Jim Lee Tutorials

I am guilty of having paid very little attention to Jim Lee and his contribution to the world of Comic Books.

At least, since the early Nineties and the first few issues of his Wildcats, as Image Comics burst onto the scene.

In the intervening years, I did occasionally pick up some series that he worked on but the "shine had gone off the gingerbread", for me and while I appreciated his ability to turn out good looking comic books, I was no longer drawn to his artwork.

Then, on the advice of a friend, I searched out some videos, on Youtube, where Jim explains how he draws things and I was enthralled by his easy manner and his "down to earth" approach to making comic book art.

It was a revelation!

Nothing, I hasten to say, that he says, in the course of his tutorials, all filmed, over several years, at the San Diego Comic Con, is in any way, revolutionary or magical and that is what is GREAT!

I have been teaching myself to cartoon for almost as long as I can recall, not always successfully but I found several valuable gems of information in his explanations.

After fifty years of buying How to Draw books and studying the works of the professionals in the business, I was amazed to learn new and easily applied techniques, that immediately improved my drawings.

It was interesting to discover that one of his earliest sources on how to improve his drawing skills, came from the books of George Bridgeman.

There are several books, about drawing individual parts of the human figure and at least one compiled edition.  Bridgeman died in 1943, after a long career as an art teacher and while the images now look a little bit dated, the information is still first rate.

So, thank you, Jim Lee, for sharing your hard won knowledge with me and the rest of the world.

Dave Gibbons & How Comics Work

A new book arrived at The Labyrinth, here in Toronto, last Wednesday and it was one that I had been looking forward to checking out.

Dave Gibbons is an artist, who's work I have grown up with and I was eager to see what gems of information, he was going to impart.

Comic books and the techniques that make the cartoons on their pages, read like mini movies, are catnip to me.

On the plus side, the book turned out to be a very lucid look at all of the techniques employed by a comic book artist 

BUT

it was all rather flat and rather shallow.

Granted, that a book on the subject, that covered every aspect of cartooning, would be huge and quite possibly too deep for the average student in the class

BUT

I would have loved to have seen a few in-depth tutorials, where Dave Gibbons walked us through his approach to designing pages and panels.

I am not trying to run the book down, or say that it isn't worth the money that I paid for it, I am just giving my opinion on it.  I have most of the "How to Make Comic Books" books, that have been published over the years and they all have valuable things to teach a willing student.

Way back, in the mid-Seventies, Dave Gibbons contributed this cover to Dez Skinn's Fantasy Advertiser International #54

It has been a long and illustrious career, during which, Dave has made his own, significant, contribution to the medium and I salute him, whole heartedly, for all his hard work and the way it has enriched my life.