Sketchbook: "Arctic Kangaroos" + "a-KRILL-ic"

A couple recent panels that were publish under the Nuggets banner but instead of the usual meticulous craftsmanship and painstaking attention to detailed process readers have come to expect, they were just simply scanned straight from the pages of the omnipresent sketchbook. It's an occasional series that is relatively rare, and illustrates a much more spontaneous, organic and raw variation on the normal series. Okay maybe my repository of material was running dry and I needed to fluff out the monthly packet of submissions so as to get a little breathing room. 

"AK Surgeons: Hair of the Dog"

I gave up many years ago, the battle was lost, and kitty hair has now overrun everything. It's been a long-running tradition of mine to always do any serious framing somewhere else, as that is the one last area the line must be drawn.

"Togo"

Balto has made an appearance here before in an editorial capacity, so I had at least some of the background on the historical character (haven't seen the movie).  

Whilst photocopying the doodle from my sketchbook - sometimes I have a secondary set selected from a current sketchbook to show in the classroom for a demo - someone commented that they were "Team Togo." How have I made it this far without knowing about him (or his movie either)?

"The Otter Family"

 

This made for a perfect demo panel to illustrate the technique of scumbling for the pen and ink portion of a drawing class. Or maybe it was a cartooning class. Or perhaps the Pen & Ink class...

A canny eye can recall one of the doodles on my sick-sack from last summer was this idea, drawn on the return flight after the gag cartooning workshop in Vermont.

"Roarshack"

I think that this is the first-ever interactive cartoon I've ever drawn. At the very least dear readers will make mental connections, as is often the case while staring out over the windswept frozen tundra yard. 

"Silent P"

This particular panel is a perfect specimen to show not only my preferred palette, but showcases the importance of doing a doodle beforehand so as to keep that mental Jacob's Ladder of ideas turning over and over. In other words work it out first in the ol' sketchbook.

"Tattoo: What's Underneath"

As a college art professor I am always seeing every conceivable style of not just art but attire and appearance. Shaved heads and skin art notwithstanding (both of which I'd undergone a very long time ago), I am also reminded every time pen or pencil touches paper how much there will always be left to learn. From mistakes and from experience: that's what makes this such a uniquely human activity, one that will never be replicated any other way.

This is one of the few times I've been somewhat happier than most about how the watercolored wash looks as compared to the digitally colored print version. As in both are okay, especially the Photoshop one, which means I'm maybe getting somewhere with my palettes finally reaching the aesthetics I envision. Now back to the proverbial drawing board.

I always recommend to my students one of the practical advantages behind maintaining a sketchbook: not only does it document your though process at the conceptual stage (and serving as a reminder since I always forget ideas unless I jot them down)it's also the time and the place to make mistakes, so as to take advantage of any experiments before committing to the cartoon.

PS: Oh and this concludes our month-long series of grizzly bear themed posts... never fear there'll be plenty more ambling by eventually.

Woman Inkers

A recent post in a private FB group about comics (formally Cartoonist Kayfabe Ringside Seats – incidentally the only forum I still read as a member as they don’t put up with the usual shit by tiresome trolls that infect 90% of comic fan groups), makes a subtle point with a self-own about the pervasive nature of misogyny in the industry, and by extension the patriarchal systems in society in general. Fifty-three comments and the overlooked irony being how many women chimed in (hint: none). But whenever you point a finger there are three pointing back: speaking personally, self-reflection and awareness is a real challenge – it can be humbling if not painful. And there’s no better example of this in action than an insight after last year’s inaugural Pen & Ink studio art course I taught.

A couple random posts (images above) triggered some critical commentary in that there’s something missing in this lineup. It recalls the monumental shift brought about in part by postmodernism whereas before, if you read most art history books, you wouldn’t be wrong to walk away with the impression that, well, guess women just don’t make art. Same selective gatekeeping seen in ComicsGate, GamerGate et al; the whining from the old guard is the last vocal gasp of a changing paradigm. But almost at the very end of the semester to my chagrin I realized that I was guilty of the same omission: every single artist spotlit for examples of various techniques (stippling, cross-hatching, spot blacks etc) was male, and overwhelmingly caucasion.

Jackie Ormes (link)

A while back I did another search of "Top" lists, and here's the receipts: The top list in 2018 from Comic Book Resources 2018: Top 100 Comic Book Writers and Artists Master List from Comic Book Resources has only one woman writer represented out of fifty, and one woman artist out of  a field of fifty men; Atlas Comics' 100 Greatest American Comic Book Artists has zero women; The 25 greatest comic book artists from the last 25 years (2019) according to SyFy.com, has three women outta one hundred; Also three women out of one-hundred for The Comic Journal's Top 100 Comics of the 20th Century; one out of the 100 Greatest Comic Books - Comic Book Runs - Single Issue Comics & Graphic Novels of All Time from When It Was Cool; and lastly, Comic Vine's GameSpot has two on a top one-hundred. I mean come on… it’s just embarrassing. Theatre, music, poetry, literature, and hell, bad as it still is, even Fine Art is far, far better. It’s one thing to ignore half of the population as a potential market, but the moronic content takes it to another, even lower, level.

Pen + Ink/Examples: Bernie Wrightson, Maurice Sendak , Bill Waterson, Walt Kelly, Jack “King” Kirby, Jeff Smith, Edward Gorey, Frank Frazetta, Jim Woodring, Ed Koren, Mike Mignola , Robert Crumb, Charles Burns, Frank Miller, Ralph Steadman, Winsor McCay, Joe Sacco, Alootook Ipellie, and B. Kliban of course. 

Now, to clarify, each and every one of these artists is certainly more than qualified to serve as examples of pen + ink texture techniques, but collectively it sends another subliminal message of exclusion. So a new show & tell came about, featuring these creators who have works culled from the rolling cart of comics that is set up in every Beginning Drawing (and Cartoon & Comic Arts natch) class that I teach. *update: Tessa Hulls has her own little slide-show now btw.

Updated roster: Alison Bechdel, Amanda Conner, Emil Ferris, Fiona Staples, Sana Takeda, Marjane Satrapi, Wendy Pini, and a creator that I recently got turned onto, Howard Cruse.

I’m happy to say the physical buffet I set has been steadily inching towards a far better balance of creators – I just hadn’t yet gotten around to consciously focusing on making show & tells specifically highlighting women inkers. I got to show right off the bat the new set of slides for the second time around teaching the class. Oh noes, hope this never reaches the attention of Charlie Kirk’s infamous fascistic organization of censorship and intimidation, because this some woke shit, in the traditional, actual sense. 

PS: Here's a couple of groups that are good resources well worth some solid support: The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (and accompanying title) + Prism Comics.

"Readers Digest"

In all seriousness, reading endless copies of Reader's Digest (submission link here) between all the bathrooms and waiting rooms and reception areas I've sat around in for all of my life has probably been more of a bigger influence in my career as a (primarily) single-panel gag cartoonist, at least as much as the ubiquitous copies of my mom's New Yorkers & Funny Times. Also, for those of our viwers keeping score along with us at home, this makes number three of a month-long series of grizzly-bear themed material.

"The Question"

This actually was the semi-annual Valentine's Day themed panel, as it evokes such tenderness and heartfelt emotions, I can barely contain myself. Backlinks to previous posts here, here, here, and here, also here and here as well. Here too.