2011: A Cartooning Odyssey, Part 2

[johncomic]

In 1975, at age eighteen, my first year as a university undergrad, I began my next major comic book project. By now I was heavily under the thrall of Barry Smith's Conan, and sword-and-sorcery and epic fantasy in general, so I decided to create a graphic novel along these lines.

At the time, I was completely unfamiliar with the concept of the graphic novel -- had never seen or heard of such a thing -- so I was under the impression that I had invented the idea. I even coined the term “comic novel” to try to explain to people what I was working on. Those were indeed innocent days...

And so I began working on Two Heroes Met, a shameless rip-off of Fritz Leiber. Hell, even my title was a nod to his series...

By this time I was finally working in ink (inching my way toward professionalism), although I inked exclusively in technical pen, which no self-respecting pro would be caught dead doing back in those days. Behold some snapshots:



As you can see, I was fascinated by light and texture and fussy detail, obviously feeling that the more lines I put in, the better the drawing was. Toward the end I think my body language was, on rare occasions, getting rather less stiff, capturing a shade more naturalism (but still with lotsa fussy lines):



A parting shot, one that impressed me mightily at the time but now strikes me as the most egregiously overdone drawing in the entire project:



I worked on Two Heroes Met until 1979, when I broke my drawing hand and had to re-learn how to draw, essentially. During that process my style morphed and I was never again able to draw so that it looked like it was done by that same guy who drew the first sixty pages. To this day I have some people claim that Two Heroes Met is my best work, and nothing I've done since then surpasses it. I don't agree, and I don't expect you to, but that's what makes horse races.

Comments

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

Good stuff. I actually like chiaroscuro quite a bit.

I also notice that your lettering -- never mentioned once in your narrative -- has significantly improved.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

You aren't talking about my Space Kid lettering being improved, are you? That's a font! My actual hand lettering still sucks!

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

No, I mean your actual lettering. Compare the lettering here to either Dishman or The Titans -- to me it occupies a middle ground in quality. The more time went by, the better your lettering got.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

All part of a natural process, I think:

On The Titans, things like “rough sketches” and “lettering guidelines” struck me as “needless fuss” -- it was good enough to just plow in there and plonk something down. I almost never went back to erase and re-draw anything in those days, “didn't believe in it”. Besides, it is tough to lay down lettering lines and rough drawings in pencil when you aren't doing your finishes in ink -- the underwork becomes much more problematic to remove when you're done.

On Two Heroes Met I started drawing lettering guidelines and pencil roughs for my panels, which makes for a superior result. However, I was still drawing “full up” (the originals are 8.5 by 11, and if it ever saw print I figured it'd be at that size) and still “planning” my pages on the fly.

After THM but before Dishman, I earned a certificate in mechanical drafting, which included lettering training. Plus I got a proper Ames guide (http://www.dharbin.com/blog/process-using-the-mighty-ames-lettering-guide/), which made lettering lines that much easier and truer. Plus I discovered the miracles of drawing larger and reducing for print; blue pencil guidelines which don't need to be erased; and rough page layouts to plan pages and panels out in advance before committing to bristol. All these things make for a sharper final result. (Also, Dishman was the first time I did rough preliminary lettering in pencil to help plan out the size and shape of balloons, the positioning of words and lines, etc. before inking in the final letters.)