rough stuff #11

N o . 1 1W I N T E R 2 0 0 9$ 6 . 9 5

Celebrating the ARTof Creating Comics!

Allc

hara

cter

sTM

&©

2009

Mar

velC

hara

cter

s,In

c.

18265827766

6

84

WINTER 2009 • ROUGH STUFF 1

Volume 1, Number 11Winter 2009

Celebrating the ART of Creating Comics!

EDITORBob McLeod

PUBLISHERJohn Morrow

DESIGNERMichael Kronenberg

PROOFREADERSJohn Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington

COVER ARTISTGreg Horn

CIRCULATION DIRECTORBob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions

SPECIAL THANKSRich CirilloMike FinnShawn FritschyBrian GalatisKasra GhanbariGene HaGreg HornGeorge KhouryDave MorrisWalt ParrishMike PerkinsDoug ResnickEdgar TadeoThomas Yeates

ROUGH STUFF™ is published quarterly byTwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive,Raleigh, NC 27614. Bob McLeod, Editor. JohnMorrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: ROUGH STUFF,c/o Bob McLeod, Editor, P.O. Box 63, Emmaus, PA10849-2203. E-mail: [email protected]. Four-issue subscriptions: $30 Standard US, $40 FirstClass US, $47 Canada, $70 First Class International,$77 Priority International. Please send subscriptionorders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to theeditorial office. Cover art by Greg Horn. X-Mencopyright Marvel Comics. All material © theircreators unless otherwise noted. All editorialmatter © 2009 Bob McLeod and TwoMorrowsPublishing. ROUGH STUFF is a TM of TwoMorrowsPublishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

FEATURED ARTISTS7 Gene Ha

20 Greg Horn

43 Mike Perkins

55 Edgar Tadeo

ROUGH STUFF FEATURE34 Convention-al Wisdom

Rich Cirillo

ROUGH STUFF INTERVIEWS3 Gene Ha

64 Thomas Yeates

ROUGH STUFF DEPARTMENTS2 Scribblings From The Editor

Bob McLeod

16 Cover StoriesGene Ha and Greg Horn reveal the process of creating a cover.

84 Rough CritiqueEditor Bob McLeod critiques an aspiring penciler’s sample page.

86 Rough TalkComments and opinions from our readers.

ISSN 1931-9231

INTERVIEW

GENE HABy BRYAN GALATIS

A P A G E I N T H E L I F E :


Every artist working in comics has their own individual approach to telling a story on the page. Their

methods evolve over time and are often adapted to a particular collaborator or project. Gene Ha has been

working in the medium since the early 1990s. Fans admire him both for his draftmanship, for the detail

he brings to his backgrounds and environment, and for the emotional resonance he provides his characters. It is the latter

for which writer Brad Meltzer begged to have Gene hired as the artist for Justice League of America #11. “I knew we

needed him for issue #11. Emotion — true emotion — is the hardest thing to draw. [The

story] only works if the emotion is right.” In the story, entitled “Walls,” the characters

Red Arrow and Vixen are trapped under the rubble of a building (it is an homage to the

classic stories “The Final Chapter” in Amazing Spider-Man #33 and “Situation:

Hopeless” in Secret Wars #4). Throughout the issue, the panels decrease in size as the

tension increases, and Gene’s focus on character is placed firmly in the spotlight.

This is Gene’s approach to page four of Justice League of America #11.

BRYAN GALATIS: I’ve heard you say that working withgreat writers is of primary importance for you. Was BradMeltzer a writer with whom you’d been interested inworking?GENE HA: Honestly, I haven’t read a lot of novels orsuperhero comics for the last few years. So I knew ofBrad, but I hadn’t read much of his stuff. I did have EddieBerganza’s assurance he was brilliant, and Eddie hasexcellent judgment.

I started readingBrad’s JLA run after Igot the assignment. Hewas building up his storylike a novel over severalissues. There’s a strongparallel with the story-telling on my favorite TVshow, The Wire. You get

Justice League of

America #11, pg. 4

script page with

page layout and

panel thumbnails in

margins.

4 ROUGH STUFF • WINTER 2009

a huge payoff if you pay attention. Also, he had some funshowing the less glamorous side of the job. I wish he hadeven more room to tell the story.

He’s got an amazing storytelling mind. He thinks visual-ly. He writes like somebody who’s been drawing his ownstories for years, like Dave Sim or Darwyn Cooke. I can’tthink of another non-drawing writer who can think like that.

GALATIS: Do you start off with thumbnails or roughsketches? What size are these usually?

HA: My initial thumbnails are done in the mar-gins of the script. The script sketches are allunder 2" tall. I make sketches of individualpanels and of the blank panels on the page.

I used to go directly from the script marginthumbnails to the 10"x15" Bristol page. Ibegan to change my process after talking toBarry Kitson about how he works. He madetiny pencil roughs with all the blacks spotted.His roughs are as tight as most artists’ fin-ished pencils.

I created my current process after I gothold of scanners and color printers that canhandle 11"x17" paper. Theoretically, I canmake a 2" tall sketch, scan it at 2250 dpi, andthen print it out 15" tall at 300 dpi in non-photo blue.

GALATIS: Your pencils always look kind ofrough to me. You seem to save the fine-tun-ing for your inks. Is this to save time or tokeep from locking you in too much for theinks? I have read that some artists feel liketight pencils take the fun and creativity out ofinking.HA: [Top 10 collaborator] Zander Cannondescribes my pencils as 3-D computer wire-frame models. They’re not supposed to looklike the finished artwork. They’re indications ofwhere the planes and edges of objects are.Like a 3-D rendering program, I figure out thelighting and modeling after that stage.

You’re right that I don’t like having toomuch detail in my pencils. I know I’ll come upwith better ideas later so detail is both anannoyance and a waste of time.

GALATIS: Does the amount of detail you putin depend on the project?HA: If the setting is important to the story(such as in Top 10) I usually throw in more

detail in the background. I didn’t throw much detail intoThe Authority because the settings weren’t as importantand because my editor Scott Dunbier really wanted tomeet the print deadlines. Sorry, Scott!

The rough pencils are done with two 6.8" tall pages ona single 8.5"x11" sheet. I scan these at 882 dpi and printthese as 600 dpi 10" tall bluelines for tight pencils. I scanthe tight pencils at 680 dpi and print that as 400 dpi 17"tall finished inks and markers.

Red

Arrow

©2009

DC

Com

ics

Justice League of

America #11, pg. 4

full-page pencils.

GALATIS: In Brad [Meltzer’s] notes forpage four, he asked for “lots of smokeand darkness.” In a guest spot on Brad’sblog (bradmeltzer.com, 18 July ’07), yousaid that you “mostly used Copic paperon this issue for grainy, dusty effect.”Have you used the combination of thattype of paper with “graphite pencil, grayCopic markers, white charcoal penciland white paint” on previous projects?HA: It’s the only time I’ve used the Copicbrand marker paper. I am using Copicmarkers, pencil, Pitt brush pens andwhite media for my new Top 10 project.

When I initially started using theCopic paper I was disappointed by howthe marker ink pooled on the surface afterit dried. If you placed another stroke ontop it smeared the previous ink. It wasoversaturated with ink, like rain drops ona windshield. Generally I wouldn’t wantthat effect, but it happened to match thesetting (trapped in a dusty collapsedbuilding).

For scenes outside the building Iworked on plain old inkjet paper. Itabsorbs the marker without bleeding. It‘sa trick I learned in my art school days.Marker paper is fine, but I noticed thatwhen I worked on photocopies that thecolors were more vivid.

GALATIS: Does subject matter oftendictate you choice of materials and/orstyle (such as your use of ink wash onThe Forty-Niners)?HA: Various elements of the comic affectmy choice of technique. For The AuthorityI wanted it to look slick and I needed towork fast. I went with standard Bristolpaper and India ink. The Forty-Ninerswas a period story so I used a mutedpalette, hinting at Saving Private Ryanand also b&w movies.

In modern or futuristic stories I like asmoother and more colorful look.

GALATIS: I recently read an interview


Justice League of America #11, pg. 4, full inked page.

Red

Arrow

©2009

DC

Com

ics

GENE HA

Captain America #19 cover

This cover was made after I moved to Chicagoland. It seems that the bigger the city I live in, the harder it is to find models. My friends

in the Chicago area are mostly a 45-minute drive away, and it’s weirder going up to complete strangers in a big city than a small

town. So my wife Lisa and I modeled for all the characters.

This is my Photoshop “painted” style. The technique is strongly influenced by the oil painting technique I picked up in art school.

Back then, I had a fantasy of daubing my brush in the light and

spreading it on my canvas. Now I really can do that. To get the col-

ors, I took digital photographs of all the colors I needed under con-

sistent lighting, then used the Eyedropper tool in Photoshop to

snatch the color. I drew the shield in Photoshop because I wanted it

to be perfectly smooth.


COVER STORIES

W hat goes into the creation of a great cover? Some artists just do a rough sketch or two, then go right to thefinish. Gene Ha did a sketch, then worked out the anatomy and perspective, inked it, explored the values in amarker rough, and only then digitally painted it, using muted complimentary colors.

Captain

Am

eric

aTM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


BOB McLEOD

Gene has basically figured every-

thing out in the gray-tone rough,

but notice the few changes he did

make, such as the dark shadow

behind Cap's face, and the shading

on Cap's chest star.

Captain

Am

eric

aTM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


GREG HORNGreg Horn is best known for his work

as a cover artist. He paints digitally,

and specializes in sexy female heroes.

In addition to Marvel, he’s also done art for video games.

Greg's digital technique is dazzling, but he’s no slouch with

a pencil, either!

F E A T U R E D A R T I S T

GREG HORN

She-Hulk and Black Cat Wizard V.I.P. Sketches

These are drawings I did for Wizard’s Texas show back in 2006.

It was part of a five-piece set planned as a giveaway to Wizard’s

VIP guests. I didn’t sign it because I wanted to meet the winners

in person for the signing (being that they were choosing my

sketches over all the other stuff they had there. Anyway, one

dude had purchased two VIP passes and was able to snag both

of these drawings. With both designs I was trying to infuse some

personality and humor into the characters because this is a lot

more enjoyable than a chick just standing there saying “look at

me—I’m doing a sexy pose.” Of course, the task of adding these

elements into the design makes the art work about ten times

harder to do! I think this is why I love Adam Hughes so much.

He has an incredible, innate sense for the whimsical and humor-

ous—Adam is one of the artists that made me look at art from a

totally different angle. None of his drawings are typical…. He’s

like a genius or something.

Sh

e-H

ulk

an

dB

lack

Cat

TM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.

GREG HORNFor the cover of Ms. Marvel #16, editor Bill Rosemann was looking to introduce the freakish M.O.D.O.K. into the storyline. This disgustinglump of flesh and hair has a head the size of a garbage truck (’cause he’s so smart, you see) and a really bad dental plan. He is a vision ofhorror and we wanted to make sure that vision came across on the cover art. In my first round of sketches I tried to show Carol in theforeground as if she had not yet noticed M.O.D.O.K. behind her. The intention was to get her in a high position on the cover becauseMagazine Design 101 says you should always have the main character’s face high on the page. But none of the sketches really poppedout at us and Bill’s precious M.O.D.O.K. was getting obscured! So, I came up with a solution to have Ms. Marvel battling M.O.D.O.K. men-tally. She’d be lower on the page, but still very prominent in the foreground. The next concern was that Ms. Marvel might look too pas-

sive… or even submissive laying on the ground, andas we all know Ms. Marvel submits to no man…except for Wonder Man… and that guy fromAvengers #200… and a few other guys, but that’sbeside the point. Bill and I wanted to make sure thatMs. Marvel still retained her powerful qualitieswhile fighting this mind war.

When you have a face this big on the cover, itsgoing to need some texture to look right—such aspores and little skin imperfections, etc. Otherwise theskin will look unnaturally plastic or rubbery. Adding akazillion little pores is a time intensive step and I hadalready decided this was something I did not want todo in pencil. Especially considering I had just createda digital “pore brush” in Photoshop months earlier todo the She-Hulk #19 cover. That was another bighead cover… it had the Leader on it. Get it?… big-head cover. Anyway, on the M.O.D.O.K. sketch youcan see where I put about seven little pores underhis nostril as a reminder to add them in later.


Ms.M

arvel,M

odok

TM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


GREG HORN

She-Hulk #7 original art

Probably my favorite She-Hulk cover.

In this scene She-Hulk is sitting on a

bench waiting for the bus. She is sit-

ting on her own cornball ad!! So, the

idea was to give her an expression

that provoked a question… Maybe

she knows she’s on her own ad and

this is a look of “You wanna make

something of it?” Or perhaps she is

just bored waiting for the bus and

has not realized the goofy ad.

BOB MCLEOD

My favorite part of this is, um, well

my second favorite part is actually

that wood fence! I like the Norman

Rockwell-like subtlety of the colors

and technique and texture.

Sh

e-H

ulk

TM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


Istarted reading comics at an early age, but didn’t see my first piece of orig-

inal art until many years later at a local comic book convention. They had

very large conventions in Manhattan, which I went to occasionally, accom-

panied by an adult. Local, smaller shows on Long Island were right on my

back doorstep, and they would attract a big-name artist every so often. In the

mid-’80s artists such as Bob Layton, Dave Cockrum and a newcomer

named Bill Willingham paid us a visit. Back in the day, a convention sketch could

run you $5 - $20 for either full pencils or inks, depending on the artist. Most conven-

tion sketches back then were more quickly rendered and looser in style, very different

from a lot of the tightly rendered sketches of today.

Convention-alWISDOMBy Rich Cirillo

It had never occurred to me to buy original comic bookart back then. I was a teenager with a meager part-timejob, and most of my money was going toward either thelatest issues of my favorite comics or the elusive backissues we all tried to find in near-mint condition. I canvaguely remember seeing original art for published pagesback then, but they would have been way too expensivefor me at the time, with their $100 price tags. Consketches were more affordable, and they had one thing aprinted page could not offer; they were more personal. Icould ask for whatever character I wanted, within reason,and I would then own a piece of art that no one else hadever seen. Before the days of the Internet, an unpublishedcon sketch would occasionally appear in a fanzine, butotherwise most would go years, decades perhaps, with-out being seen by more than a few.

I was on the shy side back in my teens, and approach-ing a comic book artist to me was like approaching a godstepped down from Olympus. I wanted to stand out fromthe crowd of sketch seekers, so I usually asked forobscure character sketches. I also felt the artists wouldtire of sketching the same characters, so I would try to

keep them interested with my unusual requests. Forinstance, in the mid-to-late ’80s, there was a smallercomic company called Comico, which was putting outsome interesting titles. One of their better sellers was abook called the Elementals, a reinventing of the FantasticFour, if you will, had they come back from the dead. BillWillingham was the creator of that book and he was theguest of honor at our local con that day in October of1986. Others asked for sketches of the main charactersfrom the book: Morningstar, Vortex, Monolith or Fathom.But not me, I had to ask for the most obscure characterfrom the book I could think of. I could ask for none otherthan the villainous vermin... Ratman!!!

My con visits were few and far between through the’80s, but I also got sketches of the future Red Wolf byBob Layton, Wolverine by Mike Zeck, and I happened tomeet an up-and-coming artist by the name of AdamHughes, who drew for me his first Captain America consketch, and like any true fan boy, I asked him to inscribe itas such. I had only acquired a few original sketches backin those days, but the foundation for my future avid col-lecting had been laid.

Sketch by Mark Texiera

Captain

Am

eric

aTM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


Doug ResnickI was looking at all

my Spider-Man vs. a

villain commissions

and thought “wouldn’t

it be great to be able

to display all of my

favorite pencilers at

one time.” That start-

ed the idea of a poster

jam. I also only want-

ed the artist to draw

in pencil so an inker

can ink it later to give

it a better finish.

Before starting the

poster jam, I needed a

way to carry it around

at shows. After think-

ing up a way, I started

with Pat Olliffe right

in the bottom center.

For the big body jam, I

got to to play editor

and showed the pen-

cilers where to pen-

cil. The second one

had boxes laid out

and I just had to ask

the penciler what

character they’d like

to draw. I had a lot of

fun watching the

artists draw the vil-

lains. I remember sit-

ting on a couch with

Mike Wieringo out-

side of the Baltimore

convention hall while

he drew the vulture.

We talked and he

drew. The real trick

was co-ordinating the

pencilers and the

inkers. All pencils

were done at shows

and most of the ink-

ing, too. A lot of prep

work went into these

poster jams.

All characters TM & ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.


Chris Cairatrophy wall:http://www.comicartfa

ns.com/GalleryRoom.a

sp?Order=Date&Page

=1&GSub=22086

I happened into theme

collecting by accident.

In an attempt to come

up with an idea inspir-

ing enough for Mr.

Bolland to create a

commission for me, I

had a half-sleeping

nightmare one night

and immediately ran

to my computer and

sent it off to Brian.

Brian thought it just

twisted enough and

just darkly humorous

enough to be worthy

of bringing to life. That

was where the Trophy

Wall idea started. I

realized it was a

theme versatile

enough to apply to

comics, film, theatre

and literature and

adaptable enough to

find the perfect project

for almost every artist

(such as McLeod’s

Kraven pieces, and

Layton’s Mandarin).

When you give an

artist an idea that real-

ly inspires them you

get their very best

work every time. I did

not mean to be a

theme commission

collector but the idea

has made me more

friends and helped me

reach out to more

artists than I ever

would have on my

own. Now there are

more than 30 Trophy

Walls in the collection

and for several still in

development.

All

ch

arac

ters

©2009

DC

Com

ics.

Illustration by Brian Bolland


MIKE PERKINSMike Perkins is a British artist now

living in Florida. He first became

known in the States as an inker for

DC, Dark Horse and CrossGen. He’s

now penciling and inking for Marvel and his recent work

on Stephen King’s THE STAND just blew me away. He uses

a lot of ink wash even for his color comics and it really

creates a great look when colored properly.


MIKE PERKINS

The Stand promo

This was one of those images that, pretty much, appeared fully formed in

my head. I submitted various roughs for approval—some playing on

similar poses and themes—and Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada

suggested bringing one of the skulls right into the foreground to give

added depth and to play on the primeval image of the skull in general. It

worked. I really wanted to play with the gray-tones on this one using

conte-crayon, black pencil and ink wash.

The Stand and allrelated characters©2009 Stephen King.Artwork ©2009Marvel Characters,Inc.


MIKE PERKINS

The Stand Covers

When it was determined that I would be illustrating the

variant covers for Marvel’s adaptation of Stephen King’s

The Stand, series editor Bill Rosemann and I put our

heads together to discuss which approach to take and

came up with the idea of a series of covers, for the first

arc, which joined together to make one cohesive image.

I put my thinking hat on.

I knew that each cover should be a spotlight for a

number of the main protagonists and should play on the

flu-ravaged environment of New York. There’s a section

in the novel—one of the most truly terrifying moments

(and one I’m eagerly looking forward to illustrating)—

where one of the characters, Larry Underwood, departs

Manhattan via the clogged, and pitch black, Lincoln

Tunnel. I had my backdrop set piece.

During the NY Comic-Con I spent the time to wander

around some of the areas described within the novel

and take plenty of reference photos and, luckily, the

Javits Center is situated very close-by the Lincoln

Tunnel.

The Stand and all related characters ©2009 Stephen King.Artwork ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.


MIKE PERKINS

The Stand #1

Not much change

from the rough

here. You’ll notice

that I’ve used one

of the Randall Flagg

poses that weren’t

chosen for the

promo piece.

Recycle! My pen-

cils are pretty tight

here as I wasn’t

sure if they would

use the pencils for

promotional pur-

poses.

With a concerti-

naed cover like this

—a quintet (?)—it’s

important to get the

connecting artwork

to correspond, and

connect correctly

to, the previous art-

work in the series.

Luckily, Marvel’s

cover illustration

board comes

equipped with trim

lines. As long as I

started the second

image overlapping

within the righthand

trim section of the

previous illustration,

things would line up

correctly.


EDGAR TADEOI guess they’ve got nothing to do in the

Philippines except draw comics. Edgar

Tadeo is yet another talented Filipino

comic book artist. He’s a colorist, inker, and penciler, and

a member of Avalon Studios. He’s done several jobs for

Marvel, DC and Image Comics.


EDGAR TADEORed Sonja pencil commissionA customer asked me to draw him a Red Sonjacharacter. He didn’t say what kind of pose but Iassumed he wanted a sexy one. Since I’m theone who’s going to decide on the posing, Ithought of drawing her arms raised up with thesword while walking in the water.

EDGAR TADEORed Sonja pencil commissionI sent the prelim sketch before I started on the biggerversion, and he said he’d like her arms to be thinnersince it’s only a comic book character. So I drew Redwalking in the water with flowing hair with the sword.

EDGAR TADEORed Sonja pencil commissionMost artists who do thumbnails or prelim sketches use a lightbox for the finaldrawing. In my case, since I change things a lot, I redraw it to make some moreadjustments. On this final drawing I made her crouching a bit. Since there’s a mas-sive amount of water I made her look like she’s struggling walking.

Red

Son

jaTM

&©2009

Red

Son

jacorp.


EDGAR TADEOSabretooth & Wolverine inked commissionI thought this was very difficult, because the customer gave me a long description of how the pieceshould look. Basically he just wanted Wolverine and Sabretooth standing with their arms crossed.He likes veins and muscles popping out and details of armor, so I drew a basic rough [left].

EDGAR TADEOSabretooth & Wolverine inked commissionSince it was only a preliminary sketch, I was asked todraw Sabretooth a bit bigger with massive arms andbody. Before I start inking I always have to send thefinal pencil to the customer.

EDGAR TADEOSabretooth & Wolverine inked commissionEvery time I finish an inked drawing, I always refine the line hatchings using brushes or quills. I alsouse French curves, elliptical and circular templates for round objects and figures just like onWolverine’s elbow pads and other parts of the armor. I used the French curves on the sword.

Sabretooth

an

dW

olverin

eTM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


EDGAR TADEOSentry watercolorpaintingWhenever I startdoing a watercolorpainting, I always doa study using pencilshading. I drawthumbnails and adetailed drawing ofthe face. The pencilstudy (top left) willbe the actual size ofthe watercolorpainting, which willbe traced onto thewatercolor paper.After tracing thebasic line art, I start-ed doing the back-ground first (topright).

Note: The prelimsketches and pencilshadings are myguides for the finalcoloring so I won’tget lost since I onlydraw line art on thewatercolor paper.

I always start my painting by using blacks and grays before ren-dering the skin tones. I also apply this on the hair.

Just like I did with the face and hair, I also render everythingelse using grays and blacks just to give shapes on the figure.

Sen

try

TM

&©2009

Marvel

Ch

aracters,In

c.


INTERVIEW

THOMAS YEATESBy GEORGE KHOURY and BOB McLEOD

Thomas Yeates was born on January 19, 1955 in Sacramento, California. He was a

member of the first class at Joe Kubert’s School. Strongly influenced in his craft by

old-guard illustrators like Hal Foster, N. C. Wyeth, Al Williamson and Wallace Wood,

Yeates’ favorite settings to draw are the outdoors and exotic locales.

He worked for DC Comics on numerous series, including Warlord, Mystery in Space and Swamp Thing.

From 1984 to 1985, Thomas Yeates was the artist for Timespirits from Marvel/Epic. He worked for

Eclipse Comics on titles such as Airboy, Scout, Lugar, the political documentary Brought to Light, and Aztec Ace. For Pacific Comics,

Yeates did Alien Worlds and Vanguard, and for T.S.R., he illustrated the Dragonlance Saga based on the Dungeons & Dragons game.In the early 1990s, Thomas Yeates drew one of his child-

hood heroes, Tarzan of the Apes, for two and a half years, co-authoring and drawing Tarzan, The Beckoning (forSemic/Malibu). He went on to illustrate a total of 15 Tarzancomics, many for Dark Horse. The Return of Tarzan featured hisadaptation into comics Edgar Rice Burroughs’ second Tarzan

novel. During the same period, Yeates also illustrated Draculavs. Zorro for Topps comics. This cult favorite was his first team-ing with writer Don McGregor.

Thomas then returned to DC and illustrated a comicbook authored by Rachel Pollack titled Tomahawk. In thelate 1990s McGregor and Yeates created a highly regard-ed Zorro newspaper strip. In 2001, Yeates illustrated twoUniverse X specials for Marvel in collaboration with AlexRoss and John Totleben. Most recently he has illustratedseven graphic novels in the Graphic Myths series forLerner publishing including King Arthur, Odysseus,Atalanta, King Arthur and Lancelot, and Robin Hood.

[This interview was originally conducted in 2002 byGeorge Khoury and transcribed by Steven

Tice. I recently posed some additionalquestions to Thomas to update it withwhat he’s been doing more recently.

-Bob McLeod]Swamp Thing TM & ©2009 DC Comics

GEORGE KHOURY: What kind of comicswere you into growing up in California?THOMAS YEATES: I was into drawing pic-tures based on movies that I saw on TV: DavyCrockett, Zorro, monster movies and Tarzan, Igot inspired by that subject matter and histori-cal adventure. I just liked to draw those kinds

of pictures. And it wasn’t until manyyears later that I got interested in comicbooks. I was aware of comic books andhad a few. But I wasn’t—I likedTomahawk and Turok, Son of Stonewhen I was young. We had a fewArchies because they were funny. A few


THOMAS YEATESFlash Gordon is a

favorite character of

mine. I get to draw

him every once in a

while on covers for

Comics Revue. It’s

great to try and com-

bine the elegant art

styles of Alex

Raymond and

Williamson with

wonderful low-

brow pulp elements. I

still can’t figure out

how Flash got his

pilot’s license, he

crashes almost every

rocket ship he flies.

Fla

sh

Gordon

©2009

Kin

gFeat

ures


war comics. But I wasn’t a big comic book collector or readeruntil I visited my cousin, Randy Yeates, who was a fanzineartist at the time, in Colorado. And he introduced me to all theperiphery stuff: Witzend magazine, the Burroughs fan maga-zines, the fantasy adventure comics. EC Comics. Wally Wood,Bernie Wrightson, Al Williamson, all those artists. I was awareof [Roy] Krenkel and [Frank] Frazetta through the Burroughsnovels that they’d done the covers for. I had those; I was read-ing Burroughs. But as far as comic books, it really wasn’t untilI visited my cousin at the age of about 14 or 15 that I sudden-ly started seeing comics in a different light. And thanks to him,I started following those artists. Started buying DC comics,mainly the mystery ones that were coming out at the time thathad just great art and stories by people like LenWein and Bernie Wrightson. I got the House ofSecrets with Swamp Thing in it off the standswhen it came out. And then when the originalSwamp Thing came out, I bought and readevery issue. I was a pretty committed fan of thatkind of material by then.

KHOURY: You’ve always stayed true to yourearly influences, like the Zorro strip andTomahawk, that kind of stuff.YEATES: I was enjoying other kinds of stuff, too,other subject matters. But the swashbuckling oldadventure genre seems to really be what’s in my

blood and it’s a lot easier for me to draw that stuff. I can do itfaster, and speed is real important in this business.

KHOURY: Would you say you were heavily influenced byWilliamson at the same time?YEATES: Yes.

KHOURY: You worked a period for him [Al Williamson]?YEATES: Yes.

KHOURY: How long did you work for him?YEATES: I wasn’t really an employee, I just helped him outhere and there as a friend. Around ’75 I went to a comic

THOMAS YEATESIn the late ’90s I did a

Zorro newspaper

strip. That’s penciling

and inking six

dailies plus a Sunday

page, plus coloring

the Sunday page

every week. Don

McGregor wrote the

stories. We had done

Dracula vs Zorro a

few years before.

After drawing the

first four months solo

I brought in Tod

Smith to do tight lay-

outs. You can see his

work here. I met Tod

when he was at the

Kubert school, he’s a

fellow Zorro fan and

a hell of a good

comic artist, with

great storytelling

skills.

I did the finishes on

duo-shade board,

which enables you to

create gray areas

that would print as

line art. I used

Micron markers for

most of the line

work, faces, details

etc., as well as

brush. Coloring all

those Sundays

enabled me to learn

coloring, which has

proved very useful.Zorro TM Zorro Productions, Inc.


ROUGH CRITIQUE

By Bob McLeod

T his issue’s sample page was sent in by the mysteriously single-named Wattana. It’s far from typical in styleand subject (what, no superheroes!? Does that even count as comics anymore?), but it’s nonetheless verytypical in many of the problems he’s having, and I chose it because I think discussing them will help a lot ofother artists as well as Wattana. Some pages just need some tweaking here and there. But other pages need

to be rebuilt from the ground up, which is the case here.First off, I just have to commend you, Wattana, for trying to be

original. This girl apparently has no super powers (she can’t evenspear a lion six feet away) and she’s not even blonde! I haven’tseen a brunette jungle girl since Frazetta’s glory days. Your story-

telling is fairly clear, and your figures have some problems, but atleast they aren’t stiff. You’re drawing very sketchily (with whatappears to be a pencil badly in need of sharpening—or did youdraw it all on the computer?). The reason it’s so sketchy isbecause you don’t really know what anything looks like andyou’re trying to fake it all. If you study the arm, for example, andreally memorize what it looks like, you’ll be able to draw it muchbetter. Right now, you’re just guessing at everything. That’s thewrong way to go.

But good drawing is only one aspect of pencilling comics.There’s also a lot of thinking involved. One of the first things youneed to do when starting a page is decide on the number andsize and placement of the panels. On action pages, the fewerpanels the better, because you want to have room to show theaction in a dynamic way. Looking at your page, all the hot actionis squeezed down into the lower left corner, and the page as awhole is too heavily weighted there. Your biggest panels are thefirst and last, where nothing is happening, and your smallest pan-els are where the most action is happening. This is totally oppo-site of how it should be.

Think of your panel shapes as design elements. Even asempty panels, they should create a design. Using one slantedpanel border on an otherwise very horizontal/vertical set-up issimply bad design. Clustering them all on one side of the pageis also bad design. You also need to decide how best to tell yourstory. Usually, the fewer panels it takes, the better. I eliminatedyour third and sixth panels to make room for enlarging panel 5,where the most dramatic action is happening. Your third panel isalso clumsy, attempting to show the action from both sides atonce, which turns her into a disembodied spirit. Your panel six,with her jumping over the lion, seems superfluous. Why wouldshe do that? You have limited space on a page, and you have touse it wisely. So I staggered the panels to better balance thepage design, straightened the slanted border, eliminated twopanels, and enlarged the last two panels. This really could havebeen two pages, with the first three panels on one and the lastfour on another. Then your third panel would have been a dra-matic cliffhanger and the reader wouldn’t have been able to wait

Art

©2009

Wat

tan

a.


to turn the page. A lion attack is certainly worthy of two pages.Going back to panel one, you committed the grievous sin of aligning her

spear parallel to the panel border. Always try to use diagonals, and neverput shapes parallel to the panel border. Notice I also tilted the girl to a morediagonal angle, and moved her away from the panel border. Place your fig-ures more within the panel, not pushed over to the sides or corners. Thenplace your background elements to fit around them and balance out thepanel. So I moved your bush, and moved and enlarged the distant moun-tain. I eliminated the volcano, because it distracts from the tension betweenthe girl and the lion. Now, let’s look at that lion. This is not a lion, but ratheryour best recollection of what a lion looks like. His tail is too long and stick-ing out of his, um, butt (the tail is actually an extension of the spine, and ismuch higher up). His snout is flat and his ears are missing. Never try todraw an animal without reference. Also, with his body facing away from her,he seems to be minding his own business, rather than threatening her. Look

at the difference when I turn him around. Now I’mscared! Get ready with that spear!

She has too much hair in panel two, and youneed to put it on one side or the other. Her head isalso misplaced too far forward (the neck also con-tinues from the spine). Making her arm black sinksit too far back into the background, and it’s notgood to position it parallel to the horizon. The lionneeds to be higher up, overlapping the horizon tocreate more depth. Since his tail is coming out ofthe panel, the spear should also. In the new panelthree (your fourth panel), her knife should be in thepanel, since you already have stuff extending out ofthe previous panel. You don’t want to repeat thesame gimmick. I don’t think a profile shot is thebest way to show action, but it’s works okay here.Imagine how much more impact this panel wouldhave if the lion were jumping toward us rather thanpast us. I pieced together a (female) lion photo tofit your pose, so you can see the proportions arequite different than you imagined. Animals (andpeople) are so much more interesting when youdraw them correctly. Your girl has two left hands,by the way. And what is that, a sand storm in thebackground?

In the new panel four, where she stabs thelion, you want to pull in closer for more impact,and make the panel as large as possible. Youdon’t really want her left leg there, do you? I justrotated them to fit the space, so the corner ofpanel three doesn’t hit the lion in the head, but italso now leads the eye nicely toward the lastpanel. In the last panel, I flopped her to betterbalance the composition, and also enlargedeverything a bit to get us more involved and tohave more variety in figure size. It’s good to havethe figures a different size in every panel. I alsodid a quick redo of your figure. With arms foldedacross the chest, her breasts would be pushedup, and I like the way you cocked her hip, but Ithink you took it a bit too far. Her face is also a bit

small. This panel really needs some more backgrounds. You can deletebackgrounds in action panels, but when you get to a panel like this, youneed to give us more to look at. You established some horizontal clouds inthe top panel, so I’d stay with that in this panel, rather than those diagonalwhatsits you have there. So, to sum up, you obviously have a lot of studyingto do. What, did you think drawing comics was easy? Get out some comicsand study the panel layouts and where the artists place the figures, andwhich panels are big and which are small. Get some reference and practicedrawing some lions. And, along with the rest of us, study figure drawingevery day. Oh, and sharpen your pencil.

Any thick-skinned readers who’d like me to critique their sample pageshould e-mail me at [email protected], or mail me a sample at P.O.Box 63, Emmaus, PA 18049

rough stuff #11

Documents

rough talkcomments

g e i n t h e

n t e r

emotion true emotion

justice league of america

genes approach

xmencopyright marvel

issue subscriptions