Wait, isn't Jen supposed to be in London?
Why yes I am! Unfortunately my plane was struck by lightning, grounding it for several day and delaying my travel to London by two days. <sigh>
THEN, my AirBnB host tried to bait & switch me from a cozy Notting Hill flat into a horrible antiseptic British holiday apartment.
Something I like to call... Trouble Waiting to Happen!
Why am I sharing all of this? Well, because it explains why I had time to write this post -- whilst on hold with Virgin Atlantic *and* AirBnB, intermixed with WhatsApp calls with my aforementioned gaslight-y AirBnB host.
[EDIT: Jen here, jet lagged in rainy London. Tis the strangest thing. I keep catching glimpses of two individuals following me throughout London. And they're both wearing Cerebus t-shirts. Manly, the game is afoot!
So whilst I attempt to shake my pursuers, let's travel back in time via the SDOAR time machine <obligatory TARDIS sound> ...
... and eavesdrop on a conversation already in progress...]
"Dave Sim is my favourite comic book creator." - Lee Thacker, GoFund Me Donor, Brit *and* SDOAR Artist
LEE: Having just downloaded the TSDOAR Dropbox mock-up pages and, with Carson G dropping out, I was wondering if Dave would consider me as a possible illustrator? I contributed to the 'try-out' pages back in the day. Now that I'm retired, I have all the time in the world to give these pages a go...
JEN: Hey Lee! I have a few thoughts here. 1) Care to share your try-out pages with me? 2) Maybe even allow me to share them with everyone at AMOC for next week? 3) Still want to proceed what with Dave's sun-and-the-moon-and-the-stars plans to circle back around and do all the mocked up pages if he lives that long?
LEE: What? No way!
JEN: What? You're breaking up <kkrrrkkrrrkkkrrrrrrrrr> Yes, I can post your stuff? Amazing! You're the best!
LEE: Now I know why Manly hates you so much
JEN: Teehee! Instead of another trip in the TARDIS, let's do a Wayne's World style flashback to Lee Thacker back in May 2016, or something I like to call ...
LEE THACKER OF SDOAR PAST: Photorealism Tryout #1 – Alex Raymond’s ‘Rip Kirby’ strip from 27.6.56:
I chose to copy this strip for a number of reasons:
- Sparse backgrounds (I hate drawing backgrounds!)
- A nice close up in the last panel
- It related well to Raymond’s alleged affairs (in my mind)
- The pretty girl
- It was from 1956, the year of Raymond’s death
Between 2008 and 2010, I immersed myself in photorealistic portraits of celebrities and musicians. 16 of those ended up being a part of the ‘Judenhass’ inspired ‘Yellow Stars’ book, available as free pdf and a physical copy from
Lulu.
I spent those 3 years tracing from photos on a light box and inking them using a prolene pro-arte #2 brush. My first attempts were a bit sloppy, but I got pretty good at it and it was lot of fun.
I then got the call to start creating comic book stories for David Gedge (of semi-legendary band The Wedding Present) and I’ve been honing my craft over the past few years into a much simpler, cartoony style with little or no time left over for photorealistic pieces.
I should be working on issue 11 of the ‘
Tales From The Wedding Present’ comic this week, but I’ve taken a two day break to have a go at an Alex Raymond strip. Shhh. Don’t tell David Gedge! Ha ha!
Anyway, a few observations on my attempt, panel by panel (in reverse order). I traced off all three panels in pencil using a light box and then inked them.
Panel 3: This was the first panel I ’attempted’ to ink. I decided to use a prolene pro-arte #2 brush as this is what I was using when I was doing the portraits six years previously.
Big mistake.
No matter how gentle I was with my brush strokes, I couldn’t even come close to Raymond’s thin lines. I thought with it being a close up, it wouldn’t be too difficult. How wrong can you be? It took me a good hour and a half just to ink this single panel - I can usually get half a page of ‘cartoony’ comics inked in that time! I put my brush away and vowed to myself to do a better job the following day on panels one and two.
Panel 2: This went a LOT better. I opened up a fresh bottle of India ink, popped open a brand new Winsor & Newton Series 7 #2 brush and it was a breeze. Still not quite getting ALL of the fine lines, but definitely on the right track. The only real failure in this panel is Honey’s chin. I put just a little too much pressure on the brush during the inking of her jaw line and it’s slightly too small.
Panel 1: Now I’m starting to ‘get it’ in terms of knowing when the brush was capable of a thin or thick line. Only Honey’s eyes turned out wrong – there should be a small gap between the lower lashes and the iris which I couldn’t quite pull off.
This was a lot of fun to do and a real challenge. It’s been many years since I filled in any blacks on the original artwork as I usually fill them in using Photoshop. It’s also VERY tricky to render spontaneous lines deliberately. I’ve never seen any of Raymond’s pencilled work, but I’m betting he didn’t pencil in every single hair highlight or clothing wrinkle!
The text is really just questions that went through my mind as I was drawing it. The final question (posed to the reader) in panel three could be applied to both sexes I think!
CLAUDE FLOWERS (SDOAR PAST): Spectacular work! Hopefully you've shared those pictures with celebrities who are still around. I bet they'd be impressed.
LEE (SDOAR PAST): Hi Claude! Thank you for your kind words.
I actually sent a copy of Yellow Stars to Neil Gaiman (at Dave’s suggestion) but never heard back from him. Not surprising as he’s a very busy man.
I recently posted a drawing of Mark E Smith from the band The Fall on their Facebook page and received 236 ‘likes’ and 47 very flattering comments within the space of two hours. I’m thinking of doing the same on a few other Facebook band pages. Self promotion is something I’m not very good at. I feel like a chancer/opportunist every time I mention my work on forums and blogs. I always give Tim the choice as to whether to add the links to my sites here (he always does) – it’s the British way, I suppose…
DAVE SIM (SDOAR PAST): Hi Lee! Yes, the simmering edginess between Alex and Helen Raymond really communicates itself (and is a core element in SDOAR) and you've captured that very well -- especially since she was the original model for Dale Arden in FLASH GORDON. And then was replaced by photos of Olivia de Havilland. And then the parade of teenagers through her Mayapple Road quasi-mansion. Ouchie.
I go back and forth on whether the models were ENTIRELY a cover story for Raymond wanting pretty young girls in his studio and an actual "fine-tuning" that only Raymond was going through (can he make his "made up" women look enough like the models that you can't tell when he's making them up or drawing them from life? A lot of times I can, which means it still needed work).
As you've noticed, Honey Dorian is Quantum Levels Above any realistic comic art 1946 to 1953. NO ONE but Raymond could do a 100% accurate Honey Dorian and -- just as you say -- the eyes and the jawline are the biggest problem. And, of course, Raymond KNEW he was that far above everyone else (except Hal Foster). How could he not? (I always think of MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" as Raymond's internal theme song).
That held true until Stan Drake came along and did Eve Jones in THE HEART OF JULIET JONES. To go from "Can't Touch This" to "Right with you, Alex: check out THIS facial expression, check out this hair, check out this pout, check out this sulk, check out this radiant smile".
LEE (SDOAR PAST): Hi Dave! Ha! Now I’ve got ‘Can’t Touch This’ running through my head – thanks for that!
I’m glad I got the gist of the ‘shimmering edginess’ in the strip. I also have the preceding strip on my ‘to do’ list – Honey seductively reclining on a sofa in the first panel – hubba hubba!
Having attempted a copy of Raymond’s work, it’s made me aware of what an absolute master of his craft he was. Although the stories hold little interest for me, I’m seriously considering purchasing the IDW ‘Rip Kirby’ reprints just to study and admire the composition and drawings.
LEE (SDOAR PRESENT): Now where was I? Oh right, I think I'm just going to try a single page and a couple of images just for fun. After looking back over Carson's incredible work, I honestly don't have the skill to do the whole thing that well.
Offering to do the whole book was a moment of false bravado and misguided inspiration, but I'll still give a page and a few images a try just for fun.
Also, I'm 57 this year, so time is a lot more finite to me now. I would never draw the same detailed image 6 times as Carson did; I'd draw one and copy and paste it 5 times. I don't think Dave would like that. Also, with the skewed images, I would draw those as straightforward images and then skew them in Photoshop - something else I don't think Dave would approve of.
If Dave's serious about drawing the whole thing himself (which I sincerely hope he is) my semi-professional services will not be required anyway - ha, ha!
JEN: Thanks for all of this -- it really does look amazing! Do you have plans for any other comic book work in the future? Would you be open to working with a writer in the future? Just curious!
LEE: I have a couple of projects I'm currently working on with a couple of writers:
Tales From The Wedding Present Volume 3. Volumes 1 and 2 are both 160-page graphic novels illustrating the autobiography of semi-legendary indie songwriter David Gedge (The Wedding Present, Cinerama). I went on a book signing tour with the band last November which was great fun! I also went on stage with David Gedge and Terry de Castro (the co-author) for a 40 minute Q & A session each night.
I'm also working on 'My Nervous Breakdown' by Stuart Gould (who's actually the guy who prints the Wedding Present books for us, as well as the 19 comics we produced for 10 years). This will be an 82-page book where I've designed each page as part of a large image of Stuart's face inspired by Dave Sim's 'Mindgames' issue of Cerebus (#20). It's done in a mixture of digital collage and brush and ink drawings. I've got one more 22 page chapter left to illustrate.
I have a Bandcamp page, where I'm selling prints of The Wedding Present comic book covers, amongst other things...
I also have a load of books and graphic novels for sale on Lulu.
I've also done loads of comic book work for Steve Peters over the years.
Hope you have a lovely time in London.
JEN: Working on it!
Just the Facts, Ma'am, a.k.a. The SDOAR Toteboard
- *ZERO* new pages unlocked since last week
- $6,410.00 raised from 114 donations (plus $62.08 outside of GoFundMe).
- 36 new pages released as mocked up by Dave Sim from Jun. 11 to Sep. 11, 2021
- 57 total pages available on Dropbox, including Dave's 2019 mocked-up pages
- Only $190.00 away from unlocking page 58
- If you have not donated >> $5+ donation grants access to all 57 pages and all pages moving forward!
- If you have donated (thanks!!) >> GoFundMe does not have an option for monthly subscriptions. So... if you want to donate on a monthly basis, please do so as we are in the middle of month #6.
- GoFundMe is a dreadful communication platform -- if you haven't heard back from me, gotten access to the new pages, etc., please email me at jen@typingmonkeys.com
Jen's Non-Stressful Giant-Sized Ashcan(s) Update
No idea. I'm on vacation!
How Low Can She Go? Cerebus #8
Next up on the block is Cerebus issue #8. Good clean duplicate copy I bought as part of a collection -- never opened by me!
Make me an offer -- or for any of the individual issues you might be missing from this week or a previous week -- and I'll donate the proceeds to the SDOAR GoFundMe campaign!
If you are interested, you should know the drill by now -- email me at jen@typingmonkeys.com and I'll get you sorted!
Jen
1 comment:
Thank you so much, Jen. I really appreciate you posting the links I sent to you (along with our correspondence). Cheers! Lee
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