Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
There's been a lot of "Creator Owned Comics" buzz on Twitter and the web the past couple days, Eric Powell's video (possibly nsfw for some), Scottie Young's recent posts on his blog and Tony Harris throws his 2 cents in as well.
Some of it comes across as crass or negative but mostly I think everyone is picking up on the positive vibe, I wanted to take a minute to point out some of the creator owned titles that I've really enjoyed lately.
With the exception of a couple Vertigo titles and a couple of Icon titles (which are creator owned) I mainly purchase creator owned stuff. Arguably a lot of the stuff I do buy probably wouldn't suffer a lot if I didn't buy it (Hellboy, BPRD, anything Paul Pope) so I wanted to focus on some stuff that may have floated under peoples radar. Keep in mind this list isn't limited to this past year, it's just a list of what I've been enjoying. I will include an Amazon link to each of these if you want to look further or possibly purchase them or if at all possible get them from your local Comic shop, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.
This is a wild ride to say the least, it's a bloody Revenge story. If you are fan of movies like Payback, Taken or The Outlaw Josey Wales you'll probably dig this book. Check it out! Oh, did I mention the art is a treat? It is, I like it.
King City- Brandon Graham Image/Tokyopop Amazon
I actually just got issues 11 & 12 in the mail a couple days ago and have been waiting for them to arrive to complete reading the last 6 issues. it has been a blast so far. This book is a sci-fi tale of awesomeness. It has mystical cats and water nymphs and more pop-culture references than you can shake a stick at. This book most likely won't be collected in it's entirety due to some snafu between Tokypop and Image which may make it hard to track it all down but it's worth it.
This book is just too weird to review but it's fantastic, the first 6 issues were just collected. Go get it!
This guy probably doesn't need my help but I really like it. It has a Hitchcock feel to it but it also has some great art and blood and guts enough to make your stomach turn a little. With Grampa's Furry Water coming out hopefully sometime this year and his recent addition to the Strange Tales II anthology with an awesome and really creative take on Wolverine and Deadpool, this guy could take over a large part of the creative owned market.
Here's a not so detailed list of other books to try out:
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The joys of scripting
Scripting, I have discovered helps in comic making if for no other reason than to give my scattered thought process an anchoring point from which to start. Jeremy sends over his written pages, from that point I set out to fit all the panels into place making sure there's room for word balloons and make sure it all makes sense visually. When all is said and done and I'm on the umpteenth page and Jeremy and I have hashed out all the re-writes and panel changes for the first few pages I have something to look at and think about. That's when my brain really goes to work and I start thinking about how I can draw "this" page differently and re-arrange things on "that" page to tell the story better. I never really messed around with planning before, it seemed like a waste of time but now I see it as one more step to being a better creator or visual storyteller.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Brandon Graham
Every now and then I get fed up with comics in general. I discover some amazing new talent, go collect everything they've done, read it and get bored all over again. It seems that since i stopped collecting for 5 years or so there's been a lot of talent that's busted onto the scene but I thought I'd found it all. Brandon Graham popped onto my radar through a buddy of mine, Jeremy Holt. I had seen King City a few times but just glanced right over it looking for something else. I think I was maybe a little burned out on the "manga" influence in American comics because that's what the flavor du jour was when comics got back-burnered (becoming a dad will do that). Sure his style does have some of that but it's a lot more as well. Owing as much to Heavy Metal as it does Shirow, while that had something to do with it's appeal so did the the fact that he put everything on display on his blog http://royalboiler.livejournal.com/. He complains about the industry, struggles with drawing outside his ability and paying rent. Thank you for being a hero.
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