enter the wonderful world I have created...

My idea is for a 20-30 page story about a depressed college student who has just gone through a hard breakup and must deal with the emotions that the split brings out in him. It will presented in a traditional comic book one shot format and will, most likely, be black and white. The main character of the story is named Matt, he's an average college art major but recently seems to be slipping do to personal problems. We meet Matt for the first time the morning after he has broken up with his girlfriend, Susan. Our main character seems to have lost a lot of enthusiasm for school work, interacting with friends and classmates, and life in general. Matt is pretty self absorbed during this period in his life and what I hope to do with this in the project is show a intimate and realistic look into the thoughts and emotions of this character as he comes to grips with himself. Matt is a average looking young guy but doesn't view himself positively at all. According to Matt he's out of shape and over weight, and has a large hang up about his hair which he is started to lose even though he's in his mid twenties. Since all of the spot light is on Matt, side characters are going to be regulated to less substantial roles. We will never see what they are thinking, unlike with Matt with whom we have full disclosure. I did this on purpose because to me the focus of the book is how Matt currently perceives his world, and to be honest no one besides himself is of any real importance to him right now. Matt's ex girlfriend Susan will have an ongoing presence throughout the story, though I decided to wait on taking full use of her using her until the book's climax. She could be looked at as the secondary main character, but I have a feeling that's not how the reader will see her, its really more of a one man show. This project will be a venture into unknown territory for me as Ive never tried to do a simple character examination piece before. The setting is common place and unrealistic which may also be difficult for me. Ill be trying to raise the bar on my inking techniques as well and hopefully utilize a new art style which will be effective for this type of book. My work ethic will be about around 10 hours of work a week and as much time as I can realistically fit in during the weekends. I typically come up short on these types of commitments but I feel strongly about sticking to it this time (hope I don't end up eating those words)

boop.Page Analysis Complete.beep

(that's a weird post title)

any way the page I'll be writing a massive love fest to is from Jin & Jam #1 from Hellen Jo and sparkplug books, which is a small independent comics publisher from portland OR. First off I like this entire book, from the Taiyou Matsumoto quote at the start to its back cover doodles, its good stuff. I picked this page to showcase because the book's fight is where I feel Jo's artistic and design prowess really start to move up. What grabs me most for the fight scenes is Jo's choice to switch over to heavy black for all backgrounds. Until this point of action we've had very open clean white backgrounds, so the switch makes the scene feel very enclosed and gives it a different emotion. As opposed to normal manga fight sequences which are very decompressed whne it comes to action (and story), this one moves very quickly and lacks a lot of conscious choreography. On the other hand over half the page's panels are diagonaly layed out which is typical of manga, but this is the first time we see them in the book. I wouldnt nessecarily call this manga either, the books feels a lot like the hybrids you find of american authors whose work pulls from their cultural heritage but only as tools to work with. My favorite thing about the page has to be the text in panel two, the design of the "yes" which is coming out of Jin's mouth is fantastic. The technique is used a few other times in the book but this one really jumped out at me (I imagine Jin really stretching the sound out as she says it for some reason, yeessss!!!) If we have to get critical at all the bottom right corner is the only place I would tighten up or rethink. I love the explosion of material and detail, but I cant seem to get past the fact I feel a little left out on exactly what action is happening. It may appear more obvious to other readers but it looks to me like Jin is throwing the girl through the "floor" of the panel, or she's just wrecking shop into a random box that we as the reader had no previous indication was even there. Still, the brilliance of the "yes" and design of the page's top right panel makes up for anything else the page may do wrong for me. The book runs for about 5 bucks and if you're in portland I recommend heading to Cosmic Monkey on sandy blvd and snagging a copy for yourself, side note: the book also has what may be one of my favorite characters, a cop straight out of Reno 911 who lassos and beats teenagers for quote " being fucking annoying!"

Huzzah

research folder and early treatment are forming nice, I just pulled them fresh out of the oven. and they are tasty!

my creative secrets (take notes)

I find my creative process is usually faulty but also fluid once it gets going. To begin, my work progresses mostly off of ambient thoughts or impulses I have over subjects i like or feelings I have at the time (like 90% of everybody else) Its never too thought out as say "I want to do a sci fi mystery with a team based character set" or something, it often comes off more randomly. I find the biggest fault in this because is that it leaves the projects easy to abandon because I came into them so whimsically. I usually flesh out all principal plot points and story elements in my head first, as I notice i rarely put anything down on paper until late in the game. I think I get nervous about putting anything down because as soon as I do I feel immediate obligation and guilt to make sure and complete the work, and normally I'm just too lazy for that. The concrete evidence of the ideas on paper usually support that they are never going to look as good as I want them to either. One sees the classic case of "as long as ideas stay in my mind they also stay perfect" (its a very pussy cop out/thought pattern) Anyway, getting to the fluid part, once I've saturated a standard notebook with a healthy dose of ian patented story notes i leave time to go through and edit myself three to four times OR I sometimes skip all this and go straight to the boards and start drawing rough pages immediately adding story as pictures appear OR I just combo the two like a wendy's meal (no tomatoes). I have no hang ups about beginning in any particular fashion, so a plus for me is that its helpful that i don't have patterns I have to adhere to (though I dont know if that is a popular problem or not for cartoonists). Once you put anything down on paper and accumulate some momentum there's always an increasing chance it will keep going until its complete ( unless it shows itself to be unsalvageable and an affront to the art world) For environment i tend to work off my kitchen table (editors note: ian no longer owns a kitchen or the aforementioned kitchen table) or drawing board. I also prefer to head to my long boxes for research. It seems to be popular to google on the spot these days, but its distracting and takes me longer as I lose the artistic zen and slow down, so I like to rely on m' comics. Ive gone through a couple projects now and one thing I think that does teach you is time management (maybe), especially if its centered towards getting it done for class (kinda maybe). I find I don't even need to write down my time table much anymore, my instincts can mostly tell me when to put turbines to speed or tighten up asneeded (mostly) So you could say my instincts are like a well trained wild bearded bear trapper of the woods, except the bears I'M trapping are a proper creative comic book work schedule and time managment. dig it. (editors note: I don't where the post went there at the end)

New Artist

I don't know if this is still in line with miles' intent for the assignment, but my new artist of choice is Errol Flynn the actor. I was stalking about in the library's the DVD section looking for Errol Flynn movies at least three times this week, and earlier this past weekend I already went through blockbuster's entire stock of his work. If you don't know the greatest of the "Baron" then my heart knows only pity for you, as Flynny is the rock star of the early golden age of film making. One of his best known film legacies is that he is the greatest sword fighter/swashbuckler (in movie land) of all time. If that's not a sexy enough title to get you hot for the pencil thin mustache then try this: after getting thrown out of every school he attended he left to find adventure as both a ship master, soldier for hire, professional treasure hunter, and police constable (to be snippy none of this is actually proven as fact or Flynn's own awesome bs) just before being discovered and becoming the most popular movie star of his day. During his prime he supposedly put more movie goer asses in seats than classics like Humphrey Bogart, all the while drinking himself to near death and wooing more lovely ladies than he could keep up with. He had a infamous reputation to fight, abuse drugs and booze, boat, and triumphantly enjoy life as much as he possibly could (when he died at the age of 50 the presiding doctors made the statement that he had the body of man of nearly 80). The best of Flynn I've watched so far is the sea hawk (personal favorite), adventures of robin hood (f$%@ing classic), and dodge city. The entire time period of Hollywood during Flynn's era is just fascinating to visit as it carries such a honest joyful love of movie making and entertainment. All the plots are happily recycled, flynn's supporting actors are exactly the same people in almost EVERY film, and its always fun to watch somehow. You cant fight the charisma of Flynn, its too glorious I tell you!

Old heroes and new favorites

A long established comic god of mine is Jack "THE KING" Kirby. It's certainly unfortunate I didn't get into Kirby in my formative nerd years, but Kirby is from the old school (shit! could say invented "the school") and it was all a bit wild for kid Ian. Kirby is unbridled cosmic level imagination on page, from his design and character creation to his story elements and scripting nobody did it like him. He's the classic case of being the man behind the curtain that was creating all the fantastic mythology for marvel and dc, but of course was given none of the real profit or ownership. But all the fans know the incredible scope of what the king is responsible for and the big two have also come a long ways in giving credit to the man on a lot of his trademark characters and ideas. Here's a couple tastes of Kirby acid to drop

New Place

I did the curious George this week and went to ACE hardware to pick up my art supplies for this year. It was very surprising to know that ACE even carried 2b charcoal pencils or art gum erasers, I assumed the store was always just for paint, man tools, and where old men go to talk about building sheds and such all day. They do not give student discounts to needy sou art geeks though, so farts to ACE.

New school year, same old hat.....

So this is to kick off my blogging for the Fall '09 comic book course.

Miles wanted some words on here about places we've never been AND another about artistic heroes and new favorites. So here we go....

Beard Extravaganza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did some break down pages today, pretty awesome. Not too much to report except that I did get some peer review on my work. I shopped it around to a couple people I knew to get responses and was pleased as punch with the results. Im planning on bringing in some pages to show off tomorrow so hopefully y'all get to see m' stuff. Toodle-pip!

under....the....weather

been sick the last couple days, kind of peaked yesterday so not a lot of work got done but I'm feeling better today so we should see a return of the crazy chachere creative train............tomorrow

new EXCITING stuff!!!!!!!!

eh...the title is kind of a lie, nothing new really happening tonight besides work. I have decided to upgrade my paper though. I just don't feel I have the right size to work with, I always feel this need for more room whether it be an action page or dialogue. Besides my paper claustrophobia the comic is still good and I hope to have more done tomorrow.

Feel bad...

Im been working the past two days using my Inada method but I finally realized tonight that I havent been blogging at all. I just need to get in the habit of putting something down here every time I start work for the day. I also thought that it would be a good idea to scan in some work (obvious I know) so thats on the calender for this weekend to put up some samples of stuff Ive got in the oven (or in the fryer or whatever)

New news

I've decided its time to get serious, as I feel I haven't been valuing my time right and decided on a new schedule. I'm devoting at least one hour a day to my comic (weekdays) and 4+ on weekends, I call it the Inada method (as Miles usually teaches this idea in class) and I hope to turn out an even better project because of it. Time will tell, but I'm hoping to make this my best comic Ive made for one of mile's classes. I like everything about the project, and as Ive said before this idea seems to naturally hold a full history as I develop it (if that makes any since) more ideas roll out of my head the more I think about it, the only real problem Ive had so far is having to hold back all the things I want to put into the issue (it would probably be over 100 pages if I could match whats in my head)

Crazy stuff

I'm uncovering some pretty weird stuff about our 8th president, Mr. Van Buren. He had pretty interesting shenanigans going on that I think I'll use in the book that might be fun (the nickname his enemies, the whig party, gave him for instance was "little wizard")

New POSSTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I went a underpromise and overdeliver stragety it looks like. It's a concept that what getting thrown a lot in my last class and it seems to have come true for me. I completed all the character modeling and research I wanted BUT I also knocked out some dummy pages AND I scripted a couple scenes as well as settled on the book's dimensions ANd I did a dummy cover, so suck them apples! I like where the book is going and it seems to hold a bit more promise than my last project (which is what I had hoped when I decided to switch to this group). I've also decided to try out a little scheme that I've been cooking for a while, it's to include a soundtrack for the comic. What I mean is to provide song suggestions for the different scenes in that happen in the book, fight music for action scenes, and maybe character intro pieces (or something) to increase the reader's immersion into the world the book's creating. I thought it was a pretty great idea and I do it myself a lot when I read certain books (I usually have Zeppelin on when reading Thor issues) So I'm rolling that around but I guess the next step when be to try posting some of the stuff I've done on the blog, so I'll try that next.

Update schmupdate

I just completed my character sketches, and I like how everyone is turning out (very sexy) its about five in the morining right now (I think) and I'm at work and bored out of my fucking mind. I was looking in the mirror earlier and was almost positive my reflection was looking at me funny and going to pop out. I also figured out that one of my mad scientist's inventions will be a sentient piece of bacon that talks, but only says "I'm bacon!" (repeatedly) it's a nod to michael kupperman's tales designed to thrizzle.........................hmph (whistles) sssoo I got that going for me {pause} which is nice

Proposed time line for my project

From January 7th to the 19th:
I'd like to have worked out the basics: character sketches, reference folders, and story outline. Have it all laid out and ready to go.
From January 26th-Feb. 6th
I want to have started on dummies for the first six pages. I'd also like to have the script fleshed out to at least page 10.
From Feb. 9th-23rd
I should have up to 12 pages completed by now, and I should also have rough sketches or dummies for the remaining ten, could probably have worked up a few cover images too.
February 25th-March 6
The book should just be about shaped up and feel pretty close to done. All principal work on all pages should be complete, and the cover could have a solid start as well. Finishing up the cover and the introductory page with its soundtrack listings should be the last steps till completion.
From March 9th-13th
Book's all done at this point hopefully, and is ready for print. Turn it in and bask in the praise of my fellow peers and teacher.

Technical and Research issues

Unfortunately I'm not very knowledgeable on Victorian dress and fashion, I only have rough ideas, so I will need to create some clothing folders to pull from. I would also like a reference stock of the technology available as well as the popular architecture styles of the time. I also wanted to try a new inking method this go around (or try using pure pencil for the finish) which I'll need to experiment with early so I'll know if it's worth going for or not .

Stuff done by other people

I was planning on looking at Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Men for the book's look and vibe. For the more humorous aspects I wanted to pull out my Snake and Bacon issues, as well as some of my books by Matt Fraction, specifically his Casanova series, which I'll hopefully use for getting the right voice for my comic.

Product description

I will be making a short 22 page black and white comic book. The story will unfold with the introduction of my main cast and briefly cover their history before rapidly moving into the story's main adventure. It will include a wrap around cover and a dense introductory page on top of the twenty two story pages.

Page description

My idea is to do a comic book about three different Victorian era explorers. It is a team book which consists of a kung fu climbing expert, the world's best (and worst) gambler, and a mad scientist (in the vein of the famous 19th century inventor Nikola Tesla). There is also a fourth member who is a kind of bodyguard/consultant for the group, he goes by the moniker "the butcher" and is extremely violent, but also a very quiet individual as he has so far refused to speak on any occasion. The team is for the most part incredibly dysfunctional as the mad scientist is completely insane and the gambler is a self destructive addict and hopeless drunk. The climber is the youngest the group and has no obvious or overt personal faults except that he is frequently absent as he devotes much of his time to his study of meditation and quiet self improvement. The first issue is a introduction and consists of a adventure against one of their more dangerous rivals, Martin Van Buren, the 8th president of the United states, and the terror of his army of flesh eating robots.

One paragraph description

A throwback pulp fiction comic which follows the exploits of 3 heroes, plus their violent and mute bodyguard. Set in the Victorian era, our most excellent gentlemen adventurers embark into the wild on harrowing quests and battle the evil and weird forces that challenge them along the way.

one sentence description

The story of four 19th century gentlemen who take on dangerous and terrific adventures.

My new comic's working title

the title is......DANGER!!!