New black and white drawing and acrylic paintings by Fiona Ho

October 6, 2008

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Our graphic designer, artist and partner, Fiona Ho has been working on a tonne of new work. She’s as proficient on the computer with Adobe software as she is with pen and ink drawing and acrylic paint. She’ll be working with me on my online comic, Battles later this month. Here’s a preview of some of her work.

8″ x 16″, ink and acrylic paint on canvas.

20″ x 10″, ink and acrylic paint on canvas.

9” x 11”, pen and ink on paper.

12” x 24”, ink and acrylic paint on canvas.

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Forming an Alliance with Heavy Ink

September 16, 2008

A few months before we put out Rex I got in touch with the guys at HeavyInk.com. They’re a new online store aiming to become the Amazon of the comic book industry.

I had read the interview with Heavy Ink head honcho, Travis Corcoran last April at Comics Reporter and really liked what he had to say. I figured we’re a new publisher and they’re a new store. Let’s try to make something happen.

When Rex was finally published in May so I sent Travis a copy. By the summer Heavy Ink was carrying a healthy supply of the graphic novel in their inventory.

I’m still new on their system but on top of the online store they have a full blown social network, forum and RSS feeds for every comic series which you can subscribe to.

I think the main selling point to consumers is the 20% off every item that they carry and the free shipping. There’s A LOT of people who don’t live close to a comic store that this will appeal to.

I’ll revisit this later in the year after I’ve had a chance to explore their system in further deal.

In the meantime you can now buy Danijel Zezelj’s Rex at Heavy Ink.

-Jay

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Words and Pictures with Jacen Burrows

August 27, 2008

By Richard Serrao

I recently interviewed Jacen Burrows and as always he’s very easy to talk to with no attitude despite being an awesome in demand artist. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time now, ever since he drew a comic called Skid Roze for Everette Hartsoe. For more info check out his website, livejournal or Myspace Page.

First professional work (piece / year) and maybe a quick story behind it.

I worked as Scott Clark’s background assistant for a few Wildstorm books back in the early 90’s. I can’t remember issue numbers but it was during the Moore run and also included the Spawn Wildcats crossover. That was a lot of fun.

Self-taught or formally educated? (or mixture of both, mentors etc…)

I did go to art school. I am a sequential art graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design but I would still say I am mostly self taught. Art School doesn’t really teach you things so much as give you an opportunity to just constantly work and figure things out for yourself.

Tools of the trade: Taking a quick glance over at your pens, brushes etc…what tools have you mainly been using over the last few years?

All my work is digitally inked so all I use is pencil and paper. Standard 11×17 bristol and an assortment of pencil brands but all 2H to H with some 4H pencils for roughs.

Favorite brand of ink?

When I did ink I always used Black Magic

Type of paper:

I buy my stuff from Blue Line Pro who offer some great deals in bulk. I usually get 300 sheets at a time of 2 ply standard finish.

Which artists or creators do you return to for a quick boost of inspiration? Who are the masters of ink?

I am constantly looking through new artists but the ones I can always go back to for inspiration are Frazetta, Wrightson, Quitely, Adam Hughes, Josh Middleton and Katsuhiro Otomo. I always have a few pieces of each of their work near my desk.

Once a client has handed off an illustration job to you, how do you first tackle the job. Could you give us a quick overview of your process?

There’s no real mystery to it. I like to go somewhere quiet and reread the script or descriptions a few times till I start getting ideas and then thumbnail out as many quick ideas as I can until something feels right and I can start developing that direction more. All done small on scrap paper. Once I have sketches I like I can move to the big paper. I try not to do a whole lot of the development on the final sheet because it can damage the tooth of the paper or cause dirty spots that don’t erase clean and disrupt the scan. One tip though, if you are ever having trouble getting in the zone, turn off all your noise. No TV, music, no people or pets, nothing but you and the page. The silence will kick start you and once going you can go back to whatever you normally do.

What’s currently sitting in your mp3 / CD player / turntable?

I’ve been going through a phase lately with less music than in the past. I have been listening to a lot of audio books while I work and I’m currently working the Chuck Palahniuk library. When I do listen to music I lean towards really dark atmospheric stuff like Inade, Godspeed and the recent Nine Inch Nails Ghosts or heavier stuff like Dozer, High on Fire, Devildriver and God Forbid. But I listen to a little bit of everything. The new Atmosphere is great.

What’s hanging on your walls and what is your favorite piece of art that you own (not created by you).

I have a lot of art up, mostly surrealists. I have some prints from Wayne Barlow, Cam Kennedy and Beksinski I really like a lot. I have a poster version of this one I really dig:

Last novel you read and last movie that you saw (that you’d recommend)?

Cows by Matt Stokoe and .REC the Spanish horror movie being remade in the US as Quarantine or Wall-E.

Current and upcoming projects?

I’m currently working my way through CROSSED, a 9-issue horror survival series with Garth Ennis about the end of humanity and the most horrible things we can do to each other. After that I’ll be finishing up an Alan Moore miniseries I’ve been working on for a while.

What would you tell an aspiring artist who is working his ass off but still needs and wants to break through to the next level?

Never take the easy or lazy way out. Do the hard angles if you think it makes better storytelling. Fill up the pages with details. Always remember you are competing with the best out there, not the worst currently working and you have to do the work. No shortcuts. Editors and publishers will respect a strong work ethic and a desire to improve over all else.

Previous Masters of Ink:
Tom Denney
Richard Serrao
Tony Moore
Erik Rose
Chris Weston
Jim Blanchard
Nathan Fox
Tom Denney
Richard Serrao
Dan Mumford
Ryan Jones
Rufus Dayglo
Kody Chamberlain

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12 questions with artist Erik Rose

August 12, 2008

By Jason Thibault

Like most of my artist discoveries I found Erik Rose on the internets. His black and white work immediately struck a chord with me. I believe that if he stays on his present course, he’ll go far in comics and illustration. You can find more info on Erik at his website and myspace page.

First professional work (piece / year) and maybe a quick story behind it.

My first pro piece was for an article about female skateboarders in Clamor Magazine. I was still in collage and a buddy of mine; Dave Crosland hooked me up with it. I still remember what it felt like to see that thing in print. In fact, to this day a piece doesn’t feel real or finished to me until it’s been reproduced

Self-taught or formally educated? (or mixture of both, mentors etc…)

Definitely a mixture of both. I received a BFA in illustration at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio in 2003 but I don’t really feel like I established a style or method of working until a couple years later. And even that was mostly through trial and error. I’ve heard people say this before and I definitely believe that you learn as much your first year out of school as you do the whole time you were there. There is no substitution for learning “on the job” and I recommend trying to do freelance while in school. It will force you to look at what instructors are trying to teach you in a practical way.

Tools of the trade: Taking a quick glance over at your pens, brushes etc…what tools have you mainly been using over the last few years?

I draw with a Mars Staedtler lead holder using HB leads but most of my “pencils” for my comic pages are generally done with a flair felt tip marker and then light box those “pencils” onto the boards I’m inking on. I use mainly Microns for line work, filling in blacks and thickening some lines with Higgen’s Black Magic and a Windsor and #1 Newton Series 7 Sable brush. I always heard pros going on and on about the Series 7 brushes and after I tried one there’s no way I could go back to anything else. I have all kinds of weird odds and ends I use as well; toothbrush and Blo Pen for spatters, some sumi brushes for dry brush, masking fluid for negative lines, Presto whiteout pens, gouache and white jellyroll pens for corrections and effects. I use a water brush filled with Higgen’s Black Magic ink and Faber Castell brush markers when I’m working on stuff outside of the studio. The covers for The Roberts were drawn in human blood so I used a 102 and 107 crow quill pen and a brush for that. It was surprisingly easy to work with. I thought I might have to water it down or add red ink to it to make it work but nope it looked great and was surprisingly red even when dry.

I’d really like to do more inking with the crow quill but I have a lot of practice to do before I reach that stage. I do some watercolors for certain pieces but most of my colors are done in Photoshop.

Favorite brand of ink:

I’ve really been digging the Higgins Black Magic lately although I usually have to leave the bottle sit open for an hour before I use it the first time to let it thicken up a little. It’s rare for me to get any light spots in my blacks when I let it sit out first it’s completely opaque. I love sumi ink but the fact that it’s not waterproof scares me and I lost a few projects years back because of it.

Type of paper:
Strathmore 400 series Bristol with a smooth finish for illustration work. I’ve been using the Canson Fanboy paper for my comic pages but I use the back so I don’t have to screw around with erasing the blue lines.

Which artists or creators do you return to for a quick boost of inspiration?

Man there are so many out there — Tony Harris, Danijel Zezelj, Jae Lee, Greg Ruth, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, Ted McKeever, Joel Peter-Witkin, J.C. Lyndecker, Alex Maleev, Lee Bermejo, James Jean, Scott Morse, Bob Peak, Egon Schiele, Jonathan Hickman, Teddy Kristensen – I could probably go on for days. This is not even including directors like Peter Greenaway, Terry Gilliam, and David Lynch who have had a major impact on me.

Who are the masters of ink?
Bill Sienkiewicz is near the top of the list – I used to carry his phone number around in my wallet when I was in Junior High School. Let’s see… Jae Lee ( I hope he goes back to inking after this Dark Tower project), John Paul Leon, David Mazzucelli, Tim Bradstreet, Charles Burns, Tommy Lee Edwards Greg Ruth for sure. When it comes to pure draftsmanship Dave McKean, Duncan Fegredo and Danijel Zezelj are just the pinnacle of what can be done with human hands

Once a client has handed off an illustration job to you, how do you first tackle the job? Could you give us a quick overview of your process.?

The first step is always research; what era is it, what type of clothes, props, environments am I going to need? I usually collect a ton of research and maybe use 5% of it but I have it and it helps me wrap my brain around the idea. Then thumbnail sketches — these are usually so loose I have to write a paragraph to them to the client if I’m sending them. I’m really just working out composition at this stage – camera angles, lights and darks, etc. Once we decide on a composition sometimes I’ll do a tighter sketch but most of the time I go right to shooting photo reference if I need it. I’ll do a tighter drawing to size on marker paper or vellum using the flair and then light box that up to finish inking. I’ll scan everything into the computer maybe scan some extra textures or old bits of paintings I have laying around and then get to work on doing grayscale toning or coloring.

What’s currently sitting in your mp3 / CD player / turntable?

I have to listen to music when I’m working and I have a lot of different tastes so it can be anything from Saul Williams to Sigur Ros, from Meshuggah to Andrew Bird. You’ll usually catch me screaming along with whatever it is. It helps me get into the zone. As I’ve been working on The Roberts I’ve been listening to a lot of Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s Murder Ballads – it seems very appropriate. I’d say my top ten as of today (because it changes daily) would be:

Ours – Dancing for the Death of an Imaginary Enemy
Nine Inch Nails – The Slip
Interpol – Our Love to Admire
Saul Williams – The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust
The Violet Burning – The Violet Burning
Jellyfish – Bellybutton
Nick Cave – Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Mew – And the Glass Handed Kites
Imogen Heap – Speak for yourself
Def Harmonic – All These Worldz
Jon Brion — Meaningless

What’s hanging on your walls and what is your favorite piece of art that you own (not created by you)?

I have a bunch of original art up on the walls of my studio and in a glance around the room I can see Jae Lee, Lee Bermejo, Greg Ruth, Bill Sienkiewicz, Geoff Darrow, Tony Harris, Guy Davis, Ashley Wood, Shelton Bryant, Dave Crosland, dwellephant, Phil Noto, Al Columbia, Michael Zulli, Adi Granov, and Therese Nielsen. Just being surrounded by that level of work is like a religious experience. It can be tough on those days when you’re fighting with your own illustrations and you look around and see these masterpieces though. Probably my favorite is a Lee Bermejo piece from Global Frequency although it’s hard to choose. I’d kill a small child for a Dave McKean page from Cages. One day… I mean one day I’ll have a McKean not that one day I’ll kill a small child.

Last novel you read and last movie that you saw (that you’d recommend)?
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do much reading recently I love Jonathan Carroll though and I’m a couple books behind on his stuff. Last good book I read was probably World War Z. Last movie was Wanted which was fun – not as good as the comic – but fun.

Current and upcoming projects.

Right now I’m finishing up issue two of The Roberts, which is being published by Image/Shadowline. It’s about The Zodiac Killer and The Boston Strangler living in the same retirement home and it’s written by Wayne Chinsang (Heaven LLC, Bad Ideas). Issue 1 is out Aug 6th and issue 2 is out in September. I have several pieces in some White Wolf books that should be out soon. After the Roberts wraps I’m doing a horror story called The Pieces of Meat by Sam Costello for Split Lip web comics. I’m in talks to do a fill in issue for Vincent Price Presents and then I have a couple pitches for books that I’m writing and drawing so I’m excited to see where that goes.

What would you tell an aspiring artist who is working his ass off but still needs and wants to break through to the next level?

You have to love it and live for this because if it’s just about a paycheck there are much easier ways to get one. I would say do want you want to do because it makes you happy. Don’t do work because you think someone else may like it do what feels right to you. People will either get on board or they won’t but at the end of the day you’re the only one who needs to love it. Just keep at it, find your weaknesses and work on them. That way at the end of it all you’ll have no regrets and no compromises just work that you are proud of.

Previous Masters of Ink:
Tony Moore
Chris Weston
Jim Blanchard
Nathan Fox
Tom Denney
Richard Serrao
Dan Mumford
Ryan Jones
Rufus Dayglo
Kody Chamberlain

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Masters of Ink #10 - Tony Moore answers 12 questions

July 11, 2008

Over the last few months we spoke with an incredible line-up of comic creators, poster artists and illustrators. Here’s one of the twelve interviews.

By Richard Serrao & Jason Thibault
12 Questions with Tony Moore

Tony Moore first came to my attention as a comic book artist during the first year of The Walking Dead. Richard sent me over a few copies in the mail to check out and I was immediately taken with Tony’s style. He drew the first 6 issues and stayed on as the cover artist through issue 24. He has made his mark as serious creator of genre works and has continued on with The Exterminators (with Simon Oliver) and Fear Agent (with Rick Remender).

First professional work (piece / year) and maybe a quick story behind it.

I don’t know if you can call it “professional” but my first book was Battle Pope, which Robert Kirkman and I released in 2000, under our independent label Funk-O-tron. We’d been friends since we were 12, which at that point had been about 8 years. He had some ideas and wanted to try publishing and he gave me a call. I was finishing my freshman year of art school and was down to try anything. It was a learning experience, and led to the job which allowed to quit my day job at UPS, which was Masters of the Universe’s Icons of Evil:
Beastman, a one-shot featuring the He-man villain.

Self-taught or formally educated? (or mixture of both, mentors etc…)

Much of what I know about comics was from obsessively reading and studying them. as far as comics illustration goes, I’d say I’m self-taught. But, I did go to art school, where I majored in Drawing and endeavored to learn as much about fine art as I could. I took a lot of Life Drawing classes, as well as Painting and Printmaking. I think I learned a lot, most of which translated into some insight into drawing comics in one way or another, if not directly.

Tools of the trade: Taking a quick glance over at your pens, brushes etc…what tools have you mainly been using over the last few years?

My standbys are Pilot v7 pens, Micron pigment liners (sizes 005, 01, 03), and round sable watercolor brushes. I used to buy small brushes, like size 0 or 2, but I recently fell in love with this ratty cheap size 8 brush. It’s giant and ugly, but it holds a load of ink, and has a miraculously fine point, which allows me to do a ton of work with it. Also, I like those Sharpie white poster paint pens for small corrections and negative drawing.

Favorite brand of ink:

Yasutomo & Co Sumi ink. Doesn’t appear to have shellac in it, so it’s easy to work with and washes out of my brushes if I carelessly forget to wash them.

Type of paper:

Strathmore 500 2 ply. All rag content, holds up to some abuse, and I can run it through my printer.

Which artists or creators do you return to for a quick boost of inspiration? Who are the masters of ink?

I keep a lot of EC comics around. Jack Davis, Wally Wood, John Severin, Will Elder.. those guys are my heroes. I also keep Joe Kubert, Moebius, Robert Crumb, and Guarnido nearby, as well. All these guys draw their asses off and have been a pretty definite influence on how I draw.

Once a client has handed off an illustration job to you, how do you first tackle the job. Could you give us a quick overview of your process?

I read the script and break down the pages at 2” x 3”. Working this small allows me to focus on the storytelling and not get hung up in needless details. Then I scan those, and add gutter spacing and resize panels where needed, composing my final layout in Photoshop, where I print it out in 6% Cyan at 10” x 15”. Then, I lay in some loose pencils to get started and start inking. I do a lot of the drawing work in ink, and rarely do a lot of tight penciling beforehand. Sometimes I’ll have someone else inking me, in which case I spend quite a bit of time penciling all the details in instead of inking it. This usually only saves me a couple of hours, but a couple hours on each page and 22 pages per book, sometimes it adds up to quite a bit of time saved. Then, finally, I scan the pages, and in the cases where I have an inker, I mail them off to have the book finished.

What’s currently sitting in your mp3 / CD player / turntable?

A lot. I listen to music all day every day. I really love honkytonk, outlaw country, and alt-country. A lot of today’s new stuff has gotten so pop, it’s just soft-rock garbage. Country’s a natural fit for me, because it’s storytelling. Johnny Cash, Shel Silverstein, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle, Neko Case, Gram Parsons, Southern Culture on the Skids, Buck Owens, Allison Krauss, Flatt and Scruggs, and all 3 Hank Williams, just to name a few. That’s not to say I don’t mix it up. I love the guys on the Rhymesayers label, and have a big collection of Norwegian black metal. Two of my all-time favorite bands are They Might Be Giants and Queen. My random playlists sound like crazy person programmed them.

What’s hanging on your walls and what is your favorite piece of art that you own (not created by you)?

Surprisingly little hanging on my studio walls, actually, but my favorite piece of artwork I own is the original painting of Fear Agent done by my hero, Jack Davis. The guy is 82 and still doesn’t miss a beat. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and to have an original EC comics master draw my character is a career high. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get any better than that.

Last novel you read and last movie that you saw (that you’d recommend)?

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the last novel I read. typically if I’m awake enough to read and comprehend, I figure I should be using the energy to work. The last book I read on a whim was The Stranger by Camus, and it was years ago. I bought The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard, and never got more than a handful of pages into it. The last movie I watched was High Plains Drifter, which is a load of awesome. The last new movie I watched was probably No Country For Old Men, which I also enjoyed greatly.

Current and upcoming projects.

Right now, I’m working on Fear Agent: I Against I, which is a 6 issue arc of space western madness on the book I co-created with Rick Remender. Beyond that, nothing is set in stone, but I have talked to some editors about some potentially tasty projects.

What would you tell an aspiring artist who is working his ass off but still needs and wants to break through to the next level?

Keep at it and chase the dream. Always be studious and working to improve yourself. When you’re complacent, you’re dead. Working in comics is kinda like that fight scene in Cool Hand Luke, where Newman gets the hell beaten out of him but won’t stay down. If, like me, you’re too dumb to stay down, then don’t compromise, either. You only get one go-round on this ride, so make it a ride worth taking. Also, don’t mistake working on a “big” book or that “next level” for an
answer to happiness. A lot of guys find that these dream books that look like an oasis on the horizon are actually just mirages, slaving away on someone else’s book with no control or stake in it to show for it. If it ain’t what you want to do, then figure out what makes you happy and go do it, because you never know when your time is up, and if you put off your own happiness, you might never get the chance to pursue it.