are typefaces that are going to work with that and other types that won’t.” By moving to an italic, almost calligraphic style of lettering in this spread, it differentiates itself from the “normal world” typeface, which is a rounder, more standard face. “I do everything in a comic book but the lettering, which my wife does. My comic book production is all done in-house and she can show me different examples and I’ll say I’d like a lower case script italicized and she’ll come up with different possibilities for me to look at.” Schultz credits Alex Toth, a sequential artist who lettered his own work, with his fascination of the storytelling possibilities of good type selection. “Toth does his own lettering most of the time. He considers every aspect of any page, any book he does, any story he does. He considers all of those different aspects, and that helps raise what may be an ordinary story to something really special.”

In the dream scenes, Schultz works the transition back to real time expertly. “I’m trying to pick up the pace in each of their two sequences as they go along until they wake up.” The positioning of the figures and reintroducing the use of heavy black ink helps speed the pacing and helps move the transitions. “I am trying to pick 51

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up the pacing, I’m trying to bring things to a climax. I guess I’m doing that one way by making the images a little more action oriented. The earlier pages had more relaxed images, more flowing images—they get more angular and more agitated looking by the time we’re on the third page of each sequence. I’m also looking at the captions—I kept the captions brief on the last pages. I tried to make them more blunt and to the point.

On the last page of each sequence I bring that double moon image which was last seen over Jack’s head on page 11 as he was starting his dream sequence. Hopefully seeing those double moons… signals to the reader on some level that we’re going back to the real world now and that the danger in their dreams represents a danger in the real world as well.”

The last panel of page 17 marks the return of the border standardized in Shultz’s real world narration, and when our adventurers wake up, they realize that something is terribly wrong (Figure 4.8).

“On page 18 Jack and Hannah are awake and again the tendrils of smoke are wafting across them, only this time… I reinforce the danger by showing them choking to show that there is real physical danger beyond what they were dreaming about. There’s something in the air, they’re choking and I guess they don’t know what Figure 4.7: Page 17 of “In the Dreamtime,” Xenozoic Tales #8.

it is at that point but I’m hoping that the reader will understand. At this time, I toss in the strong borders again, and a lot more solid blacks.”

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The tie between cinematic storytelling and comic book storytelling is a strong

one and professionals in both industries are continually inspired by each other. The concept for Xenozoic Tales #13 was inspired by the movie The Most Dangerous Game. In this story, Jack Tenrec is hunted by Balclutha, Wasoon’s most able huntsman.

Working within the confines of a set amount of pages, Schultz ran into logistical problems, mainly how to condense so much action into so few pages. “I could have gone two ways, I could have just shown Jack being hunted, just set up some flimsy excuse and have Jack being hunted by a guy for the majority of an issue and wrap it up at the end. Or I could do what I did, flesh out everything I’ve been working for and spend some time with that.

“Again, it turned into a space thing. When I got to actually mapping it out with all the character development I needed to do and the political intrigues I was trying to convey within the context of this story, that actual sequence of being hunted— the space for that had really shrunk down.

The use, or absence of a border on a panel can be vital to understanding the importance of the action it encases. To start the hunt off in the first panel of page 16, Jack Tenrec is placed within an open panel (Figure 4.9). “I needed a panel

Figure 4.8: Page 18 of “In the Dreamtime,” Xenozoic Tales #8.

showing Jack putting down his weapons. I wanted to show that Jack wasn’t going to 52

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have his weapons to defend himself with. It’s just purely conveying information. I think

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from a design point of view, I felt that page needed a panel that was open. It’s one of the conventions that I use a lot… I usually have one open panel. If I follow a formula, I have generally 5 or 6 panel pages, one of those panels is always open, one of those panels has a heavier border around it and one panel is a close up or a head shot. It’s just design conventions that make for a pleasing page, that convey the story and tell the story but also from a purely visual point of view. By just looking at it without reading the story, hopefully that page looks attractive.”

Another form of focus panel can be created when the action breaks the panel’s borders. In the last panel, panel 5, the hunt is on and Jack’s dagger breaks the border. “Usually the panel where I have a figure breaking out of the borders kind of draws the eye. It’s the action panel, that’s the panel that kicks off the actual hunt, so I guess that’s why I think in terms of it being the most important. I would like to think that that’s visually the one that people’s eyes will go to.”

At page 17, the hunt is in earnest (Figure 4.10) and Schultz lets the action speak for itself as the two warriors fight for survival. Even when text is used, it isn’t enclosed within a balloon. Rather, the words “I’M COMING, TENREC!” echo in Figure 4.9: Page 16 of “Dangerous Grounds,” Xenozoic Tales #13.

the background like rolling thunder. “I grew up reading the Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko comics of the ‘60s where characters are beating each other senseless and throwing around witticisms or thinking about how they failed their Aunt May, or whatever. It worked within those contexts, it was kind of loopy, good fun, but I just can’t write that way. I want more of a feeling of actual danger. I think in a real situation people aren’t…

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going to be wasting their breath. Any thoughts that you have are going to be directly on what’s happening there at the moment and there’s really no reason in these panels to have any balloons. There’s nothing that’s not conveyed in the visual image in the picture. I want the reader to center on this is the situation these people are in and it’s a dangerous situation. That’s all that needs to be said. The only time I do have dialogue in there is in the form of sound effect in the third panel. I wanted the feeling that Balclutha, from a distance behind Jack, is bellowing out to him to try to intimidate him, to frighten him. I wanted to do it in a sound effect like it’s coming over a distance from way behind the grasses we can see there. It’s so big and so portentous to Jack that it’s like a sound of nature, it’s not just a human voice.”

In any action sequence, pacing is important. The speed the eye moves from panel to panel can be directed to help impress the impression of time. Only two pages were used to give the illusion of a contracted hunt, but the choice of both action and transitions can help make the event stretch longer. “Here again the lack of pages I had to work with really hurt things. I really wish I had at least another page, maybe two, between page 17 and the first tier of 16. I could have used at least two more pages to do some fun stuff. Being real critical about this story, I think Jack’s getting the upper hand just happens too quickly. I tried to give the impression on the previous page in that

Figure 4.10: Page 17 of “Dangerous Grounds,” Xenozoic Tales #13.

first that an amount of time had gone by.”

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Sequential art storytelling is a demanding art form and methods of storytelling are continually learned. “The top tier of page 18 is one of those triptych sequences that’s trying to convey the passage of time (Figure 4.11). In hindsight, that space might have been better used by showing three completely different environments, three completely different actions happening to Jack or to Balclutha to give the idea of time being conveyed better, instead of just one action happening over three panels.

Maybe Jack running over a fallen log and then climbing a tree and then running over rocks, just to give the idea of time and space.”

As beautiful as Schultz’s artwork is, for clear storytelling, aesthetics must give way to clarity and functionality. In panel 4 of page 18, the hunted becomes the hunter. With the lush visuals, Schultz became concerned that the reader could have easily spotted Jack underneath the natural bridge. “I felt I needed [in panel 5] to put in those word balloons. Ideally I wouldn’t have done that, but I needed the reader to know that Balclutha realizes all of a sudden that Jack’s not in front of him. I wanted the reader to know that so I could set up the next panel. The only way I could do that and feel sure that the reader would know what was going on was by putting on those word balloons. Then I get to give my character some witty repartee in the next panel. Then the Figure 4.11: Page 18 of “Dangerous Grounds,” Xenozoic Tales #13.

next page is an out and out rock ‘em sock ‘em fight scene. This is another instance where I wanted to show Jack’s thought process without the convention of just having the standard thought balloon line over his head… I don’t use this too much. And I thought since Jack is getting pummeled here, his head’s probably ringing, I wanted to create that feeling of omnipresent sound echoing in his head and I am trying to do that by using a sound effect type of lettering instead of a word balloon or thought balloon to get that

Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

across. It’s a design thing, too, it’s not just telling the story, though it’s the most important thing. I like the look of those words there… the way they flow over the heads of the character.”

On page 19, words appear over the heads of the combatants (Figure 4.12). Starting as small text, the type increases in size and becomes more twisted with each passing panel. The memory of an earlier conversation gains more emphasis as Jack tries to get his head straight. “It’s in the back of his mind first, it hasn’t worked its way to his consciousness and he keeps nagging at him and when it finally reaches the point to where he gets a conscious thought, it’s gotten big.”

The conflict reaches the end on page 20 where Jack’s mind leaves him alone and the scene becomes quieter (Figure 4.13). “Again, this is one of those things that in retrospect I don’t know if I’d put that in there. I think the picture conveys it well enough. In the last triptych at the end of that page, I hopefully convey the idea that in the first panel Jack is viciously holding this guy under water trying to drown him. Then in the second to middle panel Balclutha’s hands are not struggling anymore, they’re kind of limp, but Jack looks like he’s thinking about things. He’s a little more relaxed and then Jack is lifting up on the shirt of Balclutha on the last panel

Figure 4.12: Page 19 of “Dangerous Grounds,” Xenozoic Tales #13.

and looking surprised.”

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M The action is made more interactive without the use of sound effects.

“I don’t like to use sound effects. There are places to use sound effects and other places where they just get in the way. And for this type of a sequence where there’s a lot of impact type of situations I just think that if you do one sound effect at one impact in a sequence you’ve got to pretty much stay true to your internal logic and put it in all of them. It would have been too much, it would have been too busy and I’m hoping in this entire sequence there’s enough impact there that you don’t need the sound effects.”

Without the visual representation of sound, the reader is left to imagine the landing of the fists or the impact of splashing in the water. The story becomes an experience as the reader adds from their own minds.

“Anything you can do to engage the reader’s imagination just makes the story all that stronger. I like sound effects and I use them where I think they are appropriate. It just seemed to me to work better without the sound effects. Just let the visuals speak for themselves.”

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S T O R Y T E L L E R Figure 4.13: Page 20 of “Dangerous Grounds,” Xenozoic Tales #13.

With the action adventure genre of comics, many factors working in unison

contributes to a great yarn. As much as he has accomplished in comics, Schultz feels he has a long way to go. “I feel that I’m beginning my career, I have so many ideas and so many things I want to do.” Schultz uses a simple formula to direct action. “Most problems were essentially the same on any page of any story: trying to convey the Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

information that’s necessary, to convey as interestingly as possible, in a way that it’s appealing to the reader and entertaining and hopefully doesn’t bore them. I tell stories one way, but I think if you get any comic book artist to do any given sequence they’d all turn out differently. Some ways obviously would be better than other ways, but there’s any number of ways of doing things. The only hard rule is that you’ve got to convey the information clearly to the reader: compellingly, clearly, concisely—the three “C’s.”

Schultz sees his role as the sequential artist as something more than capturing action on a page. “I’m an entertainer. I think the most important thing I can do is entertain people. What I try to do is entertain them and also teach them a little something and try to get across a point of view, but without interfering with my basic mission, which is to entertain people. It’s a little different attitude than much of contemporary entertainment. My influences go back to a different age than what is popular today. I think if it’s done correctly that stuff is just as legitimate today as it ever was.

You just keep plugging away and doing it hoping that people enjoy it.”

Figure 4.14: Cover to Xenozoic Tales #14, by Mark Schultz.

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Figure 4.15: Example of superb inking virtuosity as demonstrated by Mark Schultz in page 7 of Xenozoic Tales #13.

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Good line dynamic can be as important to a story as choosing the correct camera angle.

Line dynamic helps direct the flow of the story and makes it look lush and energetic.

Deciding to add more shadow to an arm or thickening the line that defines the edge of a leg can give the object more life on the page and reinforce the storytelling.

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M Modulating the thickness of a line gives it more emotional range which creates a more dynamic quality. Sequential art relies on line to define a person, an object, and a background. Varying lineweight makes a line expressive. Crucial objects should be rendered with a heavier line weight to separate them from other objects within the panel.

This heavier holding line gives the object more mass, form, volume and depth. Since most comic pages are drawn at a larger size (approximately 165% printed size, or under 11" X 17"), when the art is reduced, thick lines will hold more clearly than thin ones.

Deciding which lines to vary is completely up to the artist, but different techniques can be utilized for different results. Again, the story should dictate which style to use.

If all the panels on a page were drawn with an even, static contour

Figure 4.16: Mark Schultz sets up the light source to be to the left of Hannah. You can see the line which defines her nose act as a shadow.

For Jack, a figure closer to the viewer, the shadow extends farther making him farthest away from the light source.

line, the eye would not have anything to hold on to and the story would seem flat, causing the reader to constantly be aware that the characters are only 2-D and not real.

It would then fall to the colorist to define mass, separate foreground from background and add dimension to the story. But in most comic art these qualities are created by inking. Using heavy black ink forces the eye to comprehend the art in terms of negative space against positive space. By the same token, a strong light source emanating from within the panel helps define the environment. Not only will it create shadows and depth, but the contour lines farthest away from the light source will thicken (Figure 4.16).

Backgrounds are typically drawn with thinner lines to push them

Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

further away from the viewer. The eye will immediately move to the darker shapes in the foreground because this mimics natural lighting and perspective (Figure 4.17).

Line thickness creates depth and distance, which is important when trying to separate foreground from background. If the addition of thicker lines—and thus more black— was added to the background, the reader’s tendency would be to slow down and decipher the panel. In storytelling, this effect can be manipulated according to the needs of the story.

When the visual art of comics is reduced to its barest essentials, only the line remains. As the eye quickly moves from thicks to thins and from line to line, a sense of rhythm and fluidity is created. Tapered lines can move the eye from shadow to light, while thick solid lines anchor important details. Bold lines are the glue

Figure 4.17: Example of line variation and contour thickness used to distinguish foreground from background. The cityscape is inked with light, even lines which break in the highlights. The eye moves to the plantarium and steps, inked with thicker, solid lines. Hannah is defined by the thickest lines on the page, causing the illusion of depth. The figure pops out of a background rich with detail.

that binds all of the visual elements together. Detail, hatching and other decorative elements are only effective if grounded by a strong line.

Comic book creators want readers to feel stimulated—they want to give their art feeling, movement and energy. Line dynamic keeps the visual style from getting boring and gives life to the story.

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CLARITY IS THE BEST

Figure 5.1: Phantom Stranger and Batman from Detective Comics #500.

Art by Dick Giordano.

SINGLE WORD TO DESCRIBE GOOD STORYTELLING.

Giordano

– Dick Giordano

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

C H A P T E R

F I V E

Dick Giordano was sickly as a child so his father used to keep him sedated with

comic books. He was instantly mesmerized by the art form. “I got those first issues of Famous

Funnies; I wish I had saved some of them.” He grew up in New York City and attended the

School of Industrial Arts. It was here that Giordano learned all of his basics and by the time he was 18 years old, he was ready to work. “I just accidentally walked into Jerry Iger’s studio

after I got out of high school and I’ve been in the comic business ever since.”

The following year, Giordano moved on to Charlton comics, first as

artist and then as managing editor from 1951 to 1967. “One of the things I liked about Charlton was the great variety of material: I did hot rod, western, romance, and the occa-

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sional superhero comic. Today there is only one subject matter: superhero. If you’re not doing that, you’re not working.”

In 1967 he had an invitation to work for DC Comics. After working for

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DC for two years, he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the company’s direction and worked from his studio freelancing for Julius Schwartz. In 1971 Neal Adams and Giordano started Continuity, which utilized sequential art storytelling techniques for advertising purposes.

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They created storyboards, motion boards and other items related to advertising.

By 1980 Giordano came back to DC Comics as an editor and has since

worked on numerous titles for the company. “The character that I prefer working on at

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DC is Batman. That was my favorite character in the beginning; he’s my favorite charac-

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ter now.” In his long career, Giordano is noted for drawing Batman, Wonder Woman, Catwoman and Gordon of Gotham as well as inking Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Detective Comics.

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Giordano is a jack of all trades in the comic industry. He has been a penciler,

inker and editor. As diverse as these talents are, one idea binds them together: the clear communication of the story.

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“I have to consider all of the problems involved, including the information that I must detail for the reader. That is what I feel my primary job is—to lay

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the information out clearly for the reader so that he understands what the story is so that he doesn’t have to go back to figure out what’s going on. So clarity, in my mind, is

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the best single word to describe good storytelling. It’s basically just being clear.”

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Giordano tries to understand from the reader’s perspective early on in

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the roughs stage. “I visualize everything on paper before I pencil on the boards so that I I N C L U D I N G

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can make adjustments. I generally work in comic book size at 100% size. By working the pages out at actual size… I know what the pages are going to look like to the reader. I

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do very comprehensive pencils and then use an artograph to blow them up to page size.

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These days, I Xerox the pages up to the right size and work off of a light box.

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The impact of the information the reader reads on the page is fasciD E T A I L

nating to Giordano. “What I do in trying to lay the storyline out is first think of pacing.

I also consider the pages that are going to be facing each other, if I have that informa-

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tion. If I know I have the lead story then I know there’s going to be an ad on page 4. But I try to figure out what the pages will look like opposite each other.”

Giordano stresses the importance of making artistic elements tell a T H A T

story instead of relying on words.

“From my stand point [as a penciler], I try to ignore the copy to the

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degree that it may interfere with my decision making. If I read the copy… and I realize that some of the information is told to the reader in dialogue then I might not put it into

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the graphics. My aim is to be able to draw an entire story and show it to somebody then T O

look and see if they are confused by what’s happening. You may need to read the balloons later to get some of the nuances, the meanwhiles, the passage of time and all of the other

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things that are necessary in a comic book story. Through strong visuals, the reader is able to tell what the characters are doing and why. He knows who the characters are.”

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With the huge casts of characters that a sequential art story can demand, R E A D E R

keeping one distinguishable from the other is the artist’s responsibility. “Storytelling requires the artist to start off with a set of clearly defined characters. Of course everybody knows who

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Batman is, so I don’t have to work on that. But the other people you have to define rather clearly so that no matter where they’re seen or at what angle, they’ll know who you’re talk-

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ing about. Joe Chill might wear a particular kind of a hat, and it’s also a good idea to be consistent because you can identify him even when you see the back of his head.

“When I’m going to show somebody, I’m going to have a hand shot somewhere in the sequence so you can clearly see the character’s hand. It behooves me to design a distinctive ring or draw a wristwatch or something that’s included in a shot in 59

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an earlier panel so that when you see the hand by itself you’ll know whose it is. A hand is a hand is a hand in comic books. There isn’t that much difference between a woman’s hand and a man’s hand. Everybody complains about pointed nails on woman action heroes but don’t realize that that’s just a visual shorthand. [The artist] doesn’t really believe that all women have long nails in comics, it’s just the only way you can think of to make sure you know that’s it’s a woman’s hand by putting pointed nails on it.”

Stressing individuality and personality can differentiate characters and make them more animated. To a degree, Giordano utilizes character stereotypes.

“I try to design characters by shape rather than by detail. A short, fat guy next to a tall, thin guy is recognizable, no matter what point of view I take. If I do a silhouette from way down the beach you can tell the tall, thin guy from the short, fat guy. You can’t always do it exactly like that, but I do rely on character shapes. The next thing you have to do is think about props in order to tell a story. When you’re setting up a room and there’s a prop that’s going to become important later in the sequence, you might want to set it up in the foreground earlier in the sequence so that when it comes in it doesn’t come out of left field.”

A sense of storytelling reality is also important to Giordano. Creating a descriptive panel that places the characters into the story’s reality is an important aspect of drawing comics since it suspends the readers disbelief and creates believability.

“Always have that establishing shot up front to show you where you are. It’s really a simple technique to learn. There really are no rules. The only rule I believe with storytelling is to show the reader, don’t tell them. If they follow that rule religiously, all of the other details will fall in place. I think you’d have to be idiot not to realize that the establishing shot in the first or second panel is one way to show the reader where you are. Also, establishing shots are important in showing time of day, weather conditions, that sort of thing. If it’s snowing, show it fast. If by the second panel you’ve got a close up and you’ve got a little white dot on his face, you won’t know what that is unless you have established it’s snowing.”

“These are the kinds of devices of storytelling needed to get a reader through a story. The props, the character design, creating a sense of reality, and credibility. Credibility in a Donald Duck strip might be a car that looks like a Donald Duck car.

If you put the Batmobile in the Donald Duck strip it would look out of place and would lose the reader because they would be trying to figure out why the Batmobile is here. A car should look like a car that belongs in the reality of the story and the artist should know something about cars. And certainly about guns. I’ve never fired a gun in my life, but I know all the parts and what they do. I might suddenly have to draw a gun without reference and I want to make sure the parts are where they are. The only way to do that is to know what the parts do and how they work. I have a special reference library on mechanical stuff for that reason. I want to know what cars look like, I want to know what planes look like, I want to know what guns look like. I have several reference volumes on buildings. I have reference on all kinds of animals because that comes up regularly.”

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Giordano believes in straightforward

storytelling. He enjoys experimentation with panel shapes and layout but not at the risk of confusing the reader.

“There are times when I am tempted to be cute with regards to paneling, but if the cuteness makes it harder for the reader to understand what’s going on, I will opt for more traditional panels.”

Purple backgrounds tie all 6 panels together in the same place as part of the same action in page 2 of Detective Comics #500 (Figure 5.2). The action progresses quickly as jump cuts drive the narrative from panel to panel: Joe Chill points his gun at Thomas Wayne, kills him, cocks the hammer, shoots again and young Bruce Wayne stares at his parent’s killer and then screams. With these flashback panels, Giordano overlaps the panels and utilizes few gutters to speed up the action.

“I don’t want the panel shapes or the space allocated to be the stars. I’m more likely to design a page with a big dynamic panel for something that requires a big dynamic panel rather than something I like to draw. How many times have you opened up a comic book to the big dynamic panel and it’s of a woman with big breasts? Not that I’m against women with big breasts, mind you,

Figure 5.2: Dream sequence. Color unifies this scene as Giordano experiments with the layout and overlapping panels. From Detective Comics #500.

but that’s a waste of space that should be used for a point that’s more important to the storytelling.”

The establishing shot is one of the more important panels that should serve as a focus panel. In Detective Comics #500, page 7, Batman and Robin find themselves on a wharf (Figure 5.3). The color usage establishes the tone for the entire scene and, as Batman tries to procure information from a thug in panel 4, the tan background disappears into a solid brown.

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Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

“The establishing shot is critical to every sequence. Every sequence should begin with an establishing shot, if not in the first panel, then the second panel. Somewhere in there it should tell the reader where we are and who’s there.

“Once the scene has been established, you can get in closer. It’s not important to put a lot of background information there—you already know where you are.

If you can control the color, you can color key the background. When you’re in this setting [the wharf scene] everything is tan. It’s subtle.

It sort of helps you believe that we’re still in the same place even though there’s no background because it started out tan and ended up tan.

“These are all movie storytelling devices that you can read about in any good text on film making. If you enjoyed a particular film get the video, put it on television, shut the sound off, see how much of that story was told to you with the graphics. You’d be amazed. About 80 - 90% of the story is told to you with an image that doesn’t rely on sound. I know, because most of the films I watch I can’t hear. And I think that’s also true of the comic book artists. More of the older guys are interested in storytelling devices than the youngsters. I’m not trying to draw a line between young artists and older artists; it’s an environmental thing. We grew up in an era where storytelling was more important. Artists

Figure 5.3: Example of the effectiveness of an establishing shot. Because the color palette and establishing shot were created in panel 1, there is no confusion when the background was left out for brevity in panel 4.

come into the business today and are led to believe that it’s not as important as big muscles on men and big breasts on women; they sort of focus on that rather than on telling the story.”

With clear storytelling, the basics of moving the reader to the next panel must be in place before more subtle techniques can be employed.

“A simple element of storytelling is that each panel in a sequence should follow the panel before and precede the panel in front of it. That sounds terribly obvious but there has to be a way to move your eye from left to right.

“Sometimes the devices are obscure. Sometimes they’re funny.”

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Having a character point toward the next panel or having a word balloon draw the reader to the next tier of panels are ways to reinforce the sequence. “But the end of the page is where I want to get us to—so I’ll have a character leaning one way, a character definitely pointing into this panel, or a leg breaking the panel towards another panel. So, without letting you know that I’m doing it, I’m dragging your eye around the page the way I want it to go. I sometimes use balloons to do that. I might put a balloon where you have no choice but to read down.”

By having characters or text boxes break a panel, the Figure 5.4: Example of the figure directing the eye.

artist has another tool to direct the

eye around the page. It takes a good sense of design to choreograph action and text in a comic book page. “This is another thing that is a part of storytelling: the overlaps.

Because most people don’t necessarily read the right way, from left to right.”

In Detective Comics #500, Giordano starts page 3 with Bruce Wayne Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

waking from a nightmare in panel 1 (Figure 5.4). His legs break into panel 2 and are contained by the border. The reader pauses. In panel 3, Bruce Wayne changes into his alter ego. His legs drop into panel 3 where Batman swings over Gotham.

In the following page (Figure 5.5), Giordano directs the eye utilizing thought balloons. The page contains 6 panels with panel 4 positioned at a right angle to panel 3, like a flipped “L.” Without text boxes to move the eye, the reader might go to the bottom left-hand side of the panel and see the thug run away and miss the correct sequence. By positioning the thought balloons directly underneath panel 3, Giordano establishes the new scene, Crime Alley, and the reader can find Batman by reading his thought balloon.

“Most editors don’t know what good storytelling is. But you can’t do it for the editor; you’re doing it for the reader. And the fact of the matter is, unfortunately, if you do a good job with storytelling, nobody will notice. They will only notice if you do a bad job because then they can’t read the story. It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to be celebrated for, it’s a technique that everybody has to learn by themselves. And everybody has to find their way through it by themselves.”

Figure 5.5: Example of text boxes leading eye movement.

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Inking is an important step during the production of

comic books. Pencils would never maintain their crispness without an inker to complete the job. The inks are scanned or shot and eventually become one of the plates required in printing the comic book. Giordano inked over Neal Adams’ artwork in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. As a team, they were able to produce some of the more memorable comics during the Silver Age of comics.

When he inks, Giordano still keeps the reader in the back of his mind. “I work left to right, top to bottom. I ink it in the same fashion that I want the reader to look at the panels so that if there is anything I can do along the way to help them along, I will.

“Sometimes pages contain fully realized material when it gets on my desk… and there’s not an awful lot I can do to it. But sometimes I can do something by way of establishing a shadow pattern or something of that sort. The only way you can do that is if you’re actually reading the story as you go along. One way to read the story as you go along is to draw it, then you can tell, hey, I have an opportunity to do something. If you just isolate the scene and start inking that, you don’t know what’s happening there. You have to read the rest of the page to find out what a character is doing. So my approach almost always is to start on page one panel one in inking and finishing up in the last panel of the story.

“In today’s world, I sometimes deviate from that rule, but only for technical reasons. Some of the work I do today, for various reasons, I use photo references. So I have a tendency to want to

Figure 5.6: When inking over pencils, Giordano tries to ink the same order the reader will encounter the panels. From Green Lantern/Green Arrow #80. Pencils by Neal Adams and inks by Dick Giordano.

get all of reference stuff done first and then go back and do the brush work first and then the pen work. Some of the reasons are simply age. Working with a brush requires you to look at the point of the brush for the entire time you ink. But you can’t tell even if the brush is touching the paper, where with a pen you get some feedback. You can feel it with your finger using pen, and you don’t even have to look at it. With a brush you don’t know, so if you’re towards the end of the day and your eyes are getting a little tired, it’s a little hard to focus. So with that one exception, I’ve always firmly believed you ink the panels in the order the reader will read them.”

If corrections need to be made to strengthen the storytelling, Giordano will do just that. The inker can be a kind of editor over the pencils to create a consistency and clarity the pages might need.

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Green Lantern, Green Arrow and all related characters © DC Comics

“Sometimes the artist edits, leaving out stuff that the writer puts down. The artist might put down images there because he’s exercising his artistic muscles but they actually will confuse the reader if left in.

“There’s not a lot that an inker can do on a penciler like Neal Adams because the work is so complete when it gets to your table. For the most part all you can do is edit a little bit. There are other pencilers that are not quite as accomplished as Neal. I did one just recently; a Captain Marvel story which had great pictures in pencil, but wasn’t working well [as a consistent story]. At the artist’s request, as well as the editor’s request, I was asked to make some changes because it missed a lot of points. I did it because they asked, “Can you make these changes and… eliminate these and whatever else you think will make it work?” So those are the two extremes.

“When the work is so fully realized that you can’t fool with it too much, you can do little things but you can’t do anything really big. With Neal, sometimes the costume would inadvertently change from what it was supposed to look like.

I would make those changes. Nobody notices, including the artist, because the changes were minor. As we went along, Neal got to the point where he realized there were certain things that I did better then him, so he would just roughly put some shapes and say: Figure 5.7: Example of “Giordano metal.”

‘Make this Giordano metal!’ I had a style for inking metal that made them look shiny and bright and he didn’t know how to do it.”

Spotting blacks is an important concept for inkers and it serves an important role in storytelling.

“Spotting blacks has two major advantages to it. One is to add solidity to a figure, without the black on it everything would be sort of an outline and would

Figure 5.8: Examples spotting blacks. It is important to create a strong light source to anchor information and establish depth.

(Left) Man-Bat against the moonlight.

(Below) Batman close-up.

From Detective Comics #402. Pencils by Neal Adams and inks by Dick Giordano.

[linear]. If you reduce inking to a simple shape like a square or rectangle, one side is black, one side is gray, and one side is white and that’s what gives it depth. Well a black is a black, the gray is feathering and the white is the side facing the light. The other is just

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

look pretty much like Donald Duck

purely design. I’m eliminating the obvious black as a color.”

As an example of spotting blacks, Man-Bat is about to drink the serum to revert back to his human form (Figure 5.8). The moon showing through the window is the light source. The wrinkles in the sleeve were an exaggeration because the moonlight could not go around a 65

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corner to highlight the information. But in art, it is important to sometimes stretch reality to make a better image. The highlight is toward the moon and there is very little midtone or feathering. The black graphic shapes anchor the shadow and give the image a distinct quality.

“There are ways to use blacks in order to keep a reader’s eye around.

It’s not often done though because creators today actually don’t think that way. It takes more time to think of ways to use black on the page. I once worked with an inker at Jerry Iger’s and I learned a great deal from him. He used to put the black shading down first instead of outlines then adding the blacks last. He was interested in how much he could lead your eye with the black shapes. It was an interesting way to work. I tried that from time to time, I’m just not as good at it as he was. But sometimes spotting blacks are used for that. And sometimes color’s used for that.”

In traditional comics, where teams of artists produce a comic book, there are no two parts of the whole that are as celebrated as the penciler/inker team.

This combination of creativity and consistency can only be developed if the two artists are of the same goal and vision. Neal Adams and Dick Giordano were that way.

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

“We had a close working relationship. When I was an editor at DC the first person I saw when I walked into that office was Neal; I didn’t even know him at the time. He was sitting in the office across the way and we hit if off immediately and that’s why we worked as partners. There were problems that we never foresaw. He was sleeping when I was working and I was sleeping when he was working; we had totally different work schedules. So I would go into the office at 5:00 in the morn-

Figure 5.9: Throughout the Silver Age of comics, there was probably no better penciler/ inker team than Neal Adams/Dick Giordano.

Their storytelling techniques still provide inspiration. From Detective Comics #402. Pencils

by Neal Adams and inks by Dick Giordano.

ing and he would come in at 4:00 in the afternoon and work all night and be going home when I was coming in.

The place was open all the time.”

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Giordano feels that the job of the storyteller is an meaningful one.

“[As an editor], I work with a penciler and I try to work with his approach to his page layouts in order to instruct better storytelling decisions. ‘If you can’t move that leg over here, erase it, keep it above the line. We’ll find some other way to bring make the reader’s eye come down.’ It all comes down to clarity for the reader.

“My main concern is basically the reader’s reaction to the work that I’ve done. I’m not interested in being flashy, I’m interested in the reader getting the information. That’s the storyteller’s job. Not the story writer’s, not the artist, it’s the storyteller’s job to make sure the reader sees all of the information that he needs to see in order to tell what’s going on in the story context. I will very often opt for something that is closer to a diagram than a piece of art because a diagram is clarity. Something that’s not particularly satisfying as a piece of artwork but is clear and therefore helps progress the story.

“The idea in a comic book story is a quick turn. Hook the reader with a splash panel, with the opening, get them involved with something that quickly describes part of the problem that’s going to be important to the story and then drag them, kicking and screaming if you have to, to the story so that he knows what’s hapBatman and all related characters © DC Comics

pening. You want him to not realize how much time has elapsed, you want to get him immersed into the story. That’s kind of high falutin’; you can’t always do that. And storytelling is definitely the writer’s chore; he has to do his job right before I can do my job right. If I’m confused by the writer, which happens occasionally, I can’t focus. I feel my obligation is to the reader, not to the fans, not to displaying my creative muscles, but get the story told. When I was teaching at Syracuse University, Parsons and Kubert, my opening schpiel always included ‘I’m going to give you an assignment to do which will consist of a paragraph of words. I want you to translate that paragraph of words into pictures and if you do the job properly, we’ll get the janitor in. You show him your pictures and he will tell you what’s happening and what he says will be the paragraph of words that I gave you to start with.’ That’s what we’re aiming for here, quick graphics that make the words move. My big rule is don’t rely on the copy or the dialogue to tell the story, rely on the artwork.”

Figure 5.10: Giordano still keeps active in comics. These days, you can find him penciling several Batman projects for DC Comics if he’s not giving a lecture on storytelling at an art college or university.

From Gordon of Gotham #2. Pencils by by Dick Giordano and inks by Klaus Janson.

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Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

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Figure 5.11: Example of storytelling clarity through spotting blacks as told by Dick Giordano in page 14 of Batman #421.

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The way the eye moves from panel to panel on the page must be controlled.

Typically, the eye will move from shape to shape in quick succession especially if a trait or form repeats. When the reader sees a white oval surrounded by color and tone, the eye immediately searches out the next oval in succession. This is how the comic story is read.

Art can also take advantage of this concept to link visual information.

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The term “spotting blacks” means creating heavy areas of ink on a page which moves the eye in a planned way. Spotting blacks anchors important information on the page. Solid black areas place shadows and differentiate between the three planes of foreground, middleground and background. These heavy values pull the eye and move the reader through the story like stepping stones along a path. An interplay between positive and negative shapes occurs. At a quick glance, the eye sees the dark areas and the mind Figure 5.12: Example of framing by spotting blacks.

tries to connect them.

Because large areas of black ink can dominate a white page, the way these areas are placed can facilitate storytelling. They can serve to frame an element, direct the eye, anchor objects, or create a mood.

By turning all of the thinner ink marks grey, we can see how spotting blacks works. In example 5.12, Batman’s fist comes down in frustration over a cop gone bad. By making the computer black, two elements are framed by the shadows—Batman’s arm and the computer screen. If the computer was created solely in contour without black, the eye might move to the keyboards and display lights, misdirecting the story.

Figure 5.13: Example of directing eye movement by spotting blacks.

In example 5.13, notice how the shapes are created on a diagonal that moves from left to right, top to bottom. Even in the cape, the thicker shapes ground the form and are tapered closer to the top. Since this panel is top and right of the page, these shapes serve to transition to panel 3.

In example 5.14, there is a great deal of detail potentially confusing information in the scene at the police impound: the cars, the policeman, the garage and then finally Batman. The light seems even in this scene, but beneath Batman’s cape it is the darkest area in the panel. The shadow under his cape grounds the figure and pops him out graphically. Emphasis is maintained.

Finally, in example 5.15, a dynamic shadow leads away from Batman.

Figure 5.14: Example of grounding the eye by spotting blacks.

Batman himself is created in contour, so the eye drifts to the wall and the policeman is almost surrounded by the menacing shadow shape. The blacks spotted in the oil can

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

help to ground the nervous policeman. Again, this is a daytime scene, but the heavy shadows make this story seem like a horror movie—which serves to underline the policeman’s guilt.

Eye movement is important to art and design. A painting or illustration relies on dark and light values to move the eye around a single image. This philosophy is still used in comics, but the same kind of thinking must also be applied to all of the panels in an entire page. All of the panels have to work together to keep the reader going onto the next page.

Within each panel the story will dictate the style in which spotting black can be applied. And after the panel’s information is clearly defined and focus is created, then the page as a whole must be scrutinized. Like word balloons, the inked black shapes should serve to propel the eye forward to the next panel and next page.

In comics depth can be created with heavy hatching or color, but spotting blacks cor-

Figure 5.15: Example of mood created by spotting blacks.

rectly is another important technique of storytelling.

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Figure 6.1: Hellboy from The Corpse and the Iron Shoes.

WA N T T O SIMPLIFY MY STYLE DOWN TO TELL A B E T T E R S T O RY.

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Mignola

Mike Mignola

HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

C H A P T E R

S I X

As a child, Mike Mignola loved comics and wanted to draw monsters for a living.

He went to the California College of Arts and Crafts and after two years of learning,

“I was raring to go out and do real work.” Being an illustration major in school,

Mignola found that the only place he would be able to draw monsters was in comics.

Since Mignola was not confident that he could draw these creatures

and make a living, he trained himself to be an inker. “I started working at Marvel as an inker and I was horrible at it and after about a year one of the editors up there said:

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‘You’re terrible at this, do you want to try drawing this stuff instead?’ I didn’t have confidence. I didn’t know that I could draw anything else. So it really came down to we

can’t give you any inking work anymore because you’re just so awful. So I got demoted

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into drawing instead. And I’ve been drawing ever since 1982.”

Mignola is best known for his work on his own creation, Hellboy. He

has won awards for Best Writer/Artist for Hellboy and has artist/writer credits on numer-

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ous comics projects including: Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, Alien: Salvation, Batman:

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Gotham by Gaslight, Zombie World, Abe Sapien, and BPRD. In movies, he adapted Francis Ford

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Coppola’s Bram Stroker’s Dracula into comics and lent his concepts to Disney’s Atlantis and

New Line’s Blade II. Though he does a lot of “odd and ends,” Mignola is happiest when

he does his own work, which includes drawing all the monsters he wants.

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These days, Mignola creates his own comic book stories. Earlier in his career,

this was not the case. “I started plotting my own stories. I did a story for a Clive Barker horror anthology and I told this story to the editor. They said that’s fine. I told it to a writer also. I told them what I wanted to do, they said that’s fine. I sat down, I drew it and I gave it to this other guy and had it scripted. He was unsatisfying because, while I was afraid of putting the words in my character’s mouth, when I saw someone else do it, I thought that’s not quite what I would have had them say. That was the experience the first time I did Hellboy. I didn’t have the confidence to do my own thing so I talked to John Byrne. He said he would do it with me and though he had no input really in the HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

plot, I told him everything I was going to do. He may have made suggestions here and there, but for the most part I sat down, I made up the story, I drew the comic, and then I wrote down what everybody was talking about, gave it to John and he rewrote what they were talking about. There are a lot of places he just copied what I wrote. What I found after doing this for a couple of issues is when he would change my stuff, I liked it better the way it was. To John it meant I had gotten to the point where I was ready to write the stuff myself. But it was scary. I’d been drawing this stuff for 10 or 12 years and writing was something I never aspired to. But now that I’m doing it, it’s really difficult to go back and work from somebody else’s script.”

Mignola does not see himself as a writer and finds being labeled merely an artist too restricting. But as a visual storyteller, someone who creates writing and art to tell a story, he feels he has found an identity.

“There’s something to be gained by doing both things together and being able to make the decision of whether I handle this particular problem with a word or with a picture, and working those two things together as opposed to working with a writer where a lot of times you’re stepping on each other’s toes.

“I just read something with Will Eisner and he said he considered himself one who writes with pictures. That’s really a good one because that’s what storytelling is. I couldn’t imagine just writing something. I’ve done some projects where

Figure 6.2: Mike Mignola has developed a reputation as one of the best designers and storytellers in sequential art. In this page from The Wolves of St. August, note the use of graphic shapes and atmospheric pacing to tell this horror story.

I’ve written for other people but for the most part I would find it extremely unsatisfying just writing because there’s things I need to do with pictures. I have to work the two things together; it’s a nice niche to be in.”

Mignola has no set structure for developing his creations. Every new project is treated differently each time. Mignola definitely gives each story careful consideration.

“I still don’t have a real standard formula for [creating comics]. I’m always plotting stories, so at any given time I probably have four mini-series and five or six short stories rattling around in my head. I don’t take very good notes, I just keep retelling the stories in my head until the opportunity comes: ‘Well we need a short story,’ ‘We need a mini-series,’ or whatever. At that point, I just sit down and I do the thumbnails 71

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for the story and not write any dialogue because I’m very familiar with the story. The only place where I can reverse that, write the dialogue first, is if I’m in a situation where I have just people talking. Most of my stories don’t have that. They don’t have a five-page sequence of guys in a room having a conversation. If I have that then I’ve got to write it first so I’ll know where to position people. But for the most part, I do thumbnails and then I start drawing the story. As I’m drawing the story I write the script as I go along. It takes I

me about a day to draw a page, I spend that day on that page, drawing these characters.

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It gives me ample time to figure out what they’re talking about.”

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This stage of mulling stories around is crucial for Mignola to develop

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a comfort level with the subject matter, a familiarity that can come across in the story.

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“Some stories that are my best have cooked the longest. There are other stories where I sit down and belt out a story, but it wasn’t in my brain long enough.

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If something’s in my brain long enough, I add more wrinkles to it and more fun little sequential bits. The best Hellboy I’ve ever done was something I wanted to do a long time

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ago. So the story was rattling around in my head for a long time and I figured out a lot of things I wanted to do and then when I created Hellboy… I said: ‘Hey, if I swapped Hellboy into the story, Bingo!’”

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Mignola is known for his extremely graphic artistic style. His art is not simplistic, but every heavy black shape inked is important and a panel would not

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designed and feels consistent with the story. The initial reaction is that a lot of energy went into the planning, which is true to a point. Mignola spends his energy developing pages as a whole and not in developing panels.

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“My thumbnails are not tight; I wish they were. I wish I had the

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patience to do real tight thumbnails because that would mean when I sit down and draw G O O D

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a page it would go much faster. But generally I’m in such a rush to get stuff done that I do really, really rough thumbnails. And then when it comes down to designing a page

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I’m almost working from scratch as far as placing my blacks and all that kind of stuff.

What I try to do is do thumbnails for one or two comics in a day. When I have a chunk

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of quiet I’ll just pace around a whole day and thumbnail a whole job. I want to get it on S T O R I E S

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paper in one sitting. As far as designing characters… generally when I’m drawing a story

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I don’t allow myself the luxury of sitting down with a sketch book—I’d love to but U N T I L

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there’s always something to do. More often then not, I will start drawing a story and I haven’t figured out what in the hell the characters look like. And when I get to the point

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where ‘Oh! I’ve got to draw this character’ I may pull out a piece of paper or a sketch book at that point to figure out what the hell this character looks like. But again most of these characters have kind of gotten designed in my head.”

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The Wolves of St. August originally appeared as a black-and-white story in

Dark Horse Presents #88 - 91. When it was repackaged as a graphic novel, color and additional pages were added to make the continuity smoother as a single issue entity. In this story, Hellboy and Kate Corrigan investigate the death of Father Kelly, fellow field agent of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. In the tiny village of Griart, HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

Hellboy runs smack into a den of werewolves.

“That is something where I made a conscious decision to slow things down and try to create that kind of atmosphere. It comes from the things I see from various movies and I thought there’s got to be a way to duplicate that in comics: spending a lot more time, or a lot more pages, in establishing the mood. One of the best techniques for creating a mood is where I cut away to inanimate objects. And it slows the story down and at the same time creates atmosphere. With traditional comics, a guy is talking and you throw background in. And I thought this story hinges on whether the background is as important as the people, so we’re going to let the background be the star occasionally. There’s all sorts of things I do that are purely design sense. Just like the top of page two, the panel of the priest and

Figure 6.3: To develop atmosphere, an odd closeup will be thrown into the design to slow down the pacing. Note the chalice on the left-hand page and the bird on the right-hand page. From The Wolves of St. August, by Mike Mignola.

the cross, I needed that panel to be a certain size (Figure 6.3). I knew what size and shape that panel had to be. But it left me with this empty space up on the one side. And that happens quite a bit where I’ll end up with this space on a page and I have to go in there for pacing and design. So I’ll end up just throwing in something, in this case it was a carving of the chalice behind the altar. I’ll throw that in there and it slows things down, it adds a bit of visual interest and it helps the design of the next panel. The same with page 3 cutting away to the bird. I just needed something to interrupt these guys talking. That was an accident. That was one of the cases when I was laying this thing out I knew the conversation these guys were having. I knew what that was, but the bird ended up popping in there. I said I need something, not just these guys talking. What kind of a weird detail would just pop up in there? And it ended up giving a nice flavor to that scene. I was able to pick the bird up again at the end of the story. When I plot a story I try to keep things open enough that I can have those kinds of almost accidental things pop up when I’m writing it out. I guess I’ve learned to trust myself to do those kinds of things.”

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HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

Figure 6.4: Eliminating unnecessary background detail helps increase the pacing.

Originally a spread, (left) note the architectural shots, panels 1 and 6, which set up the mood. The chase scene (right) moves quickly through the panels which are extremely graphic, panels 3, 5, and 6. These panels help speed the action up.

The decisions to use heavy blacks to define shadow and to promote pacing is all by design. To most, Mignola is almost as much designer as he is storyteller.

“When I have people talking, there’s no detail behind them. I kind of try to keep the visual information separate from the conversational stuff. I got this from Craig Russell, who would do these beautiful, detailed establishing shots and then, when he gets down to people talking, there’s this big empty space with small figures. He didn’t always do that, but in a sequence where this guy is having a conversation, the background would just distract you. A lot of times when I design a location I might put something that’s got a lot of detail in one corner but when guys are talking, what’s behind them is a blank or black wall, or I’ll just blank out the background when I focus 74

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on these guys talking, because we shouldn’t be looking past them noticing that a fireplace is back there.”

In The Wolves of St. August, Hellboy and Kate are trapped by a pack of werewolves. Using shapes and details helps modulate the pacing and keeps the aesthetics of the page dynamic (Figure 6.4).

“It comes down to a thing where that visual information isn’t important. If I can do it with just the shade—it moves the eye along faster. The reader doesn’t stop to pour over detail. It’s dramatic, fast… the more detail you put in something the more it slows the reader down. My best friend is a super detail guy and that’s great for what he does, but for what I do, my main focus is telling the story. On a gut level what’s going to move something faster along is having those two silhouettes; that means you’ll read that and go onto the next panel because there’s nothing to dwell on.

“I find on a design level it makes for a nice page. You look at that middle tier panel, you start with a silhouette of the wolf. You come in on a nice detailed shot of the wolf and then boom, you’re back to a silhouette. It draws more attention to that wolf. So the whole page almost frames the nice drawing of the wolf’s head.”

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HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

T H E

C o n s i d e r e d b y m a n y t o b e o n e of

Mignola’s best works, the short story The Corpse involves Hellboy trying to regain a kidnapped baby. He makes a deal with the fairies to bury the corpse of Tam O’Clannie in exchange for the baby. Like the tasks of Hercules, Hellboy endeavors to do just that, but runs into many complications during his quest.

“It’s based on a folk tale I had read years ago, probably when I was still in school. And I loved it and I always wanted to do something with it. What I ended up doing to make it a Hellboy story was tacking on other English and Irish folk tale elements to round it out.

For the most part, I tried to have Hellboy in a different place doing a different thing Figure 6.5: (Left) The corpse’s first dialogue is delivered in panel 7. This look helps the reader assign a “voice” for the corpse. (Right) The skeletons also “speak” with designed word balloons.

every two pages.”

Mignola plays around with graphic elements in this story, especially with the word balloons (Figure 6.5). “I’ve never seen anybody do this where I put black 75

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behind word balloons. I’ve never seen anyone have a character talk like that. You’re manipulating the background to put these word balloons, rather than just pretend that these things are not there. A lot of people get carried away in comics and think that they’re making a movie… and don’t pay any attention to the balloons. Well you’re not making a movie. You’re dealing with this strange graphic storytelling kind of thing, so my feeling is, instead of pretending the word balloon isn’t there, let’s embrace them and really break them into the artwork. It’s just a real fun technique to throw that black in back there. And it’s fun to make this black shape. I’m a very big shape guy. A lot of what I draw looks like it shouldn’t take any time but I draw it and erase it a thousand times HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

until I get the right abstract shape. That’s what those black shapes are behind those word balloons—nice designy shapes.

“The black shapes surrounding the corpse’s voice gives it a spooky sound and visual look (Figure 6.6). That was conscious. When you’re doing this stuff you do not have the benefit of hearing the character’s voice, so you’ve got to do something to interpret it for the reader—and I hate spooky lettering. So I just needed some other way to indicate that he would have this other kind of voice. Color would have been one way to do it but I didn’t think of it at the time.”

At the end of the story, Hellboy faces the head fairy, his task completed. “I knew I wanted this fairy to disappear, and to have this guy disappear in a puff of smoke just wasn’t very interesting. I needed something that would be more abstract, more mysterious and again it’s one of the things you can do in comics and you can do with color (Figure 6.7). Because the whole idea was to have this guy fade into the color that’s behind him. Graphically it works real well on that page because you’ve got three panels together that have the exact same background color. And then below that you have this puff of smoke which kind of trails up into those panels. Again it’s the same color but it’s blowing away in the final panel there. That’s where that guy went. Because of the way the color is used we know where that guy went because he ties to that puff Figure 6.6: The “spooky” look of the Corpse’s lines continues throughout the story.

of smoke. It’s just one of the things trying to do something a little bit differently. Again I wanted to focus on what the fairy was saying, I was hoping for a cryptic, sad, tragic kind of thing. The guy’s face isn’t important. What’s important is what he’s saying and to just let the guy disappear.”

By cropping the panels closer and closer around the man’s eyes, the gaze emphasizes the tragedy of fairies leaving this world. The last shot we have of the fairy is a long, horizontal panel the width of the page. Good cropping and panel shapes are important graphic devices used in effective storytelling.

“Panel shape and size are hugely important. You want to have panels a certain shape and certain size and sometimes you are left with a whole page and you go: ‘Huh, have this panel that shape and I’ll need to have something here.’ That actually to me is one of the fun things about doing comics, those kind of problems. I’m left with this 2" x 2" square and then one corner. What can I stick in there? In this case it worked very smoothly. Horizontal panels are a really good technique for stopping 76

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Figure 6.7: The final page from The Corpse, by Mike Mignola.

something. If you’re reading along and suddenly you get to this big bar that says we’re done or we’re changing or something, it cuts it off from the rest of the page which works really well on this page where the fairy’s talking. Then we have a nice quiet panel which is the end.”

Whether a lot of these techniques were planned or happenstance, Mignola is proud of the effectiveness of the storytelling.

“I can honestly say I hope that I live long enough to do a better story then this. This one, for whatever reason, this one worked. And when I did this I thought it was the worst one I’d ever done. I remember I called a friend of mine and said let’s have lunch, I’ve just done the worst thing I’ve ever done. More than several people think that this is the best thing I’ve ever done. And a lot of places I look at it and I go I don’t even know how I did this. It was just one of those weird things where I was excited about the subject matter and I trusted myself to do in some places some pretty odd things. And it really paid off. So this is now the story that everything else I do I compare myself to.”

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Mignola designs many effects into a story and his strong sense of storytelling

dictates which effects to use. Very simply, if it is not appropriate, he’ll forgo style for communication. Background information can be as important as foreground information.

“If I’m allowing myself the room to throw in highly detailed panels, just to focus on the background, I don’t see any reason to beat the reader over the head with it. I like to have a texture back there… a brick wall or something like that, but not distracting things. My feeling is if two guys are having a conversation, I want it to be quiet.

I’m not radically doing these weird camera angles where somebody was looking from the bottom of a guy’s shoe, or outside a window at these guys talking. If they’re having a conversation, let’s just have two guys at the table having a simple conversation. And we’ll keep HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

the color the same behind them, so we know nothing is changing. When I use a different color, maybe somebody said something that I want to draw more attention to or change the scene or something like that. But I treat color very much like a soundtrack.

Color is an important storytelling tool that Mignola has been able to use effectively in his work. The coloring must fit the mood. “Typical Marvel comic coloring is to throw a lot of different colors in the panels so there is visual static going on when there isn’t any action going on.”

To clarify what he wants in his creations, Mignola has been comping color guides. “Lately I’ve actually been doing some real simple guides to show values.

This is why I prefer working in color to working in black-and-white. Working in color gives me an extra tool. So I can draw something in a background and in black-and-white it’s a big white shape against black. But in color I can tell the colorist I want to barely see that shape. Well that’s just white but I want you to put a really dark blue on top of it because I want to knock it back and if people don’t notice it, fine. And I don’t want to resort to heavy rendering to cover something like that. I kind of like the spaces peering out of the woodwork kind of effect. So I’ll do rough guides these days just to kind of show a guy what I want knocked back and what’s supposed to be lighter.”

Creating a character all drawn in red like Hellboy can have its disad-

Figure 6.8: Example of an experimental layout.

Panels 1- 7 can be read in virtually any way yet still work together to promote storytelling.

The color theory is effective and the Hellboy panels become the focus panels.

From The Corpse, by Mike Mignola.

vantages. In The Corpse, not only is there a strong sense of design in execution, but there is a strong use in color (Figure 6.8).

“Graphically the whole page worked really well. When people compare comics to film, there are similarities. But the thing you have in comics that you don’t have in film or any other medium is you’ll have an opportunity to arrange all these elements and leave them on one page. In a case like this, I wanted to tell the story but also create an interesting design to the whole page. To arrange the panels interestingly, to deal with color to have that red wristwatch and with the red face underneath…

Hellboy being red is a blessing and a curse. If it works it’s an interesting graphic thing to have this interesting red character pop up in different panels. In other places you can put a green background against Hellboy’s red, then suddenly you’ve got a Christmas comic.”

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Mignola utilizes a grid more often than not. To him, interlocking the panel shapes in a communicative way is much more important to the story than odd layouts or panel shapes.

“Sometimes in comics you see the panels that are counter-clockwise or clockwise and then you see the triangular panels, that sort of thing. I hate to generalize, but more often than not, that’s the guy trying desperately to make his sh*t interesting.

To me that’s distracting. You see little borders on stuff or double outlines around certain panels. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They’re not thinking about telling the story.

When you go to a movie the screen doesn’t change. What you’re supposed to be is caught up in what’s going on on that screen. So a lot of things I do are to not attract attention. [In the past] I’ve had certain images bleed off the page and I have had black HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

borders. I’ve pretty much abandoned that technique now because it was distracting. In places you had a panel overlapping something else and it lost the shape of the panel, the reader was left to wonder is this part of this panel or part of that panel. I’ve gone to the simple white panel borders; it’s clear, the panels are nicely contained, we know where it begins and ends… it’s one less distraction to the eye, even to the point where a lot of pages will have the same panel border running up through the middle. Two and three levels of panels. And it’s just a nice, easy, comfortable thing. It becomes easy for the eye to look at stuff rather than having you jump all over with a million different shapes.

In storytelling, Mignola finds his creative energies at their peak during the beginning stages of a project—concepting and roughing ideas. The final details and execution are tedious. These things help Mignola create his unique style.

“The drawing is a pain in the ass… it’s not near as much fun. It can be fun, but it’s work. Whereas laying it out, designing it, plotting the story, creating thumbnails, working on storytelling bits… that’s where you turn the TV off and you sit in a quiet room and you just think. That’s the fun stuff, that’s the exciting time. For me, 90% of the drawing is just work: ‘How big is this wrist, does his hands look right, where does this finger go?’ It’s frustrating because that’s 90% of my time and it’s the least satisfying.

The way my stuff looks now… the drawing is becoming less and less detailed. I don’t have the patience to do it for one thing and because in my way of telling the story, detail

Figure 6.9: Cover to Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1, by Mike Mignola.

is not important so I’m getting away from it on purpose. I rely on black shapes against white or white shapes against black. It comes down to those simplified things. You know without thinking what it is… it’s solid, dramatic and it reads. I want to simplify my style down to tell a better story.”

Mignola finds comics immensely satisfying, and he feels that he still has much more to explore in the genre.

“What keeps me doing comics is they are so infinite. It’s something that, to a large extent, is still virgin territory. The best way of telling a story exists only in comics. And they’re so many ways of doing it like in The Corpse. The things that work, they are odd, experimental things. And it’s fun to experiment… it keeps me doing comics, seeing different ways to do it.”

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Figure 6.10 (left): Page 18 from Hellboy: Seed Of Destruction #4 as it was originally printed with all word balloons intact.

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A comic story must be a marriage of text and image. Most comic readers do not

concentrate on just the words, nor do they just look at the pictures; words and pictures

Figure 6.11 (right): Without detail, the colors, shapes, and panel arrangement are not enough to indicate page navigation.

Narrative flow is created with the skilled placement of word balloons.

have to work in tandem for a comic to be successful.

Several elements can exist simultaneously within a panel—a

word/thought balloon, caption box, sound effect, and the visual image. All of these elements, when properly strung together, form a single moment of the story. If the reader struggles to read any of these elements, or gets confused over which panel comes next, then the layout has problems. The experience of reading a comic book should be a smooth one; the reader should not have to work. The key is to design each panel as a cohesive unit of information: should the reader see the image first or the word?

All of the elements involved in panel creation must somehow lead

the reader’s eye to the next panel and then the next page. This is called eye movement.

The pace at which this movement occurs is completely up to the writer and artist. The

more information, the more a reader slows down as he or she must take time to absorb the information.

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Western comic books are read left to right, top to bottom. It is a flow that cannot be disturbed. Correct placement of word balloons and appropriate panel layout can encourage this movement.

Mike Mignola, for instance, insures readability by embedding the word balloons first before creating the artwork. He understands that words, word balloons and artwork are all part of one thing—the story. Hellboy: Wolves of St. August, is a

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great example of using balloons to maintain eye movement. Without word balloons to ensure proper eye movement, the page does not work (Figure 6.10). Notice that once the eye leaves panel 1, the natural tendency is to move to panel 4. This is because the red used in panel 4 is on the same approximate level as the red used in panel 1. The connection between these colors overpowers the natural desire to read from left to right, set4

ting up a possible problem with the flow.

Most readers follow words, however. The balloon or caption box is

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keeps eye movement on track. With the word balloons next to each other reading from

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top to bottom (Figure 6.11), the eye now moves from panel to panel in succession.

White word balloons are a jarring graphic device that leaps forward from the color schemes surrounding them. There is no confusion and the page is read in proper order.

Panel layout can be problematic as well, and clear progression between panels is hard to attain. When looking at the

Figure 6.12 (left, inset): Hellboy page with all of the word balloons and caption boxes and removed.

next example (Figure 6.12), the reader can interpret the progression of the panels in this

Figure 6.13 (below): The page as it printed in Hellboy: Seed Of Destruction #1 with balloons and caption boxes intact.

Hellboy page in any number of ways. Without the aid of word balloons or caption boxes, the layout can be confusing, especially in

HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

problematic areas such as panel 2. Since red is the dominant color in panel 2, the eye picks up on the same red in panel 4. After this, the next panels left to read would be panel 3 and then panel 5. Another alternative reading: after panel 2, panel 3 follows.

However the movement of the figure in this panel pushes the eye toward panel 5, bypassing panel 4 entirely.

To maintain proper eye movement throughout the page, a brilliant use of word balloons and caption boxes is used (Figure 6.13). By reading the next text box in succession after panel 2, the reader is instantly drawn to panel 3. Narrative cohesion is maintained by bridging the caption box from panel 3 into panel 4. The final panel to be read is panel 5. With balloons and captions in place, the story flows correctly.

Design is the means by which good visual communication is possible. To a storyteller, correct placement of balloons and captions ensures the enjoyment of a story.

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Figure 7.1: Oracle/Batgirl from The Batman Chronicles #5.

A COMIC BOOK, A R T I S T S H AV E T H AT ABILITY TO MAKE P E O P L E PAY AT T E N T I O N T O T H I N G S T H AT T H E Y N O R M A L LY D O N ’ T.

– Brian Stelfreeze C H A P T E R

S E V E N

Brian Stelfreeze enjoyed comics as a child and credits the medium for teaching

him how to draw. “My dad was in the military so we always moved around a lot, but I knew

that no matter where we moved to if I could find a comic shop, I’d have a bunch of friends there. So I would frequent comic book shops and I learned how to draw; that was a quick

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and easy way to make friends. Because I knew how to draw, I got a job doing commercial

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illustrations when I was in high school and got out of drawing comics for a long time.”

A friend recognized Stelfreeze’s potential to draw comics based off of his fashion illustrations and encouraged him to do so. “I took maybe a year to work on a comic book style and then I took some pages to the convention here in Atlanta. I showed my work to Dave Dorman… my plan was to just get him to just look at the stuff and tell me if I was close. But while I was there, this other artist said ‘Listen, I’d like to show this to my editor.’”

This meeting landed Stelfreeze’s first industry job with Cycops. Since then, he’s been picky about sequential art assignments: “I tend to do the jobs that no one wants to touch.” He is known for his numerous covers in the industry, but is most proud of his sequential art: Leavetaking, Oracle: Year One, Born of Hope, and Desire, all short stories for DC Comics.

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Before he draws anything, the first thing Stelfreeze works on is what he calls

attitude adjustment. “It basically consists of… just reading the script and making a bunch of notes. The notes that I make are some feelings that I get off of the story. Usually what that does is it gives me a sense of the story’s cinematography. I sit back and think of the kind of feel that I want to go for with the story: the type of lighting, the environment, whether it needs to be a kind of retro… or modern. I’ll just go through and compile notes on that and start collecting references of raw material. Then, after doing that, I will begin my layout. I do my layout much smaller than the comic book size... maybe 3" x 5", something like that. I design the page and the panels involved per story.”

While beginning the roughs stage, Stelfreeze tries to keep his sketchBatman and all related characters © DC Comics

es as simple as possible. The importance he places on shot selection makes it the first problem he tackles during preplanning. “There is this weird dichotomy in comics: we don’t have a budget. If I want to, I can have a billion dollar scene on every page, but often times that’s not what’s required. In a movie you only have a limited amount of cameras you can put on a scene because the cameras can start seeing each other. When planning a page, I try to think of it almost as if I’m budgeting a movie. Can I shoot the entire page with one camera angle? If I can’t shoot it with one camera then I’ll reluctantly put another camera on there. If that doesn’t do it, I’ll reluctantly add another camera. If that doesn’t do it, well, the scene needs to be changed (Figure 7.2).

“When I say camera, I mean viewpoint. I don’t try to put in a bunch of different viewpoints. [For example], you have an upshot of a guy and then you get a shot from the ceiling and then you get a shot from out the door. Well, you’re talking about a bunch of cameras on the scene and that gets confusing. To me, human beings experience things from a single vantage point, so if I’m going to tell a story, I’m going to try to tell the story from a single vantage point, if at all possible. From panel 1 to panel 2, can I move the camera in such a way to make the scene feel like there’s only one camera? The dialogue, what character’s speaking first, what character’s speaking secFigure 7.2: In comics, every panel can contain a different camera angle. Stelfreeze relies on very few points of view and almost lets the action come to the camera. Note how the heavy use of blacks are used to differentiate between scene and time of day. These areas would be planned as early as the roughs stage. As seen in Oracle: Year One, Born of Hope.

ond, often times dictates what camera angles I can use.”

Stelfreeze dedicates most of his energy during the conceptual part of the creative process. “The execution is so easy to actually do. I can probably produce a page a day pretty easily. Just planning things out and making things work, that’s the real pain in the butt. Sometimes I’ll lay out the pages and say this is the way the story needs to be told. And sometimes I’ll find a brilliant reference and go, ‘Oh my God, this is so good.’ But if it doesn’t tell the story, I just really have to pass it up.

“Even though I do my layout small, I always fill them in, not in pencil but actually in black marker. I’ll do rough stick figures in pencil and then I’ll go through with a pigment marker and sketch everything out and lay in the big areas of black. ‘Do I need to put the big black area to the left or do I need to put the big black area to the right? What’s going to be the best thing to tell that story?’ This is when I solve all those questions.”

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Style and design considerations are a big factor for Stelfreeze when trying to

visually interpret and tell the story in the best way possible. Known for high contrast, angular and hyper-tense figures, Stelfreeze maintains that developing a style is secondary to the story. “When I first got into comics I was real concerned about style. But now my style is almost like a by-product. It just happens. I’m just drawing and I’m trying to reflect the story. When I first got into comics I just wanted to be John Byrne so bad. I was thinking: ‘If I could get that John Byrne style down, I’d make it in the industry.’ But that was actually difficult for me to do. The way that I work now is the Daredevil and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

way that I work when I’m relaxed. I can’t help drawing things graphically—it’s just the way that I see things. When someone says, ‘Well can you make things a little more realistic’—I’m like this is realistic to me—I see those edges and those angles, I can’t help it.

I also think it’s weird that a lot of young kids try to get their style first and basically wrap that style around any story that they get. I think that hurts them badly. They should decide ‘Well let me become a storyteller first, let me decide to tell the story and then my style will follow.’ Then the artist has a whole lot of potential. You have to keep working on more than one story. People I consider masters in this industry have a couple of different styles that they can drop to the story, and I think it’s really cool.”

When it does come down to storytelling, having a very detailed style can be both a blessing and a curse. “I’m an artist and I’ve got sort of a near photographic memory—every artist does. But, some of the best comic book stories that I’ve read, some of the stuff that has really stopped me I can’t remember any of the art. I can’t remember any of the particular panels. You remember what the character was doing and you can remember story, but you can’t remember the art. So it seems to me, why should you waste all that time in art if people aren’t going to remember it. If I’m an artist and I can’t remember panels, I can’t imagine the average reader who’s not an artist Figure 7.3: In the Daredevil story Devils & Angels, Stelfreeze utilizes his style effectively to move the eye through the page. In panel 1, he gives the reader pause due to the amount of detail used in the background. In panel 2, the blacks were inked toward the bottom of the panel, moving the eye directly to panel 3. Even though the ink coverage is heavy on this panel, Daredevil’s shape is graphic and sleek giving the eye a short rest. The blind man reaches out in panel 4. Because Daredevil suddenly appears in panel 5 (versus taking extra panels to show the steps of Daredevil’s landing), his sudden appearance is the more shocking.

remembering a panel. So, why waste the time in art when you should be using that time in telling the story because that’s what people are going to remember—even artists.

“A lot of times making a style consideration can make your job easier but it can make it a whole lot more difficult. Often times I put myself against a wall because I’ll look at a story and I’ll go ‘Oh man, the best thing to do with this is to really make it super-detailed’ because I want the reader to move slowly through it. If I want the reader to move slowly I have to put something on the page to stop them, usually that translates into detail. Making that decision means you’re going to have to work.

You have to really put a lot of detail into the panel if you want to slow down the reader.

And there are other times where the story should read fast so everything should just happen. [For example], if I’ve got a fight scene, you’re not going to see any backgrounds and hardly anything else. You might see parts of characters disappear because I’m only interested in you glancing off of it. I don’t put a lot of extra stuff on any of the panels.

I knock information out and move! (Figure 7.3).”

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“For my first Batman story I wanted Denny O’Neil to write it—it was this thing

that I had going for a while. After seven years of working with DC they finally said ‘OK, we got one (Batman Black and White: Leavetaking). So I was pretty happy about that.”

Batman: Black and White was an innovative anthology developed by Mark Chiarello, art director for DC Comics. The premise behind this award-winning series was contradictory in this day of computer colored, splashy comics: to tell stories reliant only on pen and ink with no use of color. The mood was immediately dark, perfect for the streets of Gotham City.

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

With the black-and-white Batman story, Stelfreeze was not able to rely on the color as a storytelling device. That meant that every mark he made took on a greater importance. “This was possibly one of the most challenging stories I’ve ever had to take on because there’s so much going on. I think this particular story would have been tremendously easier if it was in color. That’s one of the things that I kind of liked about it, the fact that it’s in black-and-white. I tried to cop the attitude of I’m going to do it and I’m not going to slightly fail: if I do fail I’m going to fail big, but if I’m successful at it, it’s going to really be cool. It took reading the script a couple of times before I could start seeing it in blackand-white.

“With a story like this there really wasn’t a throw-away panel. There’s a lot of times you get stories where you make a panel not to tell the story, but just move things along. On this story everything was a fairly critical panel and a lot of the elements in the background were really critical.”

The first panel of Leavetaking shows a gunman in a silhouette; his features jump into detail in panel 2. When he shoots Batman in panel 3, the reader is drawn toward a flashback in the last panel, which is a smaller panel. The story jumps between the modern day and the past and Stelfreeze’s artwork reinforces the fact the final panel is a flashback by leaving hints in the background detail. Dumpsters and ladder fire escapes exist in the modern scenes while trash cans and complicated pull-down fire escapes in

Figure 7.4: Page 1 of Leavetaking. Small details, like the gun and the background help keep the present timeline and flashback sequences straight.

the flashback. “Instead of Bruce Wayne’s father reaching for him, I wanted to have beat up trash cans... and pylons and a lot of things that would make you look at it and say well this is a little bit cleaner, so the time may be in the past, definitely not the present,” he explains. “The present is dirtier.”

The flashback scenes on page one are also defined by the gunman’s weapons: a modern day automatic versus a revolver. “By giving the guy an old revolver, I’m thinking, OK if the reader is quick enough, he can pick up that it’s not actually Batman getting shot, it’s Bruce Wayne’s dad getting shot in the past.

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But on the next panel I reverse

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that. It’s like Bruce Wayne’s dad is mostly in white but the gunman is all in black at this point so it’s like a real quick role reversal. The story was originally written where you saw every panel that was a flashback was simply echoing a panel that was a real time panel.”

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repeating the image from one Figure 7.5: To make the flashback stand out even more, an “echo” effect was used to in between panels. A gunman who wears white would then wear black in the next panel.

panel to the next, Stelfreeze changed the camera angles.

“To me, when you duplicate a panel, it seems like the story stops,” he explains, “We have a panel then we have the same panel in a flashback… I wanted the story to feel like it was continuing.”

In page 2, panel 2, Batman is thrown across the alley. Stelfreeze could have followed suit with Bruce Wayne’s mother, but he opted to zero in on the pearl necklace breaking, instead of any gratuitous violence (Figure 7.5). “Martha Wayne’s necklace is a really big deal to people who know the comic book language. Bruce Wayne’s mother’s pearl necklace coming off has been driven into us by the Dark Knight Returns. But I wanted to definitely get that out in the picture and then move on.”

Giving a character who wears a mask facial expressions is not a simple task. “On page 3 of Leavetaking, I wanted to give you the feeling that Batman’s dazed (Figure 7.6). I didn’t do the cartoon birds flying around his head. That just doesn’t happen. I thought, well, when people get knocked out in cartoons they have those little bubbles that pop around their head... so I kind of echoed that but as raindrops on a wet pavement rather than little bubbles popping.

“I’ll make a concession for word balloons, but I’ve got a huge problem on most occasions with motion lines and with sound effects. Often times, sound effects are so very visual and in your face that it becomes the focus of the visual. So I try to avoid that stuff. I really don’t like motion lines because that’s putting something unrealistic in the drawing. I try to use other elements like the blood coming off the movement of his 86

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cape to suggest that he’s moving. It’s almost like in reality: if you saw blood flying off of someone

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instead of the clothes billowing, that’s what gives you the clue that they’re falling backwards. You don’t see motion lines coming off of them.

“Once

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determined I can use this device to basically show that he’s dazed, it was like I have a tool here that I can use for other things. What I try to do with that last panel is take the reader’s eyes off the page and onto the next page. You can Figure 7.6: Circles illustrate Batman’s daze as raindrops splattering around his head in panel 1.

In panel 5, circles also form a trail to lead the eye off of page 3 and into the next page.

see that those water drops and those puddles are starting to spread out as the guy is walking away from Batman and leading the reader to the next page.” Designing the action to lead the reader where they need to go next is crucial in sequential art.

The position of graphic devices are also instrumental in developing eye movement. From panel 1 to panel 5, the caption boxes and word balloons move slowly toward the right-hand side of the page. “There are little tricks used to promote eye movement. Word balloons and caption boxes is the obvious one, lead the eye left to right, top to bottom. It’s much more difficult to make what happens within a panel do the same thing.”

To make both word and picture tell the story hand in hand, Stelfreeze relied on shot selection and camera angles to establish a good flow of information. “This page I was really happy with because with every shot of Batman, I wanted the viewer to be above Batman, looking down on him. And it really worked out.” The angle emphasized Batman’s predicament.

On panels 1, 3 and 5, the camera slowly moves away from Batman.

But as the camera zooms away, the camera also rotates, pushing the action to the right. “I like the angles on this page. On Batman’s panels, the camera’s constantly turning him counter-clockwise and pulling back. So he’s turning, turning, and then turning. If you didn’t have those two panels with Robin and the street kid, the eyes couldn’t get a place to rest.”

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Switching from working on a black-and-

white story with dialogue to a color story without words posed yet another challenge for Stelfreeze. Yet, he feels that trading one storytelling handicap for another was not as difficult as it seemed.

“They probably ended up being a little bit even. I could rely a little bit on the words in Leavetaking, but Desire is completely visual—I’m in control of most of the visuals and it’s really nice leaning on your colorist a little bit, pushing a little bit of responsibility around.

“It was originally going to be titled Lust instead of Desire. Reading through the story and I’m thinking ‘OK, this is no problem here.’ Devin [K.

Figure 7.7: From page 1, panel 3 of Desire, the title is illustrated by the use of a red panel.

At this early stage, the reader understands that the next time a red panel is seen, the character within the panel will experience this emotion.

Grayson] and I sat down and said ‘What are we going to do to be able to set these things up?’ Really if you go through the book, it’s the seven deadly sins. On certain panels the… characters in that panel are going to be lusting after something. So first of all, I wanted to do it in black-and-white, then have all the lust or desire panels be the same basic designed

Colors can be used to develop association with deeper concepts or greater themes. Color used symbolically is a cerebral way to tell stories.

Once certain colors are designed to perform certain functions, consistent treatment of these colors is necessary to preserve storytelling.

There must be a dogged determination to use these colors only when called for. Symbolic use of color should be used sparingly, but if used well, a story can develop yet another layer to make it even more memorable.

scene. And I also thought of why don’t we reiterate that sense of desire by making them all red, since the coloring on everything else is going to be done in cool colors. I can tell the story with art but the colors can really get the story across (Figure 7.7).”

Timing plays a crucial role in Desire. Established from the first couple of pages, there seems to be almost an identical amount of panels in between the red desire panels. The red panels give the panels a beat, Stelfreeze says. “I know that those are the panels the reader is going to look at because they just grab your eye. It’s almost like you look at those panels and then look at the rest of the page.” The structure is set up early in the story and then the reader finds a rhythm to take in the visual storytelling.

This is a story told completely without the aid of caption boxes and word balloons. The amount of time a reader spends on a comic book story without words can vary greatly. Since there are no words, theoretically the reader could just blow through the story. However, Stelfreeze must engage the reader: “I try to slow the reader down as they look at the story. I think people spend less time reading the story, but I try to compensate for that.”

In the second page of the narrative, Stelfreeze relies on the panel subject matter to hook the reader and let them take in the story. “Here Catwoman’s making the trade. To tell that story without dialog it’s like ‘OK, she’s hanging off the fire 88

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escape looking down at the guy [in the top panel],’ and that’s the story right there. Everything else is not that big a deal. So what I wanted to do was have the reader hold up and look at this panel. To do that there’s this really gorgeous, sensual shot of Catwoman that people are going to go ‘Wow! look at that!’ and they’re going to slow down.”

The amount of detail packed into the background also helps to impress the importance of the establishing shot to the reader. “In that one panel you get the idea that she stole the necklace and she’s going to pass it off to these guys. I’m doing all this garbage in the alley, all this stuff to make you slow down and look at it. Everything else on the page—I don’t have to worry about it. At

Figure 7.8: Use of excessive background detail slows the reader down. Pacing modulates between highly rendered panels and panels with very little visual information.

this point I get fairly simple with the background and move things along because I feel that the reader should have the story by then.”

Panel 1 is crucial to the development of the story. Even though, the color theory used in panel 5 makes it more of a focus panel, Stelfreeze downplays the background to move the reader along. “Even though it’s a red panel and this guy’s putting the necklace in his jacket, I don’t want you to spend much time on him. I want the reader to overlook the panel by losing all this detail.”

However, Stelfreeze utilizes the red panels as a focus panel or support panel depending on what the story needs. On page 3, panel 4 there is another red panel.

“Once again, the shot of Robin looking at the car is a red shot and I know that’s going to arrest you a little bit because of the color (Figure 7.8). To make sure I got the reader, I threw in a ton of background. Also on that panel, it’s almost like everything on the left side of that panel draws the reader into the panel, and then everything on the right side of the panel leads you off.”

Stelfreeze utilizes a minimal amount of camera locations to achieve a stronger sense of continuity. He credits this technique to the cinema: “One of my favorite movies is Hitchcock’s Rope because the entire story is told with one camera. I get the biggest kick out of it; it just sort of pans, moving slowly from one scene to the next. I wanted to do that because Desire changes with every page. You’ve got new characters and a new situation with every page. I can’t introduce new cameras all the time.

So it was fun to go slowly, the camera literally panning from one character to the next character from page to page.”

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Stelfreeze has produced few pieces of continuity sequential artwork. He is known

primarily for his painted trading cards, illustration and cover work, but is finding these areas unsatisfying in a way. “To do comics means doing the interior stuff—that to me is comic book work. I ended up doing covers because I have a real short attention span and it only takes me a couple of days to create a cover and then I’m out of it. It’s a lot easier to do a cover than it is to do the entire story (Figure 7.9). That’s one of the reasons why I’m kind of shifting my career into doing more interior stuff now.

“Doing the cover illustrations is fun because it appeals to the natural eye of a painter. But, the interiors, that’s where I really have to work, that’s where I really have to push myself. I enjoy it. As an artist you always want to be pushed, you don’t ever want to get to the point where something becomes easy for you.”

Though he feels he has a long way to go in visual storytelling, he has always asked for complex stories to draw to push himself as a communicator. And he is continually learning. “I tripped over some good storytelling techniques, but I really want to study that aspect of the craft a little bit more. For ten years I haven’t been doing a lot of interior work but I’ve been really studying storytelling, trying to find out just exactly what the art of comics is, what I’m supposed to do with them.

Figure 7.9: Two painted covers from DC’s movie tie-in Batman and Robin.

A large illustration was commissioned and then divided into 4 different comic book covers.

Shown are the covers for (above) Mr. Freeze and (below) Batgirl.

“I understand that there are some projects that just simply aren’t for me: I shouldn’t do them and if I did, I’d probably embarrass myself. If I can bring something to the project, then I should be involved in it. If I can’t, then it’s just wasting other people’s art.”

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

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Stelfreeze believes the storytelling aspect of the comic book as a medium falls

somewhere in between novels and movies. “Comics don’t necessarily spell out the story like with movies where you are literally spoon fed. The majority of movies really treat you as if you’re stupid. Visually the movie-goer doesn’t have to do anything, they’re not a participant, they’re an audience. Novels really ask you to do most of the work... the writer writes the visuals and the reader has to do all the work. But for a lot of people that’s a little bit too much work. I think comics are right in the middle. As a reader you have to be a participant and you have to make up a lot of the visuals but at the same time, enough of the story is given to you. To me that’s a lot of fun. It’s asking the reader to make the leap. The artist makes up the story, and the reader makes the up the space between here and here. The reader might get lost here or there, so the artist will help with visuals.

“Comics have this great power in that you’re completely in control of the visuals and what information the reader absorbs. If the reader is a really big fan of 90

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bonsai trees and they’re watching the Bladerunner movie scene where Rachel walks in for the first time, they might go ‘Wow, look at that bonsai tree, that’s really cool!’ thereby losing the impact of the moment. But in comics you don’t have to have that distraction.

Because it’s a static visual, I can just simply decide I’m not going to have a background and force the reader to look at what I want them to look at. I think comics have storytelling powers that movies and novels don’t have.”

Comic books are easily accessible to everyone and, according to Stelfreeze, the medium is an easy way to deliver visual information. “I went over to

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Japan years ago to do a comic book forum; the company just brought a bunch of American artists over to Japan. It was kind of funny because I thought ‘I’m in quite a

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crowd!’ It was myself, Will Eisner and Wendy Pini. None of us spoke Japanese that A R T I S T S

well and none of the Japanese really spoke English that well, but we literally spoke the same language. They could read our comics and we could read their comics with-

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out looking at the word balloons. That’s power beyond a novel and a movie: the fact that someone from a different country can pick up a story and can be visually enter-

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tained and can visually understand the basic story. I think because of that power, A T T E N T I O N

people keep coming back to the medium; it’s something that you’re drawn to.

“There are so many different ways of telling the story, there are so

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many different ways of showing movement and I think we have maybe explored less than 1% of it so far.”

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Stelfreeze feels that most of the design decisions that are made in crafting a story go unappreciated by the reader. “It’s like me living in Georgia… I’ve driven by a thousand old, beat-up barns in cornfields and I don’t even look at them.

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When a watercolorist says: ‘Look at this old beat-up barn in the cornfield, it’s beautiful.’

You sort of sit back and go: ‘Well, I never paid attention to that.’ I think with a comic

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book, artists have that ability to make people pay attention to things that they normalT O

ly don’t. It’s kind of fun to be able to do those little things. It makes it more real.

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“This industry has so much potential. I think once you seriously L I T T L E

step back and study it you see nothing but potential… but I think to a very large

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extent artists just kind of treat it like a job. But I just want to get in there, I just want to do it.”

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Stelfreeze began to take the medium seriously during a visit to

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Chicago Con. “A kid that was hearing impaired came up to me and I was talking to him.

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I kept ducking my head while talking to him and he tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Could you look at me while you’re speaking, I can’t hear.’ This guy can’t hear, but he can enjoy comics as much as me or you. He can’t enjoy movies, but a comic book—he gets the full potential out of a comic book. I thought: ‘Wow, there’s probably a lot of people like that. If I take my storytelling a little more seriously, it’s going to help them out a little bit more.’

“I’ve changed my attitude towards producing comics.”

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Focus Panels

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Figure 7.10: Example of eye movement through acting. Batman Chronicles #5, “Oracle: Year One, Born of Hope,” as illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze.

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Word balloons are a very obvious way to draw the reader’s eye from panel to panel.

But words comprise only half the information within a panel. The figures themselves

can also be used to direct the eye. If done discreetly, the choreography of characters’

actions can be effective in creating flow for a story.

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The way a policeman directs traffic, the sweep of a cape or shadow, the glance of a character’s eye, or the position of a body can subtly lead the reader toward the next panel. Drawing a story with these subtle devices takes great thought and skill; the figures can not look too forced. When such actions work well they can make a story progress smoothly and seamlessly.

Chronicles #5, “Oracle: Year One, Born of Hope,” Brian Stelfreeze demonstrates how effectively positioning the characters can guide the eye (Figure 7.11). In panel 1, as Barbara Gordon pushes her wheel-

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

In Batman

chair toward the car, she

Figure 7.11: Gray arrows show eye movement directed by the characters within the panels.

looks up and to the right. In the next panel, she faces

This type of complex movement works smoothly in Western comics. The reader must be continuously pushed left to right and bottom to top.

right and her arms push the viewer toward the caption box in panel 3. In panel 3, she gazes down and to the left, toward panel 4 on the second tier. Following her gaze

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smoothly to panel 4. In panel 4, she looks at her shoes as she swings her legs into the car, leads the eye to panel 5.

Her legs point to the caption box of panel 6 which in turn directs the reader’s attention to Commissioner Gordon. His arm position leads to Barbara struggling to get into the car in panel 7 on the third tier of panels. Again, she looks to the right, leading the viewer into panel 8 where she faces her father as he closes the door. The sweep of the Commissioner’s arm aids in moving the action into the last panel, panel 9. The tilt of the car moves up and to the right—a great transition into the next page.

This continual interaction between figure and panel makes this technique difficult to achieve. Stelfreeze masterfully is able to control the reader’s eye movement. The figures direct the reader to read the panels in correct succession and the reader is compelled to move on smoothly to the next page of the story.

Though the placement of figures within a panel takes on a crucial role, there is a point where the action can be read as too obvious. The action in any story, should flow naturally and effortlessly, without drawing attention to itself. The reader should not be made unduly aware that he or she is only reading a story. The actions need to unfold effortlessly.

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T H E E Y E C A N D Y Y O U C A N C R A M I N T O A C O M I C B O O K I S P O I N T L E S S I F T H E R E A D E R D O E S N ’ T K N O W W H AT ’ S G O I N G O N .

Figure 8.1: Batman from the graphic novel Batman: Night Cries.

– Scott Hampton

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Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

Self-taught and mentored by his brother,

Bo, Scott Hampton grew up in the Carolinas drawing comics inspired imagery— not actual comics since he never had the patience to execute a sequence of more than five panels. Silverheels, arguably the first painted comic book, was published in 1983 and launched Hampton’s career in the field.

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Working with DC Comics editor/writer

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Archie Goodwin, he created Batman: Night Cries which won the U.K. Comic Art Award for Best Graphic Novel for 1992. In 1993, he wrote and painted The Upturned Stone, published by Kitchen Sink Press, and during the past few years has worked on Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold, Confessions of a Cereal Eater, The Bible, Batman Masterpieces as well as merchandising art for the movie, Batman and Robin.

Most fans think of Hampton primarily as a painter of comics, while most of his peers see him as a classical, illustrative storyteller. Though the majority of his comics work is painted, he doesn’t see himself as just a painter or illustrator; his pencil and ink drawings, before the paint is applied, remain some of his favorite personal work. “Paint is only in its childhood in the comics field,” Hampton says, “A lot of us [comics artists] don’t really know what we’re doing yet when it comes to paint and storytelling.”

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Painted comic books have gained in popularity during the past few years,

though not all efforts are as successful as Hampton’s. Many comics artists are excellent interpreters, but lack Hampton’s range and illustrative design in storytelling. Others possess eye-catching styles, but create pieces that ignore the feeling and emotion of the story. “As a painter in comics, I’m primarily interested in finding or experimenting with ways to better tell a story,” Hampton explains.

“Paint, for all its advantages in creating certain moods and suggesting nuance, isn’t really a natural medium for comics storytelling,” Hampton says. “In some ways, it definitely is a case of fitting a square peg into a round hole. First, the lettering is all composed of lines, black lines usually set against a stark white field and held in a balloon or caption box also made of line. Well, you slap that on top of a painted panel and it seems to float there, separate from the action.

“Second, and harder to put into words, is my pet theory about how our brains take in paintings in a different way than line-drawings. A pen and

Example 8.2: Action painted realistically can feel forced or posed. From Batman: Night Cries.

ink drawing requires active seeing—you have to interpret it, translate it, particularly when the drawing is sketchy or gestural.” Hampton believes that this translation happens automatically for modern comics readers, but that there’s still a “switch” in the brain that is flipped every time a person is faced with a line draw-

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

ing. “That switch isn’t necessarily flipped when you see a painting; a representational painting, because it’s tonal, basically the way we see the world, is presented—you can remain passive and let it wash over you. You look at a realistically painted comic and it’s like being in a 747 airplane—the ride may be bumpy, it may be smooth, but either way you’re a passenger. Pen and ink comics are like being behind the wheel of a car—you can see the landscape in front of you but you’re going to have to drive if you want to get through it.” Realism poses problems for painted comics because the images may seem frozen in time (Figure 8.2). An extremely photo-realistic panel is “static and unconvincing as a storytelling device.

Two guys shaking hands look like they’re holding hands, like they’ve been posed (which, more times than not, they have been). It’s ironic that an excruciatingly rendered scene culled from photo reference is unconvincing in a way that Calvin and Hobbes never is.”

Action is a more difficult idea to convey with paint than with pen and ink. Explains Hampton, “the best story an artist can create in a painted, realistic fashion would be of a woman sitting alone in a room, reading a book and drinking tea.

It’s when that woman walks into the kitchen and notices a burglar jumping out of the window that the painter gets in trouble; the reader wants to believe something is actuExample 8.3: Action executed with paint as well as pen and ink. The page seems more active and exciting. From Batman, Dark Knight: Dynasty.

ally happening but, instead, is presented with a series of postcards. More and more, these days, I’m feeling that line is an important component for conveying actions, small or large.” (Figure 8.3).

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A pen and ink artist can fall back on at least 90 years of sequential art history for references on how to design and illustrate abstract ideas such as action, emotion and sound effects. On the other hand, sequential artists have only begun to deal with paint during the past 20 years. So how would a painter convey these ideas?

Obviously successful pen and ink design techniques can be copied, but Hampton claims that they don’t translate well. “A lot of artists have been experimenting with how to suggest speed. Speed lines don’t work in paint—it looks absurd. Action can be suggested through blurring, but even there you have to be careful not to have your action come out looking like a blurred photo.”

Hampton strongly believes that sequential art is one of the few frontiers left in artistic expression. “Illustration has been an established medium for centuries and artists have been breaking the bounds so long that we end up adapting the glory days of the ‘40s and ‘50s, which in turn adapted Arthur Rackham and Howard Pyle, and I

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so on. Illustration isn’t a dead end but it is a well-mapped territory. Sequential story-

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telling with paint is relatively uncharted terrain.”

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sense of design as well as his artistic ability. Both play an important part in a cohesive, entertaining comic book. Reading and enjoying a comic book is only possible

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if the creator helps the story and reader along. Most artists, like Hampton, prefer to have a full script before working on layouts. “For The Upturned Stone, I wrote the

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script completely before doing any breakdowns,” Hampton says. “As I painted the 5 - 1 0

pages, I would also tweak the script.” Before penciling the line work on boards,

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Hampton problem-solves the storytelling and layouts alongside the script. “Despite W I T H

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the fact that creating layouts can be a headache, it may only take me 5 - 10 minutes to work out the storytelling of a page, depending on the complexity of the scene,”

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not be rushed when the comprehension of the story is at stake. A simple script can be broken down and interpreted by the penciler in many different ways. Depending on the layouts, a story can either flop or fly and the artist must constantly keep several questions in mind during pre-production. Does the action flow logically? Is there enough space to work out all the story elements needed? Are the panels dynamic? Hampton laughs, “I spend more energy on creative problem solving during those 5 - 10 minutes with the roughs than during production!”

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Batman: Night Cries is a poignant, powerful statement against child abuse.

A story idea originated by Hampton, he co-plotted the story with writer Archie Goodwin. But even though Hampton was involved from the beginning, every artist runs into problems with creative layouts and design.

In Night Cries, he takes a typical scene with two talking characters and turns it into an interesting visual design which emphasizes the story (Figure 8.4). The black-and-white center images are actually photocopies pasted onto the artwork to further depict the grisly atmosphere of the murders. The cool blue-grays on either side with shots of Batman’s head on the left and Gordon’s on the right only subtly change during their conversation. “I came up with this approach because I wanted a way to incorporate images of what they’re talking about so that we’re reminded of these grim acts. The main emphasis is kept on the center images, the keys to the puzzle in the story, and away from the two men talking. “Talking heads” are the bane of every comics artist I know. We’ll sometimes go to extraordi-

Figure 8.4: Batman and Commissioner Gordon discuss the grisly series of murders on their latest case together. The stark layout helps to reemphasize plot points.

nary lengths to juice up one of these scenes. I’m always asking myself something like is there any reason why these people can’t be having this conversation at, say, the Super Bowl? That way I might be able to cross-cut to the action on the field.

This particular scene took about twice as long as normal to work out in terms of storytelling and layout.”

Word balloon placement is often at the heart of the comics artist’s layout and design problem. When it comes to conveying story, balloons are just as

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

important as artwork and have to be carefully considered. “Balloons aren’t drawn or pasted onto the page of painted art as they normally are with black-and-white pages; they’re imported after the fact, so the painter has to be very conscious of space for placement.”

Hampton’s obligation when designing a page is to the readers. “In the west we read left to right, so that has to be adapted into panel layout. I often place the first speaker on the left-hand side of the panel and make sure his balloon isn’t cutting across someone’s face.” Hampton works out balloon placement beforehand so the story clearly advances left to right and doesn’t confuse the reader. Very rarely will he alter this order, unless there is no doubt or concern about the storytelling on the panel or page. “While doing Night Cries, I became more aware of leading the reader through the image to the text or vice-versa. In these [bottom] panels (Figure 8.5), I wanted the reader to see the images and then read the text.”

Staples of comic books, spreads and splash pages require more planning than just creating great pieces of artwork. Hampton claims that he doesn’t think in terms of Figure 8.5: Bruce Wayne tours a shelter for abused children. Through deliberate balloon placement, the children’s drawings are read first and the text is read last.

spreads or splashes unless there’s a place in the script where they would obviously assist the story. “I’m generally aware of what page is going to be on the left and right of a spread, but I’m not all that concerned about how they work together.

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Figure 8.6: Gutter color separates time and place.

I don’t really plan page to page—I just figure that some will work better than Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

others.“ Hampton’s primary goal in layout and design is to make sure that each page works on its own.

For example, in a two-page spread, there’s a crucial shift from nighttime into daytime (Figure 8.6). “Night Cries is a dark, grim story. I didn’t want the visuals to become too colorful.” Hampton kept his palette fairly dark, even during daytime scenes. “As far as I’m concerned, no one has anything in Gotham City higher than a 20 watt bulb,” he jokes. “There is a line of demarcation between these two pages, but I probably didn’t realize that this [daylight scene] was on the right-hand page next to the nighttime scene. It doesn’t matter as much to me as the continuity within each page.”

In another two-page spread, the reader sees Gordon with his wife and son in their apartment before moving on to an exterior shot (Figure 8.7). The oversized white gutter between scenes exists to suggest “a distance in terms of space and time from these panels [apartment scene] to this outdoor scene. It’s a lot less jarring if you have this big band to separate them. I’m trying to keep the reader from mistaking this exterior Figure 8.7: Gutter height separates time and place.

for the Gordon home.”

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Hampton often uses gutter colors to differentiate scenes in Night Cries. Every scene shift is accompanied by an appropriate color that echoes the palette of the scene or panel. Certain panels that illustrate arguments and conflict have broken gutters that mirror the strife within the panels (Figure 8.8). In the scene in which Gordon almost hits his son, the borders and gutters change from the book’s usual subtle colors to a bright white (Left page, Figure 8.9). Hampton made this departure as an artistic and design decision “because no other color worked well in differentiating the scene shift from the medium shot to the extreme close-up.”

He explains that turn-of-the-century Russian proletariat poster art inspired the general page color of stark blacks, whites and reds and the sense of strength in Gordon’s clenched fist. “The harsh white of the fist suggested that I use the white border for emphasis instead of another color. Page two of the spread was painted as one all-black bleed [with no recognizable gutters], which emphasizes the more somber and reflective mood after Gordon comes so close to hitting his son.”

(Right page, Figure 8.9)

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

Figure 8.8: Gutters convey strong emotion.

Figure 8.9: Gutters (or lack of) support narrative shifts.

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Figure 8.10: Immediately, the eye goes to the figures on the left-hand page even though they do not head the procession. The placement of the word balloons also moves the eye through the lush imagery, only to end at the moat, punctuating the emergence of plague on England’s shores.

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Hampton was one of four artists contributing to a storyline involving

four different time lines. Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold revolves around the destructiveness of pestilence throughout human time. Hampton paints a story set at the time of the Black Death of Europe in the 1300s. “When I read the script by Alisa Kwitney, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I thought to myself, ‘This is really filmic. The story almost tells itself.’ Little did I realize what a struggle I was going to have.

“The script called for a double-page spread showing the king and his entourage making their way to the castle in the bright sunshine, and, at the bottom, a creek with dead rats floating in it to note the coming plague (Figure 8.10). ‘Cool,’ I say, and rough out a sketch showing a head-on shot with the king and his son looking heroic with all these N. C. Wyeth clouds skating across the sky. It looks good and I’m really looking forward to painting it. Then I read the rest of the script and realize that, coollooking or not, it won’t do.

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“First, the story isn’t about the king and his son. These two characters who seem so heroic in that composition, well, they talk for a couple of panels and they’re gone. You basically don’t see them again except in one small scene where they have four lines. See ya! The girl riding behind them, Joanne, is the central figure of the story.

“Second, the tone was all wrong—the spread as I’d initially envisioned it screamed ‘High Adventure,’ which was exactly what this story was not about; this was an intimate character study about people and their choices.”

The double-page spread is a powerful storytelling device typically reserved for one of the story’s big moments. “A double-page spread suggests an action that is above and beyond—it’s a visual conceit that says get ready for something really wild, ‘cause this is going to excite you, get your blood going. Well, this isn’t the right kind of imagery for such a thing—it’s really just a processional. I would have done this as one page.”

Conflicts can be part of the comic book production, especially when there are several creators. Creative differences are natural, but in sequential art, the best solution is the one that best communicates the story. “The script called for a splash page that would show the main character, Joanne, on a boat about to set sail, waving goodFigure 8.11: The death of the main character was made more poignant by taking place on an entire page, separate from the secondary characters.

bye to the three women standing on the dock while the male characters hung out in the background. In eight captions you find out that almost all these characters, including Joanne, die of the plague—which, to me, was unsatisfying. Joanne’s death needed to be separated out from the rest.

Vertigo and all related characters © DC Comics

So I said, all right, I want to divide them up. I’m going to take Joanne’s death and I’m going to set it up on one page (Figure 8.11). And then on the next page, I chose to just show a straight-on shot of Dover Castle at night with these brittle trees and the dead leaves blowing through the scene (Figure 8.12). The editor wanted me to show all of these people (Maltravers, Allisoun, Ann, Margaret, etc.)—they said “Where’s the human touch here? Where are all the characters?” And I felt that the reader is emotionally tied to only one character, Joanne. The roll of these supporting players was primarily to represent the human toll taken by the plague. I wanted to make the point that the Black Death cut a swath through the population, nobles and peasants alike.

“Another storytelling choice I made was to again show Dover Castle.

I indicate the season’s shift from summer to fall with the brittle trees and dead leaves.

Human beings are represented by dead leaves, death by the wind. This is all fairly simple, ordinary symbolic stuff. Nothing particularly exciting to look at, but the visuals all support the mood of the storyline. The Black Death decimated 30% of Europe, so my focus is on the dual effects of the plague: one, that it killed so many people and two, that England survived. Civilization survived the plague—Dover still stands.

“Actually,” Hampton admits, “I swiped the idea from the ending of one Figure 8.12: Symbolism was used to portray the fates of the secondary characters. The structure symbolized the survival of Europe, while the leaves symbolized the lives taken by the plague.

of my favorite movies, A Man for all Seasons. After Thomas More is beheaded we learn the fates of some of the other characters, including Henry VIII, all while looking at shots of weathered gargoyles.”

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In 1992 Hampton wrote and painted The Upturned Stone , released first

in Heavy Metal magazine and followed one month later as a hardback graphic novel. In the story, four boys are haunted by the spirit of an unknown teenager who leads them to discover a serial murderer named Bremer living in their small town. The boys make a pact to kill the human monster, but hesitate at the last minute. “At that point,” says Hampton, “the ghost possesses them all and, from that moment until the next morning, the boys have no memory of what transpires. This is the most interesting part of the story to me because the reader is shown, in a 13-page silent sequence, events of which the narrator, Peter, is completely unaware.

“Storytelling without words is problematic because, in most cases, there is no way to stop the reader from simply flying through the pages at lightning speed if he wants to—and, if the story is interesting, the reader will want to. In this case, I decided to build in a few speed bumps for the careful reader, intercut panels showing Figure 8.13: Pacing and design used to effectively slow down the reader during a silent visual narrative. (Top) On page 48, panel 2 gives the reader a slight glance of the villain.

This is a recurring storytelling device designed to slow the reader down used throughout this dream-like sequence. (Right) On the doublepage spread of pages 52 & 53, Hampton displays his technical virtuosity with paint.

This freezes the moment (and the details) in time. (Bottom) On page 56, we see more of the villain in panel 1, but the next 2 moments go quickly due to tight cropping. The last large panel is read slowly and the match is lit.

images seen earlier in the story from a dream the boys share: It’s this dream that shows the boys how the unknown teenager died and who his killer was.”

By weaving important images from the dream (approaching headlights, Bremer displaying his trophies, a glass of poisoned wine, etc.) into the fabric of this sleepwalking sequence, Hampton is trying to establish a visual motif that intrigues, invites the reader to pause and ponder. “Also, I wanted to remind you why this villain deserves to die!”

Among the intercuts is a shot of the murderer’s face which takes up more space on the page every time it’s shown. “The last time you see this blurred face it takes up two-thirds of a page and you finally see his expression complete. You see the eyes and the grinning mouth all cast in deep shadow. You never really get a good look at the guy. That’s intentional. I wanted him to be a template, a sort of everymaniac.”

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Rendering Bremer in a moody, blurry style (rather that in a realistic manner) makes this sequence successful. Placing importance on pacing and design, rather than detail and polish is more important to Hampton when creating comics: “I find myself more and more concerned with what I choose to show to tell the story. I’m more concerned about that than I am with the final polished image. A polished image is great but this is not the point to storytelling. Ultimately, I should be very conscious of how the thing reads.”

Figure 8.14: Front cover from the soft cover edition of Batman: Night Cries.

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

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“A simple concept that I try not to lose sight of is that the basic information

in a panel is more important than how it looks,” says Hampton. “I think some people, the nice ones, would say that I’m in the school of “illustrative” comics artists. And I admit that there are pages I’ve done where I’m happy with the way a certain panel or figure or whatever came out—it’s eye-candy. It’s hard for me not to feel this way since I grew up not reading comics so much as looking at them; I started actually reading them in my late teens or early twenties. It was then that I became a lifelong fan of people like Johnny Craig and Will Eisner, both great draftsmen but whose real genius is storytelling. Reading well told stories taught me that all the eye-candy you can cram into a comic book is pointless if the reader doesn’t know what’s going on.

“So yes, there’s a core part of me that, dammit, likes eye-candy, and will take being labeled “illustrative” as a compliment, but over time I’ve come to admire clear, effective storytelling above all. It’s what I aspire to achieve.”

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Figure 8.15: Example of developing pacing through detail. In Marvel Knights: Black Widow #3, painted by Scott Hampton, how the reader moves through the moments correlate to the technique used and the details left out.

Panel 1, Yelena slowly regains consciousness in a dumpster. This is an important moment shown not only by panel size but by detail.

The acrylic paint adds details, tones and colors that hold the reader’s attention.

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Panel 2, Yelena wakes up quickly. Here Hampton adds line work to quicken the beat.

Panel 3, Daredevil and Yelena talk. Hampton has taken out the building so that the reader can concentrate on the principal characters.

This speeds us along to…

Panel 4, Yelena tries to “sting” Daredevil. Here, the background is still missing, so the eye concentrates on Daredevil, the dumpster and the blast. There are some abstract shapes to suggest windows of a building, but they do not pull the attention away from the important elements.

The best sequential artists understand the moment they are illustrating and know how to deliver it.

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Directing the eye to move from panel to panel is required for successful storytelling.

A natural inclination for most artists is to display their virtuosity by including every detail in even the smallest panel. This attention to minutiae is fine in static illustration, where the illustrator’s job is to invite the reader to linger over a given image, but can

become problematic for the sequential artist. Needless detail can kill storytelling.

Just as panel size can emphasize or de-emphasize a moment in the

story, a lot or a little detail can create the same effect. If there is minimal detail, the

story’s pace is quick and the reader is swept along. If, on the other hand, there is a great

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deal of detail, the storyteller is asking the reader to stop and absorb the information. If Black Widow and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

a reader stops to take in detail too often or at the wrong time, the creator runs the risk of losing their interest. A reader should never have to work to enjoy a comic story.

Show restraint and selectivity when dealing with information. Detail works well for a large splash panel when an epic moment must be illustrated or for a complex establishing shot. But for action sequences, or even small moments in time, the pacing can move faster if the artist judiciously simplifies the panel.

Only in comics can you drop a background out of a panel to concentrate on just the figure. In movies, this cannot be done without looking odd and out of context, but in comics this is a wonderful technique for moving on to the next moment.

As long as the scene has been properly established, the reader will accept this convention.

More detail means a slower read, less detail means a fast read, and modulation can heighten the experience. The knowledgeable sequential artist can manipulate the reader’s eye through the layout. A good rule of thumb is to allow the action to speak for itself and to draw attention to rendering skills only if the story calls for it. Scott Hampton, a painter, cartoonist, and sequential artist, de-emphasizes his technical virtuosity in an individual panel so the reader enjoys the story as a whole. “If you do a lot of art that’s so deliberately rendered that you then spend a ton of time looking at it, then you’ve

Figure 8.16: Page 9 from Marvel Knights: Black Widow #2. All caption boxes and word balloons have been removed to highlight the storytelling technique.

defeated the purpose of telling the story,” he says, “at least in such a way that the story is happening in real time. Put the detail in and you’re inviting the reader to spend more time with it. So, if you’re going to make them linger, you should have a reason.

“If I spend an hour on a panel, I want the reader to look at it for 1 sec-

Hampton elaborates: “If I take less time rendering a panel it’s because I want the person not to dwell on it, to keep going. And when I take the time to really put the details in a panel, in a sense I’m saying, ‘This is a breather.’ Either we’re starting up a new section and I really want to set the scene, or we’re in the middle of page after page of dialogue and I want to draw your attention to the environment again.”

ond, give or take. If I spend 9 hours on something, I’m trying to get the reader to look at it for 9 seconds. There’s some variation but that’s my craft/read equation: hours of craft are equal to seconds of reading. My feeling is that action takes space and dialogue doesn’t. If I’m working from a plot, the first thing I do is highlight all the action sequences because I know I’m going to have to dedicate page after page to them.

Afterwards, I look at how many pages I have left for dialogue, knowing that if I have to compress somewhere it should be here.

“The creator I look to for this isn’t even in comics. It’s Stanley Kubrick, the filmmaker. His deliberate pacing is not to modern tastes, really. If he has something worth looking at to show you, he’ll hijack you for 6 seconds and make you look at some incredible English countryside (Barry Lyndon) or show you spaceships floating around for 2 minutes (2001: A Space Odyssey), but he chooses his moments.

Of course Hampton has the illustrative facilities to render every item in every panel if he chooses to, but he realizes that this use of energy can be inefficient when creating comics due to yet another consideration regarding detail which should not be lightly put aside—the deadline. “Comics is the best profession on earth for honing drawing skills because you have to do so much of it. And on the clock! More often then not there simply is no time to noodle every panel, which would be a mistake anyway, and so necessity becomes a virtue.”

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EVEN

WITH EVERYTHING T H AT ’ S B E E N MADE SO FAR, THERE STILL IS SO M U C H M O R E T H AT CAN BE DONE.

– David Mazzucchelli

C H A P T E R

N I N E David Mazzucchelli’s childhood dream

was to someday draw superhero comics. He loved the sequential art form early on and drew his first Batman and Robin comic strip (in crayon) as a toddler and wrote and drew his own comics through high

Figure 9.1: Big Man from the self-published Rubber Blanket #3

school and college. Mazzucchelli has worked on some memorable comics

through DC and Marvel, including Daredevil and Batman: Year One. Despite this commercial success, he felt that he wanted more from the comics industry than was available to

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him through the superhero genre and decided to move on.

While taking two years off to collect his thoughts, Mazzucchelli

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produced in America. He was invited to a European comics convention where he discovered many interesting comics he had not seen before and was specifically struck by the works of artists such as Lorenzo Mattotti and Christian Gorny. He was influenced by their abstract stories and expressionistic style, themes that already interested him in art and literature. Mazzucchelli has since self-published three issues of Rubber Blanket, adapted Paul Auster’s novel City of Glass for comics, and has written and illustrated short stories which have been published in Snake Eyes, Drawn & Quarterly and Zero Zero. He also

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teaches comic book courses at the Rhode Island School of Design and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

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Mazzucchelli’s accomplishments in the sequential art field are numerous.

His origins are found in the superhero genre and one of the works he is most noted for in this genre is Daredevil, issues 227 - 233. Along with writer Frank Miller, Mazzucchelli orchestrated the downfall of Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil. In this seven-issue story arc, the Kingpin learns of Daredevil’s secret identity and systematically destroys Murdock’s life. After many trials and tribulations, Murdock rises above the confrontation and eventually turns the tables on the Kingpin.

Ironing out the story is the most important step in the creative process, and Miller and Mazzucchelli would often discuss plot points and story enhancements.

“To begin, Frank and I had conversations about what the story was going to be. He would write a full script and when I got it we would have another conversation. I might make some visual suggestions that were different from what was in the script. Often, Frank agreed with what I wanted to do, which is why he wanted to work with me. He wanted to get my visual input.”

Once all of the story’s nuances were hammered out, Mazzucchelli would begin work on the art. “The first thing I’d do is read through the story a few times and figure out where the high points were. Then I’d go through it in thumbnail form and start

Figure 9.2: Example panels used to heighten emotion. To give the feeling of claustrophobia and persecution, Mazzucchelli draws Matt Murdock in narrow, tight panels. The Kingpin is on top of the world destroying Murdock’s life and his panels are much more open and wide.

breaking the action down into panels. The planning of pages is very important to me, you know, thinking about where the most dramatic points are going to be. I don’t want to use some kind of panel arrangement that I might want to save for a very important part of the story, so I try to think about the rhythm and the flow of where things are going. Then when I start making rough sketches based on those panel breakdowns, sometimes I find that even though I like the way I’ve arranged panels, in order to draw the thing I want to draw I’m going to have to change it a little bit. Other times, I’m able to fit what I want within the

Daredevil and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

panel shape. To me, how you read the panels across the page is very interesting, and really controls what’s going on.”

The panel shape itself can help the reader relate to the characters within a scene. “My approach in those stories was to really try to put the reader in the position of the character.” The two main characters in this story are Matt Murdock/Daredevil and the Kingpin. Both men trade narration and Mazzucchelli illustrated the characters’ feelings by utilizing a graphic device as simple as a panel shape. “A good example of that would be in Chapter 2—“Purgatory” (Figure 9.2). Matt has now lost his home and job, and one way that I hoped to show the difference between the way Matt and the Kingpin were feeling was with the shapes of the panels. In wanted to put Matt in very tall panels, so that you start to get this squeezed, claustrophobic feeling. When you turn the page and see the Kingpin, I put him in wide, open panels so that he is in control of all the space around him. I tried to use narrow, squeezed panels [for Matt] whenever possible. That presented a little bit of a problem because it made the panel composition more difficult. But I think it really gives that sense of him feeling like he has no place to go.”

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Murdock’s life is torn apart slowly by the Kingpin’s actions. This slow destruction is apparent via the splash pages which introduce each chapter (Figure 9.3).

“A somewhat unusual use of storytelling as we think of it is something that I came up with to introduce each chapter. What we see in the course of several issues is Matt Murdock’s life falling apart, and I wanted to show this very clearly with the splash pages. I chose to do that by showing variations of the same overhead shot of him sleeping, or waking up, so you get to see what condition his life is in as you enter each chapter. In the first chapter, “Apocalypse,” you see that he is in his comfortable bed. He’s been tossing and turning, obviously, because the sheets are all knotted around him, but he’s got plenty of room, light is streaming into the bedroom, and on succeeding pages, we eventually get to see the whole house. In the second chapter, “Purgatory,” we’re looking down at him in bed again, but this time he’s in a very narrow, institutional looking bed which takes up about one half of the room in a very cheap hotel, because it’s the only place he can afford. So we see more of a cramped space, and (Matt is) fetal-looking because of his position. In the next chapter, “Pariah,” now we’re looking down into an alley where he’s in a total fetal position, sleeping with the bums among the trash. In the next chapter, “Born Again,” he’s now at a convent, or a mission, sleeping on a cot, along with other derelicts who have been picked off the street, and nuns are caring for them. The way I’ve designed this panel with the two windows in the upper left and right corners and the color of the floor and the beds around him, there’s this very nice white space that makes a big cross that Daredevil, Matt Murdock, is about in the middle of. We were playing with all kinds of Christian imagery in this story.”

Designing action sequences can be a difficult proposition for an artist. An interesting example involves a reporter named Ben Urich, who is interviewing a nurse ready to implicate the Kingpin in a crime.

“Ben is going into the prison to interview that nurse who’s going to spill the beans. The scene includes Ben, a woman who’s a photographer with the paper, a cop that’s protecting him and a shifty-looking detective. The four of them come to the cell where a uniformed guard lets them in. In this scene, I’m thinking that Urich is the center of everything, so I tried to design all the action and compositions in terms of getting you to feel what

Figure 9.3: The splash pages for the first four stories of the Born Again series.

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of the interior of the cell; the uniformed guard is locking the door, and I’ve set up the six Daredevil and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

characters in a way that will play out the action that follows (Figure 9.4). The uniformed guard and the seedy detective have been paid off by the Kingpin to kill everybody, mainly the nurse before she can talk. The way we discover this is important, because it sets up the next page, in which Ben’s reaction is the key to the whole scene. The script basically reads, from the middle panel: the guard pulls out his gun, the other detective reacts and then we see the shady guy shoot the nurse in the head.

“First, I didn’t think it was necessary to see a head exploding in this comic book. Second, I thought it would be much more forceful not to show the impact of a bullet killing this woman, but to show Ben Urich’s reaction, because that is what’s important about the scene. First we see the guard pull out his gun, signalling menace—it’s big in the foreground, dwarfing the good detective. Then we see the shady guy pulling out his gun with a little smirk, behind Urich, who is in the middle of the action, with the nurse in the foreground—so he’s now between the person who is going to shoot and the person who is going to get the bullet.

“On the next page (Figure 9.5), I’ve composed it in such a way that the nurse’s head is completely off the panel, but Urich’s face is highlighted and he is staring right

Figure 9.4: The players are set…

at what we, the readers, don’t want to see—we can only imagine what he’s looking at and what he’s feeling. The next tier has the two cops shooting back and forth at each other. Also, the photographer is clicking away the whole time, adding a kind of absurd note to the chaos.

The bottom panel is important because Urich acts uncharacteristically by taking action to stop this guy. So I open it up as a wide panel so that we now see the attitude of all the different players as he jumps and tries to grab the guy’s gun.

“On the next page (Figure 9.6), the action follows pretty simply: the two Daredevil and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

characters tumble to the ground, Urich reaches for the other guy’s gun and then starts whacking him on the head with it to knock him out, but he goes a little too far because he’s caught up, he doesn’t believe what’s going on and he’s completely out of control at this point.

So again, as we look at the panels, I’m trying to show you Urich in such a way that we’re focusing on what’s going on with him as he’s experiencing this.

“On the last page (Figure 9.7), after all is done, the photographer for the first time puts down her camera because she realizes it’s all over. She’s watching Urich in a very uncharacteristic mode, and then we have this lurid shot of Urich as we’re looking from the point of view of the guy on the ground that he’s been hammering with the gun. I end that scene with the same shot that was the establishing shot, only now we see that everyone in the room is dead except for the reporter and the photographer.”

The action had to be choreographed perfectly for the reader to understand what was happening. In this sequence, the use of dialogue balloons were missing, but not the use of words.

“I think sound effects are a very important part of the language of comics.

I think they can be very expressive. A comics artist should always think about the design of these words as another element of the drawing and the design of the panel. I penciled them

Figure 9.5: Gunplay ensues…

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in and then the letterer inked them, so they pretty much are what I wanted. You can see that in most instances it’s looks like I made some decisions here. Whenever the camera shutter clicks, it’s the same word KLIK and it’s in the same style, which is a very square, blocky, and not so large configuration. The word is usually floating above or right next to the photographer as she’s clicking the shutter. In the next to the last page of that scene, we actually have two panels where the photographer’s not in the picture, but we see the word KLIK, KLIK. Because we’ve been introduced to that through two-and-a-half pages already, when we see the word KLIK, we know it’s the noise from the camera at that point.

“There’s a different look to the klik in klak-klik, which is the [sound of] keys locking the cell door. I’ve done that in a slightly different typography. I wanted it to have a kind of mechanical, but “rounder” feeling, and I drew it in upper- and lower-case letters to differentiate it from the camera clicking. When the guns fire, the first BLAM is pretty squared off because I think I wanted it to announce itself, almost like a cannon blast, because that starts off the whole thing. For the rest of the page you see that they have a little bit more freeform quality to them to give a sense of kind of the echoing that these blasts make—pretty traditional-looking sound effects, really. On the next page where we have this “whump” sound every time Urich hits the guy on the head, you see this big, kind of squeezed

Figure 9.6: Urich gets the upper hand…

word… again I’m trying to give that sense of... the kind of wet sound of something hitting flesh. Maybe it’s a little too subtle.”

Size ratio can define the volume of a sound. The gun play is thunderous compared to the camera shutter. “In comics, which is silent because there’s no sound associated with it—except for the rustling of paper as you turn the page—you have to indicate the volume of sound by the size of the type. Size can also indicate the psychological or emotional presence of a sound, in the same way that a small word inside a large balloon gives Daredevil and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

you a sense of somebody’s voice being humble or muffled, as opposed to the standard size ratio of word to balloon.”

Figure 9.7: The resolution of the murder attempt.

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After Daredevil, Mazzucchelli worked again with Miller on Batman: Year One.

At the end of that project, he decided it was time to try something different.

“Working in the industry for about four years on a regular schedule and with other writers was a great learning process and I learned a lot about storytelling. I also learned what I liked and didn’t like about comics. What I found at the end of my superhero stint was that I didn’t want to draw superheroes. I wasn’t interested in those kinds of stories anymore. It was a great achievement of a childhood dream, but those stories didn’t say anything to me.”

In making the leap to author, Mazzucchelli felt more than ready to tackle the added responsibility of writing.

“I had always written stories when I was young. As a comic book artist working with other writers, usually the process would begin by discussing a plot. I was Entire contents © David Mazzucchelli

contributing story ideas whenever I had ideas to contribute. When you’re working on a monthly comic book it’s very easy for storyline ideas to start coming up as you’re working on them. You start playing with the characters in your head, picturing what might happen if they went in this direction or that direction.”

Mazzucchelli’s method in creating his own comics varies from project to project. He often relies on his feelings at a gut level as well as the content of the ideas and images that churn around in his head.

“I try many different approaches and often they overlap. Sometimes a story might begin with a series of images that I want to see—or a juxtaposition of images that I want to see—and that sparks something. Other times it might be a specific idea that I want to explore and then I find the images that would help me explore that idea. “‘Rates of Exchange’ involved piecing together various scenes and knowing that certain scenes were going to have no narration or dialogue and others were going to have a lot of dialogue. Everything doesn’t take place in a strict chronology, so I had to assemble all the different scenes that I knew were going to take place in the story and arrange them in a way that I thought made sense. I wrote out a script of all the conversa-

Figure 9.8: Front page to Rates of Exchange, by David Mazzucchelli.

tions and scenes where I thought I’d want narration, as well as making notes for all the wordless scenes. And then I arranged the scenes and had that as a working script. From that, I started breaking down in thumbnail sketches what was going to be happening on each page and on each spread. At that point there was still rewriting to be done, and little bits of juggling. I like to try to keep the process open as long as possible, because once I start putting things down on the page and looking at it and seeing how it reads, I find that maybe something doesn’t work as well as I thought, or I have to change a point of view or add some space for something to happen, or compress something that I thought was going to take up more room, more time.”

When laying out short stories, Mazzucchelli likes to tack all of his rough pages together on the wall to get a good idea on how the story will read.

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“With ‘Rates of Exchange,’ 16 pages is a very good chunk to look at all at once, but I do like to see how it’s working, how the flow is. And I would have sketches in front of me to see what I’ve got, what happens at the bottom of this page, where do we turn the page. I also look for places where I may have tried to set up some kind of parallel structure and see if I can reinforce it. I look for other ways that I might be able to bring out certain aspects of the story once I start to see the whole thing together. When I’m composing something I try to think of it as a totality rather than: a page, a page, a page…”

“Rates of Exchange” centers on a young man named Anthony who’s traveling through Europe. The story centers on Anthony’s experiences and a murder in a small hotel in France.

Spreads were crucial in this story and the story had to start with a right-hand page 1. “Once I started seeing my work in print, especially the superhero stuff Entire contents © David Mazzucchelli

with ads popping up in very unusual places interrupting the story flow, I realized how important it could be to have control over where the pages appeared. If I know that two pages are going to be next to each other, I might as well use that to my advantage. A page itself has its own rhythm and its own architecture, and when you put two together you double that, in a way. They can run one into the other with no obvious connection, or they can really play off each other in a very interesting structural way. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the kind of information you want to show. For example, near the beginning of the story I wanted to make sure that pages 2 and 3 were next to each other, as opposed to havFigure 9.9: Several themes need to be recognized by the reader for events that happen further into the story to work. In this double-page spread, Anthony sees the children carrying on on the left-hand page. When he hears noise in his bedroom, he immediately associates the screaming with the children. The reader does as well since the action is established on the facing page.

ing 1 and 2 a spread. (Figure 9.9) At the bottom of page 2, the main character, Anthony, is finding his room, and two kids run past him in the hall. It’s all done with no narration, so you have to pay attention to the fact that as he’s finding his room, these two kids run by. Let’s jump to the bottom of page 3, which is the tier that’s actually next to the tier where you see the two kids. He wakes up early in the morning to the sound of screaming, and has a thought balloon of those two kids running through the hall. So it’s very important to me that the reader be able to have those images available to his eye simultaneously. If pages 1 and 2 were a spread, then you’d see the panel with the kids running by at the bottom of the right-hand page. Then you’d have to turn the page, and you’d get the thought balloon of those two kids at the bottom of the next page. You might remember that you saw those kids on the previous page, but it’s much easier to me and much more interesting structurally when you can just slide you eyes over to page 2 and remember that’s where you saw them.”

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M A Z Z U C C H E L L I Entire contents © David Mazzucchelli

D AV I D This sequence with the kids repeats throughout the story. These clues set up an important scene later on in the book where Anthony has a realization that he may have misunderstood what he heard (Figure 9.10).

“This is the culmination of the thing with the kids I mentioned at the beginning of the story: I wanted it to build up. If you think of it as a musical metaphor, the events of the story as you’re reading them might be considered like the melody. This other element that begins with him seeing the kids running down the hall might be more like a counterpoint melody, or even a bass line that is playing under the melody: it’s there and it keeps occurring but you’re paying more attention to the melody. And at this point on this page the melody and the bass line link up and start playing the same thing.

“When I introduced the thought-images of these kids, I wanted to do it visually, without dialogue. Anthony wakes up the first morning to the screaming, and imagines the two kids running down the hall—as he first saw them when he was finding his room. We see essentially the same scene again on page 7: he’s picturing the two kids, but this time the boy’s strangling the little girl with a mean little smile on his face. This set up leads to page 12, which takes place after Anthony finds out that his neighbor, this strange old man that he’s

Figure 9.10: The words balloons over Anthony’s head, the shot selection in panels 4 and 5, as well as the layout have been established prior to this scene. When Anthony realizes that he has been a witness to murder, all of Mazzucchelli’s planning pays off.

passed in the hall, has strangled his wife. Anthony is being interviewed by this French cop about the couple and the policeman asks ‘did you ever hear them fighting, any sounds, and cries?’ ‘No, nothing.’ The cop says thank you and leaves.

“In the next panel you see are reiteration of the first time Anthony stepped into his room, except this time when he walks in there is no narration in the panel. In the next panel he’s thrown himself on the bed and we have two captions which relate back to captions on page 1, where it’s mentioned that he was trying to escape some kind of silence in his life.

The second caption relates that silence to the kids that he keeps hearing every morning: ‘the silence of the empty room, not even the sound of the noisy kids.’ Then we get the same three panel sequence that we’ve seen of him waking up in the morning and hearing the kids. The first panel shows the image of the boy chasing the girl from page 3; the second panel shows the image from page 7, in which the boy is strangling the girl. Anthony’s head pops up in realization, and the third panel shows the two kids now changed into the couple, and the man is strangling his wife.”

Mazzucchelli believes graphic devices are an important part of the storytelling process. In “Rates of Exchange,” Anthony has a memory of the murder victim, who is drawn with a dashed outline, an old comic technique referring to

Entire contents © David Mazzucchelli

invisibility or non-existence (Figure 9.11).

“I was actually very excited to draw that. I realized that after doing superhero comics for many years, I had established a way of working that approached drawing as kind of abstracted or simplified cartoon version of how the world looks. But I had neglected, or forgotten, a lot of the interesting graphic devices that can be used in comics. Some of this I actually rediscovered by looking back at comics I’d made as a kid, where I was using all kinds of graphic symbols: things like diagrams and dotted lines, or captions with arrows

Figure 9.11: A dashed outline of Anthony’s neighbor serves as a graphic device for memory.

pointing to tell you which direction to look, or spirals over a character’s head, or stars.

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All the things that we think of as cartoon language, which you don’t often see in so-called serious comics. Yet to me these are some of the strongest aspects of how this language works, especially being a visual, graphic storytelling language. So if I used a dotted line to represent something invisible or not exactly there, it seemed perfectly natural. And yet I think it’s sort of surprising in this story. It is a little bit jarring, I think, to see that kind of graphic device placed within this context, but that’s also its strength in this instance.”

Experimentation of the art form is the greatest calling of alternative comics. In another example, Mazzucchelli utilizes a non-sequitur transition between scenes to jump the reader into the next scene (Figure 9.12).

Entire contents © David Mazzucchelli

“I wanted to bring you immediately from Anthony’s memory back to the present. The wordless panel at the end of the page allows the reader to make his own inference, and then as the reader goes to the next page expecting to continue on, we jump back to Anthony [in the present] as he’s sealing a letter.

“You don’t know how much time has passed between the end of that memory and what you now see. It could be that he just got up and is heading out the door, or it could be the next day or... I don’t say, so it allows a more open ended sense of time in that regard as well. We’re clearly at another time in the story, and it’s enough if the reader can follow that and go with it.”

The problem with non-sequitur transitions is that the reader often

Figure 9.12: Non sequitur transition occurs moving from the last panel in the left-hand page (the oxen) and the first panel in the following page (Anthony licking the envelope).

The transition creates an instant jump from memory to present time.

struggles with rationalizing the two panels together. However, in this case, it does not confuse the story and the story remains clear. “I’m always trying to be clear, and yet clarity can be defined in different ways. I want the reader to not question where I’m taking him through the story, although there may be points or elements of the content that may be unclear at the moment but will be explained later. There may be a degree of curiosity that I want to ignite in the reader, and yet I don’t want the reader to go from one panel to another or one page to another and say ‘what happened?’ or ‘I don’t understand how he got from here to there.’ These are very basic storytelling problems.

The reading has to be clear in order for the content to retain its mystery.”

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declined, but the superhero comics dominated and even took over the industry. This is akin to having a library filled with only non-fiction books or a record store stocked with only jazz. Superhero comics became the mainstream and any deviation from this genre was considered alternative. Mazzucchelli has roots in both kinds of comic book work and feels there isn’t as much a difference between mainstream and alternative as many would C O M I C S

think. “Formally, it’s all basically the same stuff. Everyone is trying to make comics that are dealing with similar issues of visual and verbal information arranged on a page to

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present some type of narrative.

“When we call alternative comics alternative—’alternative’ is a word

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that means… it’s an alternative to something else. In this case, it would be an alternative M E D I U M

to mainstream comics, which are essentially superhero comics. “[Mainstream] companies like Marvel create comics as a product to I T

make money. That ultimately is their bottom line. They’re going to try to make the best comics they can, but, really, their concern is producing 22 pages every month drawn and

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written by somebody. Although they do deal with issues of plot and character and story, T E L L I N G

and try to make them as good as they can, the bottom line is making a product that can sell for big money. In the case of someone like the Hernandez Brothers or Dan Clowes,

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I’m sure they want to make money too, but you sense that there’s a more overwhelming desire to tell a certain kind of story. Very simply, the fact that they’re not trying to pro-

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duce on a monthly schedule indicates that they are taking a different route by making the comics they want to make. The incentive, what drives the creation, in that case, is

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what makes them alternative. There are other alternatives to mainstream comics which are… trying to redefine what it means to put this kind of information on a page and redefine what it means to make sense out of it.”

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Many have said that working on alternative comics is a way to experiment with the relatively young comic art form. Though many believe that main-

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stream comics would never step outside the boundaries of the superhero genre because T R Y I N G

of the financial drawback, Mazzucchelli believes it would be a healthy move. “From my point of view, it is in their best interest to explore and push the envelope and try to come

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up with things that really take comics in new directions. But that is something that is mandated by the strong vision of the individual who wants to make something… has to

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make something.

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“The term ‘alternative’ is very vague and open, and ‘experimental comics’ sounds a little clinical. But there are lots of people exploring the language of

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comics and coming up with very successful, unusual pieces. I just think it’s an extremely rich medium for expression. The comic book is a great storytelling medium; its a great

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medium for telling adventure and superhero stories. It’s also a great medium for trying to express something extremely personal and unique and moving. There’s a lot of potential for comics. Even with everything that’s been made so far, there still is so much more that can be done, and I’d like to think that the possibilities suggested in the work that already exists will continue to drive innovations in form and content.”

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Figure 9.13: (right and inset opposite page) Example of creative use of lettering in storytelling as told by David Mazzucchelli in The Death of Monsieur Absurde.

Traditional hand lettering is almost a lost art with modern comics now leaning towards computer lettering for convenience, consistency and speed. However the imperfections and spontaneity can give life to not only the words spoken in the balloons but to the page as a whole.

With the many voices contained in these pages, computer typography seems like the logical way to go. But because all of the words where drawn by hand but still clear stylistically, the page is a wonderful example of the power of good lettering.

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The word balloon is the primary language used by the sequential artist to give

the illusion of communication. In most traditional comic books, letterers would just write out the dialogue and thoughts, in legible, uppercase printed characters. Emphasis on specific words could be created by switching into a bold face or italic handwriting, just like classic typography. Effective lettering can add emotion to the words inside the balloons.

In panel 2 (Figure 9.13) of The Death of Monsieur Absurde, through type choice,

David Mazzucchelli establishes visually how the principle actors will sound. The typestyles assigned to each major character in the story effectively describes his or her personality.

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Monsieur Absurde has a rounded, modern typeface, so his voice seems aggressive and his life seems rich and decadent.

His wife, Semolina Pilchard, speaks with an exotic typeface, describing an elegant worldliness. Dr. Bellow Loudly is a

Entire contents © David Mazzucchelli

man of letters, so his voice is a serif face—academic in look.

The baggage hand has a very straight-forward typeface. No frills and very direct, something that Ms. Pilchard finds attractive. Once a typeface was assigned to a character, it is

Figure 9.14: Example of sarcasm and uncomfortabilty.

used consistently and clearly from panel to panel until Monsieur Absurde’s death.

Not only do the style of the words add an aural distinction, but Mazzucchelli also adjusts volume and nuance to match the acting of our main characters. In example 9.14, the italic in Monsieur Absurde’s line “you should not ‘ope, Docteur,” adds a hint of sarcasm to his voice. By decreasing the font size in Dr. Bellow’s

Figure 9.15: Example of words blending into the background.

reply and by having a great deal of vacant space around the words within the balloon, the speech come out small and uncertain.

In example 9.15, Semolina’s sounds of enjoyment are not held in a word balloon. This allows them to become part of the background so that Monsieur Absurde remains oblivious to her actions. By adding a normal word ballon in the same panel, Mazzucchelli gives her voice a counter.

In example 9.16, the bold and italic in Dr. Loudly’s line “if you should ever, uh, need anything...” adds an underlying emphasis in his voice. The word balloon that delivers the line is shaky, much like his acting so that the delivery matches the

Figure 9.16: Example of nervousness and emphasis.

visual—so he’s not in control, much like Semolina in her preceding 2 panels.

Finally, in example 9.17, Monsieur Absurde is angered and yelling “GO EAT AN OYSTER, YOU UNCTUOUS PATE!” Anger is evident by the sharpness of the balloon and by enlarging the font size. This raises the volume and also his temper.

Since the “book” part in “comic book” is half of the art form, it should seem logical that the written word amidst the artwork should command as much respect. Designing words and their accompanying text boxes to work in conjunction with the images can be difficult. But when both elements work in harmony this can add

Figure 9.17: Example of anger in both treatment of the words and its balloon.

a dramatic element to storytelling.

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Figure 10.1: Trevor Faith and Sergeant Holbein from the fourissue Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers.

Moeller

All characters © Chris Moeller

ME THE STORYTELLING IS T H E U LT I M AT E PURPOSE FOR THE ART BEING THERE… EVERYTHING SACRIFICES FOR T H AT P U R P O S E .

– Chris Moeller

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Chris Moeller’s background in the arts is diverse. Even as a child, he drew

and was encouraged by the positive reactions his work received. “My mom claims that she never gave me coloring books, just pieces of paper and crayons, so she takes a cer-

tain amount of credit for my career.”

He obtained an undergraduate degree in painting from the University of

Michigan and obtained his masters degree in illustration from Syracuse University. Moeller

enjoyed the university systems because of the well-rounded education he received. He

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credits his education for helping his writing ability. He gained insight into illustration from

the Oskar Kokoshka School of Illustration in Austria, as well as through workshops with

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editorial cartoonist/children’s book illustrator David Small and painter/illustrator Richard Williams and illustrator/educators Murray Tinkleman and Bob Dacey.

Originally, Moeller’s sequential art influences derived from European

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comic book artists. “When I was a kid I read comics, but I eventually got out of comics.

I got back into American comics in college. In college I stumbled across this Richard Corben book. It had full frontal nudity of a man and a woman and I was like ‘Whoa!!

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Excellent!’ It was this amazing painted book and the thing that was eye-opening to me.

It was a cool, engrossing story and it was beautifully painted.”

Since deciding to concentrate on comics full time, Moeller has been

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most known for his work in Rocket Man, Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers and Sheva’s War, and

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JLA: A League of One. He has also painted numerous covers for Marvel and DC Comics, posters, trading cards and gaming illustration.

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Moeller is a diverse artist who has worked both on his own projects and

collaborative efforts. Though he prefers to be completely responsible for his own vision,

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he feels that a team structure works in comics, provided that all people involved in the T H A T

production process have similar creative goals. “I’ve found the division between the writer and the artist to be really tough to handle—I felt that my way of interpreting the

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pages visually was really different than what the writer was intending. If you have a really good relation between somebody who has a similar vision, and both [the writer and

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artist] are connecting in the same way, then that wouldn’t be such a big deal. But 9 times S O U R C E S

out of 10, that is not necessarily the case.

“I really find that my favorite creators and sources I’m drawn to—like

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Frank Miller, Mike Mignola and Scott Hampton—are one-man bands in a way. That is what is interesting about comics. I feel that the more successful comic stories are a

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singular work of art—the creation of a single person. You don’t have to fish out the artist’s input or the writer’s input on a project.”

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Being the sole creator of a comics project gives the creator complete control. Moeller finds this accountability important in developing the clearest story and also in deciding whether to let the words or art drive the narrative. “From a design point

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of view, it is really nice to come back to the script and change or move stuff around to improve the page. You can decide if you are going to use dialogue here or if you are

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going to use art to tell the story.

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“Before creating the page, what I do is I write the script up ahead of

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time. I write a finished script, as opposed to just the plot and then go to pencils.

After I write a script, I lay out the whole script really small, postage stamp size I

almost, in spreads. I lay out the whole book with little indications… on how I want

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the panels to break down on the page. What that helps me do is to get a feel for the T H E

story… and whether I need to add a page here or if I have enough room to put stuff in there. The thumbnails give me a general grasp on how the book is going to work

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out overall.”

One of the more important narrative devices Moeller plans at the

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thumbnail stage is the page break. “One of the transitional elements of a comic book is when you turn the page. What do you see when you turn the page? Any large, dramatic or sudden scene change, or if something needs to jump out, I want it to hit the reader at

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the page turn. This allows [the artist] to play around with pacing issues.

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hours or so. It really ends up being me just going through the script and laying them S I N G L E

out to see how they fit together. When I’m ready for the next stage, the drawing, I get my references together and I decide if I need to do some cuts or design or whatever.

Then I quickly finalize the drawing from there, otherwise I’ll forget what the little postage stamp scribbles are.

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During this intermediate step, Moeller finalizes the storytelling. He considers refining the illustration an extension of the thumbnail stage. “The drawing on the final board is real sketchy—it’s just a tracing of what is essentially still just a thumbnail because it’s only a 5" x 7"; it’s not a very big drawing.”

The finished drawings become the basis for the final painting. This is also when the final polish is applied. “I use an opaque projector to blow up the thumbnails. The largest piece of paper I can fit in the projector is 5" x 7" so I work at that size for the final drawing of the page and then I enlarge that to the paper or board I’m working on. And then I paint.

“Most of the actual polishing is done in the painting stage. I don’t do under paintings and try and preserve the drawings. So the actual drawing that I put up on the board has to be correct and then I do a lot of tinkering with the paint. My technique lends itself to that. It’s not like a watercolor where you can preserve certain aspects from the beginning.”

In comic book storytelling, the artist can have many roles, and Moeller is no exception. He is a creator, painter, illustrator, director and designer, though he feels his greatest challenge is as a comic book writer.

“I would have to say that I am the least confident in the writing stage.

I am the most confident with the actual painting stage. The art part has to be the most fun in some ways, because I’m very loose… not focusing on the final product. I am much more free to tinker around with the grid or other design elements.”

Moeller finds designing the action on a page for clarity and emotion to be a difficult task. “Storytelling is not always considered in some ways in comics. I think it’s a very difficult consideration. Many questions [arise]: how do you treat the transition from one scene to another scene? What are the techniques to switch between scenes?

“I have never really thought on a comprehensive level about how you do that. There are a lot of techniques that I have developed and that I’ve culled from other creators to create a bag of tricks to use. It starts at the script stage because you are thinking: ‘I have to turn the page and then, wham, I can have this monster eat somebody or I can have a double-page spread or whatever.’

If starting the page takes a great deal of thought, then ending the page is also just as important. “You you want the ending to be something that is going to carry the reader into the next page or book. There are a lot of design and storytelling elements that are going on in scripting the page: the thumbnails make that concrete and working with the panel structure can help.”

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Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers is an idea that Moeller has been developing

for a long time. Every nuance and detail has been given consideration, from vehicle technical design, planetary locations, politics between castes and worlds, all the way down to the names of every soldier within a division. Moeller’s intimate familiarity with the project made the prospects of bringing someone else on as a conceptual editor impossible, but he still wishes he was able to share the conceptual load with someone who knew the universe of Shadow Empires as well as he. “In this book, I could have used more input. I was just starting out and there are some elements that are clumsy and a good editor would have helped. The guy I am working with now from DC is All characters © Chris Moeller

a very good editor; we have a very good relationship and he sits down, reads the script and takes time to really think about a story. We’ve gotten on the phone to talk about what works, what doesn’t work, what would be a better way of bring up the certain points and things in a story. But on Shadow Empires, I felt like I was the editor. I did the whole thing.

“On the other hand, the more you can do on your own, the better.

You’re going to make some mistakes, but it also forces you to work hard… you can’t rely on anybody else, its just you out there. I think it’s important that you do the best work you’re capable of at the time.”

In Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers, war and religion collide and society devolves into greed and chaos. Few people are strong enough to hold onto the older, nobler ways and those who do are rigid and unyielding. Cotar-Fomas Trevor Faith is one of those throwbacks, dedicated to doing what’s right instead of acting politically convenient. In Shadow Empires, Faith and his Grey Rats are assigned to the planet Hotok and find themselves amidst murder, intrigues and power struggles.

In Shadow Empires #3, Faith confronts the cardinals of the church with irrefutable proof of a conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of his predecessor and his lover. In this page, there are clearly two panels, but they are drawn without frame or

Figure 10.2: Example of an unconventional layout. From Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #3, by Chris Moeller.

gutters, creating an interesting layout (Figure 10.2).

“I was very happy the way this page turned out—it was one of my favorites. It works on a couple of levels… it’s a transition from the very busy scene on the proceeding page and it functions as an establishing shot as the scene shifts. It’s a contrast from the standard storytelling page—you come over and have this kind of big splash page and a different color scheme, different people. On it’s most pedantic level, that’s what the page is doing: setting up a shift. “[It successfully] set up the confrontation between the cardinals and Faith. The figures have almost the same scale, these large Cardinals and Faith and that’s all there is on the page. They become key elements, so I’m setting up this conflict between the two elements visually. The Cardinals are talking and they are very verbose... they go on and on. Faith comes in shows the difference between them; 121

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he doesn’t say anything but he’s got this girl with him. He is very direct and is in touch with what’s going on and the page portrays him as sort of a man of action. He is introduced by this other Priest where he is in the doorway which acts like a panel.”

The page would be less effective without dialogue and the savvy placement of word balloons. The balloons carry the eye through the page and the images correctly. “Without dialogue there is no visual cue that he’s entering the room, essentially you picture a bunch of guys talking and Faith; it’s all one image. The dialogue is used as a storytelling device. When you see this page on the wall, you see it as a straight image. These are considerations comic book artists have to consider that a straight illustrator doesn’t. A straight illustration works differently than a comic page; you understand without dialogue. Much of the function of straight illustration is different.

All characters © Chris Moeller

“The page has a nice quality as a painting, but the graphic elements can add to it. When I’m doing the interior pages, I can’t be as precious with the artwork as I need to be with the cover. There are a lot of details that are going to be obscured or that people are going to miss.

“There are painters who paint as if every single panel were going to hang on a museum wall. Every panel is gorgeous but the net effect of all of that is that it looks static. By just going from one beautifully painted panel to another, you don’t get an overall sense of impact of the page. It is scattered away in all these beautifully executed panels; there’s no story flow. In the interest of telling the story, you need to let portions of your painting go in ways that you couldn’t afford to if it were a single image.

But as a design area, where all of these graphic elements are going to go on top of, it works okay in telling my story.”

There are many characters, battles, aliens and settings in Shadow Empires. Keeping the cast of characters and unusual settings straight became a high priority for Moeller. With artwork, he utilizes many techniques to deal with transitions, one of the most basic ones being color usage.

When a setting is associated with a particular color scheme, it makes the transition to another scene as simple as creating a new color scheme. “I often notice

Figure 10.3: This scene is painted with a dominant palette of red and warm brown.

a set up in doing color shifts… my pages tend to have a predominate color theme. You can make a transition shift in a color scheme to any time of day or something like that and then you can establish a new shot.”

In the continuing spread of a heated discussion between Trevor Faith and the cardinals, Moeller demonstrates this color shift. The argument carries over onto the next page (Figure 10.2). “That panel where I use a thinner border and they’re floating or coming into the edge of the page. It’s one of those mechanisms which allows you to (move from) the old scene to the new scene in a designed way.”

The following page is painted with red as a dominant palette (Figure 10.3). “Well, the page where he’s holding the girl is painted with strong reds. You have this panel on the facing page where he’s turning away and his dialogue terminates the 122

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scene as he’s walking away. The story cuts to a night scene using a predominately cool palette. The gutter and inset panel ties back and lets you know the scene is ending— the color scheme shifts, the dialogue lets you know a shift is coming. And then you cut to this establishing shot of this church and this guy running (Figure 10.4).”

Gutters are another graphic device Moeller uses to promote his storytelling. A standard grid helps facilitate the story as the reader ignores the panel shapes and immerses himself into the story. Sometimes panel shapes can emphasize the story points they contain.

“The diagonal gutters [are employed] when it’s an action sequence or when there’s some sort of motion involved. I tend to stay with a standard gutter during the more static scenes. It’s a way of communicating that something’s going on here. And since this scene is silent, there aren’t a lot of panels showing this guy coming up the All characters © Chris Moeller

wall. It works as a design thing, too. When you first look at the page, the whole thing focuses you in on that light on the left.

“Something else on this page that is a useful technique is the full bleed versus the white border. To set up a shot in a more interesting way, I make a scene transition by using a color bleed. [Conversely], static scenes can be confined by a white border. You cross the gutter and you have an establishing shot with a full bleed.”

Sound effects in the action/adventure genre are almost a necessary evil. In this page, though sound effects were used, they blend with the background and become a more unified element.

“I dig sound effects. I like to do my own sound effects and actually have them painted into the book because they are something that I wouldn’t want someone else to handle. Its the same thing like wanting to work with another writer or doing your own writing—you know what your intention is. I wanted, at the very last minute, to tweak something to make sure that it worked. If it didn’t work, I could paint out the sound effects or change the color. I wanted to the sound effects to have the same unity of purpose as the art.

“I use sound effects in kind of a quirky way, things like where he’s running up that path, the words also lead you into the picture. That’s something I wanted to

Figure 10.4: The first panel of this page marked as a carry-over scene from the preceding page as marked by the palette. From Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #3, by Chris Moeller.

play with and make decisions on whether or not to dump it. Earlier on I had someone do a couple of sound effects and I just hated it; it just didn’t work with the piece. The dialogue balloons are traditional of unpainted work but it’s something that painters have to deal with. ‘How are you going to do dialogue balloons?’ Balloons are something that sits off the page and can be a bit obtrusive which painters have to come to terms with.

“Sound effects are generated the same way—with overlays and things.

The colors are going to be much harder to control. In a minute fashion, I can really paint these letters so that they work just the way I want them to on the page, so they become more organic. It’s just one less thing to pull the reader out of the page, the painting. Because of the the visual look of a painted page, some graphic devices like balloons and sound effects tend to jar you right out of the story.

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Double-page spreads are one of the more difficult design problems to solve in a comic book story. The tendency of the reader is to follow action from the upper left-hand of the page towards the right until the gutter or end of the page is encountered. From there, the reader naturally moves down to read other tiers. But Moeller feels making the reader jump the gutter to read information on the other page is a challenge that can be beneficial to the story, if done correctly.

“In most projects, I don’t have room for a double-page spread, but sometimes, I really want one—like a big, huge battle scene—and I really want the effect of a double-page spread. It’s a problematic decision because double-page spreads almost never work in comics. When you have a panel that goes across the gutter, the reader almost inevitably misses it until he gets to the wrong panel and then goes: ‘Oh, I was supposed All characters © Chris Moeller

to be over here—to the other page, oh here’s the other half of that panel.’ You have to be really emphatic with the panel.

“To

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spread, which is one big image over two pages, you have to make it really clear that the first panel of that spread goes across the gutter. It forces this panel to be a huge panel across the gutter. There are certain structures that the artists must be careful about. But I think it’s important to the reader that they don’t get yanked out of the story by a funky layout.”

In Shadow Empires #1 (Figure 10.5), Faith moves to the balcony to feel the rain and the first panel shows the guards below. In the next panel, he stares at not only the lightning, but also the captions next to it on the right-hand page. The reader then moves to the bottom of the left-hand page and

Figure 10.5: Example of a double-page spread.

It is important that a panel in the first tier of panels jumps the gutter in order for the reader to pick up the change of narrative flow. From Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #1, by Chris Moeller.

the narrative continues panel after panel over two pages.

Style and marksmanship can also be used to promote storytelling points. Moeller is known for being a technically precise painter but he can loosen up if the story needs it. In issue #1, Faith is reminiscing about his role in the universe and his life. In a sweeping diagonal panel, he remembers a past love, Merissa, as he readies himself for faster than light travel to his new post (Figure 10.6).

“The idea of this page, this storytelling, was the idea of him going into this realm where his senses and his thinking have turned in on himself. So his physical surroundings become very strange and “compressed.” He thinks about where he is and why he is here.

“As a rule I’ll use even panel grids. I made that decision early on. I don’t have people leaping over all the borders, breaking them constantly. That way, when I do 124

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C have something cross a panel border you notice it. I wanted Merissa to be even less apparent in there, when I actually did the page; I kind wanted her to look less obvious in that streak. What I was trying to do with this page and the following page is to put you into Faith’s head using dreamlike panel construction.”

In the following page, the panel construction begins to fall apart.

Instead of the even panels, Moeller changed to angled panel construction, promoting a sense of speed (Figure 10.17) when Faith travels in space. The red panels show Faith’s tension: he grits his teeth and flames surround the ship. The tranquil blue flashback panels are almost jarring in comparison.

This page contains no action; it is a flashback and internal dialogue sequence. There are not many scene changes and Moeller remembers advice on dealing with scenes containing little action. “I wanted to capture that scary or dangerous transition from faster-than-light speed to sub-light speed combined with (Faith’s) internal world. The only other approach I could have done would be to have a ship changing. The camera does cut outside to the ship at points and shows that scene. Bill Sienkiewicz once said that the artist can go crazy in the scenes where nothing much is happening until you get to a scene where a lot is happening. That’s when you have to be a little more exacting.”

Figure 10.6: Faith prepares for space travel…

At the tail end of the travel, Faith blacks out and is consumed by a heat All characters © Chris Moeller

sensation. Flames are painted at the bottom of the left-hand page only to continue to the right-hand page, surrounding the action involved. “I taped together two boards while I was working on them to have that flame come across the border. Again, it makes for a nice transition: (Starting with) ‘I black out,’ you sort of follow these leaps with the little dialogue balloons from Faith; it’s like you are moving into this other world. I set up a simple dialogue path to make the reader follow… from one scene right into the next one.”

The next page uses the figure of Geil Carcajou as a frame to snap the reader out of the space travel scene and into the story’s reality. “Using her body shape as an entrance to the next panel made for a nice visual splash page. I could have had a panel on the bottom of the page but it could’ve been

Figure 10.7: …and experiences faster-than-light travel. From Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #1,

by Chris Moeller.

problematic to make that work. By having Geil’s coat be blue and the blue sky serving as her coat makes sort of a recognizable color [when you see her again in panel 3].

“All of these things are sort of evolutionary. When I’m painting the pages and I have the ideas from the pencils, a lot of it comes up in the painting; 125

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because I’m finally confronted with the panel shapes on the page. If it works, great, if it doesn’t work, then that’s when I have to deal with it. The major design elements are designed with the thumbnails and the preliminary sketches. That’s the stage where the tactical design decisions take place—before the painting.”

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Moeller takes great pride in all of the effort he puts into all facets of comic

book creation. He feels that preplanning and the roughs stage to start a project is just as difficult as the painting and correcting stage to finish the project. “Creating comics is difficult in different ways. I find the layout process very stressful—it requires a All characters © Chris Moeller

different kind of thinking. So, if I have a lot of time, I find that I really enjoy roughs and creating thumbnails, if I don’t have a lot of time, I find it hard because it’s something that requires a lot of consideration. If you’re working on a fairly tight deadline, it gets very tiring… exhausting. While it’s not exactly difficult, it’s hard to force your mind through five permutations of a layout to see what’s best. That’s a design process almost more than an artistic process.

“With my artwork, I have a good sense of what will and won’t work.

I’ll just try things and if it doesn’t work I’ll just change it. The layouts require more methodical thinking going through the different options. Sometimes the scenes are really simple… you get a a clear feeling on how a scene is going to work from script.

Otherwise it’s like ‘Oh my god, I’ve got a dialogue page, what am I going to do? Talking heads for three pages—how am I going to make this interesting?’

“I go through a lot of permutations mentally thinking: ‘How am I going to work this?’ In my thumbnails, I’m trying a ton of different approaches. I’m not slaving over them, so I can’t say they’re horrible to do, but it is important that I put together as much information as I need.

“There are a lot of insubstantials in pages that show flashbacks, larger scenes, scenes of the town, characters walking, or landscapes… but

Figure 10.8: A lot of planning and many thumbnails are needed to produce complicated layouts. Here, standard gutters give way to reinforce a battle scene. From Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #4, by Chris Moeller.

you’ve got to go through all of those variables and decide how it’s going to work. Once I design the layout of the page, I tend to stop thinking about it until I get to the application of paint. Then I concentrate on making sure the panels hook up O.K., that colors work from panel to panel and are consistent over the whole page, etc.

“With my technique in painting, I do a lot of the thinking while I’m painting. So it’s not a matter of coloring in all of the stuff that I did in the detailed preliminary drawings. It’s a process that’s almost one big thing—the preliminary isn’t really finished until it gets onto the painting and then the page finishes at that stage. My technique is such that I build from my roughs but finish with the paints.”

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The results are worth the effort, as Moeller’s stories show. Sequential art demands this complexity of planning unlike illustration, where one image tells the story. The story makes comic books a deeper art form than many people realize.

“Storytelling is the element of comics that has never been really discussed. The techniques that you use in storytelling are not really brought into consciousness as much as the artwork or the writing are. It is something that just happens.

“In comics, storytelling is the end product of a combination of all the different media or all the different talents. If you have a team, it’s what happens when the letterer and the writer and the artist all come together. And when it’s one person, it’s the thing that you’re focusing on from the start. Comics would be nothing if there wasn’t a story behind them. It’s what makes them different from other media.

“It’s like opera versus the symphony. A symphony’s instruments and a All characters © Chris Moeller

gallery painting exist as objects but an opera and comic book have much more to offer.

Comic books do not exist without a story to tell and the story is the soul of the medium.

“Comics are one of the hybrid industries, like film and opera or musicals, where you have more than one medium combining to create a third effect. It’s not music and it’s not a play; it’s a combination of the two. A theme central to all of those mediums is storytelling. Artwork doesn’t have to tell a story, but in comics you must have several pictures that speak a thousand words—that’s the whole point… the storytelling.

It’s a skill that has to be considered if you are going to have a career in comics.

“There are a thousand painters out there who are better than me technically, but in a way, I’m not really competing with them. What I’m doing is telling a story. One of my heroes is Frank Miller. One of the things that’s great about him is that he sacrifices everything for the sake of storytelling. I had to come to terms early on that if I’m going to do books that are 150 pages long, I’m going to need to have a style that can hold up to that. So it’s not a gorgeous style, but I like it and I’m pleased with how the images turn out. To me the storytelling is the ultimate purpose for the art being there… so for me, everything sacrifices for that ultimate purpose.”

Figure 10.9: Cover to Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #1, painted by Chris Moeller.

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Wonder Woman and all related characters © DC Comics

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Figure 10.10: Example of range and visual styles of the word balloon from JLA: A League of One by Chris Moeller.

In panel 1, a character whispers softly.

In panel 2, Wonder Woman addresses Gaea.

In panel 3 & 4, Gaea speaks with a mystical, bubbly visual voice. Assigning a visual style to match a character’s traits can help add depth to the storytelling.

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Though some readers believe the art drives the narrative in a comic book,

it is often the words, words balloons and caption boxes that are read before the art. From a designer’s point of view, these design elements, which can be lumped into a catch-all term— body copy—deliver dialogue, plot points, or insight into the story. Visually, the body copy

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Wonder Woman and all related characters © DC Comics

dominates the artwork. These words are usually backed by white balloons or bright boxes that create the most high contrast points on the page: black type against a white or solid light color field. The function of the word balloon is to allow the reader direct access to a character’s speech and thoughts and, therefore, becomes an extension of the people within the panel. By reading the words, the reader can “hear.” The style in which the characters speak can be as simple or as complicated as the balloon or graphic device around the words.

Though the physical look of all word balloons on a page is typically identical, the information within the balloons must be distinguished by the reader then assigned to a character in the story. Usually, this can be done by drawing a tail to the speaking character’s mouth.

The voice can be augmented by lettering tricks. Italics, bold and larger sizes can adjust the emphasis and volume of the words delivered. But the style of the word balloon surrounding the words can enhance the delivery of the information.

For the spoken word, just add a dashed line around the balloon’s border and the characters whisper. Add jagged lines and an electronic tail leading away from the balloon and the the voice comes from an intercom or other electronic device. Draw the balloon in wavy, unsure lines and the character could be drunk or hurt. These examples are situational and allow different states for the characters to be in. But apply this kind of graphic thinking to assign word balloon style to a character and then a robot will always deliver

Figure 10.11: Example of establishing a character’s visual voice and electronic speech. Note the elegant caption style.

its lines with jagged lines and an electronic tail.

In panels where text can dominate the image, this shorthand can

Wonder Woman and all related characters © DC Comics

become necessary. Chris Moeller designed his body copy with this kind of thought process in JLA: A League of One. By adding scrollwork in the caption box, for instance, the story has an epic feel (Figure 10.11). In panel 2, dialogue is spoken with a wavy, otherworldly balloon much different from the standard human voice. When we move to panel 3 we see that it is Martian Manhunter. Throughout the book, he is assigned this way of speaking, so even though, in panel 2 he is not seen, the reader knows who is delivering the dialogue. In the final panel, he speaks through the intercom with an electronic voice.

Chris Moeller also assigns an older, powerful, almost rumbly word balloon style to the Dragon (Figure 10.12). This artistic depiction matches what we see of the Dragon—power and evil—and the balloon matches the physical style used to deliver the Dragon’s words. It trades dialogue with Wonder Woman, who speaks backed by a normal oval. Once the characters’ voice styles have been established, then chances can be taken. In panel 3, where there is no clear way to point the tails of the balloons to the proper characters, the style of the balloons helps alternate the lines, and keeps the dialogue straight. The Dragon isn’t seen in the panel, but we understand who Wonder Woman is addressing, even though there are two other characters off panel as well.

Making word balloons visually diverse has several storytelling advantages. By doing so, a distinct voice is created, just as there is a distinct style to the balloons’ look. But like with other graphic devices, specialized word balloons should be used

Figure 10.12: Example of characters speaking with established balloon styles speaking off panel.

effectively and sparingly.

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Figure 11.1: Thor by Walter Simonson.

TA C K L E A S T O RY AS IF THERE’S A PROBLEM I N E E D T O S O LV E IN ORDER TO TELL THE STORY MOST E F F E C T I V E LY.

– Walter Simonson Thor and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Walter Simonson was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and reared in the Maryland

suburbs of Washington, DC. He went to the Rhode Island School of Design where he

majored in Illustration. While in art school, he became interested in the challenges of

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creating comic books, eventually writing and drawing a 50-page graphic story entitled

The Star Slammers for his senior degree project.

He moved to New York City in August, l972 and began drawing comic

books professionally first as a freelance artist and eventually as a writer as well. Since then, Simonson has worked for a number of companies and drawn such characters as Orion,

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Manhunter, Dr. Fate, the Metal Men, Batman, the Teen Titans, Thor, X-Factor, the Hulk, the X-Men, the

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Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Gen-13. He has also drawn the comic book adaptations of the movies Alien and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as continuing adventures for both Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars and written the comic book adaptation of Jurassic Park.

The award-winning Simonson also taught a graphic storytelling

course at the New York School of Visual Arts between 1992 and 1998.

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Though Walter Simonson has drawn almost every character in the Marvel Universe,

he is probably most noted for his work with Thor. He began writing and drawing the adventures of The Mighty Thor for Marvel Comics in 1983 and chronicled the icon’s adventures for two-and-a-half years. After turning the artwork assignment over to Sal Buscema, he continued to write Thor for another year-and-a-half.

Thor and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Whenever approaching a new project, Simonson finds it important to understand the nature of the characters involved in the story. The visual storytelling must be inspired by the heart of the story.

“My general approach in terms of overall design is to think first about using the layouts to reflect whatever I regard as the essence of the story I’m telling.

Thor, to me—as a character and as a book— looks back at the past, to a time of gods and mythology. It has elements of science-fiction in it, but it essentially is a conservative book—at least that’s the way I treated it when I was working on the title.

“The result is that I did relatively restrained layouts on Thor. They were straightforward, and different from, say, the Fantastic Four when I was drawing that

Figure 11.2: To create the effect of an epic battle, Simonson uses several solutions. Visually, he tells the story utilizing splash pages and splash spreads. Narratively, all words were existed on three levels: dialogue, sound effects and poetry.

title. The Fantastic Four was science-fiction based. So for the FF I did some pretty goofy layouts. I tried to do layouts that were more design-oriented and radical.

“In many ways The Fantastic Four looks forward towards the future as Thor looks back towards the past. The overall approach I took to laying out each book was really determined by the way I felt the story needed to be told with those characters.

“In my case I try to let the graphic solutions grow out of the story rather than just applying random graphic solutions to the story. Some stories facilitate unusual layouts and some stories seem to demand something much more straightforward. I try to approach the problem of storytelling by examining the story itself first and then developing the solutions based on that.”

In issue #380, Thor battles the Midgard Serpent in a life and death struggle over Midgard, or Earth. This is indeed a grave situation as Thor is pitted against one of his greatest foes. The battle was epic and thus an appropriately grandiose visual solution must be implemented. The final graphic solution and the story plot went hand in hand.

“One of the essential problems in that story, just as graphic narrative, is that in the mythology, the Midgard Serpent is enormous, encircling the Earth at the 131

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Thor and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

bottom the ocean and literally, its head touches its tail. It’s very big and the gods are more or less human size, which means you’ve got a good guy and a bad guy who are on vastly different scales. And that difference in scale makes it very difficult to draw the two characters together in a panel in ordinary breakdowns.

“The problem is that I wanted the fight to be really big, and I don’t mean that just in terms of scale or drawing—it’s this great, legendary fight. It’s one of the major climaxes of the Norse myth of Ragnarok, and so I really wanted it to feel like an important fight, a significant fight. I also wanted it to seem like a struggle that was long. Even though the scale of the foes is quite different, they’re both very powerful.

“But scale is a big problem. You divide a page in six or seven or eight panels and then if you draw this very massive serpent, Thor becomes the size of a pinhead, which is not very impressive. And if Thor is big, you can’t begin to see the Serpent. So I wrestled with how to make the fight epic and how to deal with the problem of scale. One day Weezie [Louise Simonson, his wife] and I went to the Cantina, a restaurant we really liked in our old neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan. As I walked over the threshold leaving the restaurant, for the only time in my life a lightbulb went off above my head and I thought, ‘all splash pages!’

“Now, I don’t claim any credit for originating the idea; John Byrne had actually done an all-splash page Hulk which I knew about, but at the time I hadn’t seen it. But when I thought about an all splash page issue, I realized that was the way to

Figure 11.3: Through splash pages, Simonson is able to explore size relationships between Thor and the Midgard Serpent.

approach this particular story. It would help in the problem of scale because I’d have a lot of room in each page. I could do a big Serpent head and still do a large enough Thor so you could see the character’s body language and the emotional language of the face if necessary. I didn’t attempt to try to draw the entire Serpent; I showed only parts of it,

Thor and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

thereby suggesting that it was so big, it couldn’t fit into the drawing!

“We took an extra couple of turns around a couple of blocks before I got home because I was thinking out how I would do this. I had originally thought of including subplots in the issue as a way of breaking up the fight, of making it seem longer by cutting away from it and going back again. But I decided to abandon the idea of subplots because in order to make the scale of the fight epic—even though it might not seem as long a reading experience—I felt that the fight itself was so big and so important that I didn’t want to break it up with extraneous subplots that had nothing to do with the story I was telling.”

Once the visual solution was found, then came the problems of writing the issue: “At the time I was doing Thor, I was reading a lot of the various retellings of the Norse myths. I had found a translation of the Elder Edda [also referred to as the Poetic Edda], which is a collection of Norse myths in poetic form. That edition had a fairly lengthy introduction about Viking culture, Norse poetry and the poetry’s structure.

One thing about those poems is that they were done not as rhymed poems. You know, ‘There was a Midgard Serpent from Nantucket,’” Simonson laughed.

“Instead, the Norse poems were created using stressed syllables and similar sounds at the beginnings of words. So I decided to tell the story of Thor facing 132

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the Midgard Serpent with captions that are essentially Walter Simonson’s imitation of Viking poetry. I make no claims to its quality but that was the attempt! I chose to do it that way because you read poetry more slowly that prose. I was trying to create a combination of words with pictures where the words actually act as part of the graphic solution because they’re slowing you down in the reading. You’re looking at the pictures more slowly because if you actually read the captions, you’ve got to stop and read the poetry—at least I can’t read poetry as fast as I can read prose—so it was a way of controlling the speed of the reader through the story.”

Thor and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Utilizing words, Simonson deftly sets up three levels to this epic battle.

The poem on one level, the combatants conversation on another level, then the sound effects were used to develop a third level.

“You get a mythic echo through the poetry. You get a contemporary take from the dialogue, and the sound effects are kind of a graphic element that serve as visual patterns across the pages that arrest the eye. I’ve always liked sound effects in comics because they’re something you just can’t do very effectively anywhere else. They’re wonderfully bound to the medium. Sound effects can function to lead the eye through a page visually. In this case I didn’t have multiple panels per page so that function wasn’t as Figure 11.4: When the storyteller breaks a storytelling rule, it should be to further the story along, never to detract from it. On the last page, Simonson goes back to panels to close in on Thor’s body. This creates movement to an otherwise static moment.

important, but I could still use sound effects as a way of leading the eye across the page as a graphic element, the same way you can use a word balloon for the same purpose, to make the eye go the way you want it to go. You don’t really hear the sound effect and a lot of sound effects I’ve written, I’m not quite sure how they’d be pronounced. But, as a graphic device they arrest the eye and, hence, help control the speed of the reader.”

When telling stories, visual consistency is extremely important. But every so often, rules can be broken. As long as it serves the story.

“The very last page has four panels; so I didn’t do an all-splash page issue, I did an almost all-splash page issue. The real reason for that is a book I had about American Indians when I was a kid. It was a fairly simple, illustrated book for children, and one of the things they talked about was the rug weaving of the Navajo tribe. Now, I haven’t asked any Navajo about this, and if you’re a Navajo, please don’t write me and yell at me if the tale isn’t true, but the story in the book was that the Navajo rug weavers, when they would make a rug, would weave a mistake into the rug in order to make sure that they did not create a perfect rug by accident, because perfection was really the purview of the gods, not mortals.

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“I thought that was a wonderful idea and as I was doing the Thor story, I thought about that old tale from this book I had as a child. So I broke up the last page, the flaw in the perfect splash page issue. It also worked in the story because it gave me a closing series of shots zeroing in on Thor’s body; almost like a stroboscopic effect in the comic where you’re getting changing pictures of a still scene—flash, flash, flash, flash. The pacing of the comic is essentially regular all the way through and then at the very end you get a little movement. It’s the one place where everything’s still but it’s the one place in the comic where the reader’s ‘eye’ is actually moving.

“You bring your experience and what you know into the telling of sto-

Figure 11.5: Present time. Christine St. Clair and Asano chase Manhunter throughout Gotham’s skyscape as Commissioner Gordon can only look on.

ries and that’s part of where the solutions for your problems come from.”

Simonson’s use of gutters effectively adds beats of time to the story. On the right-hand page, two officers point to the chase at hand.

The next 3 slender panels spotlights the chase.

There is then a wide gap as Gordon tells his men to get going. This gutter adds a moment for the Gotham police to get into their cars to continue the chase.

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In 1999, DC Comics published a 23-page Manhunter story for DC Comics as a tribute

to the late Archie Goodwin, Simonson’s partner on the original series done in the early ‘70s. The story had been plotted by Archie and Walter shortly before Archie’s untimely death in 1998.

Manhunter and all related characters © DC Comics

“Manhunter was an odd problem because I don’t generally go back and really revisit characters that I’ve done. I did this story in 1999 which means I’d done the original story some twenty-five years earlier, maybe twenty-six years earlier in 1973-74.

“So when I went to revisit this character, I had several problems. The new story was originally created from an idea Archie had. We sat down and co-plotted it in his office one day, which is the way we used to do Manhunter in the old days. We were going to do it Marvel style, so he planned to write dialogue for it after I’d drawn the layouts. It was going to be an eight-page chapter [as most of the chapters in Manhunter were].

“When Archie died, I had no interest in writing the dialogue myself.

That character for me was always a collaboration between me and Archie so the idea of my writing the dialogue or having somebody else write the dialogue just didn’t feel right—I couldn’t have done it. The story sat around for a while and then Weezie suggested that I might be able to do it as a silent story to get around the problem of no words. I discussed the idea with DC and they were game to do it.

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“The original notion was that the story would be a prologue—you would read it as kind of a framing device that would set up the story of Manhunter. It was the tale of the death of the final Manhunter clone and at the end of the sequence, Batman walks off with Commissioner Gordon who doesn’t know what the heck’s been going on; Batman starts to tell him Manhunter’s story. And then you move into the original series of stories. But since there were going to be no words, there was really no way to introduce the various supporting characters from the original series who were popping up in the new story. So my editor [Denny O’Neil] suggested that as a silent story, the whole thing would make a better epilogue than a prologue. I agreed with him; without the words, it seemed wiser to run it as an epilogue.”

One of the problems of telling the final chapter of Manhunter was the fair amount of thinking that went into figuring out graphic solutions to tell a story without using words. Sound effects were the only luxury Simonson afforded himself to help develop the story visually—but he had to create them himself.

Manhunter and all related characters © DC Comics

“I used to letter my own sound effects before I discovered John Workman could do them much better than I could; but I hadn’t met John when I was first in New York doing Manhunter so I decided to do the sound effects in the new story as well, for the sake of consistency. I also cheated once or twice. I used newspaper headlines and signs like ‘Gotham City Limits.’

“Manhunter is the only story I’ve done so far where I didn’t know in advance how many pages it was going to be.

In American comics, comic book lengths are usually a pretty rigid structure. It’s mostly a twenty-two-page story or it’s an eight page backup or whatever it’s going to be and that’s determined by the format. I started breaking the story down without really any clear idea of how many pages it would

Figure 11.6: Flashback. Manhunter gets ready in his hotel. The monochromatic color scheme, rounded borders and the shot of the alarm clock clearly establishes the time.

take me to get the whole story told without words. DC was very good about it. They said, ‘Look, if you can do it we’d love to run it, however long it’s going to be. Just do it and if you think you’ve got it, come back and tell us.’

Again, a metronomic use of time is defined by the gutters. On the left-hand page, the hotel is established. It is read a moment longer due to the gutter that separates from the other panels in the tier. The gutters become narrow in panels 2 - 4 to give the same shot some scope. the rest of the panels on this spread become regular beats of time as he puts on his uniform and arms himself.

“So I told the story until I was done. I really had no idea how many pages it was going to be when I began. I had no parameters to play against. So I drew and redrew the first six or seven pages over and over until I began to feel that the pacing I was establishing seemed appropriate.”

Flashbacks played an important part to the overall storytelling. But without the use of captions or descriptors to alert the reader to an earlier or later time in the story, Simonson relied on visual clues.

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“Archie employed a lot of flashbacks, partly as a way of expanding the sense of room in an eight-page story. Eight pages is very short. We were cramming twenty-two pages worth of material into the eight pages and we wanted to make the story seem bigger than it actually was. One way to do that was through the extensive use of flashbacks where you’d move back and forth in time. You’d get a sense of a larger time period than if you had just told the story in order. So we used that same device in the new story, a matter of employing some of the same tools we’d used originally. On the very first page of the new story, you see a large clock on a building while a gun battle rages across the city. It’s almost midnight. And after establishing that the gun battle in progress, we move back in time to the hotel where the Manhunter clone watches the setting sun and puts on his uniform. A small alarm clock shows the time, 7:14 and then 7:15.

I use the rounded panels and the monochromatic color scheme to emphasize that this is a flashback—no captions of course. Our heroes burst in, the gun battle begins. Both Christine and Asano escape being killed but they chase the Manhunter figure out the window, and we move back into the present. The gun battle/pursuit has been going on for about five hours. When the coloring returns to normal and the panels are all squared up again; we’re back to ‘now.’ And the fight moves to its climax.”

Figure 11.7: Through a simplified grid and decorative panels, Simonson is able to tell a story through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl.

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For this issue of Orion, Simonson told a superhero story from the point of view

This straightforward approach creates new challenges when telling this Orion story.

of a child. Melissa’s story is an seamless blend of perspectives, flashbacks and superheroic sequences: “It’s the only story in the run out of twenty-five issues that I did where I

Orion and all related characters © DC Comics

really had an over-voice narrator who was a specific character, so that the story is told from that character’s point of view, not just by the omniscient narrator; in this case, a small girl. This is my version of Shane. Orion is Alan Ladd come to town—the heavy-duty gunslinger who befriends the kid and has to solve the problem, and ride off into the sunset when he’s done.”

During the first seven pages of the first issue, Simonson tells a superhero story, complete with fight sequences, an omniscient narrator and “Kirby Crackle.”

But as soon as we reach the title page “And a Child Shall Lead Him,” the entire look of the narrative shifts to accommodate this new perspective.

“Immediately after the title, there are captions. After a moment you realize the captions are the little girl talking or doing the over-voice narration. From then on in the comic book, with rare exception, I’ve gone to a six-panel grid. The reason for that is the child is narrating. I want to reinforce the sense that when a child tells a story, a young child, there’s not usually a lot of emphasis. That doesn’t mean they’re not excited about it, but in a sense everything has an equal weight. ‘This happened and then this happened and this happened, this happened, this happened.’ I wanted the page to reflect that kind of even beat; the way a child talks and the way a child thinks, even though she’s really thirteen. I wanted a graphic solution to represent her voice.

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“Another reason I went to the six-panel grid is historical. Back when comics were still for kids—and I’m talking about going back to the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, when comics were really in many ways a child’s medium—you got six-panel pages or fivepanel pages which were much less interesting and inventive graphic breakdown of the pages than you would find now. Back then, stories were told in a very straightforward fashion: content over form. Artists weren’t generally interested in dazzling the eye with ‘form.’ Now we have a different emphasis. And so I was hearkening back to the kind of comics I read as a kid, when that very straightforward storytelling was really the order of the day.

“On page eight [Figure 11.7], I use three circular panels, the one with the hands and the others that showcased two characters, really because that to me was an echo of Classics Illustrated or some early Jack Kirby. This panel treatment struck me as being a kind of a simple graphic device, easily understood by a young audience. It’s something fairly simple, doesn’t screw up the continuity within the comic, but is an echo of earlier days.

After that, the comic just straightens right out. It’s pretty much six-panel grids from then on. I would occasionally use five panels. When I was first in comics, I did some Twilight Zone jobs for Gold Key, and Gold Key insisted on five-panel pages except for the splash page. They gave you the paper. It was ruled out in a six-panel grid and the scripts were Orion and all related characters © DC Comics

written so that you could combine any two adjacent panels to make a big panel, and consequently have five panels on a page. I chose to make a fifth panel when I needed one in that issue of Orion in the same way that I had done it back then.

“The next issue is also mostly six-panel pages, but there are a couple of places where I really wanted more of a sense of the passage of time than I felt six panels would really give me. I decided to use nine panels then because it just breaks time down a little more minutely and slows the reader down a tad more. It makes it seem like more time is going by. But again, I kept to a very simple graphic solution.”

Getting into the mindset of a child was an interesting exercise for Simonson. He had to go back and remember his own little girl for inspiration. But for Melissa, a tough little street kid with the usual, ‘tough exterior, heart of gold on the inside,’ her perspective would make or break this story.

“I tried to tell this story entirely from her point of view, hence the use of the low camera angles. Of course, it makes the bad guys look bigger and more threatening.

“I thought she was a really fun character to do. She worked out very well as a nice counterpoint to Orion; I was very pleased with her. I’m not sure I’d want to do six-panel page comics for the rest of my life, but I found limiting your graphic Figure 11.8: In this example, Simonson thrusts the reader in Melissa’s shoes as she tries avoid detection—the viewer is immediately in Melissa’s shoes. Simonson explains: “She’s avoiding capture; she’s hiding, and as a result you don’t see her in those panels, except as that one little hand in the last panel, because she is trying not to be seen.

And in a sense, the panels can tell her story without her actually having to be drawn into them.”

options was very freeing because you didn’t think about panel shapes or composing the entire page in the same way you do these days for the most part. You think two things: you think quite specifically of a strong composition six times on a page and you also have to be pretty careful how you pace your story, so that five or six panels will make the story work. I tried to keep it very straight and very geometric, but it really meant that you had to choose your moments within each panel very carefully in order to make the story flow smoothly through those layouts. That was fun… that was a lot of fun.”

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Walt Simonson always challenges himself. Coming up with design solutions

for storytelling forces him to do many things with the comics medium. All splash page stories, silent stories, stories told from a child’s point of view, as well as the kinds of stories Simonson has been telling all along complete with explosions, drama and heroes… in the end Simonson feels that whatever style will tell a story best will be the style he employs.

And when a style limits the decisions he can employ, he rises up to the challenge.

“It probably slows down production because you’re coming up with solutions that you don’t normally come up with. In some ways that’s where I find one of my principle focuses of interest in creating stories. Every tale I tell can’t be like that. You get a lot of stories that are pretty straightforward, but it’s refreshing every so often to take on something where you really get a crack at doing something different and seeing if you can make it work. It’s both more difficult and maybe a little more liberating.”

Simonson feels his training as an illustrator has prepared him for all of the curve balls stories can throw at him: “My time in art school taught me illustration is an exercise in problem solving. So in a sense I tackle a story as if there’s a problem I need to Figure 11.9: Cover to Orion #13

solve in order to tell the story most effectively. Some stories are more straightforward and don’t need fancy layouts; in fact, fancy layouts may work against telling some stories effectively. Then there are other stories where you go, ‘Well, this is going to need something screwy. I’ll have to think about this one.’ And then you spend some time thinking about it.

The toughest problem many artists face is a blank piece of paper. For storytellers, this problem is compounded because several panels will eventually be drawn on

Thor and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

the board. Since storytelling is a problem waiting to be solved, it is important to Simonson to wait until all of the parameters are in place to get a true sense of the problem.

“I don’t generally visualize the solutions before I get to the job. This may come out of my earlier college career: I was originally a geology major. There’s that old Sherlock Holmes phrase ‘it’s a waste of time to theorize in the absence of facts, Watson!’ Or something along those lines.

“The basis of geology is good field work. You can get awfully theoretical with geology using physics and chemistry and all sorts of other stuff—but basically, you start with the rocks. You don’t theorize in advance. You don’t invent all of this stuff and go out and find rocks to prove a theory. You start with the rocks and you try to figure out what the rocks are telling you on all sorts of levels, and eventually you begin to put things together and out comes the geology.

“I don’t generally read a story and go ‘Oh, well, I see this as an allsplash page job with three ordinary panels, and graphics using Helvetica type.’ My brains are my fingers in that regard. I sit down and start scribbling on paper, and somewhere in the scribbles I begin to find the answers. You have to understand that nothing is as intimidating as a big, white sheet of paper; but you can solve that. With the first Figure 11.10: Cover to Thor #380

line you put down, it’s no longer a white sheet of paper—not as scary. So just put that 138

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first line down, keep going, and of course be prepared to just pitch it out and start over again if the solution isn’t working out.”

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For Simonson, all stages of storytelling are unique problems unto themselves: layouts and roughs, drawing and creating art. But all of the solutions must

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solve the problem of telling the story.

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about your story, from ‘How many panels on a page you’ve got’ to ‘Do these five lines

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go here.’ I don’t sit there and sweat every time I make a line, going, ‘Oh, is this going to help my story or not?’ I trust my own drawing to that extent. But I’m always aware that

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if I reach a point where I can’t decide how to do something, or I reach that fork in the F A N

road and I try to decide which way I want to go, I fall back on the story and try and

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tease a solution out of the story itself. Whatever I do should benefit the story as M E

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opposed to being simply an aesthetically pleasing choice.”

And once the problem has been solved, the kinds of stories Simonson

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tells are always surprising. He weaves these experiences and interests into his comic stoB E E N

ries. He always finds a way to push the envelope away from traditional superhero norm

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trying to find something pertinent to say.

“There’s certainly no limit on what kinds of stories you can tell with comics. I like to tell stories that I’d like to read. I was a big Marvel Comics fan; they got

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me back into comics after I’d been a kid. I remember reading early Marvel comics in college and the Marvel comics I was reading—this was ’65, ’66—marked the peak period

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for Marvel’s creativity in the Sixties. Jack, Stan, Ditko and those guys were really hitB R A V U R A

ting some incredible peaks in their work. And as I read the stories I really felt that I hadn’t read anything like them before. They didn’t feel like the old DC comics or the Carl

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Barks Donald Duck comics that I had read. There was an excitement and a bravura performance level in those comics that was just energetic, moving, exciting and fun. You

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know, in a sense, that’s what I wanted to achieve in the comics in the beginning, folC O M I C S

lowing in the footsteps of the classic Marvel guys, although these days, I’ve seen more work and I’ve broadened my goals. But ‘energetic, moving, exciting, and fun’ doesn’t

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seem like a bad ambition for a storyteller.

“I never want the comics I do to seem as though they’re retreads of

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stuff you’ve already read. I do use elements of stories that have gone before. I did it in A N D

Thor, I did it in Orion. In comics, where you’re playing in a shared universe, you come to characters that have vast histories. I don’t want to get bogged down in their histories,

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but I don’t mind using them if I feel they’ll help me tell a better story. My concern, really, in telling a story is telling a story that feels like it hasn’t been told before, or perhaps

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not told in quite that fashion. It’s important to me that the readers are never quite sure W A N T

where they’re going to end up. That’s what keeps it fresh!”

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Figure 11.11: Example of sound effects used to add visual excitement and an aural effect from Orion #25 by Walter Simonson.

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Sound effects are another important trick of the trade storytellers can employ

in the comic narrative. Though not looked upon as essential, these effects can add depth

to a panel of comics. Similar to adding color to artwork, sound effects can emphasize

the narrative. Sound effects rely on typography and placement to read clearly and the

artist or letterer must think like a type designer to get the most out of a sound effect.

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The way a sound effect looks will determine how the readers hear the sound in their head. By their very construction, sound effects can be used as an aural device that works on a completely different level than dialogue and exposition.

Color also sets these devices apart from normal word balloons. If the colorist chooses to, they can design the sound effect to be more or less noticeable depending on the colors chosen to in relation to the colors already in the panel. A sound effect colored with a color that exists in the panel harmonizes the sound with the environment. Whereas a color that competes with the background and the sound effect will become louder and cacophonic.

In the first panel of page 30 of Orion #25, a fearsome explosion has just racked the planet Apokolips. The cool blue “THKRAKKADOOMM!” is suspended above the warm reds and yellows that are used to color the explosion itself Orion and all related characters © DC Comics

(Figure 11.11). In the third panel of the same page, as Orion uses the Mother Box to recreate the flowers, it emits a repetitive “ping” sound. Since the panel background is green, the compliment of this color, orange, again pushes the sound forward from the rest of the art.

However, in the second panel of page 28 of Orion #25, the onomatopoeia “SKREEWHAM!” erupts as the army of Darkseid disintegrates. The sound effect is colored in the same manner as the action so it integrates with the panel. The sound’s typeface is displayed in a rough and organic style. Type style can give the sound a distinct personality. And since “SKREEWHAM!” overlaps the panel underneath it, the sound is so loud that it breaks the borders. This placement can prolong the sound over panels, creating a kind of resonance in the reader’s mind.

Typically, the sound effect is drawn to mimic the sound it is to represent and so the way the words are visualized will determine how the word will be heard.

In the fourth panel of page 28 of Orion #25, we see the “THAMM!” repeat five times (Figure 11.12). The type is designed in a mechanical and straightforward manner which embodies Orion’s cannon. The placement of these blasts overlaps panel five, producing an echo effect. In panel five, these shots rip through the ground and the word “PTHOOM!” repeats four times. Because this reaction is drawn thinner the sound is less Figure 11.12: In this example, Simonson uses typography to determine how a sound will sound by how it looks.

full and the volume decreases.

Size is important to the sound effect as well. The more insignificant the sound the smaller it should be and the louder the sound, the larger it should be; size dictates volume. A sound can start off quiet and small and become louder and larger over a panel, several panels or several pages. Also, sound effects can be placed in front of the action so the reader is almost “deafened” with them and has to process the effects first, or behind the action to make the sound more of a background effect.

There are so many ways to use sound in comic books. When used effectively, sound effects can become another tool to immerse the reader into the creator’s world. Of all of storytelling tools, sound effects tend to be the tool thought of least. But with a little creativity any story could benefit with a little ZIP, BAM or POW! 141

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T H E A RT S H O U L D Copyright © George Pratt

A LWAY S B E I N S E R V I C E T O T H E S T O R Y. W H AT E V E R T E C H N I Q U E S YOU USE, THEY SHOULD I N F O R M T H E S T O R Y. BUT CHOOSE Y O U R M O M E N T.

– George Pratt

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George Pratt spent three years attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Figure 12.1: Pen and ink from George Pratt’s upcoming project— See You In Hell, Blind Boy—a tale of the blues

He quickly learned how little comic books mattered to the rest of the university’s artistic community. “Comics were totally frowned on, a big no-no. They were

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considered the bastard son of illustration; still are, I guess. The professors really

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didn’t want anything to do with them. So we kept pushing until we found a few

sympathetic teachers. I think the only time I actually did comics for a class was for my senior project.” Pratt turned to other sources to learn about the complexity of

visual storytelling. “Any storytelling ability I attained came from reading and struggling to figure it all out.”

Pratt is a comic book painter and though he loves the comic book

as an art form, he has a relatively small body of work to show for his efforts. He has worked on numerous short stories for DC Comics and Heavy Metal magazine, and has created cover illustrations for Topps and Dark Horse Comics. He has been nominated twice for the Eisner award, once for his popular book Enemy Ace: War Idyll, and once for Batman: Harvest Breed. Enemy Ace: War Idyll was also nominated for the Harvey award and won the France Info award for Best Foreign Graphic Novel at the prestigious festival in Angouleme, France. Currently, he is working on a project based on his second love: the Blues, which is proving to be more of an endeavor than Enemy Ace. Part of his

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Pratt approaches every project differently, but the results are always the same:

a provoking way to look at the comic art form. No two projects are ever developed in the same way because he’s inspired by a variety of experiences.

Approaching a project with the scope of Enemy Ace was nervewracking for Pratt. “The largest thing I’d done in the industry before Enemy Ace was an eight-page story, so I had no conception of how to tackle anything this big. When I helped Kent Williams and J. Muth with Moonshadow, I was convinced that I could do Enemy Ace. Sitting up there wallowing through some of the pages that we had to do on a deadline proved to me that I could do it on my own, and I went on from there.”

Pratt uses only the barest semblance of a system during the conceptual stage, though much of the results are created by instinct and are liable to change if the pages Enemy Ace and all related characters © DC Comics

do not “feel” right. “When I sit down to visually tell the story I’ve got my script in hand and I go through it. In writing the script I don’t necessarily break things down into pages, or even panels. I write down what’s supposed to happen from point A to point B. Scenes with little dialogue, basically, unless a particular bit of dialogue popped into my mind, then I’d put it in there. So I’ll take the printed script and, using a marker, separate paragraphs into what I think should be pages, based on gut reactions to the visual images the scenes evoke. I’m working on a feeling here. This page should be, say, four or five panels, and I’ll mark it off.

Then I’ll take the marked up script and start doing thumbnails from that.

“I design my pages with the spread in mind. I want each page to work independently, but also with the facing page. I want the whole thing to balance, to sit well on the spread, but also to flow, to keep the reader’s eye moving through the panels.

So I’ll do five or six sheets of layouts for each page, and I may be mixing and matching at the very end of that, taking something from the first layout and adding it to a later layout. I have to double-check myself, force myself to change my angles, play with my camera. It’s a constant struggle to try and see differently, from a different viewpoint.

Sometimes the first idea is the best and I’ll go right back to what I first had.”

Figure 12.2: Long thin panels help give this conversation between Mannock and Enemy Ace a cramped, uncomfortable look. Pratt is always looking for the perfect panel shapes to reflect the narrative point of the story.

The quest to find perfect panel shapes that assist in storytelling is important to Pratt. “I’ll try to see if there’s a better angle to use, maybe a better panel shape (Figure 12.2). Panel shapes tend to be fairly intuitive for me. Again—it’s a feeling.”

Since Pratt was both the writer and the artist on Enemy Ace, he decided to concentrate on developing the art first without a full script to develop the story. “I can sit down and write, no problem. It’s a struggle, but it’s not the same kind of struggle as drawing and painting. For me, it’s finding the right words to make it eloquent and succinct, in the same way that I look for the right angle for an image or a subtle pose that best describes a feeling or action. Drawing to me is much more difficult than writing. The labor involved is greater. But in both the grail is to say more with less.

“I didn’t really write any of Enemy Ace until after the art was done. The story was scene-driven for me, the visual element the catalyst. I wrote a synopsis, which was more of 143

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a flow chart. I knew what I wanted to happen, the string of events, and I knew what emotional impact I wanted each section to evoke. What I didn’t know was what the characters were necessarily going to say to each other. Some scenes were more thought out and were about charI

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acter development, though, really, it should all help to develop the characters. Those particular scenes I go into with dialogue and emotions at the forefront, things I want to say. Once they’re

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back depending on the mood of the scene and the space available.

“I tend to underestimate how much text can actually fit on a panel or a page.

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info and slow down a bit. Or I may chop whole sections of dialogue out so that the reader

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may throw out whole scenes if they clutter up the story, or if they just don’t advance the thing.

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Enemy Ace, it was telling the story visually and then figuring out the finished dialogue.”

The preliminary work prior to executing the artwork is the most time consuming to Pratt. “To me the hardest part is everything that leads up to the final art, the

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layout stage, the visual telling of the story. The actual execution is a technical thing, a super-

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graphic novel as. It’s all one piece, words and pictures. If you separate them, they don’t work as well as when they are together. Picture making is just one part of the overall form. The

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real nuts and bolts, the most difficult aspect of it all, for me, is sitting there breaking the story down trying to find the best possible solution to telling that tale visually. That’s what comics are all about. Finding just the right balance between the words and the pictures. It’s similar I

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“But I don’t see that many people struggling to tell stories visually anymore. They’re happy to do a shortcut, or do the ‘cool’ looking image, the money shot.

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ers notice the difference, even though they may not understand why the story didn’t grab them. So few artists do struggle with telling the story because it’s really hard. It’s not about

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‘Hey look at me!’ If the artist’s presence is too noticeable, then he’s failed at his job.

Everything should contribute to what John Gardner called the ‘continuous dream’ that the story conjures in the reader’s mind. It comes down to the old cliche: If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.’”

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Growing up in Texas, enamored with the action and adventure found within

comic books, Pratt always looked up to the likes of Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert.

One of their creations, Enemy Ace, was a World War One fighter pilot on par with the Red Baron or Blue Max. Enemy Ace fought his way into the genre of war comics, much like Sgt. Rock or Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos.

“I grew up with Enemy Ace and Vietnam—so until I was 13 or 14 years old there was always the Vietnam War going on. When I got out of art school I started reading about Vietnam because I wanted to learn more about it. Some of the first work I did when I got out of school was for a Vietnam Veterans magazine, working with a three-tour Green Beret and illustrating veterans’ stories.

Pratt also became interested in World War One. Once he came up with Enemy Ace and all related characters © DC Comics

the idea to reprise the character of Enemy Ace, Pratt began to research the topic in earnest and started collecting references. “As I read through all the unbelievable, first hand accounts of World War One I found things that were so moving and so powerful that I had to include some of them in the storyline. Through those books I could hear the real voices of those men who fought, struggled and died in the mud and futility of that experience. That brought up the idea of breaking the book into chapters.” Pratt would find an inspiring quote to set up the chapter headings (Figure 12.3). “It would give the reader pause to reflect on what was happening and it also gave the package the feeling of a book rather than a disposable comic.”

From conception to finish, Enemy Ace took George Pratt three years to complete. The project was powerful, telling the story of Enemy Ace in the twilight of his life, helping a fellow soldier named Mannock put the horrors of the Vietnam War behind him. The lack of deadline pressure allowed Pratt to perfect every nuance of this project: from references to art to word balloons and panel design. “Ace was my trial by fire—it was a large undertaking for me. I don’t know how comic artists are able to just kind of throw these comic books out as quick as they do. I get so caught up in the reference stage, making sure I have all my facts straight. I like the fact that personal projects take me a long time

Figure 12.3: Quotes from those who lived during the times of World War I were included in the chapter cover pages. This was done to better set up the narrative within each chapter. Also, this gave Pratt an outlet to experiment with different painting media (namely monotypes) and break away from the consistent watercolor painting of the narrative.

to finish. The test is keeping my interest high on them.

“As I live with these projects, and I lived with Ace for three years, layers of meaning get thrown into the story. Things that may have no relation at all to the project, but which have happened to me in my life, get shoved into the book and they plug in very nicely. I think it gives the story layers of depth and meaning that the book wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Continually working on the same project for such a length of time can take its toll. In comics, it is important that the characters maintain a recognizable appearance from the first to the last panel. In a painted book, this can become an arduous task: “I was caught up in the times of World War One, the clothes and the people looked very different from today. I enjoyed drawing it, but the labor of producing these realistic images and painting them up, layering all of these colors—got old quick.”

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The chapter breaks allowed Pratt to break up the monotony of maintaining his consistent drawing and painting style throughout the book. “I would finish a chapter of the book and think, ‘Oh man, am I burned!’ So the chapter headings were a place of refuge for me. I could paint something out of the context of the story, a single image that would give the reader a breather, yet still keep them in that time.”

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involved in Pratt’s decision to break the story into chapters. “It allowed me to introduce new ways of handling the art without destroying the continuity. So when the reader experiences it, the visual style looks intentional and part of a natural progression. For me it was a natural growth. As you can see, I got thicker and thicker with the paint the further into the book I went. It’s because I was getting so tired of watercolor and I wanted to get back to my oil painting, which is a different animal entirely. So to fill the gap in my need, I pulled out the gouache and the pallet knives and got juicy with the paint. It was a nice way to grow without having to totally disrupt the flow of the story and throw the reader out of the dream.”

By dream, Pratt refers to the state of concentration a reader falls into while reading. He stresses the importance of crafting a story so involving that the reader has problems breaking from its grip. “Half the struggle with storytelling is taking control from the reader. You want to take it away from them so that they have no choice but to go where you want them to go and follow your game plan.

Figure 12.4: (This page and next page) The first four spreads to Enemy Ace: War Idyll. It opens up with a cinematic shot mimicking the aspect ratio found in theaters.

The viewer is moved through the mind of Enemy Ace, Hans van Hammer, without the use of text boxes. The sequence seems quiet and takes on a dream-like quality.

It’s a game of chess. You’ve already presupposed their next move and you’ve forced them to do something other than what they would rather do at that point. That’s what storytelling is—taking the thing away from the reader so they are pulled along by the story. But I don’t want drones either. I want the reader to bring something to the table as well. It’s a give and a take. I want them to become an active participant, mentally. The story should be engaging enough so that they have to think about it long after they’ve put the book down.”

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Enemy Ace and all related characters © DC Comics

To meet this end, Pratt employs various visual tools to make the reader interact with the story. He begins with the building blocks of the comic book language: the panel. “I like art hemmed in by boxes, especially perfect squares. One thing I can’t stand about comic books is the tall, thin format. I hate it. It’s a design nightmare.

Magazines are squarer—to me that feels more natural. The panel structure and the reasons for certain panel shapes changes at any given moment, but needs to work as either a time element, an emotional element, or a pure compositional, graphic element.

“The panels are a storytelling element that is very specific to the mood of a given situation. It’s never consistent with me. The panel arrangement changes depending on what I’m feeling or what’s needed in the story. The feeling I have for a panel is emotional, and is sometimes specifically suited for the particular scene I’m trying to illustrate. It depends on time and how you want stretch it. How do you want to play with time? If you’re not willing to get in there and play with it, then why are you doing comics? Do a children’s book where you do one big image and that’s it.

“I had to struggle with the editor to open the book like a movie. I wanted a long opening shot, pulling the reader in, setting them up. That’s why the first spread is like a movie screen, in letterbox format. I wanted it to be a panoramic view—you’re in the trenches, you’re there, in World War One. But my editor felt I should open with continuity and put the reader immediately into the story. I asked him why. He said, ‘Because people need to know there’s a story here.’ And I said, ‘They’re buying a book— of course they know there’s a story in there! Give the reader a little credit.’”

Pratt places the viewer in the trenches looking up with wonder at the flying machines, which were still a novelty at that time, before moving straight into the cockpit with Enemy Ace. Without words, the dogfight seems quiet and then Pratt pulls 147

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you out of the skirmish, back into reality. “Enemy Ace is bedridden and the only place he flies anymore is inside his own mind. But I tried to do it without words, to set the pace and mood of the story and to foreshadow what’s to come. I wanted it to have a dreamlike quality. I wanted to let people into the story slowly, without a lot of noise, and to let them acclimate to the surroundings.”

Pacing defines the strength of comics. This allows the artist to regulate how quickly a reader absorbs the story. Often, this is dictated by the mood of the piece.

“Thinner panels speed the action up. In the gas scene, I use vertical strips of panels (Figure 12.5). I wanted the scene to be frenetic. You lead in with large, wide panels. Time slows and the reader can wallow around in these panels if they want, linger and inspect.

And then all of a sudden, GAS! And Ace sees it, and the narrow panels help speed up the time, boom, boom, boom, boom—mirroring the frantic reaction of the character. That was also the point of getting heavy with the palette knife. Gouache was used to make the scene more confused, disjointed, and to make the reader wonder how to get out of something like this. It’s more claustrophobic after all the open skies. Throughout the gas sequence I was trying to make it confusing, yes, but readable, and also keep the rhythm of the visual flow. When Ace is forced to finally kill someone face-to-face rather than plane-to-plane, I slowed it down, BOOM, with a splash page. Here’s this creature of the air having to scramble and kiss mud with the normal Joes. He has to cope now.”

In creating a work as complex as a comic book, many unexpected things can happen. When the working structure is loose, Pratt feels more at home. He is free to experiment and make mistakes.

“I designed the panel before the tunnel scene as one big image. As I started painting, I felt it was just too big of a panel (Figure 12.6). I enjoyed painting it, but it was almost too big for what it was. So I chopped it at the bottom, segmented it and I thought that worked. We understand that he’s leaning on the chair, we get that first, but as you move down you also realize he comes to a decision. So I was able to create a small passage of

Figure 12.5: On the lead-in page, the first two panels are long and horizontal to slow down the reader. When the mustard gas drops, the panels shift to thin, tall panels to accelerate time. On the final spread of this sequence, the pace continues until Enemy Ace is forced to kill to survive—the splash page. The action stops and the reader is given pause.

time that originally was unintended—just one of those happy accidents.

“Some things happened during the process of painting pages that were almost effortless, that just came out of me. They’re not even exceptional pages, but what happened when I painted them was such a pleasurable experience that I have great feelings for them. It’s what art is all about to me, the epiphanies, the high points of total effortlessness.

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with, as far as thinking about the transitions and wanting them to work as pure visual storytelling, was leading into the first tunnel scene underground. We have a close-up of the reporter’s eye, which becomes the setting sun. The choppers are coming in and the sun, which is directly behind them, becomes the glow of a flashlight in the tunnel. Inside to the outside and back again to the inside. I was very happy with that.”

The strong use of color in the gutters helped tie these two scenes together. Starting on the first page, burgundy was displayed half a panel’s height from the last panel. When the page was flipped the color burgundy continues, surrounding all the panels on the page and finishing the change of scene. Gutters need not be white, and can be used to facilitate the story. “In the gutters I pushed burgundy for Vietnam, and black for World War One, giving the reader a visual touchstone. Something they didn’t necessarily have to read, but would make an unconscious mental note of.” This kind of technique also applies to text and caption boxes used in the narrative.

“If there’s one thing disconcerting about comics, it is the balloons— they really get in the way. I thought, ‘Why spend all this time making the painting work, when you’ve got this big white balloon on it?’ It doesn’t let the light in the piece do its job. So I knocked the balloons back with colored tints so that the art is what’s alive, and the balloons aren’t as intrusive. Especially with the painted work, the light source is vital in getting all these emotions across.

Once you’ve slapped a white balloon in you’ve killed it. Sometimes the words need to sit back a little bit so that the image can tell the story and pull the reader in (Figure 12.7).

Also, the colors that I used within the balloons and captions were distinctly chosen for each character. So even if a character was speaking in a caption box, the reader had a visual cue as to who it was.”

Pratt spent a lot of time deliberating on the design of Enemy Ace’s lettering. “I wanted something that wasn’t your typical comic book lettering. I wanted something a bit more angular. Comics lettering gets a little too bubbly.

It almost feels like shorthand and I wanted this thing to be real, and have a little bit more of the

Figure 12.6: On the lead in page, the final panel was divided into two panels to create a passage of time. The color burgundy is introduced halfway through the final panel to better set up the following spread. Burgundy is used around all of the panels to better separate this flashback from the previous scene.

feeling of a book. I got heavy into the lettering, especially the freehand stuff that went later. I’m no letterer, but I knew what I wanted and what I liked. I did examples, and Willie Schubert sent in samples, and he did an incredible job. He nailed the feeling and mood of the text, adding yet another layer to the overall story.”

Strong color theory also gives this story much of its impact. Throughout most of Enemy Ace, dark hues were used to reflect the seriousness of the storyline’s mood.

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However, at the end, when Enemy Ace and Mannock stand outside, finally at peace with themselves, the colors brighten (Figure 12.8). “When you get to the final chapter— Chapter 6, when the old man gives Mannock the book, I made the chapter much lighter than everything else that came before. I even changed the blue that I was using. In the rest of the book I used cobalt blue, which is very cold. But when I got to the final chapter I used ultramarine and made it a little sunnier, also glazed with yellows on the flesh tones. I tried to pull the whole ending out from all this darkness. So you get to the end of the book and you see the light, there’s air to breathe and space to open up a bit.”

To Pratt, all of the little details are crucial in telling a good story. He wants to have a hand in all aspects of the story, from picking the logo type to hiring a letterer and hanging around a press to learn all he could about book production, printing and bindery.

“I don’t understand how people can do these books and just let them go. To put that amount of work into telling a story like this and then hand it over to someone and say, ‘OK, go for it! I can’t wait to see it come out!’ No way. I want to be there, this is my baby! I want to walk it through as far as they’ll let me go. All the design I’ve done, I’ll do it for free. It’s kind of taken for granted that artists do that for free.

That’s why the books come out looking the way they do. It needs a unified vision and purpose. I think that’s the big difference. I believe people respond to good design, even

Figure 12.7: Color was added to both caption boxes and word balloons to make the words unobtrusive. The art becomes more alive.

though they don’t understand what it is, why the book may have that kind of a feel. It’s because we put in the extra hours and involved ourselves in every aspect of the story.”

The smallest details can make a story more engaging and, if the story is powerful and moving to begin with, the experience for the viewer becomes greater.

“One of the best compliments I ever had was from several people who said that Enemy Ace actually made them cry. I thought, ‘Wow, this thing really did reach people.’ It brought home how incredibly powerful the medium is. I can’t read my own work because I’m too close to it. That’s the only thing that sucks about being a writer or painter or any kind of creative artist—you can never see it the way other people see it. They get to read it totally unencumbered and can experience it for real. Whereas our experiences are so colored by all the things that happened during the course of producing it.”

Figure 12.8: Brighter color usage helps differentiate both scene and emotional content. To further separate the ending from the dark and serious chapters earlier, Pratt turned to ultramarine blue.

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Painters approach comics differently than pencilers and inkers. It could be

due to the medium, but Pratt attributes his approach to a strong fine arts experience as well as a love of comics. “To be honest, I think there’s a difference in how we, as painters, approach storytelling. It comes from not having only studied comics, but from learning outside of the medium. One of the big problems with comics is that it’s very incestuous. People are just regurgitating the same old things rather than looking around and saying, ‘Well, gee, what is it that turns me on?’ A lot of comic artists only seem to be able to talk about comics, period. Not that there’s anything wrong with talking about comics. But you begin to wonder how being this self-referential can be good for the art form. When creators have interests outside of the field, things they’re studying on their own—that’s when comics are strongest.

“Generally, what’s sad to me is how many of these guys today profess to be so into comics, but don’t even know the history of the medium. It’s an incredibly rich history, and it’s directly linked to the history of illustration, which is also amazingly diverse. How can anyone not want to plumb the depths of that history for the hidden treasures? How can you be in something that you love so much, and not know anything about it? You don’t even have to talk to many comic artists to know they don’t know their history, it’s obvious from looking at the work.”

Pratt believes that many of the modern comic book artists who mereCopyright © George Pratt

ly copy successful artist’s styles instead of developing their own are hurting themselves.

“They’re going to be in a bind because they’re not really learning how to draw and they’re not learning to tell stories. When you go back and look at the EC work [1950s era comics publisher] and Golden Age [1930s - 50s era comics], there’s something in there that would really do these people a world of good. The older books show how fun comics can be and how rewarding good storytelling is for the reader. Most people for-

Figure 12.9: An avid guitar player, Pratt found inspiration from blues music for his next project.

While shopping for CDs, he heard Mississippi Johnson playing overhead; “I didn’t know who it was and it just hit me, it rocked me off my feet…

I could not stop listening to this guy’s voice.”

This project promises to be more intensive than Enemy Ace. Utilizing several types of media to reach a wider audience, it will be mostly a novel with comics interwoven throughout. Video footage is also planned to accompany the project.

get that there’s an audience for this work. The readers are looking for an engaging story, something they can lock onto, but they’re not getting it anymore.

“The industry would grow if creators would make themselves more aware of the history of comics and other fields, painting, literature, film,” Pratt believes.

“What will make the work resonate, have a life of its own, is having some solid knowledge behind the lines. You can never have enough life drawing and you should never stop looking at the world around you.

“The art should always be in service to the story. Whatever techniques you use, they should inform the story. But choose your moment. Don’t just let off fireworks all the time. Why scream when a whisper will do?”

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Figure 12.10: Page 6 of Wolverine: Netsuke

by George Pratt. Starting with roughs, Pratt paints his panels one to a sheet and then composes the page on computer. But working as much as he can traditionally ensures the energy, emotion and organic qualities of his art. His vision is never compromised by technology— only enhanced.

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One of the most exciting innovations in comics books is how the computer

is being used to help production. From laying out word balloons and scanning in artwork to coloring pages and creating separations, computers are being used at every stage of comic book production. Producing stories is certainly a far cry from creating stories and the debate on how computers should affect storytelling is a hot one indeed.

George Pratt is a painter first, but he never shies away from anything

experimental if it will streamline his storytelling. He has utilized the computer effectively and specifically for his last two graphic novels. These days you can see him painting on loose sheets of paper, one panel to a sheet. He will then use the computer to bring these loose

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illustrations to compose into a page of storytelling. “I’m enjoying drawing again. Working loose like this on separate sheets of paper has freed me up because I can just draw.” Trying to create multiple panels on the same page can be daunting and storytellers often go for the safe answers to not blow a page of continuity. “Composing on the computer has allowed me to have the spontaneity of going with the flow, going wherever the piece needs to go.”

Though he uses the computer, he still concentrates on layout and design to tell his stories. “I try to create a pleasing abstract arrangement of the panel shapes on the page, trying also to keep in mind the flow and pace of the story. Then I’ll see if the images can plug into those panels in a clear and concise way. If it feels uncomfortable, as though I’m straining to fit a square peg in a round hole, then the panel arrangements not working and I’ll cut, paste, do whatever to get to the heart of what’s best for the story.”

Figure 12.11: (Above) The original panel roughs.

(Below) The individual paintings.

Even though the computer offers many options, solutions and effects, Pratt is quick to master the intricacies of any program to then determine which techniques he can incorporate to better tell his stories. “I use the Mac primarily as a layout tool. I never got into a lot of the Photoshop filters because it’s pretty obvious that’s what they are and because everybody has the same filter. If you do use them you have to choose your moment. There’s a time and a place to pull out a tool and let it do its thing… but the fact is if the computer effect is really noticeable, it’s failed. It shouldn’t be noticeable. In storytelling everything should just read naturally and if the reader is aware of these effects and aware of the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, they’re thrown out of the dream of the story which defeats the purpose of telling the story. If people aren’t going to get lost in it, what’s the point in doing it?”

There are those who rely on technology to save time at the least, the story at the most. Pratt disagrees with both concepts. “I thought using the computer would actually be simpler and make things move quicker, but the computer does not save time.

It takes more time. It eats time especially if you don’t go into a story with a purpose.

“You need to go into the computer with a design on paper and then execute that design. Myself, I end up playing for hours and days on a layout because I can, because the computer allows you that freedom. The thing is that freedom is not always a good thing because you are almost letting it dictate where you are going to go rather than coming to it and saying this is what I’m going to execute and then make it happen.”

The challenge in telling comic book stories with the computer is to never let the technology overwhelm the vision. The story must be aided by technology, never compromised by it. “The story’s got to be there in the first place. Yeah, the computer can make it glitzy, but it’s not going to save it. You can make the art all bright and shiny, and some people are going to jump on it and love it… it’s like they are magpies. But that doesn’t mean it’s good. That doesn’t mean that the story is saved or made better—it’s made flashier. I’d rather it be just simple visual communication. You could do all that other stuff, but if you’re not telling the story, so what? If you’re not willing to tell a story then you should not be doing comic books because it is about sequential art. Everything should be in service to the story and if it’s not then you failed.”

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Figure 13.1: Dana Scully and Fox Mulder from the X-Files.

X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Van Fleet

IF YOU CAME UP WITH A STYLE IN WHICH STICK FIGURES W E R E T R U LY U N I Q U E AND ENGAGING, YOU CAN TELL STORIES.

– John Van Fleet C H A P T E R

T H I R T E E N

John Van Fleet went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY with the intention of

becoming a graphic designer. It was here that he roomed with George Pratt, Kent Williams, Mark Chiarello, and Scott Hannah, all of whom shared the same upbringing and interests as well as the same classes. Van Fleet’s interest in sequential art was piqued

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through this camaraderie forged through comics, science-fiction, and art.

After learning how to create mechanicals and wax boards, Van Fleet

was introduced to the Macintosh computer during his final year of college. “I saw my entire career being pointless. I thought ‘this machine is ultimately going to replace every

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graphic designer on the planet.’ So luckily, I also dug illustration…”

Starting with editorial and “boring, dry” technical illustration work, Van

Fleet’s desire to tell stories and make film—which he still would love to do—matured into sequential art over time. Originally, he avoided comics because all of his friends found suc-

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cess in the field. Still, he found himself in the Marvel offices in New York City and was offered a Hellraiser short story. Since then, he has visualized some very sophisticated comics,

including Shadows Fall, Typhoid Mary, the X-Files and Batman. Van Fleet does the occasional

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illustration assignment, including numerous cover illustrations for Marvel and DC Comics

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and spot illustrations. His work is collected in The Art of John Van Fleet.

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R O U G H S / P R E P L A N N I N G Typhoid Mary and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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When creating his artwork, Van Fleet concentrates on the last line of dialogue

spoken in a panel rather than the first line spoken. “Trying to choose what point in time to focus on from a script that’s already written is kind of a challenge. Generally, as a rule of thumb, I focus on the last line because in my mind that makes sense. You shouldn’t have the reader see the image before the words. The reader should see the last moment because when they read that last line, they look at the image and then move on to the next page or next panel. So to me that’s a natural thing. I see a lot of artists who don’t do that. Artists who work with Marvel style scripts… don’t do that. It’s not their fault when the thing comes back and the words are totally inappropriate to the pictures.”

Van Fleet prefers to work from a full script whenever possible. The looseness of a plot-only script lacks the fine points that he feels are important in creating the visual nuances important to storytelling. “If you’re working for Marvel, you just get a breakdown, there’s no dialogue. A lot of people like that, but it’s sometimes harder for me because I don’t know what the character’s saying. The character could say ‘Watch out Jim!’, but it’s hard to put that shock in their expressions if you don’t have the dialogue. The writer will say in the script: ‘He yells to Jim.’ Well what he yells to Jim is not all that clear. And you’ll see when

Figure 13.2: Two random pages from Typhoid Mary. Strong reference sources help define the harsh shadows and make it easier to abstract the painted form. Note the page division: three tiers of information with each tier subdivided into smaller panels, if needed. This allows Van Fleet the freedom to experiment with color theory and camera angles.

the book finally comes out, the dialogue reads: “Hey Jim, can of Coke’s 50¢,” and your expression is totally inappropriate because you’ve filled him with horror.”

Visual references are an important element to Van Fleet’s professional work: from Shadows Fall to Typhoid Mary to his current work on the X-Files. Lighting is one of the major reasons Van Fleet uses still photos. “The model will sit there in front of me and I say: ‘Tilt your head back’ and the lighting changes completely. When he tilts his head forward the lighting again changes completely. The immediate satisfaction of having that kind

Typhoid Mary and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

of control over the image is the reason why I put up with the pain in the ass of it. You could sit there and you could draw it, but the minute you start to draw it on a piece of paper you erase it. Maybe I’ll change the lighting. Well then you have a whole new image and you can do that maybe twice before the paper starts to complain. But with photographs I can decide at a later date which is better. And I’ve done that time and time again.

When a comic book is based off of a TV show, like Van Fleet’s work with the X-Files, the visual references have already been seen by the public and the reader has a level of expectation on how the characters and scenes should look. When likeness issues must be dealt with, Van Fleet finds that photo referencing becomes almost necessary. “Because the X-Files is high profile and people like it, there’s a demand for it and people will buy it. And most of the work on the X-Files is really fun but then the likeness issue is just another thorn in my side. But if I were able to complete what I consider to be my job of storytelling and I were able to say: ‘Now let me shoot it from this angle.’ Or if I had access to all the still outtakes, then I would say this is the perfect job for me. It’s a good story, it’s a story that I want to tell. But I’m limited by my references and my demand for likenesses is 110%.”

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John Van Fleet’s style can be best described as experimental. The outward appearance

is dark, graphic and well-designed. However, the methods he uses to achieve this look are constantly being refined. He is considered to be one of the most distinctive, meticulous painters in the industry, though his methods are innate.

When talking about color theory and colors he uses in painting, Van Fleet jokes that “I take whichever one’s closest to me.” He chooses colors instinctively. “I think there’s an inherent palette in my head that I use and I don’t use it because I know it works, I use it because I genuinely like it.” Van Fleet has a familiarity with the colors he employs. Pointing to a bottle of paint, he says “this is like the color of my house and here it is in the comic book panel—pretty damn close. The fact that I’m comfortable with it enables me to believe in the reality and… makes the panel work. It’s important that I believe it’s attractive for me to be able to move on. I have to feel that I’ve achieved that harmony with the colors and the values in order for me to move on to the next panel.

The fact that somebody else may find that attractive pleases me but it doesn’t control me.

I’ve got to stick with the harmony that I know.”

Van Fleet tends to mix unlike colors together to achieve a better range of colors. He stays away from primary colors. “I think my only theory with color is if you’re using a primary color, you should be using a tertiary color. There are no natural X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

primary colors. If you see a primary color, you’re in a construction zone.” Van Fleet loves to use earth tones and other colors found in nature. To better reflect an environment, he will mix cool and warm colors. “It’s always good if you’ve got a cool picture to have a cool, warm color in there. And vice versa: if you’re doing a desert it’s always good to have a hot, cool color.” He stresses the importance of using a natural range of colors. “To find a warm blue in a desert scene really makes a desert more believable because all those colors are there in a real desert even if you don’t see them.”

Van Fleet does use a type of the roughs process where he decides what action fits on a page. Once the layout has been decided upon, then he creates the panels. “I don’t really have all that many rules; I try to stick with more of a Bauhaus style of creating grids, I kind of break the panel up into thirds and then break the thirds up into thirds and then break those thirds up into thirds. And what you find is a certain harmony on the panels that doesn’t stand in the way of the storytelling.” Working from a Figure 13.3: Example of Xerography technique.

Tonal information drops out and develops an organic look. Van Fleet then decides what to strengthen or abstract using heavy blacks to hold colors.

grid also has the benefit of maximizing time. “If I’m going to do my best to set up the image and the point of view and all this other stuff, then to save time I need something that I can rely on as a standby. Since nothing else is constant, panel size and page layout have become my constant. When I start a blank page I don’t have that same overwhelming ‘Oh my God, what the hell am I going to do.’ I can basically break it down into thirds and it takes away some of the anxiety that goes along that white page.”

Van Fleet developed a process of visual storytelling involving the use of a copy machine. In essence, an image is photocopied and then transferred onto the 156

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X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

J bristol board. After transfer, the panel is painted using color and heavy use of black to hold all the details together. Van Fleet decides to strengthen or recreate details. “The xerography style I came upon was just trying to do something different and I thought ‘what a great way to tell a story.’ The people in the industry look at me all cross-eyed and you know it’s good but it’s just a photograph and it’s a Xerox.”

Van Fleet utilized this style on his creation Shadows Fall. Fellow artists, fans and friends had trouble accepting this new style and reactions to this new method of storytelling were diverse. “I had a range of opinions from people saying they loved it to others saying their 5-year-old kid could do it.

“The negative reactions facilitated the first change from xerography to what you saw in Typhoid Mary which was more drawing. There was some xerography, but I mainly kept it to the background. Everybody seemed to really respond to Typhoid Mary in a positive way. And I don’t think anybody was more shocked than I was because to me it’s really no different than what you saw in Shadows Fall.

“But I understand [the reaction] because it’s a small industry. When I draw a line I get applause and when I Xerox transfer that same line I get a lot of head scratching. Maybe it’s because it’s so foreign from what other artists are aspiring to—they don’t know what to say. Or they see it as a threat because after all of their efforts in learning how to draw, here comes a guy who just takes a photograph of a hand and Xerox

Figure 13.4: Two pages from the movie adaptation X-Files: Fight the Future. This comic book differs from most others in that even though there are sequential art spreads, the text is read like a traditional novel and accented by many spot illustrations.

transfers it. He doesn’t have to, in their minds, slave over the effort of making it look like a hand. If it were that easy, why didn’t a thousand people start doing what I did after Shadows Fall came out? Either nobody’s doing it because they don’t get applauded when they use it or it’s a little bit harder than they might have thought. And maybe the reality

X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

is a little bit of both. Certainly you could do one [Xerox transfer] image and sit back and say ‘yeah, that was easy.’ But you can’t do sequential art like that and sit back and say that was easy because it’s not. It was a labor of love to take the photos; I’ve got shoe boxes and shoe boxes of photos. So there’s extra cost there. And there’s the film and the setting up photo shoots. I hate photo shoots; I hate taking reference; it’s the worst part of it for me.”

Stemming from the Typhoid Mary work, Van Fleet moved onto the X-Files.

The similarities in both stories were compatible: both comics have dark visions and an atmospheric graphic style would be appropriate. However, when it came to the X-Files movie adaptation, the producers had to make sure that the likenesses of the characters translated from big screen to comic book pages. For the movie adaptation, Van Fleet produced a test image demonstrating the Xerographic technique—how the image became finished art.

“They were really worried about character recognition. I told my editor to bring them Shadows Fall and see what they think. And he was like: ‘they’ll never go for that. So I said ‘all right, whatever.’ My editor took them this (Figure 13.3) and they were flipping—they went ape sh*t.

“The book came out pretty good. The art that I did for it, I was quite happy with it (Figure 13.4). And I know that they were thrilled—not a single correction was called for. That’s not too bad. Hopefully it’ll be seen as an extension of the movie.”

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All related characters © John Ney Reiber & John Van Fleet

S H A D O W S

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Shadows Fall was a six-issue limited series produced for DC Comics’ Vertigo line

of comics. Van Fleet was attracted to its sophisticated and dark story and he had a personal interest invested into the story. “The concept of the guy losing his shadow was something I had come up with and John Ney Rieber came on board as the writer. I told him what my story was and then it became our story. It went back and forth. I really had a story here that I wanted to tell. And I was willing to go the extra mile.”

To visually match this horrific story of decisions and consequences, Van Fleet decided to utilize his Xerography technique. He spent an inordinate amount of time and expense with photo shoots and models, much like principle photography on any movie.

“Shadows Fall contained a cast of thousands spanning over six books.”

Van Fleet experienced some problems with working with so much talent.” I had models who were moving away. In fact Andrew, the main model, was going to college here in acting school and was ready to move on. I had to shoot as much as I could which is what I thought I would need for the last book. Using models like that brings you closer to the community, which was kind of fun. But I’m no [Norman] Rockwell… because most of the Figure 13.5: Cover to Shadows Fall #1, painted by John Van Fleet.

characters die. I think seeing something before it happens allows better storytelling.”

Because much of the photography took place as the art was being produced, Van Fleet completed a bare minimum of roughs to send to his editor. “With Shadows Fall I had to do thumbnails and take them to the art director. I made them intentionally difficult to read because I didn’t want to do them. I didn’t want a better idea to occur to me and then have to fight for it, which happens all the time. I mean, when I’m doing a page, the first panel is going to dictate what happens in the second panel: how much dark, how much light, how much organic line, all the way until the end of the story. But if I lay out thumbnails or details on the panels, I’m kind of locked into that.”

Designing the Shadow was a struggle by both the writer and the artist.

“Originally [writer] John [Ney Rieber] wrote the Shadow as a human form walking from hall to hall, room to room, place to place. I said we’ve got to have a vehicle for him that’s more mobile than a shadow of a man swimming across a floor, just to be a little more creepy. If I were doing the Shadows Fall movie and the Shadow was in a kid’s room, I would pan around and show the shadows of the toys. One would be a shadow of a rabbit, something obvious, then that rabbit would change into the shadow of the man. I would mess around with it in ways that you can’t necessarily do in comics unless you make a ten-panel page.”

The Shadow as a snake-like, almost liquid form seemed to be a better solution. “It just served the story so much better that it could do that. It gave it kind of this whole ability to get in under the cracks of the door kind of thing. The feeling that even though it’s a shadow it can go places that people wouldn’t necessarily think of a shadow going.”

An example of where this solution really shines is in the nursery scene in Book 5 of Shadows Fall (Figure 13.6). Here, Van Fleet uses the form of the creature to help direct the eye from the top leftmost panel all the way to the bottommost panel.

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“This was one of those things where logic really takes over. With the people pushing a patient down the hallway, I would want them to push from left to right.

There’s a neonatal ward sign and of course it’s pointing to the right. You know that’s where the shadow’s going; he enters on the bottom and exits on the right top. When drawing you need to have in your head that part of the story is ahead in the panel layout and not behind, so you need it to flow correctly. At least that’s the way I see it and I hope that’s the way the reader sees it. Because you almost don’t notice where he enters All related characters © John Ney Reiber & John Van Fleet

on the bottom unless you backtrack with your eyes.

“I did want you to hang on the next panel which is the area that views into the nursery. There’s not much text except for the word ‘fresh,’ so you’re not going to pause at the panel the way I want you to pause because of the text. So I had to do something else I think the shadow circling in on itself in a spiral creates a certain static moment that doesn’t last forever. The only reason I’m showing it to you is for mood and to set the story up. In the last panel, I want you to sit here and look at all the little kids in more of a static moment… then of course on to the next page, where the Shadow is creeping across.

“The shadow has fingers and the fingers point at something. The obvious motion of the viewer is to look where he’s pointing. So when I’ve got the fingers outstretched in front, then I think it carries the

Figure 13.6: The Shadow slithers its way into the nursery. On both pages, the Shadow’s form directs the reader’s eye to the next panel. On the righthand page, the fingers actually point to the next panel or to caption box to be read in succession.

eye across that panel with some sense of speed. I wanted this thing to be creeping along.

If I were to film it you would see it and it wouldn’t be fast: it’s not going in for a kill but it would have that snake-like slither across the infants. Then when it finds its victim, it encircles the kid in the way a snake would and then goes in for the kill. And then when the kid screams and starts to cry again I want you stay there for just a minute, I didn’t want you just to race off the edge of the page. So again, I did that coiling of the tail on the shadow hoping that it would hold somebody there for just a minute more before they would turn the page.”

Moving the Shadow over multiple babies would be akin to fast cuts in the movies. By limiting the interaction of the Shadow with one child, the pace of the action slows down. “The Shadow is not attacking; it’s savoring the moment.”

Page spreads are important to Van Fleet. “I’m always aware if the page is a left-hand page or the right-hand page and what’s going to happen next. Particularly on this one here, I wanted the thirds to line up so that when you look at it, it looks like a spread. It’s not a double paged spread but it has a sense that the scene continues..”

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All related characters © John Ney Reiber & John Van Fleet

Reproduction of painted artwork is dicey at best. When the mood of the piece is dictated by the color, choosing the correct color is crucial. Despite the painter’s best intentions, sometimes they can fall victim to the inaccuracy of the printing process. It is the printed book that the reader sees, not the original artwork. “The hospital green went more to brown and then there’s that purple haze over the white. In the nursery scene, the colors were cooler, but there’s a warmth that’s not in the original.

It’s kind of funny because originally the idea of the nursery was to keep it cold and cruel.

It’s O.K. I mean it doesn’t bother me. I guess comics, like anything, take on a life of their own. There’s so many things that can go wrong and didn’t that I’m just thankful.”

Though Van Fleet is fairly forgiving of the print process, there are some production problems that bother him. “If I do a piece and I make the black a deep black and then I see the book and it’s gray, that infuriates me. That really, I find offensive.”

Though Van Fleet may not be able to go to the printer to see his work print out, he prides himself on caring about other nuances in design that make up a comic book. “The one thing that I do tell the editor and try to control if I can is caption box colors, which sounds really stupid. But we argued back and forth for these caption box colors. You can see that they’re a muted green; he was telling me that they had to be that same old comic book yellow. I said absolutely not, this is the Shadow talking

Figure 13.7: Use of colored text boxes help maintain the mood of the moment and quiets the voice delivering the narrative.

and it has to have a certain organic darkness to it. It just can’t be blaring in some bright color. And he argued for a long time but finally gave in. And I think when you see it, it really works because the voice isn’t screaming at you: it’s a conversational voice. It’s not the same as when this kid yells ‘WAAAA.’ with a white background and black type. That screams at you. I think the green works a lot better because all of the other caption

All related characters © John Ney Reiber & John Van Fleet

boxes aren’t white with type sticking on them. (Figure 13.7)” In one panel the reproduction was so dark that the figure of the Shadow was lost. Because Van Fleet was able to establish the Shadow’s speaking voice as organic caption boxes colored in olive green, the storytelling is maintained (Figure 13.8). “Like here you can see this print is so dark that the Shadow figure in the nursery didn’t even print. And it doesn’t stop it from working but I would have been nice had it printed. Let’s say it would have printed. The type was very close to that, so you would see it. That was meant to draw your eye there so that you would subsequently see it as a secondary element because it’s not the one I really wanted you to fix on. But in this case it printed so dark I didn’t have to worry about it. That still proved to be a little disappointing, to have reproduction so off-base that characters go missing.”

“I think the first time I go through a final book I look at everything that I’m very disappointed with: this printed too dark or too blue or too green or too

Figure 13.8: (Top) The Shadow can be clearly seen in the original art but (bottom) is lost in the reproduction. Consistent use of the olive caption boxes as the “voice” of the Shadow still puts the character in the nursery in this panel even if he is no where to be seen.

blurred, all of that stuff kind of gets at me. Later I let it go because ultimately it doesn’t matter; it’s been read. Unless the printing makes it downright stink, it’s not that much of a problem. Fortunately I haven’t had pages print out of sequence. That is devastating from a storyteller’s point of view, the worst. I would have rather a blurred page in correct sequence than that.”

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The popularity of the X-Files comic book series was a surprise in the ’90s.

Van Fleet showed both Shadows Fall and Typhoid Mary to X-Files series editor Dwight Jon Zimmerman. Not only did he and the producers react well to the visual look of the books, but they responded well to the consistent likenesses of the characters. “I had just come on the comics scene. I had logged myself to the style that I had showed them in Typhoid Mary, which was very little or no Xerography at all. They were in love with the work so I had as much work as I wanted. I did the pilot show [X-Files #0] and that worked out pretty well. It was kind of cool because this is really for me less work [than using X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Xerography].”

Van Fleet believes the excellent writing on the X-Files shows makes for a clean transition to the comics medium. “The X-Files scripts are probably the most fault-free scripts I’ve had in a long time. The writer, the director, the director of photography, and the art director had their hands on it before Roy Thomas does the adaptations. By the time it gets to me, it is so gleaned down to its bare essence, that if I edit much of anything the story goes south in a heartbeat. One thing about a script is that there’s usually no visual context, you see it, you make it happen and you create the visual. And here I’m really just regurgitating the visual elements which is a weird thing.

“With a TV show, the action is very back and forth; there is no time delay. With comics your eye can be caught on a panel for an eternity, but you don’t want that to happen. You want something to move the reader on. Traditionally, I’ve selected moments that I feel that moves the eye forward: he leads to this and the hand leads back to here and she looking over to there. But I can’t do it with the same forcefulness that I could if I were the director in a movie.”

Working on a licensed product like the X-Files the artist has to work within certain restrictions. “Well, the main limitation is that they want the characters front and center and they want them to look presentable. Like this character Mulder

Figure 13.9: Appearance and presentability are important points of contention when working with licensed characters.

where he gets out of the shower (Figure 13.9). In the television episode, his hair is all stringy and messy. Had I drawn him that way, they would have bounced the page because it wouldn’t have been flattering to him. In the comic book adaptation Ice, the characters were up in the Arctic and nobody had showered for like four days. When I drew it that way, they bounced back all of these Scully panels. They said she was too haggard.

Van Fleet doesn’t always have the proper references and studio outtakes when laying out an X-Files story. This forces him to get creative with the references he does have. “In the TV show, cars are constantly driving right to left but in comics you can’t have a car driving right to left. It’s got to be driving left to right, head on, or at an angle. Anything but right to left. And Mulder and Scully are in their cars a lot—that was a constant problem with me. I sat there and I said, ‘Well, I can flip the 161

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photo reference as long as I don’t show the drivers because then Mulder will be talking and I don’t want the word balloons to collide or something.’ Or the steering wheel would be on the wrong side. It’s something that writers don’t think about—they don’t have to think about. And it can be a real pain in the butt when it comes to translating it from the script when [the writer] just says ‘car goes down in the road, we see Mulder driving.’”

As with most X-Files scripts Van Fleet deals with, Fire contained several pages of dialogue-heavy scenes. “Ironically enough, I’m doing Fire because I did an episode called Ice, so I think that there’s some marketing scheme. But, I looked at the episode and I thought it’s not bad; there’s a few minutes where all hell is X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

breaking loose and flames are shooting all over the place and I thought that looks kind of neat. But then when you start to break the story down and you get the script, you realize mainly people are just talking at each other, not even talking with each other.”

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around the page properly, often times the characters and objects within the panels direct eye movement. But in a likeness dominated battle like the X-Files, concessions must be made if the resources are not there. “If the only reference I have of Scully is of her all looking left then I know that I’ve got to flop it on a copier or something, it’s going to degrade and then I’ve got to draw it and it may not look as much like her. I might Figure 13.10: Example of repetition of form found within a spread.

just say the hell with it, I’ll have her looking right. Someone’s just going to look at her for two seconds and move on.”

If the reference does not promote clear storytelling, then Van Fleet will resort to pure design solutions to create an interesting layout. In Fire, Van Fleet repeats a Scully panel on the left-hand page in panels 4 and 5 and again on the righthand page in panel 1. Because she faces to the left, this runs contrary to storytelling (Figure 13.9). “Without the right references, I’m doing little things like this Scully triple panel, a little, silly thing. When its printed that’s how it’s going to look. And what is it? It’s not anything, she becomes a little graphic element that will hit on somebody’s subconscious instead of serving to promote storytelling. It’s not necessarily doing much for the story. Because all they really care about is that Scully looks like Scully and Mulder looks like Mulder and they could care less if the story makes sense.”

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Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

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Figure 13.11: The Chalice, painted by John Van Fleet. The complex, moody style of the cover (left) serves as a true indicator for the action within (above and below).

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As much as Van Fleet loves the storytelling power of sequential art, he equally loves Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

the challenge of creating covers (Figure 13.11). “The best part of this job is that I get to do the covers. Really. Because I try to tell the story on the cover, which is probably more challenging than anything else. How are you going to give the reader a sense of the story or convince someone there is a story here to be read with just one piece of art?

And you have to keep the cover true to the story. Don’t just make it some flashy, big explosion when there’s not a single blast in the whole book.”

A strong visual style can instantaneously set up the correct atmosphere for a comic book story if the style and story work well together. “I don’t think that a superhero comic book would be best served with Xerox transfer process. I think the distortion and exaggeration of the human form best suits superhero stories. It’s about the appropriateness of the right artist for the right role or the right technique for the right piece. If you’ve got a great story to tell and you go over to Germany or some other country but no one speaks English, you’re not doing anything. I think that the story is your primary function; the story is what you’re there for. But putting it into a graphic language that’s readable, understandable, presentable, and is not contradictory to the telling of the story is essential. If you drew a comic in stick figures you could still tell a story. And if you came up with a style in which the stick figures were truly engaging and unique, you’d be doing great.”

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X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Focus Panels

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Figure 13.12: Example of transitioning to another scene gradually through color as painted by John Van Fleet. In X-Files: Pilot Episode, Page 20, a cool purple color dominates panels 1 through 4. As they time travel, panel 5 is a lighter purple and panel 6 becomes almost white. If the color schemes moved from purple directly to white, the transition would speed up. By adding panel 5, the pacing slows down.

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The elements within a panel can contain a focus, but so should the overall page.

With all the information to be processed by the reader, the transitions from detail to

detail and story point to story point become essential. One way to tie all of these aspects together is color.

Unity, movement, and story progression can certainly be created with

black-and-white line art and text, but if color is used these ends can be more fully developed. By establishing setting and time, creating a focus, creating a mood or emotional

state, and/or associating scenes and characters with larger themes, color can make the reader understand the story’s subtleties.

Colors can be called upon to create a passage of time or a merging of

two scenes. This is very important. Color differentiates the many environments a story can encompass. By varying color over two or more panels, time and space can pass either abruptly or gently, depending on the technique used. The actual time transition created should always match the intended pacing of the story.

Painters use a unifying glaze or ground color to make all of the elements

of an illustration come together. This kind of technique can be used within each panel.

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Establishing colors and settings can greatly affect plot cohesion, especially when a single page contains multiple scenes. When defining setting with color, consistency is key. This means that a very specific color palette should be created to denote a single setting or location.

Often the establishing shot is used to set up these colors. But moving to the next establishing shot with a new set of colors moves the reader from setting to setting.

Creating a focus through color is a disciplined way of letting important storytelling points emerge. Just as color can be used within a panel to make objects come forward, color can make entire panels come forward within a page or spread. Without the use of color, a focus panel can be determined by sheer size. But the panel that is colored with the hottest, purest color can dominate a spread even if it is the smallest panel in the page. It could draw the reader’s eye to a clue that the characters in the story miss.

Color can also highlight a character’s emotional state. Mood and emotional state is a tricky concept to convey in sequential art. If the incorrect color is used to show emotion, then an important moment in the story can be destroyed. But if color highlights the emotion perfectly, then it can be another valuable storytelling technique.

Should anger be red? Depression blue? Silence golden? Only if the story calls for it. A colorist shouldn’t simply color all the faces on a page the same color of flesh tone; sometimes a seemingly arbitrary color can prove dramatic.

Experienced colorists have an understanding of the dramatic. They interpret the script in front of them and know when a scene needs to be heightened. This also gives them a better feel for all the mundane panels in between. Not every punch thrown ought to be “in-yourface” red. By the same token, not every day in Gotham City need be dark and dreary (but mostly they are). In coloring comics,

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important to bring the most out of a story. Pacing and emotional content can be Figure 13.13: Example of highlighting emotion through color. In X-Files: Pilot Episode, Page 27, Panels 1 and 2 (the Shady Rest Motel) are established with a predominantly grey/green background. Panel 3 is orange as Theresa begs for protection. The diner is then a tan color. Even though panel 3 is the smallest panel on the page, the bright orange gives it focus.

directly and subtly controlled through coloring.

X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

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Figure 14.1: Batman from Batman/Houdini: The Devil’s Workshop, painted by Mark Chiarello.

– Mark Chiarello Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

Chiarello

PICTURE MAKING, DESIGN, IT’S ALL I M P O RTA N T. Y O U R E A L LY C A N ’ T S E PA R AT E O N E F R O M THE OTHER.

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F O U R T E E N

Unlike most comic book artists, Mark Chiarello didn’t read comics as a kid.

It wasn’t until his high school years that he discovered what he had been missing for

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all those years.

Chiarello went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY to study painting. It

was there that he met John Van Fleet, George Pratt and Kent Williams, other artists who shared the same love of the comics art form.

Before his career in comics, Chiarello had been a successful water-

colorist and illustrator, the Stars of the Negro League baseball card set being a

highlight. He started in the industry coloring for Marvel Comics and worked his way

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up to becoming the color editor at DC Comics. He eventually added cover editor to his

title and ultimately attained the title of Art Director for DC Comics. He still is active

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in art, painting A Piece of Wood, Batman Houdini: The Devil’s Workshop and the story Electric

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China Death in Gangland. He has painted covers for Terminal City, which were nominated

for Eisner Awards. Chiarello has painted Vigilante and Jonny Double covers and edited the Eisner Award-winning Batman: Black and White anthology/series.

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Setting up the scenes, environments and emotional contents of stories can be

a challenge and using color can be an effective solution to these problems. To Chiarello, color is to comics what the soundtrack is to a movie. “A good soundtrack really helps emphasize the story and enhances the dramatics of the movie. A bad soundtrack can be very evasive, like the laughtrack in a sitcom, and it can ruin what was otherwise a good movie. Good color can really add to the overall package and bad color can really ruin the comic; ruin the artwork.

“The weaker colorists are the guys who get all the uniforms right. By that I mean the color of the sky is blue… and the color of the grass is always green, always doing a pedestrian job. Whereas Sherilyn van Valkenburgh, Matt Hollingsworth Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

or Trish Mulvihill think of ways to get around that and to add emotion to the color of the comic. That’s really the stuff that you have to think about. In an industry where the more pages you color, the more money you make, it’s admirable that these particular people have chosen to slow down a little bit and make the inspired color choices.”

The major problem with any aspect of the production of the comic book is when one part of the whole becomes obvious. When misused, computerized color can detract from a story and lessen its impact or obstruct its flow. “If you’re working with colors on top of someone’s pencils and inks, you have to do the right thing by that person. You can’t go crazy and put in all of those stupid computerized lens flares. The penciler or inker is going to get the job and say: ‘you’ve butchered my job.’ A computer is only a tool, like a great set of magic markers or Dr. Martin dyes. It’s not the technology that’s important, it’s the talent you have that you can channel through that technology.

“There are way too many choices on the computer; there are millions and millions of colors. I long for the old days of sh*tty paper where you could only choose from 64 colors. There is where I really excel, because I approach color and illustration like graphic design: you have limited choices and time, so you better be Figure 14.2: Example of an active layout. The art style changes from rendered watercolor to flat shapes and high contrast light back to rendered watercolors. The colors are used well—from the figures to sound effects’ typestyle.

As seen in Batman/Houdini: The Devil’s Workshop, painted by Mark Chiarello.

sure if you are only picking five colors on a panel that they better damn well be the right five colors.”

As important as coloring can be to the overall story, sometimes readers do not realize the coloring is even there. This is the first sign of effective coloring; the reality the artist is presenting through color is so believable to the story that it is not even questioned.

“As a colorist, I have done jobs where I knew I was being incredibly clever with a scene—maybe doing a scene all in reds to show real violence or real anger and I knew I was doing a good job. I don’t think that the reader would say, “gee, the colorist did a great job.” I think they’d say that the artwork was great and helped the story.

And that’s a compliment... it’s the whole package.

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Like most artists, Chiarello plans his page layout before diving into the artwork.

“I do thumbnails on typing paper... about the size of a baseball card. I put two on each page. The drawings on the thumbnails are incredibly rough and gestural, so much so that only I would understand what I’m looking at. If somebody else looked at it, they would not know what was what.

“I find the process of laying out the story the most important aspect of making comics. Comic books are about one thing—telling a story… it’s not about the pyrotechnics of your art or the beauty of your art—it’s about telling the story. I think that a lot of people have forgotten that, unfortunately.

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

“The thumbnails are basically telling the story in very simple terms.

It’s the bare bones of the story, which is really what you want to capture. So, to me, that’s the real tough part. If you will look at the greatest comic storyteller of our time, Alex Toth, his stuff was so simple, it was almost like these little thumbnails, but blown up. There is no extraneous stuff involved. Every line, every background, every character tells a story and it’s something that I really, really aspire to and I want to investigate.

I am currently drawing… a ten-page gangster story which is the first non-painted sequential comics work for me. So I really want to investigate that as opposed to just telling the story. It’s a step.”

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Chiarello and Howard Chaykin worked on Batman/Houdini together. “Howard and

I are real good friends and we had wanted to work together for quite some time. He is a real fine illustrator himself and he keeps an eye on a lot of young illustrators… over the course of dinner one night, we kicked around a few ideas. Howard is very interest-

Figure 14.3: Cover to the Elseworld’s Batman/Houdini: The Devil’s Workshop, graphic novel. Painted by Mark Chiarello..

ed in history and is a big history buff like I am, so we kind of connected. We talked about the turn of the first century and about Houdini, about how Houdini was the first superstar in American history from a media standpoint. That was something that interested the both of us; so we pitched the idea and DC jumped on it, surprisingly.”

“Howard is an interesting guy to work with because he’s nothing like Archie Goodwin, who is the ultimate writer. Archie wrote straight: if he worked with Alex Toth, he wrote an airplane adventure story or if he worked with Steve Ditko, he wrote an otherworldly, kind of strange thing. Howard is the exact opposite. Howard is the writer and you are the artist and he wants you to know that. When you make suggestions like ‘wouldn’t it be cool to have a scene that takes place in Chinatown?’ He will tell you ‘if I can, I can and if I can’t, I can’t; but I’m the writer, so don’t cross that line.’ I got a two-page overview of the story [from Chaykin] which had the basic story and I 168

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asked him to put in some more particular stuff with Houdini. He didn’t have anything about escapes or magic, it was more a social commentary, and I figured that people want to see Houdini escape from chains and underwater tanks and stuff like that. I never will forget the day I got the final script; I felt like blowing my brains out because I realized that I had to draw this thing. You know you go through talking about the story, the contract stage, talking to the editor and then you get the finished script. I thought ‘Oh my God, I have to draw this thing. It’s my turn.’ It’s really daunting.

“I couldn’t really start doing any artwork or any conceptual work when I had just the synopsis. Once I got the finished script, I read through it once just to see what it was all about, and then I read through it again immediately and started doing little sketches in the margins, real cursory page layouts and visual ideas that I Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

didn’t want to forget.

“This particular project was really different since it took place at the turn of the 20th century, it was really research intensive, which I really like. But I think a problem that I had with Houdini is that I was a real slave to the photographs I had taken and my reference. That’s something that I am really proud to have gotten away from with the Vigilante… and Terminal City covers. I would take photos and think that’s reality and I can’t do better than that, so I just better copy the photograph, not trace it, but kind of draw it exactly the way it appears. The same goes with photo reference, especially with a historical piece. As the artist, I’m also the director of this movie, I knew every photograph and was so entrenched in what New York looked like at the turn of the century, but there is only a certain amount of space to put in backgrounds. The artist sees a world that’s different from what the readers see, you’re seeing every photograph that you have and the readers see only what you put down. The end result is not all the books you bought, it’s not that you have a good relationship with the writer and it’s not how much you got paid for the job—it’s what the final book is. Whether it’s a sh*tty print job or a good print job, that’s all the reader sees.”

The colors utilized in Batman/Houdini were picked with the greatest care. With good coloring, images do not have to be colored realistically to promote

Figure 14.4: The next scene is already being set up on this page with color. Red in the windows and doorways indicates change of scene.

good storytelling. Sometimes, the artist can take chances to enhance the mood of a story, like in the scene where Batman chases the Joker into the subway (Figure 14.4).

“It begins very monochromatically; it’s at night in a smoky train yard, so I didn’t want any glaring colors. I wanted it to feel like a period piece where Batman is a big, black, dark figure and the Joker is a colorless figure except for the white pallor of his skin. And with the panel of Batman’s head and the hammer, again my knee-jerk reaction was to make that background bright red, with 100% magenta and 100% yellow, but it would draw way too much attention. So I picked a color that would still retain that old-time feel but was still a jarring color, that sort of tomato kind of color.

The next panel, we are back to the monochromatic range, except for the light source that is coming from the subway station, which is a red glow that is also in the last panel, coming from the subway station.

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Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

“When you turn the page (Figure 14.5), the red glow becomes your surroundings. In that first panel of Batman having come down the stairs, the stairs and Batman are still gray, but the environment is red. The background of the following panels are all red so that it’s obvious that you are in a specific place. When you set up scenes, you want the reader to know he is in a certain locale and when you change the scene, you change the color also. The reader doesn’t say ‘Oh Gee, I’m in a different scene because it’s a different color palette’—it’s more a subliminal thing. When you turn the page and all of a sudden it’s daytime and the sky is blue outside, you know without stopping that it’s a different scene, a different time frame.”

Figure 14.5: Example of strong color sense and focus.

Chiarello uses this kind of thinking with details as small as a caption box. “For this project I picked all the colors for the sound effects, again because it was a period piece, I didn’t want to get too bright with the colors (Figure 14.6). The page starts off with the word Montenegro and the color I picked for behind the Big M drop cap was a very tasteful greenish gray. A bright color would have been out of context. I think if I were doing a regular “monthly comic,” or a superhero comic, I would speak that particular language; I would want bright reds, bright yellows because that’s that world.”

With color alone, Chiarello established the shot of the castle. The outside scenes of Batman and Houdini at night use a darker palette and the interior background shots are warmer and yellower. At the very end on the left-hand page, when Vicky Vale stabs Montenegro, Chiarello switches to a monochromatic palette. “I had set up the fairly realistic, warm palette for inside, although it’s a heavily shadowed, dank interior of a castle. I wanted a panel that would be totally different than the rest of them, so I washed out all the color and darkened it way down. When you’re doing your little thumbnails, you hope that the reader is going to understand what you’re trying to get across; its really just a guessing game. [Panel 6] was the panel where I hoped that the reader realized what Vicky had done. Being the art director at DC, I talked with a lot of other artists and asked them, ‘what’s going on in this panel?’ and they’re like, ‘Wasn’t it plain? Wasn’t it clear that she stabbed him with the knife?’ They’re sure that it’s clear, but what if the reader doesn’t get it? So you end up second guessing yourself a lot.”

In these days where splashy, in-your-face action is the hallmark of superhero comics, Chiarello makes a gutsy storytelling decision by downplaying the stabbing scene. In the final panel, the action is monochromatic and almost obscured.

The action seems diminished.

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“I didn’t want to do the obvious thing, I didn’t want to do the big money shot of him getting stabbed. I wanted the time frame to be consistent. The bottom three panels on the tier are sort of like the ticking of a clock in that you know she is picking up the letter opener so it should be obvious what she has done. I think better artists—and I’m certainly not trying to say I’m a better artist—but the better artists try not to do the obvious thing.”

Contrast this panel with the reaction on the following page, second panel. The action is a lot more violent comparatively, since a woman stabbing a vampire is not as painful as a vampire striking a mere mortal. Color is used to key up this scene.

“I wanted it to be very warm as he actually strikes her, and I didn’t want to go with bright red, so I got as warm as I could without crossing that line of what the colors in the room would really be. I wanted to turn it up a lot, but you can’t, you Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

can only go so far.”

Panels that are recognized more readily than the others that surround it can further storytelling. Chiarello believes in using focus panels to grab the reader’s attention. “Conceptually, I like focus panels.

When it comes to doing the actual job, it doesn’t always work out that way. On the first panel of the right-hand page of the spread, I really wanted the shot of the Baron with the letter opener in his chest to be the money panel. I wanted it to be just the amount of pain that I put on his face, wanted him to look very nonplussed by having been stabbed, kind of monstrous.”

The pacing of this page is even and deliberate. On panel 4, Chiarello Figure 14.6: Example of sophisticated shot selections and unique panel emphasis.

opens up the panel by taking out the border. “Everything had been so structured. This monster just left the room and I wanted a moment of repose. It’s obvious Vicky is in deep sh*t and she’s realizing that now. She has been a modern, ballsy woman, but in that panel, you slow down a little. I always wondered when people read comics if they read the sound effects, too. Like in the next panel, you’re supposed to hear the whirring of the plane. I think when I read comics, I subliminally skip over stuff like that, I just go to the picture and read the dialogue. So I was wondering if it worked, when she looked up and heard the whirring of the plane. I hope it’s successful. There is a lot of guess work with doing this stuff. You kind of put your best foot forward and hope that the reader gets it.”

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W O O D

A Piece of Wood was originally written in 1952, on the tails of World War II

and the Korean War. War was a subject that fascinated a young Ray Bradbury and he thought about how wonderful it would be if someone created a device to destroy all the world’s killing weapons. With this premise, a young soldier develops just such a weapon and he tells his superior officer about it in A Piece of Wood.

“When you read Ray Bradbury’s story, it’s about war but he really never states what time frame that the war takes place. It’s about a 16-year war that’s in progress.

I wanted to make it non-time specific, so I took out any reference to any types of visual references, anything that would say that it was the 1930s or the 1960s or the 1990s. That was very difficult because I could not get very specific about things. I think at the end it worked out fairly well, because you are not sure when this war is taking place.”

Chiarello feels that his adaptation for the Ray Bradbury short story A Piece of Wood holds up as his favorite piece of storytelling. To Chiarello, the visual success of the work has a direct correlation to the original story.

“I really enjoyed doing it. There are some excellent writers in comics,

Figure 14.7: The postures of the figures help determine personalities. The young soldier looks beaten down while the general seems haughty.

but no one is as good as Ray Bradbury. Being able to work on a Bradbury story is really incredible. It is so well written that there wasn’t any room for improvement .

Chiarello adapted the story himself, taking great pains to make the closest translation to comics as he could. “I had adapted the short story from prose,

Copyright © Byron Preiss Visual Publications

which was fun, but really daunting, because I did not want to edit any of Bradbury’s written word. You don’t want to touch the master, so I kept it intact as much as humanly possible, I think I kept about 99.9% of all his written word. It was a special challenge.”

In all projects, it is good to get feedback from the others involved in the process. To make changes to the source material, Chiarello felt he had to contact Bradbury himself to bounce some ideas off of the author. “I wanted to make the lead character a black gentleman. I had my editor ask Bradbury and he said that he would rather that I didn’t, not that there was anything wrong with making either of the characters black, but when he originally wrote the story, he didn’t picture or envision either of the characters that way. So he asked that I didn’t do that. So of course, when Bradbury said “jump,” I said “how high?” Afterwards, I got a note from him through the editor saying how much he liked my story, which was really great.

“The best scenario in comics is where you do work with the other people on the project. When I colored Hellboy, Mike Mignola and I talked quite a bit. I felt, not only was it fun to get together over coffee and talk about the story, but I think the end result was a nice melding of our talents.”

Figure 14.8: The rust appears on the gears, an indication that the soldier’s weapon exists.

Graphic marks give the story unique qualities from the white circles representing the general’s eyes to the close up of the soldier’s eye in panel 5.

Graphic design and graphic styled illustration is important to Chiarello’s comic book style. Flattening out shapes in a form gives his style a timeless quality. But he doesn’t rely just on a distinctive style to tell stories; he also relies on pacing, drama and other decisions to tell a complete story.

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“I’m very driven by graphic shapes—circles, squares. I wanted to portray the general as a very cold, dark figure. In the first couple of pages, the story opens up, the general isn’t even facing the person he’s talking to. I think that says quite a bit about what kind of man he was. A lot of times, you don’t see the general’s eyes, which is a good bit of symbolism to throw in, and you really feel for the younger guy. He’s painted a little lighter in tone, often there’s white around him to show that he’s a completely different kind of person. I wanted the reader to feel sorry for the guy. His head is bowed down often. (Figure 14.7) “It’s completely up to me to put the younger man on a chair, almost like a broken man. In an earlier page I decided to make the general look out the window, semiCopyright © Byron Preiss Visual Publications

uninterested… that was all my decision. As a comic book artist, you are the lighting technician and the director of photography. The younger guy is talking to the general and I thought it would be nice to have him look at his hands in contemplation. Maybe he feels useless, that he created something, but he does not know if he can actually use it.”

For most of the pages, the conversation between the two men is handled with a monochromatic color scheme—almost black-and-white. There are hints of the rust color used during the course of the conversation, but it’s used sparingly until the story reaches its climax. “In this story, I tried very, very hard to make color important. That tomato red, reddish-brown color is used only in certain key places.

“Because I have colored so many comic books, in my mind I will plot out the colors scene by scene. If I’m doing continuity that I know I’m going to color myself, my own artwork, I will really fine tune the color choices. Because as a colorist, or as someone who’s known for a fairly strong color sense, I figure the colors on my own story had better be as damned good as I can possibly make them. So for this story, there are only 3 colors for the whole story—black or grays for the majority of the story, there’s this green element to signify the military aspect and then there’s this rust color to hit the highlights and as the pay off of the entire story.”

The reader is clued in to the fact that the young solFigure 14.9: In this page, the reader knows the rust machine exists and is operational. To set off the rust that used to be the general’s pen, Chiarello painted the rest of the page using monochromatic color schemes.

dier developed this rust-causing machine by the subtle occurrence of the color. “When he speaks about the actual process of inventing this machine that will rust all metal, you actually see the cogs starting to rust. Up until that point, the rust color signified violence or the war itself.

“That was a difficult page because there was a long stretch where the younger guy talks about how he created this mechanism to end the war (Figure 14.8). It’s technical but it’s an important part of the story—it puts forward that maybe this guy isn’t crazy, maybe he did invent this thing. The general doesn’t for a second think this guy is sane. For most of the story the general treats him like he’s a kid, talks to him gingerly, 173

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in a patronizing manner.

“Toward the end, the sergeant or general looks for his pen and he runs his fingers into his shirt pocket. He pulls them out and there is this rusty, tomato color on his fingers. That’s the real pay off panel for the entire story. That proves that the younger guy isn’t a nut—he actually created this mechanism to put an end to the war. I wanted to really bleach out all of the colors so that when you got to that one panel, with the rust color, you know right away what had happened” (Figure 14.9).

As soon as he felt the reader knew for certain the weapon did exist, Chiarello was able to utilize more and more of the rust-colored palette.

“Any time after that, whenever you see the rust color it is during the rust process. On the very last page, you see a military truck rusting and then you see the general pull out his drawer and the gun is all rusted.”

On the last page, Chiarello moved from a rendered watercolor technique to a more graphic technique. “I wanted to pare down any information I could on the last 2 panels, because the time frame speeds up. The general grabs the chair and smashes it against the wall and he grabs the leg of the chair to go beat the life out of the guy. I wanted to crank the speed up toward the end, so I pulled out any extra-

Figure 14.10: Example of switching styles to better progress the story. Timing and pacing speeds up or slows down depending on the panel and/or style.

neous information by making the last couple of panels high contrast. To do this made the panels very graphic and as visually immediate as I could possibly make them” (Figure 14.10).

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For much of his early painting career, Chiarello worked exclusively in watercolors.

These days he is doing mostly gouache paintings. He has worked hard to develop a personal style, but he feels that style should always be in service to the story.

“I think a lot of people try to impose their style a little too much on somebody else’s writing. It’s very much in vogue these days to use a million lines when drawing an object like an arm or a leg. It’s much harder to use one or two lines, because you’ve got to pick the right one or two lines. It comes back to what Alex Toth preaches, keep it simple. Artists who are overly concerned with their style are missing the point.

The problem that I have [with some artists] is that they are much more interested in making cool pictures, great paintings… when it is much more important to tell the story.”

With the care and effort Chiarello puts into his work, it would be a slight to describe his work as simple. Chiarello cites early illustrators and talented draftsmen as great influences on his work.

“I’m real interested in other artists like J.C. Leyendecker and Ludwig Hohlwein, illustrators of the Thirties. I have books on these guys and I love looking at the stuff. But when it is time for me to sit down and do a drawing, I completely forget all that, I am kind of on auto pilot, my instincts take over. I wish I could integrate better the lessons 174

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they taught and what they had learned, but it’s just not possible for some reason.

A better word to describe Chiarello’s work would be designed. It is the design that proves to be more difficult than execution when it comes to Chiarello’s sequential artwork.

“One of my responsibilities at DC is to determine who draws all of the covers and what images go on them. Sometimes I’ll do a simple thumbnail sketch of a basic design and send it to the artist. This works out really well when the artist is a better draftsman than I am. Because of my strong design sense, we end up with some great covers this way. It’s really fun to sit around and say ‘wouldn’t it be cool if Green Arrow was up to his chin in a pool of blood’ and then have a great draftsman execute that idea. Obviously, the best artists can do both equally well. Dramatics, picture making, design, it’s all important. You really can’t separate one from the other. Personally, I happen to be very design oriented, I approach illustration as graphic design. This approach works really well if you’re working on cover or poster images.”

Simply, Chiarello defines the role of the comic book artist: “to tell a story in an interesting way. If you look at a lot of very talented draftsman… unfortunately year after year they are just solving the problem the same way. You can tell they are bored doing what they do. I think that it’s so important to solve problems differently.

Every time I do a cover, I try to start fresh and do it completely different than the last one I’ve done. And it’s not always easy, but you don’t want to get bored with your stuff.

“To me, you want to interest the reader and interest yourself. One way that can be done is through investigating different genres. Some artists just spend Vigilante and all related characters © DC Comics

their time doing superhero books, but I see that as a dead end. Yeah sure, do that for a couple of years, but I wish there were westerns and prison-break stories. It’s a fun business, but you have to keep yourself interested, it’s not about just making money— though you can make a bunch. To me the greatest thing in the world is when I sit down and look at my old comic books. There’s this indescribable feeling of nostalgia for certain drawing, pages, panels, covers, artists, characters. I always hope I’m adding to that.

I hope when I’m 60, some kid will come up to me and say: ‘Hey, you know that Ray Bradbury story you did, I was a little kid when I read that and it really meant a lot to me.’ Because I said that to Romita, Steranko, Toth. People who don’t understand the love and nostalgia for comics don’t get it and are never going to get it. I hope that I can make a kid happy, enrich a kid’s life, by giving him a comic that he or she can read, that he or she can remember.”

Figure 14.11: Among his duties at DC Comics, Chiarello still manages to find the time to paint covers as well as edit them. Vigilante #1.

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Focus Panels

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Figure 14.12: (left) In Mark Chiarello’s Terminal City cover, the darks in the stairwell frame the figure highlights while the bright wall frames the figure’s shadow to create focus.

Figure 14.13: (right) In Mark Chiarello’s Animal Man cover, the olive green figure is pushed forward against a complimentary warm scarlet background.

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If the writing and art breakdowns are the body and soul of the story, then color

would have to be the personality. Color adds depth and resonance to any narrative. Correct color usage in a sequential art narrative will not fix badly told stories. Correct color usage can

help the viewer move on to the next panel or assist the reader in becoming more involved in

the reading experience. Conversely, poor color choices can also ruin a good story.

Color choices should not be arbitrary.

Dynamic color schemes are a trademark of comics. Often, the

imagery is powerful, explosive and “in-your-face,” so the colors used often reflects this

energy. Vivid hues have a powerful effect—they create tension. Too many vibrant col-

ors in close proximity, however, create confusion. Controlling color controls visual

interest and keeps the reader properly focused.

Also, a colorist should not rely solely on repetitive local color. In

other words, merely using tans or pinks to create skin tones, the same greens for all of

the trees or only one blue sky can be tedious to the reader. Lighting gives these colors personality. All objects reflect light and lighting helps place objects in a specific scene.

The best colorists mix foreground colors with colors found in its environment to create

a more diverse palette. Reflective light binds a scene together—object to environment.

When does a colorist go for the bright colors? Or when does a col-

orist go for muted colors? These decisions are determined by the storytelling. The col-

orist has the ability to heighten any moment in the story at any time. Focus created

through color can accent a panel or an element within the panel.

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Every panel contains something important: the hero of the story, a specific building, a small clue. These or any number of other details can be found within the panels. But what is considered important to that moment of the story? It is the colorist’s job to enhance the importance of the right details within the context of the story. Some basic guidelines for color can help maintain the proper story focus.

In the simplest language possible, all colors have roots. Red, yellow, and blue are the roots, the primary colors, of every other color in the spectrum. Secondary colors are created when primary colors are mixed with themselves: mix blue with red and purple is created, blue and yellow create green, and yellow and red create orange. When the primary and secondary colors are mixed in uneven proportions, the rest of the spectrum Figure 14.14: Color wheel with complementary colors opposite each other.

is created. The absence of color leaves white, but the mixing of all colors creates black. If an object in space is colored primarily in one dominant color, to emphasize it, the artist must place this

color next to a color with opposite characteristics. This creates visual tension which is the basis of establishing focus. Focus can be created by value, hue, temperature and purity.

Figure 14.15: In Mark Chiarello’s Vigilante cover, the high chroma orange figure is pushed forward against a muted mauve background.

The first method of generating focus involves value (Figure 12.12). If a panel uses a singular color scheme, spotting dark values against lighter values creates focus. As with inking, the way darks work in relation to lights will make objects move to the foreground or recede into the background.

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

The second method of creating focus involves using complementary colors against each other (Figure 12.13). Focus elements/objects are colored in one dominant color scheme. When the color on the opposite side of the color wheel (Figure 12.14) is the principal color in the background the focus element/object is pushed to the foreground. Modulating the saturation of this opposite color creates more or less tension. Red vs. green, orange vs. blue, yellow vs. purple, all are natural compliments of each other.

The third method of storytelling with colors involves using saturated colors against desaturated colors. Chroma is the purity of a color. The purer a color or the less black it contains, the more vibrant the color appears. The more desaturated a color (the more black it contains), the duller the color looks. Countering high chroma, or purer colors, with moody colors reduces tension in the work (Figure 12.15).

The last way focus can be emphasized through color is by using warm colors against cool colors. Temperature is the psychological suggestion of warmth or coolness inherent to any color. Objects with warmer colors will tend to come forward. Objects that are colored with cooler colors, regardless of hue, will recede into the page. How these two families of colors interact will create tension in the piece (Figure 12.16).

Up until this point, the color theory has been used on the single image.

Figure 14.16: In Mark Chiarello’s Terminal City cover, the “Human Fly” painted in cold blues are pushed forward by a background painted with warm oranges.

But these techniques can be used throughout the page and book. Good color theory must be applied not only on the single image, but across all the panels, text boxes, text, pages, and covers that make up a comic.

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E N J O Y A N D L O O K F O R WA R D T O T H E C H A L L E N G E O F R E A C H I N G O U T B E Y O N D T H E C O N F I N E S O F T H E M E D I U M .

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Figure 15.1: Example of the splash page, an Eisner invention.

Will Eisner

Eisner

C H A P T E R

F I F T E E N

Will Eisner was born in New York in 1917, a son of a Jewish immigrant from Austria,

who also was an artist of sorts. Eisner studied under anatomist George Bridgman and painter Robert Brachman before finding work on a comic book publication entitled Wow

in 1936. Wow ran mostly reprinted newspaper strips, but it also ran original material by

Eisner and even Bob Kane (creator of Batman).

When Wow folded, Eisner teamed up with former editor Jerry Iger to

create a shop that would concentrate on publishing entire comic books. Hawks of the Seas,

a Rafael Sabbatini inspired feature, was created. In 1939, Eisner, in an attempt to reach

an adult, older audience, struck a deal with E.M. Arnold, of Quality and the Register &

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Tribune Syndicate, to write and draw an eight-page feature about a masked crime fighter

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for newspapers. It was in June 2, 1940, and The Spirit was born to become one of the most

influential and original comic book features ever seen in print. It is here that he created

Blackhawk and Uncle Sam. Eisner’s popularity is world-wide. He produced educational comics for

the U.S. Army, invented the modern graphic novel with A Contract to God and created

other novellas, including Dropsie Avenue, The Neighborhood and Life on Another Planet. He taught for seventeen years at the School of Visual Arts and is an acknowledged scholar

in the field of sequential art—a term he created—having published the texts Comics &

Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling.

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During his childhood, Eisner loved newspapers and sold them on the streets

of New York City and brought them home each night for he and his family to read.

This was during a time when the Sunday comics section actually devoted an entire page to each strip.

Eisner created his most famous strip, The Spirit, for the newspaper because he wanted an adult audience that could grasp the more political elements of the stories. It was Eisner’s work with newspapers in the 1940s that led to the creation of that modern comic book staple, the splash page.

“The splash page is a result of a practical problem. I first was faced with the fact that here was a free standing 16-page comic book supplement dropped into a Sunday newspaper. Very similar to the TV guide that appears in your newspaper.

And I had only 7 pages to tell my story and I had to do two things. First I had to capture a reader who may be flipping through the paper and the second thing is to be able to introduce my story quickly, to create a mood very much like you would do if you’re in camp as a kid and you sit around the campfire and you’re telling a ghost story. Before you go into the story you kind of set a mood and this is what I did very often. So the splash page arose out of that need. Of course as I experimented I created a better opening page, which everybody calls a splash page. It was the result of need and opportunity, and I had both. (Figure 15.2) “At this point in my life and my professional career I was still quite All characters © Will Eisner

young and the style, the technique was important to me. I was showing off. But at the same time I was interested in dramatic effect. One of the things about doing comics is that it’s an on-the-job training thing. You’re learning as you go along and the wonderful thing I enjoyed was that I could experiment along the way. If I was wrong, well, it was O.K. I would do another story the following week. I could experiment so I would try heavier shadows, I would try way-out formats. I did a

Figure 15.2: (Left to Right) Ellen Dolan, the Spirit and Chief Dolan, created by Will Eisner.

story once where I cut away the whole side of the building and made each of the rooms of the building a panel in order to portray movement within a total whole. I was very influenced by live theater. So a lot of things you will see in my work comes from live theater.”

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The process Eisner employs in creating his page layouts differs from other artists:

he conceives of the scene in his mind before composing the dialogue. “I don’t like working from dialogue first,” Eisner explains, “I’ve never worked from a script in all my years, even when I was running the studio and people worked for me.

“There’s a lot of people in the field who are very successful and have status who believe that the first problem they must solve is to create an interesting page.

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I don’t start out to try to develop an interesting or arresting composition. My composition and my page and the design of my page and the impact of my page is a direct result of the action that’s taking place in the deployment of the figures as I tell that story.

“I have the story in mind and I generally start with the end of the story. I know that I have a man who is going to return to Mars after being frustrated in his attempts to integrate on this planet. Now what I do is try to figure out how best to tell that story so that it’ll eventually lead up to that conclusion. First I make a laundry list like on the back of a envelope or a sheet of paper: 1, man arrives on planet; 2, walks into a supermarket; 3, gets arrested for pilfering; 4, so on and so forth. I go all the way down until I’ve solved the problem of how to get him to the end of the story.

“Then I make a small ‘stick figure’ rough of the artwork with the dialogue. The third step is to take the very readable roughs, put them on 81⁄2" x 11" sheet of paper. This is where I compose the panels and plan the action page by page until I have what is a complete pencil dummy. Now those pencils are not good enough to be inked on but they’re very readable and they’re good enough for me to send to publishFigure 15.3: Will Eisner’s process begins with with the 81/2" x 11" penciled page.

ers or to an editor who edits what I’m doing. I might add a page or two pages in which I develop the character a little bit more, let you know a little more about the inside of the character. This is all done at the so-called pencil stage. (Figure 15.3) “Then I take copy it onto an 11" x 14" sheet of 2-ply bristol board. All along the way I’m constantly modifying. On the bristol board I’ll recompose a panel and put the balloons in position, because balloons in my way of working are integral to the composition of the panel.

“And then at that point my lettering will be put in, in ink first, positioned after I have composed a panel and placed the balloons. The balloons are in first

All characters © Will Eisner

so what you would see if you were looking over my shoulder is a page with roughed-in composition with figures and fully inked balloons.”

When laying out a page, Eisner doesn’t like to confine himself to a rigid preestablished format. “The only thing that I’m confined to is the rigid shape and dimensions of the page itself,” he explains. “Very often the page to me is a meta panel.”

The meta panel, another Eisner invention, is a page where the beats contained are a “synthesis of speed, multi-level action, narrative and the dimension of the stage is attempted.” The hard border of a panel is missing in many of the panels on the page; the page itself becomes the unit of containment.

“I know that I’m working on an 81⁄2" x 11" page and anything that I put on that 81⁄2" x 11" page is in conformity to those proportions. So I work within that.

Many years ago, back at my early shop, we were in those days producing comics as a packaging house. We were getting an average of 5 to 6 dollars a page, so in order to make money, make production economical, we preprinted blank panels on a page and Figure 15.4: The page ends with the 11" x 17" final, inked page. Balloons and type are inked first forcing the figures to adhere to the narrative flow.

let the artist tell the story within that. But that to me was very confining; I always ran into trouble with that. As a matter of fact, with the daily strip... The Spirit in 1940 and 1941... I had problems with the syndicate because I was defying the strip’s rigid series 180

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of four panels. One strip I did had nothing but a set of footprints running across the entire long script and The Spirit at the end of it to show that he had been knocked out or shot or something like that. It was a violation of the accepted norm by the syndicate.

But, again, I enjoy and look forward to the challenge of reaching out beyond the conEisner believes every panel on a page moves the story forward rather than a key focus panel. “The panels and the

All characters © Will Eisner

fines of the medium.”

layouts... are essential to the storytelling,” he explains. “If the page calls for a whole series of movements then I will abandon the standard grid and create a

Figure 15.5: In Life on Another Planet, Eisner continually pushes the traditional comic book concept of closure. Abandoning the grid, he turns to the montage to accent the movement of escape.

montage. I don’t regard anything as standing in my way between me, the emotional message, and the reader.” (Figure 15.5) “As I said earlier I don’t start with the determination to make an interesting page. I used to run into that a lot listening to artists working for the major comic book houses back in the ’40s and ’50s... I found that they were being expected to create an interesting page on the theory that the book was on the newsstand and somebody opens up the comic book they hope that the excitement on the page will bring them in.

“And we have that happening a lot today where you get a lot of comics that have absolutely no story content but the producer is satisfied to create a special effect that is so exciting that the reader picks it up. A lot of artists working in the field today assume that their work is going to be bought on the excitement of their art rather than content of the story. And they’re not entirely wrong. I can’t quarrel with them about that, they have a point, but they waive the endurance good content insures.

“Everybody’s talking about storytelling, but the definition of what is a story is very open, a disputable, arguable thing. Images do tell stories, but only briefly unless they are part of a seamless construct. Yes, the comic books that have sensational, dazzling art do sell briefly but rarely have endurance.”

A major obstacle the sequential artist has to overcome is that it is difficult to show phenomena in two dimensions. “In film you can show emotion, you can employ sound and you can invoke emotion with music in the background. This obstacle, however, is the driving force of creativity.” Eisner says, “in this medium, we 181

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Figure 15.6: In this early example of a meta panel, School Is Out, published June 24, 1951, children meander down the splash page. At certain intervals, they speak, and with each bit of conversation, a sense of closure is felt. It is clear where one action ends and another begins. Four complete thoughts are created without the use of a panel to contain the thoughts. Also, the type size gradually becomes larger as the children move toward the viewer—a passage of time and distance is perceived.

are really trapped within its confines. We can’t show movement, sound, emotion or even time. We’re in a medium that deals with perception. The time we show is perceived.” (Figure 15.6) In the case of sound, Eisner experimented with many treatments. “I tried making the lettering in the balloons of people who were a great distance away in smaller letters, the idea being to invoke or allude to the effect of distance on sound,” he explains, “these are devices that are available in this medium that are a language in themselves. The shape of the balloon is critical to the comprehension of what’s inside the balloon; the shape of the panel is critical to the emotional content… and if you understand them they’re yours to command.”

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Since word balloons and text boxes are important in Eisner’s artwork, he draws

the balloons almost simultaneously with his artwork. “I believe the reader sees the image first and then reads the dialogue,” he explains, “I’ll conceive of the idea first and then compose the dialogue afterward.”

“For example, a man walks into a room and sees a fellow, seizes him and says ‘Charlie what are you doing in here?’ The dialogue comes after the man walks into the room and seizes Charlie. The dialogue is literally in response to the action itself. I agree that this may be totally in contradiction to some. A common thing in the field today is to have a huge page of absolutely stunning artwork that sometimes is unrelated to the dialogue itself. Where the balloons are nothing more than little... boxes that are placed here and there around a beautiful piece of art.

“And the dialogue is self-contained: a whole pattern of dialogue designed where the dialogue will contain self or internalized thoughts. I avoid wherever possible narrative that describes action. I only use things like ‘meanwhile’ or ‘six months later in Chicago’ or something like that. Or if I want to show the transition of time I might show a newspaper. But I do not use narrative text to explain physical action.

My images have to work on their own. I have begun to experiment with narrative text to evoke historical background.”

Another graphic element Eisner employs effectively is lettering. His text becomes an important indicator of the story’s setting as much as the artwork.

All characters © Will Eisner

“I believe very strongly that the lettering is integral to the story. The balloon itself or the lettering style within a balloon has a direct relationship to the story.

The balloon is engaged in an almost impossible task of trying to depict sound. It asks the reader to supply implied sound, action, and background. The reader is asked to act out the balloon and for example, supply inflection that says ‘Oh my God, I’m dying.’ If you set that in ordinary 8-point type with no visual inflection and with no modification

Figure 15.7: In Act of God, Eisner uses type to strike an emotional resonance within the reader.

In this example, “All day the rain poured down without mercy” serves to reflect the climate of the story—loss and melancholy.

to it, how is the reader going to interpret that? You want the reader to act that out.

Another possibility is the fact that if you change the style of lettering to say, for example, Old English. If you were reading it, you would read it with an accent. These are devices that I found useful. (Figure 15.7) “I started off as most of the cartoonists do, hating lettering, feeling that it wasn’t worthy of my time. I hired people to do it. Then I hired a fellow named Abe Kanegson, who I’ve lost touch with over the years. He was one of the most brilliant letterers I have ever met in all my life. He could write in Old English... or in any font. It enabled me to attempt weird things, not weird, but highly imaginative things.

Another person who shared my belief [about the importance of lettering] was Walt Kelly. Walt Kelly’s lettering was very imaginative, very innovative.”

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Figure 15.8: In this excerpt from Life On Another Planet, a deliberate pace is created, slowing down the story as the assassin takes aim.

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When asked to describe the assassination scene from Life on Another Planet,

the timing, the camera angles, and the movement and whether or not this treatment was successful, Eisner deflects the question. “Does the scene succeed in telling the story, conveying the passage of time, the moment out of time, internal emotions and things that happened? If it succeeded in doing that, that’s all I ask. (Figures 15.8, 15.9) “Now that represents one of the great problems in sequential art. In that book, Life on Another Planet, there is also a scene, one page, where this assassin kills the president, runs across the top of a building, then jumps off it. At the same time I wanted to 184

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Figure 15.9: In the next page, the action becomes fast paced. A single background is used to support two panels (middle tier) increasing the pace.

show the crowd down there watching, watching him running, then he ultimately gets killed by the guy that originally set him up to do it. And then I wanted to angle it so as to melt into the crowd and get lost so he can escape. The problem there was it was an awful lot of stuff and I felt that if I took 2 or 3 more pages to do that it would slow the movement of the story. Actually, I work pretty much with a metronome in my head. And I felt that I needed a rhythm. It’s almost like a musical wherein they’ll have a rhythm of action that changes. It’s like a musical composition where it carries you up to a kettle drum ending. This is what I was trying to do there. I’m constantly struggling with the business of time and internalization. The passage of time and the change of scene, and what is going on inside the character. Time and place are two big problems of telling a story.”

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Unlike many current comic book artists, Eisner said he never had major problems

with editors, even the ones he dealt with while working on the newspaper serial The Spirit. “I had no editor working on The Spirit; I was my own editor for my shop. But the All characters © Will Eisner

only editor that I dealt with were the syndicate editors. Syndicate editors merely served as a kind of a benign censor. The editor would occasionally rap my knuckles over the fact that I might have used a word that was too insensitive to social correctness. He would remind me constantly that we appeared in the Sunday newspaper, which in the ‘40s and ‘50 were regarded as family publications. It’s like television—it keeps a certain time as family time or kid time. You don’t do a certain kind of story between 6 and 8 o’clock at night on television, you have to wait until midnight or something. I had no real censorship.

“I was always so busy trying new things, exploring or pushing the envelope or however you want to put it. So, the editors didn’t have time to catch up with me. Actually, the relationship had another level to it and that is that I was invited originally by the syndicate to do this thing because I was regarded by them as the only expert they knew. Consequently, they wouldn’t quarrel with me.

“One of the reasons The Spirit was as innovative as it was, was the fact that I had the freedom to innovate. You’ve got to remember too that I was in a different market structure than the fellows who were working at Marvel or DC or across town or one of the other major comic book houses. There the marketplace, the copy sales dominated the editor’s judgment. Judgment of the stories was predicated on the number of copies that were sold is what I’m trying to say. But in the

Figure 15.10: Comic sections in newspapers during the ’30s and ’40s were much larger. The section contained several stories, from humorous to adventure, that continued for several pages.

The Spirit was one of the more famous.

case of newspaper syndicates, their evaluation of a strip was predicated on client response, who depended on a voting system of reader response (Figure 15.10). For example, the Philadelphia Record, which took on The Spirit in 1940, reported that the sale of the Sunday newspaper... rose something like 5 or 6 or 8 percent... which was quite remarkable. As a result, they attributed it to the appearance of The Spirit. Admittedly an inaccurate conclusion.

“If you’re working in the [comic book] marketplace, the tendency is to create material and stories that will sell. My function was not to create stuff that would sell because I had no way of measuring the sales. My aim was to produce material that I felt was of interest to adults. I was writing to a different audience. Which accounts for why The Spirit never sold as well as Batman or Superman or other adventure stories when it was reprinted in comic book form for newsstands.

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As far as Eisner is concerned, the future of the industry is solid.

“The comic medium is no longer the novelty that it once seemed. Yet the medium is a valid form of literature, and it’s an enduring medium and I believe a medium of the 21st century. I’m really optimistic that this field is now peopled by artists and writers of a higher caliber than ever before. Well, we will survive. I’ve seen this business die three times. It’s supposed to be dying now, but it’s not, it’s not dead... it is restructuring.

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“It’s been faced with competition from film, television and now A R T

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electronics. These are the vehicles of transmission and they are transmitting information at such a rate of speed that the reader doesn’t have time to sit down and learn

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the code [for translating and understanding text]. That’s why we have so much of what they call illiteracy. These illiterates are fantastic at the keyboard of a comput-

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er. I believe that comics, or the arrangement or deployment of images in a sequence that tell a story or convey an idea, is filling the void between typeset and film.

Transmission is secondary.

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“I think sequential art is a valid medium; I proved it during my years in the military. It was proved that it could be a teaching tool far more effective than the

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standard classic technical manual. It has its limitations; for example: it cannot deal in I T

depth with an abstract theory. It has difficulty dealing with Einstein’s theory of relativity, because it has to reduce everything to image form. But it works on physical phe-

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nomena that’s absolutely basic to human conduct: we tend to take words and convert them into images in our mind before we absorb them or digest them. When I say to you

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‘a red house,’ you convert that in your mind into an image before you absorb it. This P R I N T E D

medium does that very, very effectively. I believe that it belongs in this century. Matter of fact, in my opinion, it’s the most proliferating form of printed communication today.

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It is the new literacy.”

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All characters © Will Eisner

Focus Panels

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M E D I U M

The power of sequential art relies on vision to get a story across.

“First comes the artist’s vision of how to tell the story…” says Will Eisner. “Remember,

sequential art is a story that is being unfolded in an interesting and visual manner.”

Design is the means to get from one panel to another, but the more

successful this flow, the easier the story is to communicate. That is the goal of all good

storytellers—to ensure clarity when communicating. Design, however, is not a formula.

Storytelling problems should be able to suggest very pertinent solutions. When you string these solutions together, the story will be told naturally.

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All characters © Will Eisner

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Figure 15.11: “The Real Thing,” story and art

by Will Eisner for 9-11, September 11th 2001, Vol 2, published by DC Comics.

(Left) With the first panel, Eisner comments on the values of America, and our emphasis on the wrong things. (Right) But with a page turn, we realize how naive the entertainment industry was prior to the events of September 11th, 2001.

When sequential art is done right, it can prove to be a powerful, moving and insightful medium.

The stories not only are capable of entertaining, but of editorializing and every other voice in between. The kinds of stories that can be created are limited only by the creators imagination.

Eisner sums it up. “For me, design is the outcome of composition, the composing and arranging of the elements that go into the telling of a story, and this is essentially a storytelling medium. The composition of each panel is in service of the story. Each panel must be composed by arranging the elements of the action. The artist, like a stage director, must select [in the panel] the point where the reader’s eye will first focus and build his composition from that point. The result will be design enough.”

Illustration, narrative, technique, design. These skills individually can take a lifetime to master. When all of these elements work in unity, the results are powerful. There is no other storytelling medium that can match the resonance and the interaction that a good comic book story can muster. Comics are a young artform and the range of stories that can be told is just being realized. All you need is a pad of paper a voice and a vision. The rest is magic.

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“ART

Afterword

P A N E L

I S A N I D E A T H AT H A S F O U N D I T S P E R F E C T F O R M ; D E S I G N I S T H E M E A N S B Y W H I C H T H I S I S R E A L I Z E D . ”

– Paul Rand, designer

Comic books have always been viewed as an inferior art form. They have been

labeled as the defiler of young minds and dismissed as an art form “just for the kids.”

Most fine artists, graphic artists and writers would not even categorize

comics as art. But it is. The process of creating comic books is more demanding than creating an illustration: it has a literary structure, it is designed and it can be painted or

illustrated. These different trades, when standing on their own, are considered artistic,

creative pursuits.

Writing, illustrating, painting and even graphic design are acceptable

professions. When a person says he or she draws comics, wonder, if not bewilderment, tends to be the reaction. However, the act of creating comic books relies on all of the

aforementioned skills.

Perhaps this is why Will Eisner coined the term Sequential Art to

define comics. Sequential art is a “means of creative expression, a distinct discipline, an

art and literary form that deals with the arrangement of pictures or images and words to narrate a story or dramatize an idea.”

Armed with this in mind, it is understood that not only can comics be

a form of creative expression, but it may very well be the most difficult art form to master. There must be a mastery of word, picture and craft for the story to be told.

Over the years I have met many comic professionals who embody this

success. They are, without a doubt, some of the most brilliant and passionate people I have met. I fondly recall many conversations over dinner—dissecting the craft of telling

190

T stories, problem-solving ways to re-energize the comics field and of course discussing techniques to survive various comics conventions. I will treasure, always, these conversations with Mike Carlin, Randy Stradley, Mike Wieringo, Mark Schultz, Dick Giordano, Mike Mignola, Brian Stelfreeze, David Mazzucchelli, Chris Moeller, Walter Simonson, Mark Chiarello, John Van Fleet, George Pratt, and Will Eisner. I am eternally grateful to Scott Hampton—the one who got me to love comics again. And to Jordi, Bob, Matt, Jamie, Greg, Adam, Andrew, Bernie, Lee, Matt, Weezie, Rich, Ray and Dave; I wish I had the time and space to write about all of our times as well—so I guess I will get you in the next book.

I learned so much working on this book, not only about sequential art, but also about in art in general. This book couldn’t have happened without my ‘Cuse family: Murray, Bob, John J., Kate, Dee Dee, Carla, Linda, Randy, and Carolyn. Most of all, I thank John Sellers for giving me the idea to not rest until these words found their perfect form.

It has also been my distinct honor to share the classroom with equally inspired devotees of the comics artform. With a Forum in place at the college level, the industry has a resource to critically discuss the art of telling stories. Thank you both, Mark and Bob, for allowing me to share the vision.

Last, parents often ask me if their sons or daughters can make a real living creating comics. I always equate getting paid to tell your stories to waiting in line for a winning lottery ticket while the person next to you gets struck by lightning. But the allure is too great and I’ve taught hundreds of students who understand the difficulty. They understand that there are many jobs that are more lucrative—complete with corner office and benefit plans.

But they tell their stories anyway, even knowing the odds.

My favorite sequential art students list can go on for pages, but the short list includes: Dave, Nolan, Sto, Matt, Jeff, Angela, Nick, Michael, Eric, Mike, Abi, Jason, Steve, Ryan, Les, John, Nate, Chris, Brad, Isaac, Lee, Kristin, Whitney, Jon, Brandon, Jake, Ross, Nate, Chris, Lance, John, Justin, Brian, J.P., Steve, Greg, Chris, John, Ray, Pat, Julie, Ben, Ben, Scott, Jon, Jason, Anis, Matt, Chris and Jen. I am constantly inspired by their dedication and love of the artform.

Many walked into my classes with dreams about drawing comics, but they have left as sequential artists with professions including storyboard and conceptual artists, children’s book and traditional illustrators, animators, syndicated cartoonists, and video game designers. And yes, a few even create comics for a living.

There are so many good ideas for stories that need to be told. The trick is to fall in love with an idea and then tell your story. Hopefully, the idea will be completely immersing—it will make the time involved in the many stages of creating comics fly by. Creating art is easy, creating sequential art is so much more difficult—but well worth the effort.

All of the names involved with this book proves this.

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Page 21, from Tellos #1, art by Mike Wieringo.

O F

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A R T A

S T O R Y T E L L I N G P A G E

Thought Balloon Gutter Caption

Tier

All characters © Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo

Word Balloon

Gutter

Frame/Border

Sound Effects

Panel Bleed 192

G L O S S A R Y

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O F

T E R M S

T E R M S

Xenozoic Tales and all related characters © Mark Schultz

G L O S S A R Y

O F

Though an actual camera is not used in creating sequential art, camera

movement is critical to all sequential artwork—from comics to video game design, from animation to movies. In comic books, writers and artists must be able to communicate in a language of both words and pictures. Psychology plays an important role in selecting the right shot. With the most effective use of camera angles, the story told can have great impact. The artist can stretch out actions or scenes, or speed them up to heighten the action—whatever trick is necessary to make the viewer connect emotionally.

Listed below are some definitions and abbreviations that comprise the

Figure a: Action, from Xenozoic Tales #13, by Mark Schultz.

language of visual storytelling and cinematic technique:

Angle Shot

Movement of the subject within the panel’s field of view.

A panel continuing the action of a preceding panel, but from a

Spider-Man and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Action

different angle or point of view.

Antagonist

The person, element, or force which opposes the central character’s efforts to attain a goal.

American Shot

(Hollywood Shot, Knee Shot) A shot framed to include figures from the knees on up.

Back Light

A light source drawn from farther back in the panel which throws light on a foreground character or object, separating it from the background and giving an impression of depth to the panel.

Background

(BG) Action, objects, or setting farthest from the reader in a Figure b: Bird’s Eye View, from The Sensational Spider-Man #21, art by Mike Wieringo.

given panel or panels.

Bird’s Eye View

The point of view from high above the subject. In sequential art, this shot removes the reader from direct intimate involvement.

Bleed

Any printed information that extends into the trim area.

Border

The frame, rule or line enclosing a panel.

The point of view from which the reader surveys a subject. A

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

Camera Angle

“high angle” means that the “camera” is looking down on the subject; in a “low angle,” it is looking up, and so on. “Another angle” means simply that the action continues in the next panel but from a different point of view.

Captions Close Shot

Graphic device used to narrate plot points.

(CS) A loose term meaning that the camera angle is close to the subject in the panel. In sequential art, this shot often builds tension.

Closeup

(CU) An emphasis shot that calls attention to some aspect of the subject—a facial expression, a clenched fist, the inscription on an object.

Composition

The framing of a panel to achieve a desired distribution and bal-

Figure c: Closeup, from Batman/Houdini: The Devil’s Workshop, art by Mark Chiarello.

ancing of elements contained within.

Concept

(High Concept, Pitch) The briefest form of the story.

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Contrast

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Comparison of one element (situation, object, person, emotion) with another that is markedly different.

Dialogue Echo

A conversational passage in a narrative.

A linking device (question-answer, repetition, agreement-disagreement, etc.) used to emphasize important themes, actions or

Daredevil and all related characters © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Figure d: Establishing Shot, from Daredevil: Born Again, art by David Mazzucchelli.

storytelling elements.

Establishing Shot

To make clear any element important to understanding and appreciation of a panel or panels, and that element’s relationship to the sequence of panels or the story’s other elements. In sequential art, this kind of panel serves to include the reader as part of the story and gives a solid sense of the physical world.

Exposition

Introduction of information from any time necessary for an understanding of the story.

Exterior

HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

Extreme Closeup

Figure e: Extreme Close Up, from Hellboy: The Corpse and the Iron Shoes, by Mike Mignola.

(EXT) Panels that take place out-of-doors.

(ECU) A strong emphasis panel, as when part of a figure or object fills the entire panel.

Extreme Long Shot

(ELS) A panel that reduces the size of the subject in relation to its

Enemy Ace and all related characters © DC Comics

background markedly more than a long shot.

Eye Movement

How the reader moves through the story via design of panels and pages.

Flashback

The introduction into a story of a panel or sequence of panels revealing something from the past, as when a character recalls a past event.

Focus Foreground

The emphasis of any element in a panel, page or story.

(FG) Action, objects, or setting closest to the reader in a panel or sequence of panels.

Frame

To compose a panel to include, exclude, or emphasize information.

Full Shot

(FS) A panel that takes in all of a subject, whether an individual, group, or an object.

Grid

An organized format of panels used to develop consistency in visual storytelling.

Figure f: Flashback, from Enemy Ace, by George Pratt.

Gutter Hook

The gap between the panels that separates time and space.

A striking incident, unique action, or anything used to capture audience attention at the beginning of a story.

Insert Interior

(INT) A panel that is set indoors.

Lettering

The typography used to represent any text in a comic book.

Line Quality Vertigo and all related characters © DC Comics

Figure g: Long Shot, from Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold #2, art by Scott Hampton.

A panel within a panel.

The dynamism found within in a drawn line.

Location

A setting for the story’s action.

Long Shot

(LS) A panel that relates the subject to the background. It frequently constitutes an orientation or establishing shot.

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Medium Closeup

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T E R M S X-FilesTM and all related characters © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

G L O S S A R Y (MCU) A panel whose image size is between a medium shot and a closeup.

Medium Long Shot

(MLS) A panel whose image size is between a medium shot and a long shot.

Medium Shot

(MS) A panel of the subject in and of itself, with only incidental background.

Montage

A combination of images used for transition or to create emotional effects.

Narrator

A commentator whose “voice” appears in caption boxes and interprets or remarks on the story.

Pacing

The speed at which the plot unfolds within a story.

Panel

A graphic device that captures the current moment of the story.

Plot

A scriptwriter’s dramatized plan of action for manipulating the

Figure h: Medium Shot, from The X-Files #0, art by John Van Fleet.

reader’s emotions.

Point of View

The camera angle used to approximate that of a particular

Roughs

The initial sketches used to help visualize the story.

Scene

Refers to a setting, a panel, a sequence of panels, or a con-

Figure i: Point of view, from Detective Comics #402, inks by Dick Giordano.

frontation between characters.

Script

A set of written specifications for the production of a comic book.

Sequence

1. A related series of panels, unified by some common element: setting, concept, action, character, mood, etc.

2. A major section of panels or pages, akin to a chapter in a book.

Setting

The physical surroundings in which a given sequence transpires—bedroom, bar, ballroom, dairy, etc.

Situation Sound Effects

The fictional circumstances prevailing as a story opens.

(SFX) Any typographic effect used to visually depict sound in a panel or panels.

Splash Page

1. (loosely defined) A full-page panel.

2. Specifically the page which contains the title and indicia for the story.

Spotting Blacks

In inking, creating heavy areas of ink on a page which moves the eye in a planned way.

Story Line Subjective Camera

A story’s main line of development: an outline of the plot.

A technique used for instruction, in which the camera angle approximates the learner’s point of view.

Tier

Any horizontally-oriented series of panels.

Tilt

Vertical movement of a camera angle either above or below the

Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

subject. In sequential art, this often makes for a hurried, or

Figure j: Tilt, from The Batman Chronicles #5, art by Brian Stelfreeze.

disorganized look.

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Batman and all related characters © DC Comics

character, allowing the reader to see what a given character sees.

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All characters © Chris Moeller

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Transition

S E Q U E N T I A L

A R T

S T O R Y T E L L I N G

1. The bridge from one scene or event to another.

2. Anything that links together a sequence of panels in a story.

Word Balloon Worm’s Eye View

Graphic device used to indicate speech.

To move the camera below a neutral shot, close to the ground thus distorting the shot. In sequential art, this places the reader at worm’s level, making the reader feel uncomfortable, inadequate or powerless or the subject seem powerful or imposing.

Zoom

Figure k: Worm’s eye view, from Shadow Empires: Faith Conquers #1, by Chris Moeller.

196

Simulation of camera movement toward or away from the subject.

F R A M I N G Y O U R

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S H O T S

Framing Heights

C A L L I N G

Determining shot selection is one of the most important jobs a visual storyteller encounters. There are many shots a writer or artist can choose from, so arriving

at a decision becomes crucial. In this example, the horizontal line suggests the bottom of the panel. The rest of the subject shown above the line determines the shot.

Extreme Close Up - tight detail

Close Up - shoulders up

Medium Close Up - chest up

Medium Shot - waist up

American, Hollywood, Knee Shot - knees up

Full Shot - entire subject HellboyTM and all related characters are trademarks of Mike Mignola

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D I S C U S S I O N S :

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S T O R Y T E L L I N G

Benton, Mike. Superhero Comics of the Silver Age: The Illustrated History. Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1991.

Cairns, Ian. “The Kirby Flow.” The Jack Kirby Collector #19 (1998): 16b - 19b.

Cwiklik, Gregory, et al. “Stan the Man.” Comics Journal #181 (1995): 57 - 92.

Daniels, Les. Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991.

Eisner, Will. Comics & Sequential Art. Expanded ed. Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press, 1990.

Feiffer, Jules, et al. “Drawing on Experience.” Civilization, vol. 5 #3 (1998): 44 - 75.

Garriock, P.R. Masters of Comic Book Art: Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Bellamy, Richard Corben, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jean Giraud, Philippe Druillet, Wallace Wood, Robert Crumb, Victor Moscoso. New York: Images Graphiques, 1978.

Readings E

D

Goulart, Ron, ed. The Encyclopedia of American Comics. New York: Facts on File, 1990.

Goulart, Ron. The Great Comic Book Artists. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986.

Harvey, Robert C. The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.

S

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Kurtzman, Harvey, with Michael Barrier. From Aargh! To Zap!: Harvey Kurtzman’s Visual History of the Comics. New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991.

Lee, Stan and Buscema, John. How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.

Leigh, Leon. Marvels From the Krazy Kat Arkive. London: NAL, 1998.

G

E

Marsh, Ed W. James Cameron’s Titanic. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Martin, Gary with Rude, Steve. The Art of Comic Book Inking. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics, 1997.

McCloud, Scott. “Round and Round with Scott McCloud.” Interview by R.C. Harvey.

Comics Journal #179 (1995): 52-81.

U

G

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.

Pascal, David, et al. “The art of the comic strip.” Graphis 28 #159 (1972): 8 - 79.

Rovin, Jeff. The Encyclopedia of Superheroes. New York: Facts on File, 1985.

Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art. London: Phaidon Press, 1996.

Sassiene, Paul. The Comic Book: The One Essential Guide for Comic Book Fans Everywhere.

London: Ebury Press, 1994.

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Schumer, Arlen. “Wayne’s World.” Print, XLVII:III (1993): 54 - 61

S U G G E S T E D Simon, Joe. The Comic Book Makers. New York: Crestwood, 1990.

Stevens, Carol, et. al. “Comics: A Special Issue.” Print XLII:VI (1988): 59 - 206.

Stradley, Randy. A Decade of Dark Horse, 1 of 4. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics, Inc.,1996 Theakston, Greg. “That Old Jack Magic.” Amazing Heroes #100 (1986): 71 - 77.

Vaz, Mark Cotta & Hata, Shinji. From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives. San Francisco, Chronicle Books,1995.

Yanarella, Joe, ed. Beyond Zero Hour. New York: Wizard Press, 1994.

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R E A D I N G S

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THE ART OF GLAMOUR

An issue-by-issue field guide to the pop culture phenomenon of LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, and others, from the company’s fumbling beginnings to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity!

Covers how Stan Lee went from writer to publisher, Jack Kirby left (and returned), Roy Thomas rose as editor, and a new wave of writers and artists came in!

Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints!

IN THE 1960s

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

MATT BAKER

(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95

HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

Shows step-by-step how to develop a new comic, from script and art, to printing and distribution!

(108-page trade paperback with COLOR) $15.95

FOR A FREE COLOR CATALOG, CALL, WRITE, E-MAIL, OR LOG ONTO www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

PANEL DISCUSSIONS contains the combined knowledge of over a dozen of the comic book industry’s top storytellers, covering all aspects of the design of comics, from pacing, story flow, and word balloon placement, to using color to convey emotion, spotting blacks, and how gutters between panels affect the story! If you’re serious about creating effective, innovative comics, or just enjoying them from the creator’s perspective, this guide is must-reading!

9 781893 905146

ISBN 1-893905-14-4 5 1 9 9 5>

$24.95 In The US

This first-of-its-kind volume features tutorial interviews and examples by:

isbn 1-893905-14-4

MIKE CARLIN RANDY STRADLEY MIKE WIERINGO MARK SCHULTZ DICK GIORDANO MIKE MIGNOLA BRIAN STELFREEZE SCOTT HAMPTON DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI CHRIS MOELLER WALTER SIMONSON GEORGE PRATT JOHN VAN FLEET MARK CHIARELLO and WILL EISNER

Author Durwin Talon has been teaching and practicing sequential art, graphic design, illustration, and computer art for over a decade.

Talon has done work with DC Comics, Oni Comics, White Wolf Publishing, and Wizards of the Coast. He is a founding member of the sequential art department at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, and currently teaches digital storytelling in the new media department of Indiana University in Indianapolis.