FEEDING GROUND #6 _ Pin-Ups!

Today, after 2+ years of gestation and creation, the sixth and final issue of FEEDING GROUND goes on sale.  Along the way, we've had the great boon of meeting so many other talented comic people, some of whom were cool enough to contribute art based on our creation.  Pin-ups and articles can be found throughout the mini-series (5, 4, 3) and the floppy comics are the only way you'll be able to read/collect the story as a bi-lingual English/Spanish flip book.

Here's a look at some of the art and artists in this issue.

TIM HAMILTON http://hamilton-tim.pair.com/CUTBLEED/

I first discovered Tim's artwork hanging on the walls of Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn; inked pages for his creator-owned work ADVENTURES OF THE FLOATING ELEPHANT and I was glued to them. Tim's inks are a daunting play of light and dark and he's equally adept at noodling gag strips as he is at lush illustrations.  Even his warm up sketches on Drawbridge so more smarts and style than many finished pieces.

NOTE: It was also Tim who suggested that I start a blog in the first place.

JAVIER HERNANDEZ http://javiersblog.blogspot.com/
Javier is one of those creators that I was able to meet due to the book.  Creator of El Muerto and Weapon Tex Mex, Javier is a comic creator and entrepreneur whose works have the crackling innovation and energy of the Silver Age.  He also co-founded the first annual Latino Comics Expo this year.

GB TRAN http://gbtran.blogspot.com/
GB and I met years back through mutual friends and he was one of a few guys who I knew to be doing comics for real and who inspired me to give it a shot myself.  An accomplished illustrator, designer, and cartoonist, GB's talents and voice all came together in his beautifully observed and rendered autobiographical graphic novel VIETNAMERICA. For FEEDING GROUND, he went much lighter and actually contributed the one humorous pin-up for the book and we're glad to have him close things out.  Bonus: HERE are his process pics for the illustration.

And, double bonus, here's a rough pin-up/ cover concept by yours truly that never found its way into the series.

FEEDING GROUND _ Grassy Ass (Gracias)

FEEDING GROUND #1 is officially in stores and I wanted the chance to acknowledge some people whose inspiration, talent, and support helped make this possible.

We've included a THANK YOU section at the back of the book. You can read the whole thing here, but this is my portion below:

As a group, we benefited greatly from the insight and
experience of Thomas Peyton, the counsel of Suzana
Carlos, and the encouragement and camaraderie of artist
Juan Doe. Great thanks to everyone at Archaia not only
for taking a chance on us, but also offering advice and
support that recognized what we were doing and then
made it stronger.

MICHAEL LAPINSKI would like to thank the following
people: Cartoonists Rick Ritter, Mike Dawson, GB Tran and
the guys of MAMMAL, their art and dedication convinced
me to get back into making comics. Paul Zdanowicz,
horror guru and Lapinski-booster with a keen critical eye.
Klaus Janson, whose professional instruction came just at
the right time to bring structure and rules to what I had
been discovering on the page. Brian Michael Bendis for
providing the Jinxworld message board and its posters for
keeping me company in the solitude of my man cave. To
my parents and family, whose generous affection has
always allowed me to thrive. And, to Lindsay, thanks for
adding sweetness to my life and for riding this wolf with
me to Bayonne and beyond.

Additionally, I was remiss not to include John Siuntres and his Word Balloon podcast. His extensive and candid interviews with comic book professionals is the comic creator equivalent of a director's commentary on a DVD. This past year has been "comic book college" for me and John's podcast and the gracious information offered by guests provided me with the context to appreciate the craft, business, lifestyle, and shared enthusiasm of the comic industry.

Big thanks to everyone we've met since starting down this path and to my co-conspirators Swifty Lang and Chris Mangun, buds and creative partners who've shared in every step.

And, here's a handy link on where you can find the series. I'm inking Issue 4 (of 6) and will post something crafty in my next blog post.

COMIC COLORING 03 _ Process

On the topic of "Narrative Color" be sure to check out this post on cartoonist GB Tran's blog. It's the master palettes for his upcoming book Vietnamerica and I think they do an excellent job in evoking much more than local color or resorting to sepia tones for flashbacks/ memories. And go on and peek at more of the posted pages, it's going to be something special.

In this post, I'll show a page taken through the color stage. It's not a full-on tutorial and I'll definitely answer any questions it raises. For the particulars of digital coloring and the history of comic coloring in general, I found DC Comics' art director Mark Chiarello's section of DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics to be a useful resource. Otherwise, I hope readers can speak to the effectiveness of my process and comment on the results. As an additive process, there's always the fear that I've overdone it or undermined the initial integrity of the page.

Here goes:

INKS
Establish the positive and negative shapes on the page in a way that frames the action and leads the eye from panel to panel. In this book I'm looking to tie the negatives of the gutter to the negative of the panel where appropriate rather than automatically wall off all of the art in bounding boxes.

TONE
Building off of the blacks to define the light source and continue to delineate details and space. I want the boot to look like printed material and feel fairly flat while maintaining some sense of form. Not always an easy compromise, especially at different times of day and with different light sources. Realism is a challenge of skill but creating a consistent unique style is a highwire act. I sometimes wish I gone more stylized overall.

FLATS/ UNDERPAINTING
Here's a process pic where I start to establish the color relationships of the page in broad strokes. The center panel is the "hottest" moment on the page and the bar I'm working from in finishing the other panels. You can also see where I start to shift the tone layers to a hue (here a purple) and choose the base ink color in place of the black.


FINISHES/ EFFECTS
I come from more of a Photoshop-based digital art background as opposed to a traditional painting or drawing skill set. My goal is to use Photoshop blending layers to create a digital print, creating happy accidents and layers of treatment to keep the color alive and give the page a degree of raw spontaneity.


So, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'm already concerned/ looking forward to seeing how this prints on professional printers and high grade paper. How will this "feel" on glossy stock? If it was possible to print with oversaturated colors on old newsprint I would have. I hope that I've been able to arrive at a compromise that feels fresh to modern readers.

COMIC PAGES 01_ Love at First Bite

I've been reading comics since 1982 (after seeing a commercial for Marvel's GI Joe comic) and published comics and strips throughout my college years at Rutgers University but my return to creating comics began in full after catching up with friends and comic creators at NYC Comic Con 2008.

Mike Dawson, GB Tran, and the guys of Mammal had been producing such accomplished and personal work that I made a pact with myself to return in 2009 as a fellow creator.

There was a forced hiatus of the show I had been working on and it gave me the time I needed to partner with friends on developing a horror story that would become our first graphic novel. With a killer concept by Jonathan "Swifty" Lang, book design by Christopher Mangun, and art by me, we assembled a pitch comic to present our work to prospective publishers. It worked and we're now in the process of making pages.

The pitch consisted of a synopsis page, character bios, map, 5 pages of comics, covers, and the first full script. Chris also did an incredible job incorporating my art into headers and endpapers. Here are my sample pages from the pitch (sans text).

(NOTE: The colors are posting a little hotter than intended. They were jacked up in the CMYK to RGB conversion)