The Superpower Union Webcomic

Welcome to Adventures in Cartooning, where I take some snippet of advice I found and relay it on to others in an attempt to spare someone else of having to make the same mistakes I did.

This past Thursday, I was lucky enough to be able to attend ‘Comic Creators’ at one of the local libraries. It featured two artists and one writer all based here in town. Kurtis Wiebe (The Intrepids, Green Wake), Riley Rossmo (Proof, Green Wake), and Tom Grummet (Superman, Incredible Hulk) were all in attendance and shared with everyone how they got into the comic industry as well as fielding questions from the audience. The panel was full of really interesting stuff, both from the writing side of things as well as the artistic side.  There was one part mentioned that I really found interesting.

While talking about scripts, the subject of stage direction came up. “How often do you give the artists instructions on how to lay out scripts?” one audience member asked. All three men said that the only instructions that are ever given/received are ones that are important to the story. A lot of the panels are just ‘Talking Heads’.  This is when the writer gives the dialogue and maybe a location. Both artists made it clear that those are the best panels to draw because it lets the artist be creative and have fun with the characters. A scene of two people in the kitchen can soon become two people sitting having coffee, making lunch or unloading a dishwasher.

This got me thinking about my own strip, and its admittedly lackluster backdrops and somewhat static characters. I should really try to put more effort into making an environment and having my characters interact with it. I think it will really add an extra level to the strip and bring it closer to a professional quality.

This week on Adventures in Cartooning (Or Things I Wish I Knew Months Ago)…

They say an artist is always their own worst critic. That’s probably very true. Very, very, very true. I wish my work was better no matter what anyone else says, and I’m coming to think that maybe that’s a good thing. It pushes people to be better and to grow. I’ve been experimenting with different ways of producing this strip lately, and one of the methods I’ve tried is using brush and ink to do it.

I been following Doug TenNapel’s (creator of Earthworm Jim) webcomic Ratfist, and a few weeks ago, he posted a video of him painting a Ratfist comic. I say painting because he’s using a brush better suited to painting a house then inking a comic. Seriously, the brush is as big around as my finger! I wish I was capable of creating work that good with something as simple as a brush and a bottle of ink. Then I thought ‘why not try it?’.

So I picked up a brush for a couple of bucks (one very similar to the one in TenNapel’s video) and thought I’d give it a try. Results the first time around were decent, but killed my wrist. I decided to scour the internet for some more information on how to ink with a brush. I tried some more, with much the same results as before.

However, even though the work wasn’t as good as a micron/brush pen (what I’ve been using in the strip), I had a weird sense of pride from the work. I enjoyed learning a new medium and method as much as anything, and wanted to do more. It’s doubtful I’ll do it on the strip much in the near future, but is a method I’ll probably use once in awhile on other artwork.

Here’s a link to a cool tutorial I found on inking:

http://www.antonemdin.com/blog/2011/04/inking-tutorial-1-traditional/