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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?

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FINALLY!

Here’s another example of how UPS sucks donkey balls. My architeuthis light switch covers were being sent from California on 5 day service. After 11 days had passed we got a tracking number and here’s the travelogue of the sweet sweet package:

  • From starting point in California
  • to second point in Cali – Sacramento I think.
  • There was a third point in Cali.
  • On to Beaverton Oregon
  • Then to Portland
  • Only one stop in Washington!
  • Hey, now it’s in Richmond — almost here!
  • Uh…Montreal? What?
  • Ontario?!?!?
  • Back to Vancouver.

Plus the $60 brokerage fee that UPS slapped on it…because it can. Never, ever use UPS if you can avoid it!

Nevertheless, they are finally here an in my hot little hands! And now you can, too. HERE IT IS.

giantsquidlightswitch.jpg

Celebrate Global Architeuthis Day by throwing a light switch rave!

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Mondays Will Be Like This For A While

This morning Brodie and I took the bus out to the institute where he teaches in Burnaby, for to be usink the studio. We recorded vocals for A Marine Biologist, Strange, No Way, and (We’re Gonna) Kill the Chupacabra (Tonight). And that wen’t reasonably well. Reminder to self: no more curry chicken wraps during the break. This cold weather is making things annoying re: runny nose. I don’t know if I have a miniscule cold or if it’s just the frigid weather causing me to over-mucousize. I couldn’t take photos because my battery was empty. But I’ll be going back there for the next couple of Mondays.

My Monday evenings are now taken up with the comic book production course, the first class of which I just got back from. The class is a little weird in that none of the four other students read comic books – I can’t fathom that. So Steve was going through the comics he brought and talking about styles and discussing different names that clearly they wouldn’t have heard of. Thank gord that so many comics have been turned into movies (Mike Mignola/Hellboy, Frank Miller/Sin City for starters) or they would have been completely lost. The course is being taught in a room full of animation work stations, so the drawing desks all have rotating light tables set into them, which is kind of annoying. But the important thing is that Steve knows his stuff and the course itinerary looks solid. So I’ll keep things updated for you, my loyal readers. All three of you.

Last night Joy-Joy and I went over to Sher-Sher and Steph-Steph’s and played some Wii on their big fat TV, which was great fun. We also had…pulled pork. And by ‘had’ I mean ‘ate.’ They have a slow cooker and it does wonderful things. Then we watched the “Ocean Deep” episode of BBC’s Planet Earth for which I’ve been waiting for some time. Joyce had it on her computer but there’s just no way that a computer monitor could do justice to the freaky monsters of the abyss the way that Sherane’s 40 incher can. I was gratified to see they included a bit on vampyroteuthis infernalis, AKA the vampire squid from hell!

toastvampire.jpg

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Face Facts II

Joe (looking a little Hugh Jackson Wolverini in the second one):
copy-of-fulgham70.jpg copy-of-fulgham50.jpg

copy-of-fulgham37.jpg  copy-of-fulgham98.jpg

Graeme (looking a little piratey in number 3):

copy-of-graeme207.jpg copy-of-graeme-131.jpg
copy-of-graeme154.jpg  copy-of-graeme-147.jpg

Duncan:

copy-of-duncan251.jpg copy-of-duncan274.jpg

copy-of-duncan304.jpg copy-of-duncan330.jpg

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Illustrating a Kids Book 3: Money

A little while later, I got the call from Dan on my answering machine asking to call him back. I kind of figured I was the Chosen One – if he was calling to say he gave the job to somebody else he surely would have said as much on the machine rather than ask for a callback.

The always awkward question of monetary remuneration came up, as it should. I never know what to charge for these sorts of things, and I always undercharge because I never think it’s going to take as much time and work as it does. And I find non-artists think that artists are superhuman–that it doesn’t take any amount of time or effort to create a masterpiece–and since what they produce is (traditionally) not something they can drive around in or watch movies on, it can’t be worth more than a couple of bucks. I’m not saying that Dan is one of those people–in fact Dan’s day job keeps him immersed in both art and music–but it’s one of those things that as an artist you have to keep in mind when you decide what jobs you will take for the budget that is offered. In this case, I am not only excited about the project, but I also view it as a stepping stone to larger things. It’s kind of nice to have, as my so-called cherry, this low-budget, two-man project, because there isn’t a ton of pressure with deadlines and unrealistic expectations. So now that I knew that Dan wanted to hire me, I had to decide once and for all if I wanted to be hired and under what terms and conditions. How much work would I be doing? What was the time frame? Would there be royalties? What if he pitches the book to a publishing outfit and they hire their own artist to do the illos based on my previous work? I set out to do some internet research on that front, which led me to buy the following books:

Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines and Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators. (if you don’t have those, try this site for some downloadable pdfs:

http://www.sessions.edu/career_center/design_tools/freelance_templates/index.asp)

keeping in mind these are no doubt in US prices) All the things like royalties and whatnot are things I won’t get into here, but I will say that Dan had a set budget that, if broken down onto a per-page basis was a little light compared to what my research garnered. But then again – I don’t think I have ever been paid as much for a job as these books said I should be getting! And as I mentioned, I didn’t consider this a straightforward illustration job like the work-for-hires I did for D&D books for so many years. This was a book that I had a vested interest in as a portfolio piece, as a stepping stone into a larger industry, and also a learning experience.

Nevertheless, given the unique nature of the project, we agreed to divide the project into separate phases and write up contracts for each phase. The first phase would be, essentially, designing the characters and producing one splash page that Dan could show to prospective publishing companies.