Argentinian Western Cartoonists of Note

I recently discovered two Argentinian cartoonists referenced in an interview of Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, a Spanish born artist raised in Argentina who drew many favorite U.S. superhero comics from my childhood. These artists were early influences on Lopez, and Lopez deserves a post of his own, but here is some work from Victor De La Fuente and Carlos Roume.

Here's Victor De La Fuente's Lambiek entry.

And Here are some sample of his work:

And here's an obituary for Carlos Roume in the Comics Reporter with some details from his professional life.

And some samples: 

Figure Study on Toned Paper

Yesterday we had a full session pose and so I wanted to try something on a little nicer paper. Someone gave me a sheet of toned charcoal paper and I worked in pencil with white conte highlights. I hadn't worked that way in many years, and it's not a way that I feel too terribly comfortable working, but aside from a few nitpicks,  I don't think it came out half bad. This was a pose based on Michelangelo, a figure from the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

And for comparison:

Though I think Michelangelo might be one up on me on this one.

Two Pirate Kids in a Boat

Thanks everyone for yesterday's birthday wishes, I a good birthday, had cake, and now I have to get back to work! So here's some more pirate kids from my work in progress:

A lot more to resolve yet, but I'm getting closer to inks on my mini self-promo wordless pirate kid book!

Happy Birthday to Me! More Pirate Kids!

So my desktop computer has been out of commission for nearly a week, so I haven't had access to photoshop, and so haven't had the opportunity to post. I'll try to make up for it in what little remains of the month. Here are some more pirate kids from my tiny handmade book in progress:

Happy Birthday to Me!


Today I'm entering the twilight of my 30s at the ripe age of 39! How did that happen? It would seem that I share a birthday with Amelia Earhart. Here's me and Amelia in one of our finer hours:

The Pirate Kids Do Battle!

More pirate kids for my little 32 page handmade wordless book. This one going to go out to publishers, but I'm working on a way to offer a much cheaper version to everyone else. Right now It's just in the sketch phase, but I'm just starting to figure out my compositions, so it won't be too long. I'm having a great time with this one!

Another Pirate Kid

Another pirate kid sketch. This one without much bother to erase the construction lines, so its a bit messy.

Another Pirate Girl

Another pirate girl drawing for my wordless handmade book in progress...

New Pirate Kid and Dogs!

So here's another pirate kid sketches with some random dog

poses. Enjoy!

Last Night's Figures

So these are from last night's figure session. The first is an hour pose, and then I gave it another hour of rendering at home.The second is a 5 minute pose, and the last is a 10 minute pose.

Yet More Pirate Kids

So here are some pirate kids and a pirate dog for the hand bound, wordless self-promotional book I'm in the process of making. One more figure to go, and then backgrounds! Oh, and inking and coloring and binding and pfew...

Another Pirate Kid

Another pirate kid. Many, many more to come. 

Pirate Kid sketch

A figure for  a modest self-promotional project, what will hopefully end up as a little hand bound, 32 page wordless book. I've been drawing a lot lately, just not posting, which I should probably do. I'm doing all the figures first, then the backgrounds, since figures are always the hardest part for me. So right now it's just figures, figures, figures, and about three more to go of 30+ before I ink the whole mess. Lots of sequential action in this. Having a great time! Will post more...

Water study

This water was intended for the little girl in the previous post, but the composition never quite came together. Still, I'm happy with the individual elements, such as the water here: 

Girl Reading

Comics and Language: or Why Comics are Completely and Totally Awesome

Generally, people don't tend to fully understand the medium and how it works even when they've read a bunch of comics over their lifetime. People often are looking for the quality of the draftsmanship and general story as a judge of the quality of the strip, without understanding what comics do best and how they do it. I've seen a lot of well drawn comics that work lousy as comics, and some comics that are well drawn, but not in the sense of traditional draftsmanship.

For example: Peanuts is well drawn, in that Schulz uses his cartoon language in a very deliberate and meaningful way. It didn't just come out that way because he couldn't draw a guy with a normal-sized head. He's able to communicate on an emotional level with the simplest of symbols, and make every dot and squiggle count. This is why looking at the individual drawings doesn't give you a sense of what he's achieved. If you've never seen Charlie Brown before, a single drawing of Charlie Brown doesn't have much emotional content. But over the course of the strip, Charlie Brown becomes undeniably Charlie Brown. There's no separating the drawing from his personality in your mind, and the transmission of the information is instant.

Superman is less effective, because of all the various interpretations of the character, but still, that distinctive costume and it's associations also have some instant emotional content, but it's less specific than Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown is like a letter in an very specific alphabet. Even more so than a written word. As you read the strip, you learn the language of Charlie Brown, and the more you read the strip the more that language is enriched for you. The drawing itself begins to carry more meaning as you read the story over time. Not just the characters, but the sofas, and footballs and birdhouses. While traditional language can become enriched by your understanding of it over time, no symbol or character outside of cartooning can contain that kind of history and richness on its own. Pictographic language like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics can, but that, in its way, is comics! Really, any book that can't be read and understood without the pictures is essentially comics, which includes many kinds of picture books. Even drawn instructions in instruction manuals use the same principal.

So that's one of the reasons that comics are completely and totally awesome! Comics as a language has enriched my understanding of language in general. And the universality of the language is also pretty fascinating. Someone from an Asian country can make a wordless comic that, aside from very specific cultural references, I can essentially understand There's no other language like that in the world. But pictures in general are still cultural and have different cultural significance in themselves, and aboriginal cultures not exposed to these kind of pictures might not be able to interpret them.

Also different cultures have different pictorial histories, so just the shape of a Schulz football and how the marks are made, aside from its footballness, are a reference to our culture because of the way we make marks, and the history behind how we make those marks. Take another culture's specific pictorial vocabulary and its origins, say, Japanese woodblock printing and Kanji, that give Japanese comics their own vocabulary that is uniquely understood in a different way by Japanese than by us because of the style of mark making itself and how Japanese people are immersed in their own culture from birth. But you still have some universal symbols, like the way babies can understand a smiley face, that I imagine even aboriginal cultures would get.

This is why I'm completely and totally fascinated by the medium and find it hard to understand why everyone isn't! It's why I'm attracted to even the crappiest comics (aside from the fact that I just like superheroes and rocket ships), because there's always something to discover in how the artist uses symbols, because an artist can't help but draw in their own unique symbol vocabulary. 

Ladybug and Gentleman Beetle on Red Fox!

I'm very excited to be introducing my new Early reader book, Ladybug and Gentleman Beetle for the first time on the Red Fox Literary site. As per my agent Abigail Samoun’s wishes while she's away, I posted my first blog post today about my new work in progress, “Ladybug and Gentleman Beetle” on the Red Fox Literary blog. Abigail and I worked together extensively on the manuscript and she helped me polish up the blog post so it was just perfect, so I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please tweet and repost to help me get the word out! the link is http://redfoxliterary.blogspot.com/2012/06/ladybug-and-gentleman-beetle.htmland of course the Red Fox Literary site, http://redfoxliterary.com And congratulations of Abigail’s new baby!

Dancing Queen

Another series of images inspired by my new model, Ella. Ella was kind enough to dance for me, and I got some great photos that captured her in action.

Another Ballerina

Another dancer sketch for a work in progress, another great Ella pose!

Ballerina

Here's a sketch for another sequential action piece in progress, using my favorite model, Ella! Even though she was a little out of practice, Ella put on tutu and danced for me, and I took some really great photos to work from.

The next day her mother e-mailed me to tell me that Ella had a play date with two little boys, and so I gave them a foam rubber sword and axe I got at the dollar bin at Target, and the three of them became pirates! So lots more to come.

New Wednesday Figure

Here's a new figure study done last night. I added some tones and rendered it up a little more this morning, since the original study was just a little less than an hour. I tried to get as much info as I could to elaborate. There's only so much you can get in an hour, and I'm not typically a fast worker, but I'm pretty happy with this one.