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Art Tutor?

Hey here’s a question for you. I saw a ‘wanted: art tutor” ad on a billboard at a comic shop and I thought – maybe I could do that. So the question is, what’s a reasonable tuting rate to ask for?

Secondly, I’ve been slowwwwwwwly reading “Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit” and now so are you:

My objection to advertising is not merely aesthetic. Each and every shill is a tax-deductible cost of doing business, and thus a double insult. The billions that companies spend to convince you that you are a smelly, yellow-toothed porker translate into millions fewer for the public purse and drive up the price of products. A pair of Nikes only costs a few bucks to make, but it costs a lot to get Michael Jordan…. Advertising attempts above all to sanctify mass-produced crap with a halo of uniqueness and beauty, or deliciousness and comfort, or coolness and Xtremity. Ads determine…how we perceive ourselves and even what we do. There is, for example, mounting evidence that we may be making ourselves ill with our ad-induced scrubbing. While we scour the world to a sterile gleam and mock the mammal scents of our continental friends, research tells us that kids in slightly grimy houses have a lower incidence of asthma than those who live in immaculate surroundings. And antibiotic hand washes only accelerate the development of more resistant bugs, a process already well underway thanks to the mass prescribing of antibiotics.

Just a note: I am not inherently against advertising (obviously since I do it myself to some extent, and I was in a commercial). Also there’s too much rhetoric and not enough citations. But…I am enjoying the book.

Also I saw Blades of Glory and it made me guffaw. It’s playing at the Rio still. I didn’t realize Tuesdays were $5 there. Or did I?

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SSZ Page Three!

Consistency is NOT the name of the game. With each page I’m trying out something new. On this page there are four changes:

1. The font is different (thanks Stewie).
2. The tone is not pixelated, but smooth.
3. There’s a lot more ink on the page! As you can clearly see.
4. The balloons are all perfect ellipses. It’s quicker that way but I don’t think the comic prof approves. We’ll see.

ssz-page-3.png

So for the first panel, if you look at the older pencils you can see how different the ship is. I was having a hard time with the tines in this panel so at the behest of my prof I downloaded the free google 3D modelling program “sketchup” and made a dirty model of SSZ, which I can view from any angle. It worked like a charm. A CHARM I TELL YOU!

The following pics are NOT from that program. They are much nicer:

zero1.jpgzero2.jpgunpopular-mech-72dpi.jpgsszsixtydet.jpgship-shot.jpg

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Comic Book Influences 1: Mike McMahon

I want to briefly touch on some of my favourite comic book artists – ones that have influenced my art in some way and whom I aspire to rock as hard as. I’m not going to yammer on, though. It’ll be more like a photo essay. Except drawings instead of photos.

Because if you want to know more about Mike McMahon, you can go to wikipedia or The Art of Mike McMahon website, from whence I swiped some of these images.

“Mutomaniac” was never finished. Pity.

Apparently M.M. got started on Doctor Who comics.

I feel that The Last American miniseries was his best work. It looks like he took a lot of time and care on this one. Look at those lines! Each one has its own character. And a bold yet prudent use of blacks.

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Funnybooks

I’ve already shown you my character designs for the Spaceship Zero comic book.

Now I’m gonna give you s’more: thumbnails and script.

Steve gave us samples of actual comic scripts that he has worked on, including MEK by Warren Ellis. The three he gave us had similarities but the format differed somewhat. Basically, comic scripts are a lot like TV/movie scripts. Mine is very loose because at the moment it’s just written for my own reference – so I know who is saying what and how many balloons it’s going to take up. Skip it if you want. There’s pics below.

SPACESHIP ZERO #1
By Toren Atkinson

PAGE ONE

Panel 1.

CAPTION: Antarctica, 2023

WALTERS: Professor Ashton, I’m John Walters.

ASHTON: Dreadful.

WALTERS: Uh, I hope the trip wasn’t too uncomfortable.

ASHTON: I despise flying. Where is the site?

Panel 3

WALTERS: It’s about one mile southwest. We couldn’t pitch camp any closer due to…

ASHTON: Are we to travel in that thing?

WALTERS: Yes. We’ve prepared a room and a meal for y…

ASHTON: I would like to go immediately.

Panel 4

(beat)

WALTERS: Certainly.

Panel xxx

IN THE HALFTRACK

WALTERS: I gather from the Commodore that this vessel is tied into your project in a very profound way.

ASHTON: Seemingly

WALTERS: Well you’ve seen the data we’ve sent so far. Steveston took a carbon dating reading on the hull but the results were…

ASHTON: …completely meaningless.

Panel xxx
WALTERS: Well the surrounding ice is DEFINITELY thousands of years old. And if the ship isn’t SpaceCorp then it’s a good goddamn replica. I’m no ship buff, but from what I’m told it’s a hopper.

ASHTON: The images you sent didn’t transfer very well.

WALTERS: I apologize for that. We couldn’t get any clear, wide shots due to the weather. We took some this morning but of course that’s no…

ASHTON: Has anyone been inside?

STEVESTON: We’re just clearing the hatch now, Professor Ashton.

Panel xxx

WALTERS: This is Heather Steveston, Professor.

STEVESTON: Here’s this morning’s readings. The tanks are apparently spent. Just residual traces of xenon as you can see.

Panel xxx

ASHTON: Is that it?

Panel xxx

STEVESTON: Hold on to the rope, Professor. We’ll have a much better view at the bottom.

Ashton slips?

Panel xxx
(Big shot)

ASHTON: Good heavens!

Panel xxx
(C.U)

ASHTON: It can’t be.

STEVESTON: What is it, Professor?

ASHTON: Those tines…. Staggering!

WALTERS: What about the tines?

STEVESTON: They’re not standard to the Mark V Space Hopper, I know that much.

WORKMAN: That’s got it, Jensen.

Panel xxx

ASHTON: Let me through!

WORKMAN: Woah, hold up there, sir. Give the metal a chance to cool.

Panel xxx
(Walters produces an open box of ray guns)

WALTERS: The commodore insisted we carry these, Professor.

ASHTON: What on Earth for?

Panel xxx

Walters shrugs

ASHTON: I have never in my life discharged a firearm.

WALTERS: Commodore’s orders.

ASHTON: SIGH (takes a gun and holster)

Panel xxx
This metal is rather deteriorated.

STEVESTON: That coincides with our readings from this ice.

WORKMAN: Okay. Here are some torches.

Panel xxx

They move through the hulk by flashlight

Panel xxx

STEVESTON: Looks pretty intact to me.

WALTERS: What level is this?

STEVESTON: Reactor is up one more. Readings are normal.

Panel xxx

ASHTON: Hmm. I wonder….

WALTERS: Weir, do you have that cable ready?

Panel xxx

WALTERS: The T6 has completely lost its charge and the heads are shot. Give me three minutes.

STEVESTON: Where’s Ashton?

Panel xxx

Steveston looking for Ashton

Panel xxx

STEVESTON: Ashton?

ASHTON: It’s here. This is it. The entire module. It’s staggering. It’s completely impossible.

Panel xxx
Power comes on revealing the BTL Drive.

ASHTON: Completely impossible.

PAGE FOUR

Panel xxx

Ashton and Walters in dim room

WALTERS: Yawn! You want something to eat? Professor? PROF!

ASHTON: No, for heaven’s sakes, Walter! No!
WALTERS: Walters. John Walters. Well I do. Download is slow going. I’ll bring you something back. Give a yell on the blower if you need anything.

Panel xxx

Monitor reads: 7 LIFEFORMS IN DECON

ASHTON: Hello, what’s this? Walter, look at this. Eh?

Panel xxx

Ashton on computer.

DATA FILE CORRUPT. REPAIR / DIAGNOSTIC / EXIT

BIOSPEC INTACT
DECONSTITUTION INITIATED

Panel xxx

Ashton watches as decon does its thing

Panel xxx Ashton reacts to deconstituted thing out of frame

Panel xxx
Hand reaches for gun

Feel free to comment/proofread! One of the most challenging things for me is arranging the characters and the word balloons so they flow properly, naturally, and clearly. It’s actually pretty difficult to do that and still keep the panel compositions interesting! As you can tell from the text above, when I wrote the script I didn’t really know what panels were going to be on what page, except for page four. Here are the almost completed first two pages.

spaceshipzerothumbnails.png

I think at some point I’ll take some reference photos of poses in winter coats. Any volunteers? Who wants to be in a comic boooook?

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Spaceship Zero: The Comic

The comic book production course I’m taking at Van Arts is pretty good so far. I dropped $90 at Loomis but I didn’t really have to. I just wanted the good brush, the aluminum cork-backed ruler, and a few other things. Has anyone heard of the Aames Lettering Guide?

As I may have mentioned, the other kids in the class are kind of weird. But then, that’s comic geeks for you. Oh wait – none of them read comics. So that is weird. At any rate, I’m learning, and making decent progress. We had our third class last week, and we talked about storytelling and whatnot. Steve is always apologetic for the amount of handouts but I think it’s great. That way I don’t have to commit anything to memory! His teaching style is mostly to just go over the handouts and he usually does so verbatim which kind of useful but I’d rather get something on top of what’s on the handout, but I guess if there were more information he’d just put it on the handout to start with.

I handed in my character sketches for the four pages I’ll be doing. This is really just the prologue for the big story (will I ever finish it? Who knows) so the only main character present is Professor Ashton. But there are a few supporting characters. Here are the results:

ashton.png
ashtonclose.png
walters.png
steveston.png

Soon I should have some thumbnails for you all.

In other news, I’m nearly done Guitar Hero II on HARD, much to Stewie’s chagrin. Hey, it’s not my fault he leaves it in the living room and then doesn’t play it. He says if I finish it before him he is going to charge me. So I’ll just get 99% through Free Bird and then hit the reset button.

Does anyone know what causes that ‘BZZZZZZZZZZZT-BZT-BZT-BZT-BZT” sound that I hear in my headphones when I pass a certain place in the city on the Greyhound, and that I hear in my computer speaker when my cell phone goes off nearby?