I meant this drawing to be a little more stylized, but the drawing had its own ideas.

(SPIDER-MAN copyright Marvel Comics. All rights reserved.)

]]> http://steveogden.com/blog/2011/11/spider-man/feed/ 5 http://steveogden.com/blog/2011/09/creaturebox/ http://steveogden.com/blog/2011/09/creaturebox/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:56:03 +0000 Og http://steveogden.com/blog/?p=2178

One of the guys at work pointed me at Creaturebox yesterday, and I spent a pleasant, inspired and pretty jealous half hour browsing through their site. Creaturebox is the home of two fantastic artists, Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin. They are really great character artists, and their designs are just pure fun to look at. They are the guys behind Ratchet and Clank, which I’ve always enjoyed.

Go check ‘em out when you have a small chunk of time to spend:

I also have a little comics section which is an embarrassment of riches of Creaturebox style and artistic flair. My favorite, I guess predictably, is Morton the Bad Luck Bot. How much do I love that!?

Scott Hallett is a full time web developer and part time comics creator. I’ve seen him developing a great style over the past few years and I was recently reminded how fun it is to look at his art at his blog. So I thought I’d share.

I love his dead-line ink work, part Mignola, with a good dose of Flight Anthology Artist-style Indie Aesthetic thrown in for good measure. He’s also developing a great color sense. His work has recently been featured in Fablewood and Popgun. He’s one to watch.

Enjoy!

If you have a webcomic and are trying to get more of the right kinds of readers (you know, people who actually come to your comic to read it, instead of the kinds of readers who are trolling the internet hoping for images of teh nakeds) or if you are a comics fan looking for the best webcomics (with or without images of teh nakeds) then you owe it to yourself to visit InkOutbreak. Join up, and if you have a comic, submit it. Join hundreds, if not thousands. Heck, even Moon Town is there!

Brian King and his Merry Band of Comics Addicted Wizards have created a portal that serves up your favorite comics with all the mind-reading magic of Pandora, and it can serve your comic up to a ton of fans, too.

…

Are you still here?

The subject of most of the article is Moore’s forthcoming new episodes of League, one set in 1969 (above) and one set in 2009. Since the last time we saw the League in all their Victorian finery, I would love to see what adventures await them in the next century, but of course Moore gives us a glimpse into what he’s writing in the graphic novel he’s building toward, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century.

By the time you get to 2009, I think there will be little disguising of the fact that [artist Kevin O'Neill] and I are perhaps not that fond of the current era and its culture. We’re informed about it, so yes there are tons of references as you might expect. But in looking over the three books, readers are going to see a contraction of culture into a much more mean, starved and possibly diminished state than when we started Century in a great blaze of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. I think that will be one of the most striking things about Century, once you can read it straight through.

One of the best things about Moore is that he has a point of view, and a sense of humor, and both come through his writing (though not always at the same time, which may be the worst thing about his writing).

Still, I’m a fan, and I will eagerly devour Century as it comes out.

I am honored and somewhat surprised to announce that Moon Town has been named by Baltimore Magazine as the Best Online Graphic Novel in their annual Best of Baltimore issue. The magazine is on newsstands and available for your iPod and other eReaders right now, and it appears you will need to purchase the issue in order to see the entire list of 280 restaurants, businesses and artsy things that have been selected as the Best this year.

Shameless Plug: Moon Town books are still available from WishTales Publishing while supplies last!

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting the next installment of Moon Town, this was just the kind of shot in the arm I needed, so stay tuned for more Moon Town resuming this week!

Thank you, Baltimore!

Evan Dahm, the amazingly prolific artist behind Riceboy, Order of Tales, and Vattu, recently weighed in on the value of webcomics… GOOD webcomics, that is, in this article.

He begins simply enough:

A medium gains legitimacy and respect when people making work in that medium legitimize and respect it.

He lays out a short, and compelling case that webcomics will continue to gather more artists and readers, filling the role that “indie” comics used to fill. Now that the medium is free to share and free to read, the bar to entry for both artist and reader is much lower.

Unfortunately, so is the quality bar.

As I’ve remarked before, now that anyone with a computer, some time, some software and website can slap something together and put up a webcomic, the webcomics world has become flooded. Some of it is crap. OK, let’s be honest – most of it is crap. There is simply no guard at the door. Each well-written, well-drawn webcomic shares the same platform with dozens or even hundreds of poorly written attempts, scribbled on notebook paper during algebra class, scrawled on napkins on the bus to work, or clumsily thrown together on a state-of-the-art Cintiq and written with all the care of a hastily-composed drunken mobile text.

If Evan’s thesis is correct, then the corollary is also true, that when people who disrespect and delegitimize a medium work in that medium, it’s hard for that medium to find respect and legitimacy. At the same time, we’ve seen professional artistic and comic heavyweights like Doug Tenapel and Michel Gagne making entries into the form. The quality level of webcomics, as with indie comics previously, stretches from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Evan supposes that the market will decide, that people will naturally gravitate toward excellence. I hope he’s right. We live in an environment currently where popularity has very little to do with quality, and we are all the poorer for it.

My advice, dear reader, because you can really help here – seek out and patronize quality work. Help others find it. Ignore the crap. If you’re making a webcomic, don’t make a crappy one. Respect the form, and who knows? Maybe what Evan suggests could come to pass, that eventually the prefix will drop, and we’ll just call them comics, and they’ll all be enjoyable.

Here’s to that.

Legendary comic artist Frank Miller (Batman the Dark Knight, Sin City, etc) is just about to release a comic called Holy Terror, which he describes as his response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. He says he hopes his book will really “piss people off” with its political content.

The book will chronicle the adventures of an ex-Navy SEAL who becomes a superhero of sorts called “The Fixer” who really finds a cause when disaster strikes on 9/11.

You can see a five-page sneak peek at Legendary’s website. As Legendary has c0-produced 25 Warner Brothers films, including Inception and The Dark Knight, I can’t help wondering how long before a film adaptation of this comic appears.

Thanks to Eben Matthews for the tip!

(Continued from Part 2)

Zook started life as a novel (read the first chapter here) I adapted to a graphic novel format. What follows is my adaptation of the first chapter of my Zook novel (click to enlarge, and leaf through it in a pop-up viewer).

THE WIND-UP, and the PITCH!

When I had that first chapter, a good plan for the story and an executive summary, I put together a pitch doc and sent it out to the usual suspects, agents and publishers. Although they liked it, it was rejected by everyone who saw it.

I had reached the end of a seven year development process and felt like I was at a dead end. I shelved Zook until I could figure out what to do with it later, and I turned my attention to another long-term story of mine, Moon Town.

So… what’s next for Zook?

I’m not sure. I have some story stuff to smooth out, mainly. Chief among them, what makes Zook different from any other version of the Hero’s Journey? In short, what’s the hook?

Honestly, I don’t know what will become of Zook. Digging through these old materials reminds me how much I liked the characters and the setting. Unfortunately, I am also reminded that the Hero’s Journey that forms the backbone of the story – as grand a tradition as that structure may be – is just not all that original. If I want this story to go anywhere, I will need to be more innovative than that, or what’s the point? This much is certain – you haven’t seen the end of Zook just yet.