Rough Stuff #7 Preview

No. 7 Winter 2008

$6.95

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

Featuring

Dan Jurgens Sandy Plunkett Chris Samnee ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

THE ART OF GRAPHIC NOVELS

by MIKE GAGNON

ROUGH CRITIQUE

MARTIN BALCER

TIM TOWNSEND MARIE SEVERIN

Interviews & Art Galleries

74 1

Spider-Man TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

82658 27766

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Volume 1, Number 7 Winter 2008

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

EDITOR

Bob McLeod PUBLISHER

John Morrow DESIGNER

Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington COVER ARTIST

Tim Townsend CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, CookieSoup Periodical Distribution, LLC SPECIAL THANKS Martin Balcer Dawn Brown Dewey Cassell Mike Gagnon Scott Hampton Tomer Hanuka Dan Jurgens Sandy Plunkett Chris Samnee Marie Severin Ben Templesmith Lance Tooks Tim Townsend

ROUGH STUFF™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Bob McLeod, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: ROUGH STUFF, c/o Bob McLeod, Editor, P.O. Box 63, Emmaus, PA 10849-2203. E-mail: mcleod.bob@gmail.com. Fourissue subscriptions: $26 Standard US, $36 First Class US, $44 Canada, $60 Surface International, $72 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Central cover art by Tim Townsend. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted.

All editorial matter © 2008 Bob McLeod and TwoMorrows Publishing. ROUGH STUFF is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

ISSN 1931-9231

FEATURED ARTISTS 3

Dan Jurgens

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Sandy Plunkett

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Chris Samnee

ROUGH STUFF FEATURE 18

Graphic Novelties Mike Gagnon

ROUGH STUFF INTERVIEWS 54

Marie Severin

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Tim Townsend

ROUGH STUFF DEPARTMENTS 2

Scribblings From The Editor Bob McLeod

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Cover Stories Tim Townsend and Sandy Plunkett reveal the process of creating a cover.

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PrePro Art by Tim Townsend, done before he turned pro.

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Rough Critique Editor Bob McLeod critiques an aspiring penciler’s sample page.

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Rough Talk Comments and opinions from our readers.

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D U R E F E A T

DAN JURGENS

I S T A R T

ok stalbeen a comic bo as h s en rg Ju Dan na s and has draw wart for decade regular addition to his in rs ve co of k titles stac g and drawing n ti ri w s n ru ries. He also monthly many other se d an artists A JL , N A the few comic of e like SUPERM on s e’ H .

Gold for DC ave plenty of created Booster mic and still h co ly th on m a n’ t pencil a cover, he does es who can easily do e h en h ral very his hands. W e sent me seve spare time on H e. re th es do ch, he just do one sket k. ples of his wor interesting exam

DAN JURGENS For this Action Comics cover, the basic concept was a fight between Superman and Black Adam. Since Black Adam wears such a stark, black costume, I wanted to go for something that would allow for some lighting effects. Both approaches, the first with pouring lava and the second with lightning, provided that. We went with the lightning because more of the focus would be on the main characters.

Superman, Black Adam TM & ©2008 DC Comics

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DAN JURGENS For this Action Comics cover, editor Eddie Berganza wanted something with a magical feel to it, first describing a Woodsman as a foe for Superman.

Neither of the first two approaches (A & B) wowed him, though I liked the reflection in the ax. We spoke again and decided to go with a dragon so I generated sketches C & D. We went with C, though Eddie asked to have Superman holding open the jaws of the dragon, which definitely works a little better.

Superman TM & Š2008 DC Comics

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DAN JURGENS The concept behind this Action Comics #834 cover was simple: Superman with multiple versions of a magical “bad self” somehow reflected. We all liked approach “B” better and went for it. One note: When I submit sketches I don’t consistently rate my favorite approach as “Cover A.” I like to vary that designation without telling the editors so there are no preconceived ideas in play when things are being looked at.

Superman TM & ©2008 DC Comics

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Graphic Novelties Mike Gagnon

O

ne of the fastest growing trends in the comics and pop culture industry is the graphic novel.

Previously only enjoyed by children’s libraries, cus-

The enthusiasm from the education system has fed the growth of the graphic novel industry, as has the interest of Hollywood film studios. Movie producers have

tomers of comic and hobby shops and a very limited num-

embraced the graphic novel adaptation as it provides not

ber of book store patrons, graphic novels have exploded

only a recognizable property with a built in fan base, but

in the last half decade.

In book stores where it was once strange to see more than a couple of well-known classic graphic novels, now

also an instant script and storyboard ready to be filmed or adapted as the producer sees fit.

Leading this trend of growth are not only large pub-

it is strange not to find an entire section devoted to illus-

lishers specializing in mainstream super-hero fare, but

trated or graphic novels. Libraries can’t grow their graph-

also smaller publishers specializing in new and unique

ic novel collections fast enough and universities are

stories and methods of illustrated storytelling, which con-

adopting many of these illustrated narratives as official

tinues to lend artistic credibility and interest in graphic

text books. Comic shops have many more options when it

novels as an entertainment medium.

comes to their graphic novel purchases now.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with several well known graphic novelists and discuss their work, their approach to creating and their take on the current popularity of graphic novels.

Tomer Hanuka RS: Why do you think graphic novels have become so popular over the last five years?

TOMER: I think it comes in cycles. The culture would open up to comics and then shut it out again. Maybe it

Tomer Hanuka

has to do with Hollywood putting it under the spotlight, in terms of identified brands, but also as source material.

“Richard” and “investigation”

RS: Do you personally prefer graphic novel or comic

(opposite page) are

book format?

drawings exploring ideas/scenes/ characters from

TOMER: Graphic novels, as I think they go deeper usually.

24 pages is such a quick read, you’re mostly left with just a taste.

the book Life of Pi

RS: How do you approach a page from scripts to finished

which I am a big

art and what art supplies do you use?

fan of and I was

TOMER: I usually write the script as I draw the thumbnails,

inspired by the

so I really write it with drawings more than words, then

visuals it describes.

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after I edit the thumbs and feel it works as a narrative, I’ll redraw it on a big Bristol paper and ink and letter. I use

Speedball ink and a 000 brush, W&N series 7.

RS: Is Bipolar the only comic project you have had published?

TOMER: I’ve published regularly in Meathaus, an anthology of artists who came out of SVA and we graduated together. Eight books have come out so far from the series. I’ve published a short story in New Thing: Identity, an indie anthology with a literary bent. Also, I have created covers for DC Comics/Vertigo Midnight, Mass and then the second volume that ran as a mini-series. I’ve created cover work for DC Comics’ Focus series which included four books a month. I’m currently doing covers for a Vertigo project that has not been solicited yet.

RS: What has been your favorite comic/ graphic novel project to work on?

TOMER: The Placebo Man, a collection of short stories I’ve published recently with Alternative Comics.

RS: What other types of art or illustration have you done?

TOMER: Everything from editorial to book covers to advertising to television to apparel to snowboards to packaging. To name a few of the clients, I’ve worked with Rolling Stone Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, GQ magazine, and many more.

RS: How would you describe your artistic style?

TOMER: Narrative visuals. I like drama. I want to tell a story in one scene, but compose it so that you get many points of view and the situation is boiling toward some sort of climax. I try using the color for atmosphere, and to manipulate the eye a little, control the way you interpret what’s important here, what is the driving force.

Tomer Hanuka

Ben Templesmith

“Iraqis” is an edito-

RS: Do you think fans have embraced the graphic novel format of comics?

BEN: Nope. Well, not fans. Fan is short for fanatic. By their very definition, they’ll probably be addicted to the

rial illustration for Mother Jones about the problem of the

monthly floppies until they die. But readers both casual

Iraqi refugees (now

and regular — meaning normal people that buy things

numbered at about

based on content, rather than say, what publisher puts it

half a million).

WINTER 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

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wait for the collected editions, I figure I may as well support their floppies... but not out of love for the format.

RS: How do you approach a page of artwork from script to finished art?

BEN: It varies greatly, depending on if I’m writing it or if someone else is. If someone else is, I just get straight into it and follow as best I can. If it’s me doing it, I simply do layouts over conversational script, and then start work on the finals from there.

RS: What art supplies/techniques do you use?

BEN: Lots. Mostly I meld traditional greyscale drawings with photographic elements and textures in Photoshop.

Coloring it, like all comics are these days, in computer.

For the actual drawings, it’s basically pen and ink, some acrylic and white pens. Sometimes some copic marker and watercolor washes, too.

RS: How would you describe your artistic style?

BEN: Haphazard abstractness with a touch of angry young man.

out (who goes to see movies based on what studio makes it?) — seem to be favoring the format more and more. In some ways it hurts floppy sales, but I guess the fans, being fans will no doubt often buy them as well as the collection/GN/TPB, whereas readers may simply wait for the collections. Larger format books with real endings to them (or at least to story arcs) I can see having much more appeal to the mainstream, too. If floppies die though, they’ll need to figure out a new financial dynamic, since their sales keep things running and people eating long before there’s enough to put in a trade.

RS: Which format do you personally prefer to read and why?

BEN: I much prefer TPBs or GNs. Though as I’m a fussy bugger, I don’t collect much, and what I do collect tends to come out once or twice a year at best, so rather than 20

ROUGH STUFF • WINTER 2008

D U R E F E A T

I S T A R T

T T E K N U L P Y D SAN

reer the started his ca tt ke n u Pl dy n Sa ct, we were room fa In d. di I e m same ti ays too ile. He was alw h aw r fo es at m d out a ectionist to grin quite a bit, much of a perf unced around bo s e’ projh so , es rating several st u monthly seri ill d an l ve just see ting for Mar ose artists you doing some wri th of e on s e’ H comics. ng more. ects outside of aves you wanti le s ay w al e h d occasionally an

I

’ve always been a little self conscious about the way I work. When I began teaching myself inking, the process scared the willies out of me.

I’d pour all this time and effort into the pencils of a page and face the possibility that I might destroy it by flubbing the inks. In particular I was

skittish about putting in blacks and so approached black-and-white spotting very cautiously. Which was frustrating because the artists I most admired at the time were Wrightson and Jones, both of whom were exuberant in their use of deep, lush, black shadows. I ended up by adopting the working method of another artist I greatly admired, Al Williamson. He used reams of tracing paper to work out his drawing problems. In his EC days he might generate a half dozen overlays of a single panel or figure position, working out subtle changes in lighting or positioning. Tracing paper! Seemed like the right solution for me.

Actually, it was (and still, to a certain extent, is) a doubled-edged sword. Though it can save you from making some serious blunders, it can also rob you of the spontaneity that gives a drawing its life. You can find yourself simply trying to copy the success of the tracing, an approached guaranteed to result in tedium and a lifeless finish.

I’ve always tried to ink as loosely and as fast as possible on the overlays, using a blunt marker or a brush pen or a Winsor & Newton on its very last legs. Even today, if I do a tracing, I’m working over pencils that are barely comprehensible to any eye other than my own.

This helps diminish the sense that I’m simply “going over lines” and, hopefully, maximizes inventiveness. There always seems to be this pull between correctness of drawing and expressiveness. I tend towards being more expressive these days.

SANDY PLUNKETT Conan A preliminary ink rough. I believe this Conan drawing was meant for a frontice for the Savage Sword of Conan. I attempted to finish the pencils but before getting very far realized that, to my sensibilities, the rough was the finished piece, whether it was clean enough to meet Conan TM & ©2008 Conan Properties Intl., LLC

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“professional” standards or not.

SANDY PLUNKETT Conan cover The only variation in working method here is that I did the thumbnail in marker instead of leaving it in pencil. I’m not sure, but I think it was to clarify the image for the editor. Craig Russel did his usual great job inking this, but if you compare it to the inked rough, you can see that the piece lost some of its vigor in the finish. This almost always happens, at least to some extent.

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SANDY PLUNKETT

SANDY PLUNKETT Scarlet Witch pin-up This was for an all pin-up issue of Marvel Fanfare, and one of the clearer examples of how much can be lost if you do an initial tracing. The finished inks are very polished, and there’s some improvements in the drawing, but I much prefer the rough. There’s a primitive quality to it that matches more closely the nature of the subject matter.

Clean, controlled rendering is always popular with fans but sometimes it comes at the cost...

Scarlet Witch TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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W

COVER STORIES What happens between the initial layout of a cover and the published version? Usually a lot of changes as it goes from penciler to editor to inker, but sometimes it may not change at all!

TIM TOWNSEND Amazing Spider-Man #500 cover Pencils by Jeff Campbell Inks by Tim Townsend What can you possibly say about Jeff? He’s force of nature.

He’s one of the true superstars of our generation. He’s one of the nicest people you could ever hope to know. He’s the whole package. Oh... he draws pretty pictures, too. When Jeff asked me to ink his famous run of covers on the Amazing Spider-Man I was incredibly flattered. Jeff and I had worked together a number of times over the years and he was always very kind to me.

Spider-Man TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Inking Jeff, while incredibly fun, can also be challenging.

His pencils are simply pristine. It’s all there, every line.

This takes away the need to do any embellishing but it brings to the table a different set of challenges. You have to not only match his beautiful line work, you need to find a way to accentuate it, complement it, and elevate it without altering it fundamentally.

Spider-Man TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

WINTER 2008 • ROUGH STUFF

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D U R E F E A T

CHRIS SAMNEE

I S T A R T

reer at Oni started his ca Chris Samnee ANSAS. g CAPOTE IN K n ti ra st u ill s, Pres on Harvey s also worked Since then he’ R, r DC, and ICAN SPLENDO Pekar’s AMER CHECKMATE fo d an o, ig rt Ve r ovel for RS fo nced graphic n EXTERMINATO ou n an n u an orking on Manning is currently w ed for the Russ at in om n as w is. he lives in St. Lou e Vertigo. In 20 06 H d. ar aw er g Newcom Most Promisin

CHRIS SAMNEE American Splendor #2 thumbnails This just goes to show what a difference a great editor can make.

Here are my original thumbnails and first draft of a few pages from American Splendor #2.

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CHRIS SAMNEE After changing a few angles and zooming in or out a bit and helped to spice up what could have been a really uninteresting layout.

American Splendor © Harvey Pekar

BOB McLEOD Amazing professionalism from such a young, relatively unknown artist. It ain’t Spider-Man, so most fans couldn’t care less, but this is solid comic art and a good storytelling textbook.

CHRIS SAMNEE

keeping the camera moving on the characters, it really

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CHRIS SAMNEE I ended up changing the angle on Harvey in panel 4 so as not to have two similar panels next to one another.

American Splendor © Harvey Pekar

BOB McLEOD Good comic art is 50% thinking and 50% drawing. There’s an old maxim “Think before you ink.” It applies just as well to penciling.

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INTERVIEW

MARIE SEVERIN

By Dewey Cassell

“M

irthful” Marie Severin worked at Marvel Comics for many years, serving in a variety of roles, including penciler, inker, production, colorist, and art director. Fans fondly remember her dynamic rendering of classic superheroes like the Hulk, Doctor Strange, and the Sub-

Mariner, as well as literary characters like Kull the Conqueror, and her wonderful sense of humor, brought to life in the pages of Not Brand Echh and Spoof. But in some respects, her greatest contribution to the Marvel Age of Comics was behind the scenes. For several years, from the late Sixties to early Seventies, Marie Severin designed virtually every cover that appeared on a Marvel comic book. The following is an excerpt

from an interview with Marie that took place last year.

DEWEY CASSELL: There was a point in time in which Stan Lee had you doing mock-ups of the covers that Marvel Comics was putting out. Why was that?

MARIE SEVERIN: Well, if Sgt. Fury was going to be on a cover All characters and covers in this interview are TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

with a helicopter sequence or somebody jumping out of a helicopter, and unbeknownst to the editor or Stan, somebody else was writing a story about Daredevil or Spider-Man hanging off a helicopter, you could have two covers in the works and only discover it when they both came back and two of them might be about helicopters. They wanted to have Sgt. Fury TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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SEVERIN: I started hanging up the cover sketches over the previous covers. I had a whole six months of covers hanging on the wall, of all the books, and I would look at what was coming out this month. “Okay, let’s have a variety of that. Let’s change that.”

a little more control on the design of the covers, so you wouldn’t have subject duplication.

CASSELL: How did you get involved in designing the covers?

SEVERIN: I was very fast with design and sketches and the individual artists didn’t have time to come in and do individual sketches. It was faster for Stan to say “no” to a design with somebody in the office doing them, rather than have the artist, say John Buscema, do a cover and Stan wouldn’t like the layout or he thought the layout was too close to something else or he wanted a different expression (which, of course, John wasn’t that annoying.) But I would have a variety because I knew what the rest of them looked like.

CASSELL: How did you keep track of all of the different covers?

The Fantastic Four TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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CASSELL: When you

The HulkTM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

were doing the cover sketches, did you have anything to work from?

Did you have the plot synopsis or artwork?

SEVERIN: Yeah, you did. Sometimes I got the script, sometimes I got Xerox pages of the pencils half done or the whole story, but usually they wanted to get the cover in the works before the thing was inked and lettered. I really tried — Stan wanted it that way — that you would basically have the same thing on the cover that was going on inside. I used to hate it as a kid when sometimes the cover had nothing to

do with the story inside. We tried to be basically accurate.

CASSELL: DC used to do that a lot. Their covers often had nothing to do with the story.

SEVERIN: Well, remember that they were bigger than we were. A lot of times, the stuff wasn’t even in production and you had to put a cover on, so you can’t blame them. They were trying to attract the readers to buy the book. Sometimes the story wasn’t even written and they had the cover done.

CASSELL: The cover sketches were done on 8 1⁄2 x 11inch paper, frequently on the back of a piece of Marvel stationery. Why was that?

SEVERIN: Probably it was a good size to send out to the guys and it had the address on it and everything so the guys would know where it came from.

Dr. Strange TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

CASSELL: Some of the cover sketches were done in pen or marker, but others were done in ink and wash.

SEVERIN: As I recall, depending if you wanted to show a graveyard or nighttime scene, you would use the wash

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PRE-PRO

D

id you ever wonder what the pros’ artwork looked like before they turned pro? Some are already looking good in college, some even in high school. Tim Townsend couldn’t wait that long; he was already well on his way in 6th grade!

TIM TOWNSEND Here are a few old drawings I did when I was about 11 circa 1981-82. John Byrne fan? Who, me?!

BOB McLEOD Angel and Galactus, both obviously thinking “Make my day, punk!” I don’t know about you, but Tim’s got me wondering what John Byrne’s own drawings looked like when he was 11! Could they have been any better than this?

Angel & Galactus TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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INTERVIEW

TIM TOWNSEND

By Bob McLeod

W

hen we first started on Rough Stuff, Twomorrow’s publisher John Morrow and I thought it would probably turn into the “inker’s” mag, but instead we’ve usually been predominantly focused on the pencil side of comic art. This issue I’m excited to welcome the amazing Tim Townsend to our

pages as our first featured artist who’s mostly known for his inking skills. Tim is a great inker and a great guy. I first got acquainted with him on a Yahoo inkers forum, then met him in person at MegaCon, in Orlando. He began working in comics in 1993, starting out at Image and moving over to Marvel in late 1994. He says he worked on Uncanny X-Men for about 7 years and then bounced back and forth a bit between Uncanny and the adjective-less X-Men ever since, with some special projects here and there in between. He’s worked on most of Marvel’s main titles at one time or another, as well as most of the main books at DC and Image but to a much more limited amount. He’s had good runs

TIM TOWNSEND

This was a gift for a good buddy of mine. I’ve always been a big fan of the Frankensteinlooking Hulk with his prominent brow and vacant stare. I was trying to turn the tables and do a very simple approach on the figure, the focal point, and go nuts with the detail on the extraneous area. It made for a nice contrast.

with pencilers like Joe Madureira, Adam Kubert, Frank Quitely, and Chris Bachalo, none of whom I’ve inked, so I’m a bit envious. This interview was conducted via e-mail near the end of April 2006.

Tim’s incredibly shy, but I somehow managed to pull him out of his shell. No, actually, as anyone who’s met him can tell you, Tim’s effervescent personality is perfectly suited to the comic book world, and as you’ll see, he has quite a lot to say:

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Hulk TM & ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

TIM TOWNSEND This page is from a Savage Dragon story that I inked over Erik in issue #100. I’m one of the privileged few to get to actually ink Erik on anything Dragon! I’ve always been such a huge fan of Erik and the unique, energetic approach to his art that I was completely floored when he contacted me about inking this story. I’d inked him on a couple of Spidey covers and, quite literally, had some of the most fun I’ve ever had as an inker. I know it’s P.C. to say that about artists you admire but I’m serious. I find inking Erik to be nothing but pure fun and exploration. The pencils, while

BOB MCLEOD: I think it’s important to get some basics

loose, are all there, but they give you such latitude as an inker because there is still quite a lot left

first. Where and when were you born? Are you the first

to interpret. Initially, I expected my work with Erik to fall flat since his style is so far outside of what

artist of note in your family, or do you come from an

I’m used to working with. Who could have guessed that we would gel so well together?! At least

artistic family? Was your art encouraged or discouraged

we thought so. There’s not a lot of explanation that goes along with this page. Basically, I was just

as a child?

trying to find a balance between the anal retentive, slick tendencies that my inks tend to have and

TIM TOWNSEND: I was born January 19th, 1970 in Peoria, Illinois. I was adopted at birth and my family moved to South Florida only days later. Since I don’t

the high energy, shoot-from-the-hip vibrancy of Erik’s pencils. I don’t pat myself on the back very often, almost never, but I’m exceptionally proud of the work we did on this story.

share any genetics with anyone in my family (or anyone

at an early age. More importantly though, my mother was

I’ve ever known until my new son) I can’t really claim any

always hyper-alert to any interests I showed and quick to

predispositions to latent talents. My aunt was, however, a

nurture them and allow me to explore. At age four or five

commercial artist so I was exposed to a creative environment

I was given my first comic book, a Charlton E-Man, with

Savage Dragon TM & ©2008 Erik Larsen.

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TIM TOWNSEND I don’t quite know what to say about this. It started out as a drawing I did for the sole purpose of playing around with color. It was just some random, nonsensical scenario that popped into my head, a hot girl with a devious teddy bear. It got a great reaction from the people I showed it to so I did another (Bedtime Bare) which was just as silly but slightly more disturbing. I’m eventually planning on doing a series of them for some sort of publication.

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EDITOR’S CORNER

W

ell, I find myself with an extra page this issue, so I’m grabbing it to show you one of my recent projects.

Last year I wrote and illustrated my first children’s

book, and I was fortunate enough to have it published by HarperCollins. It’s an alphabet book of original superheroes called (what else?) SuperHero ABC, and it’s available in all the bookstores and on amazon.com. I had a great time doing it because it’s the first time I’ve colored my own comic art in years, and it’s the first project I’ve written. You can see a lot of the finished pages and characters on my web site, but for Rough Stuff, I thought I’d show you my pencil roughs for two of the pages. I drew them on paper, but colored them on the computer, to give them a real comic book look. I hope to do more children’s books soon.

BOB McLEOD This is one of my favorite characters from the book, Goo Girl.

Some pages came to me very easily, like this one. Other pages were more difficult and required a few revisions. You can see where I indicated the colors I was planning.

BOB McLEOD This is my rough for the letter A. I originally drew it as a vertical single page, with just one flying saucer and the phrase, Astro-Man is Always in Action Above the Atmosphere. When the designer suggested doing some double page spreads, I redid it like this and wrote a new phrase to reflect all the flying saucers.

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ROUGH CRITIQUE

By Bob McLeod

M

artin Balcer submitted this fine Ghost sample page for my critique this issue. There are several

for punishment. His storytelling is clear with no dialogue, his panel layout is very well designed, and the backgrounds establish where this sequence unfolds, outside on a city street. His

things Martin is doing well here.

His characters have a lot of personality. Ghost looks sexy and threatening, and his bad guys look wild and crazy and overdue

camera angles are varied and dramatic, and the composition is well-balanced. And I know he’s a serious contender because he sent me several sample pages, so he’s not lazy. But there are some problems here that are keeping this from being a strong sample page on a pro level.

Martin also provided the script, by Randy Strandley, so let’s take it panel by panel, although I’ll edit it a bit for brevity: Script: Panel 1. A dramatic up view of Ghost floating in midair a few feet below the top of the nearest building. Lit from below, her stark face shows just the beginnings of rage...

I like this panel, but she’s not lit from below, or even shown from below. Just putting her up in the air doesn’t do it. The building is tilting away from us, and she should, too. Her legs should look closer to us than her torso. Lie down on the floor and look at someone standing above you to see how the figure should look. Her foreshortened angle should be even more extreme than I’ve shown if you want to match the building, but if you get too extreme she becomes unattractive. So the thing to do (as always) is draw a cool figure and then put in a background to match it. When you have a shape like those rounded windows, try to place it carefully to read clearly. The inside arch of yours is touching her cape, creating a tangent that flattens the depth. It’s also not attractive to attach the breast to the armpit. And there needs to be a bone inside her thigh, and her knee needs to be at the end of it, not below it. And it’s always better to pose the legs on a diagonal rather than a vertical. Also, her right arm and left thigh are a bit too hefty, and her left thumb is dislocated.

And finally, why is the sky black above her cape but white below it? I’ve added gutters around the inset panels to separate the blacks in them from the black which should be in panel one.

Script: Panel 2. Looking through the windshield, into the Jeep.... Both wear expressions that indicate that they can’t imagine having more fun than this.

See how much art has to be covered when the text is added to this panel? You need to consider how much text is in each

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