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.

Chris Baker Memories

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, 

there was a Science Fiction bookshop called Andromeda 

and it was a hub, mainly because of Dave Holmes but 

not entirely, for the local fans of the fantastic.

One of those fans, was the young and very talented, 

Chris Baker, who quickly took to signing his artwork

as Fangorn.

One of the things that he turned his hand to, 

while he was attending Bournville Art College,

was etching, on thin metal sheets, that were covered with a layer of black paint.

The one example, that I remember well, was a copy 

of this beautiful painting, by Bernie Wrightson.

I wish that I had a copy, of Chris' copy, 

to share but as far as I know, it is probably still 

in a pile of Dave Holmes old stuff and 

is lost to the world.

Mister Baker, went on to have a successful career, as an illustrator and then later, as a designer/storyboard artist, 

working on some major Hollywood films.

Congratulations, Chris, you made your dreams come true.  

Old Silver Snail & Brian Morton

I ran across this scan of an old newspaper photograph,

which shows the very much younger, Brian Morton.

If I am guessing correctly,

because there was not any date, associated with the image,

it was taken after 1985 and before 1989.

He really hasn't changed a lot, over the years, 

he just thickened up a bit and these days, 

except that he has more hair, 

he always makes me feel as though I am in the presence of 

"The Kingpin",

of Marvel Comics fame.

On a different topic, I had forgotten about the old checkerboard, black an white tiled floors, that were a part of the Silver Snail's ambience! 

What I wouldn't give, for the chance to go back to when the photograph was taken and change a few decisions! LOL

Silver Snail Hamilton Opening

Here is an advert, rediscovered in the centre pages of Bill Marks flagship publication, Vortex, number four.

Vortex #4, is dated for July of 1983,

so that is as close as I am likely to get, to the moment of the Hamilton location's birth.

The years have sort of mashed everything together, in my head and I wouldn't have been able to say exactly when Ron opened the Hamilton branch of the Snail.  It came as a surprise, when I realized that it fell in the same year as the move of the Toronto store, from 323 to 367 Queen Street West.

At that time, Andromeda, the distribution side of Ron's small empire, was beginning to make more money than the Silver Snail was and Ron had moved into a CEO role, over both companies, with Mark Askwith becoming the manager of the Toronto store.

Ken Steacy did a beautiful job of designing the mascot, eventually christened "Bobo", by Rob Walton, and the image in the lower right corner of the advert, was, in my opinion, one of the best ever used on the store's bags.

Only one more thing to add.

The original painting, by Paul Rivoche, that is shown on the left hand side of the advert, was hanging in the cafe section of the New Silver Snail and I had made a gentle enquiry, over a year ago, as to whether the new owners were interested in selling it.

They never did get back to me and I noticed, two weeks ago, that the space on the wall, where it had once hung, was now vacant.  I am guessing that either someone stole it, or that they received a more forceful offer and sold it.

Whatever.

Silver Snail 1979?

The other day,

while I was casting about on Facebook,

I ran across this photograph.

Tom Stormonth, Ron Van Leeuwen, Mark Askwith and Carlos Outside The Silver Snail at 323 Queen St West in 1979 by Robert Myres

Personally, I would take issue with Robert's memory about when this was taken.  If only for the fact, that I have no memory of Mark Askwith, in connection with the store, until after they moved to 

367 Queen Street West, in 1983.

That was when Mark became the manager and Ron, while still overseeing the store, ran Andromeda Publications, the distribution part of his empire.

So, to clarify my thoughts about the photograph, I am fairly sure that this was probably taken in late 1982 or early 1983.

Does anyone else have a better guess?

Incidentally, Ken Steacy, one of the original, "fan turned pro", frequenters of The Snail, had this to say about the location:

"Were we ever this young?  Right upstairs (above the store) was MARS & CO, a studio that was occupied by Dean Motter, John Allison, Paul Rivoche, Ken Steacy, Cullen and Oueltte.

At the time, we used a local courier service, called Rabbit and we loved to call them up, just to ask,

 "Can you send a Rabbit to MARS?"

We were all, so much younger then.  The days seemed longer and the future seemed brighter.

Sketches & Things

The image below, came as a surprise to me because I had never asked a simple question : where did Larry Mahlstedt

suddenly appear from, when he became Keith Giffen's

favourite inker?

The short answer is, that he was a student at the short lived John Buscema Art School.

It is interesting to see that while Bob Hall also got a showcase moment, on the page (from an issue of FOOM)

another name is missing...

Tim Sale!

Arguably, Tim Sale is probably the highest profile, comic book artist, to have attended the John Buscema Art School

and yet, he wasn't one of the selected few, for this page.

I am now going to indulge myself and add a couple of pages of my own doodles.

These are pretty typical of the type of thing that I do and I have covered a lot of paper in this way.

Just exactly what I am accomplishing, is a moot point and while there are a number of ideas and characters, that I return to, time and again, there is nothing remotely complete.

"Dead Guy", the one with a hole right through him, was an attempt at zombie humour and he has cropped up in my sketches, many times, as has the robotic nutcase "539",

who is seen here, teasing him.

On a different topic, a long time ago but not very far away, there was a comic shop, Beaver Comics, in Barrie, Ontario and it was run by a man who had a passion for Gene Day's art. 

I remember his display, at a convention in the early Eighties, where he was selling a lot of Gene Day originals, not long after Gene had died.

Anyway, I had looked for information about him and his old store because he too, had died, in the early Nineties.

I never had any luck and then, on an unrelated search, I found this:

and it made my day!

Finally, here is an unusual item from the mid-Seventies.

A Barry Smith, predating his addition of the "Windsor", 

and an unused cover for Marvel Comics, The Tomb of Dracula.