Let’s think for a moment about word bubbles. How important is the word bubble font to the overall experience of a comic? Pretty important. I mean, the word bubble font should match the style of the comic itself, right? For most of us, there aren’t really too many choices, though. There’s a conventional style of…Read more
peter
The Perils of Comics Translation
Comics Translation: Not Just about Words I’d be lying if I said I was surprised, taken aback, befuddled. I knew well that creating a Polish eBook of the first 50 comics would pose many challenges. That is, I knew it theoretically. But there were some surprises when it came to what exactly the perils of comics translation were. Turns…Read more
Background Art: Electronic Compositing
Haha. “Electronic Compositing.” That’s probably what someone might call this process 40 or 50 years ago. And in fact, the style of background art I am emulating is from the 1960s. But anyway, I haven’t posted a post on my workflow experiments in a while. So, I thought I’d reflect on the background art from…Read more
2 Things Comics Artists Can Learn from Animation
I’ve said before that when it comes to comics art, my main influences are animators. I’ll take Kahl over Kirby any day. Master character animators and layout artists have taught me a few things. And I feel that other comics artists might benefit from considering the following two ideas. Compose Backgrounds like a Theatrical…Read more
Review: Tooth & Claw #1
So, I don’t often pick up a comic at my local comic book store. But this weekend, I grabbed a copy of Busiek and Dewey’s Tooth & Claw, published by Image on November 1. Why? Maybe I was just surprised to see anthropomorphic characters in a mainstream comic shop, not in the kiddie area. Sure, Rocket…Read more
On Smoking in Rudek and the Bear
This blog post is not meant to come off as a defense or an apology. And actually, no one has complained yet about the smoking in the comic. But I wanted to put some thoughts down so that my position was clear, in case anyone was curious or interested in a discussion. Smoking in comics has a…Read more
Commitment to Reference Materials
The Limitations of Google Image Search For a while I’ve been doing what I imagine most people do, and what some professional comics artists even encourage. That is, I’ve been using Google Image search to find reference materials. And for a long while I felt there was nothing wrong with this. It was fast and…Read more
Comparison of Current Style to One Year Ago
Just for the heck of it. And because I noticed the dates were exactly a year apart between this comic and this comic. Mainly, the figures have gotten more clean, and the backgrounds more detailed.