STUCK IN THE MIDDLE PART 3

I've been waiting for the dust to settle, and you know what? I don't think it will. So let's get this baby rolling. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we will have posting action.

I'm gonna finish off STUCK IN THE MIDDLE which should time us nicely for my new HEROES story - also written by Jim Martin. And let me tell you it's a cracker. Main cast, great dialogue and mysterious appearances. And to cap it off, some incredible colouring by Annette Kwok.

I hope you've all had a great ushering into the new year. I had an amazing time back in Melbourne. Huge shout outs to everyone who I managed to catch up with. And to those who I missed, I can't wait to catch up with you next time. Being stranded two hours outside of Melbourne made pulling together what little I had of a social life really tough.

Also I was drawing my butt off back in Melbourne. I'm still playing catch up. So, while I haven't been blogging, I have been drawing - and I have HEAPS to show you... and unfortunately, heaps more I can't. Well, not for a while anyway.

And even more awesome, in the meantime my blog broke 50,000 hits. I was waiting with baited breath for that! Grats to me! Wooooo!!!! Thank you to everyone for all your support. That's got me fired up like nothing else.

But let's get back onto STUCK IN THE MIDDLE.

I was so excited to draw Tracy and Nathan. I noticed in the script that they weren't mentioned by name, so I had to make sure I hit some really strong likenesses. I recently read Alitha Martinez's story featuring Tracy and Mohinder. Alitha has stepped up to another level. She has a very cartoony style but she hit Tracy's likeness spot on! This is no mean feat for me, as I found Ali Larter very tough to draw. Come to think of it, all the blonds on the show are tough to draw. Peter Steigerwald commented that he found Elle tough, I was glad I wasn't the only one. But Alitha made it look easy panel after panel.

I drew Nathan in shadow and then well lit in the panel thereafter. I was stunned as to how much better the one in shadow looked. So if you look at the following panels of Nathan he's always in shadow. I also went for this stylistic choice to reflect Nathan's darker path.

On panel 6 is an Easter Egg joke between a friend and myself. Simon Sherry and I worked on our very first comic book together, called ANTHOLOGY - yes, we were young and not very imaginative about the title. At least no one can plead misleading advertising, cos if we called it, THE MOST AWESOME COMIC YOU'VE EVER READ... we would have been totally lying.

But Simon dared me to draw Johnny Luck - the character I created for Anthology into a HEROES comic. I just couldn't find anywhere to draw this genetically altered dog soldier that wouldn't confuse readers. I was going to draw it on the side of the lighter, but I thought readers would read too much into it. get mislead and confused. I mean STUCK was about genetically altered soldiers to begin with! So I shoved his name on the side of the boxes of cleaning supplies.

As an aside, years ago I wandered into a supermarket and saw a line of toys directly ripping off JOHNNY LUCK! They had made action figures of 4 of the six characters I created and even got some dude to paint over my artwork for the packaging. I was stunned. People said I should sue. I just regret not buying them as it would of (at the very least) been cool to have action figures of characters I created. I wish I could remember what they were called.

NEXT:

Monday: Stuck in the Middle Page 4.

Tonight: Ollie Grigsby's bday party.

Maybe next week will be my next HEROES story.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to everyone!

I'm not going to bother doing any proper posts til I get back to LA. I'm at my parent's place in Bendigo (a small country town two hours outside of Melbourne) and they only have dial up. Getting on the internet is like trying to dig your own teeth out with a pair of nail clippers. Painful, slow and ultimately pointless.

I hope you all had a great NYE. I'm rearing to go for 2009. I have a bunch of ducks in a row and I'm looking to knock them all down in 2009.

To those wanting to catch up with me while I'm in Melbourne, I have one more week. It's really tough for me as it takes me 2 hours to get to Melbourne by train. Please be patient, I'm trying to do my best here.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE page 2

Alright! Let's get contentious.

Let's talk about the depiction of women in comics.

To be honest, it's actually one of my favourite topics. I have a real issue with the depiction of women in comics. Ironically, it's not really about proportions. I draw my men just as ridiculously as I draw my women. And those artists who draw girls with massive, gravity defying orbs on their chest and pencil thin waists just slide over into the realm of hilarity and cartooning for me. Some people love that, and that's their prerogative. For me, it's not even sexy, titillating or even offensive. It's so far removed from reality that I access it on a purely visual level - ie. is it a good picture of what it's trying to do?

My real issue with the depiction of women is about context.

Is their sexuality or nudity being used to provoke only a sexually arousing action in the reader. If it is, then I have problems with it. If the figure manifests power, concern, worry, elegance, awe or something else, then I'm happy. But too many realistic artists have cleavage in your face and porn star mouths (you know, that vacant half hanging open look). And that bothers me.

I've also been given more stories featuring female nudity in the HEROES comics than any other artist. No, I haven't actually counted, I'm just making bold, generalising statements cos they suit my agenda. But let's look at the last six stories I've had to draw, and let me explain how I dealt with them:

INTO THE WILD part 1: "Catfight" between Sabine and Connie

I think Timm and Jim would be the first to say they were just having a laugh when they wrote the "cat fight". Their direction was cheesy and campy and VERY funny. But as I mentioned in previous posts, it was important to me that this fight create a sense of gravitas in our protagonist and antagonist. While it would have been funny to have drawn it as campy as they wrote it, I just think the context did our characters a disservice. This is my directional call, and perhaps another artist would have made it work, but I knew I couldn't. And as I mentioned, I'm pretty particular about the depiction of women in comics. I tried to make the fight look vicious and tough and brutal. Given the lack of offended comments, I think I did ok.

I even tried to do something smart with it. Sabine was wearing a red top (the opposite end of the colour spectrum to Connies's red top). So when we see the blue top, on a subconscious level the fight is actually bringing the two characters closer together visually as well as emotionally.

INTO THE WILD part 2: Connie and Julien in bed

Ok, so they're consenting adults and for the story to progress and have meaning they need to be intimate. This is tough, as we want to feel their intimacy without being exploitative. It is a bit racy though, with Connie having her bra still on and having it visable, but I figured we'd seen worse, a lot worse. It also wasn't a huge close up of her breasts, so I figured I was ok there. I like to think I exercised a fair level of discretion and tase when drawing this scene.

Annette's incredibly romantic lighting really helps sell the idea that they're making love not having sex or f@cking.




INTO THE WILD part 3: Donna in the bathroom

This scene had been previously established by the amazing Alitha Martinez. Seriously, has any other HEROES artist stepped up as much as she has? I don't think so. Compare her earlier work with her latter work and you will know what I'm talking about. She's doing some brilliant stuff!

Oh god, it would have been so easy to do some serious cleavage and leg shots here, but that would have been not only inappropriate but also distracted from the action beats. I'll be honest, my real problem with this whole story arc is the outfit that Donna wears. I just think it's inappropriate for a mission, but then again... it's designed by a girl (Alitha) so I will just take a big can of shut the hell up.


SUM QUOD SUM part 1: Elle in the bathroom

I include the coloured version and not the black and white version as I feel that the electricity is the focus rather than her nudity. Without Annette's amazing effects, it just look like a hungover naked Elle.

When designing this page, front and center is her expression. It's right in the middle and everything else frames it. I spent so long creating the feeling of pain in her eyes and on her face, but also manifesting a sense of "toughing it".

This carries over to STUCK IN THE MIDDLE'S shower scene, but I had the same mindset. During the course of our lives ie. bathing we are naked. The trick I find is to not have the woman in a sensationalistic, sexy pose, but to also acknowledge that she is indeed naked. She needs to be in a naturalistic position, but the appropriate areas need to be covered up. As soon as it looks like she's actively covering herself up we head into dodgy (er shady or sketchy) territory. I'd do the same for a guy, by the way.

And if you think this is a sensationalistic, sexy pose... well... let's just agree that you and I have very different lines in the sand.

SUM QUOD SUM part 2: "Bikini fight" between Elle and Abby

The beauty about this entire story arc was that I actually got to make suggestions and have Ollie listen to my thoughts. One of the things that I was wracking my brain on was how to have an electrocution incident without the chicks running around in bikinis. He had already done the rain, so that was out. There was a sensationalistic subtext that bothered me. But when reading through the story it just seemed really logical.

Elle needs to be someplace she can relax, and it has to have water. The jacuzzi seems logical. And what else are the girls going to wear?

So my challenge was to not sensatioalise it. I had to make the depiction of the characters realistic and not distort their poses, bodies or actions. I like to hope that I managed to erase any sort of sexual subtext to this scene without taking away from the beauty of both of the characters. It's a tougher juggling act than it sounds! But I think just being aware of this negates the sexualising effect.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE: Mill's shower scene

This was really tough. The whole point of Mill's cameo here is to sexualise her in Ryan's eyes and thus let the incident reflect badly on him. It hopefully illustrates what a douche he is by giving him an unhealthily pervy streak. So I had to walk a fine line here.

On the one hand he has to find her sexually arousing, on the other hand I don't want to offend anyone with her nudity.

So I approached it in two ways. First up, I decided to make her pose as naturally as possible. I wanted her to look like a woman washing herself. I also needed to cover up as much of her as possible with her arms. I wouldn't normally raise my right arm like that to wash my right shoulder, but I didn't think it was out of the bounds of a natural movement.

The other thing I did was make her avoid any eye contact with the camera. This bit is really important. If she was looking at us it would be very sexually confronting. Instead I tried to have her off in her own world and very unaware that she is being looked at. I kinda hoped that it would make the reader feel a bit like a perv too. You're watching someone in a vulnerable state who doesn't know they're being watched. Perhaps that uncomfortable feeling that some readers felt is from that rather than the sexualising of her figure? Maybe you KNEW you shouldn't be watching her here and that made you uncomfortable? That reaction from you is what should make you also detest Ryan.

So, I tried to keep her pose as natural as possible, but Ryan's character needed to be served as a pervert, so instead I showed as much of her as I was comfortable. I remember the original framing was somewhere around where cut off jeans would hang on her hips. But it was just too much. I pulled back so we could see less of her. I felt this served him enough.

I ran it by a very close female friend whose opinion I value and she wasn't offended at all. I asked Annette's opinion before she coloured it. I mentioned to Annette that if she wanted to cover her up with steam to just go for it.

But Annette seemed comfortable enough with it to largely leave it as it was. NBC seemed comfortable enough with it to let it go through, so as far as I was concerned, it was mission accomplished.

Speaking of Annette, I thought her lighting and colour palettes were exceptional here. From the brown to the blue, to directing your eye to the hole in the wall on panel 4. It was all so brilliant.

NEXT: I doubt I will be posting next Monday as I will be landing in Melbourne that day (I leave Sunday night and arrive on Melbourne on Tuesday - er your Monday! 17 hour time difference plus a 15 hour journey - I end up losing 32 hours!). So basically unless Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown fires up the DeLorean I don't know how it's going to happen. I will try, but I don't like my chances. I will still make sure there's three posts that week though.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE page 1

Well it finally went up to resounding debate and contention.

I'm going to talk more about the depiction of women in comics in my next post. But suffice to say, I tried to walk a line between providing motivation for the sexist protagonist and not trying to add to the copious amounts of cheesecake already pouring out every month from comic book companies. Some people mentioned the cheesy pose she was in, and I was like, "Really? You don't think that looks like a woman normally washing herself?"

Apparently not.

I ran it by a bunch of women with a really low tolerance for the sort or bullsh!t I was trying to avoid and they all passed it. But I understand there are people with lower tolerances. And I'm not going to apologise for offending you because I needed to provide motivation and justification for the sexist and offensive Ryan Hanover. Chances are, that the bit you're offended by is the bit that he likes. So consider yourself a good person. =)

Anyway, lemme talk about it more next post.

LAYOUT

Page 1 is Annette and I really pulling out ALL the stops. We both had a great deal of fun on this page. Most of the time when you're asked to draw things on this scale it becomes a juggling job. You're trying to juggle the energy and time you have against the number of pages and the deadline. In this case, because of Jim Martin's damn tight writing, it was just one page. This meant Annette and I were able to pull out the big guns and not worry about blowing our wads too early or runing out of steam. How's that? Three euphemisms in one sentence! That's gotta be a record.

As you can see from my layouts, they are arguably technically comparable to anything the average 2nd grader could pull out. I'm planning on moving towards crayons and finger painting with my next layouts.


LINE ART

Hopefully this would give the average 2nd grader a harder time.

I am a digital artist, and it's times like this that I really try and use my medium to its fullest advantage. One of the things I can do really easily is draw on multiple layers. Here I've used it to create as much depth in the image as possible. Panel one has 5 layers:

David Sullivan
David's foreground that he occupies
Midground between David and Rachel
Rachel Mills
Rachel's background that she sits in

By masking each of these out for Annette it allows her to create a real sense of depth. I actually did a fair amount of research about Fallujah and it's sometimes the worst part of my job. Some of the stuff I saw was incredibly disturbing. I mean, I'd rather not see bullet-ridden corpses lying in the middle of the street. I don't want to avoid the issues going on in our day and age, but I'd rather not see the images if I don't have to.

ANNETTE'S COLOURING

I can't stress enough Annette's contribution to the final artwork. The final page is a combination of teamwork between the both of us and she deserves an equal amount of credit. I find it very frustrating when she is left out of reviews and comments. Sure, my name comes first but that's the etiquette of comics listing credits in order of production rather than of importance.

I've asked this before, but if you ever enjoy the finished artwork to comment it, please don't forget to credit Annette also.

I don't know if there's a better example of Annette really showing us what she can do. This is one of the best examples of Annette being not only my cinematographer and special effects unit but also a great designer.

In each panel she creates a depth of field by either blurring out foreground elements that I masked for her (ie. the rubble on panel 2 around Mills) or adding smoke and fire in between each of the background elements. Her whole grounding of the page creates this incredibly intense apocalyptic scene. If you look up at my illustration of the last panel you will see it's basically just white. She creates the heat and the pain for our money shot.

Note also as she directs the eye around the page with the fire element. It starts medium in panel 1, troughs for a bit then peaks powerfully in the last panel. It's masterful work.

FRIDAY: Naked women & sexism in comics.

KILLEROO: Armageddon

So awhile back was the Armageddon popculture expo. For the first time, I was invited to attend as a guest (I guess the ridiculous reception I got last year initiated that). Unfortunately, cos I'm now living in Los Angeles I was unable to attend. Is that ironic in the normal or the Alanis Morisette sense? I think the latter.

Anyway, I'm working on a Killeroo story for Darren Close. I love Killeroo, and I love both writing and drawing him. As a preview for that story I thought I would put together a pinup and possible cover for the issue. Darren is even talking about collecting it in a special "Jason Badower edition" of Killeroo.

I'm very proud of the story. It follows my theme of, "the price of doing the right thing."

We're tentatively calling it KILLEROO: THE HARD ROAD.

I will let you all know when it's out. Right now it's been written and laid (layed?) out.

CONCEPT

I had very little time to draw this, and Darren would have been really appreciative if I could have coloured it too, and I don't wanna disappoint anyone, let alone the Big Man himself, so I had to fit colouring into my schedule too.

I normally spend a great deal of time conceptualizing things. Not usually on paper, but in my brain. Just masticating ideas (get your mind out of the gutter) until they form into my darling little children on paper. For this I had NO time. I had to punch it out asap. This is kind of like being asked to build a house in a week. Sure, it can be done, but you have no room for error.

All I knew at this stage was that I wanted to draw him in profile. WAYNE NICHOLS, a fellow Australian comic book artist was goofing around and he drew what I consider to be the most seminal Killeroo picture ever (see left).

Also affected by Waynes' picture, Darren suggested a piece that was very similar to what Wayne did. But he wanted a front on full body standing shot that he could use as a cardboard cut out one day. But it was just too soon for me. I just didn't want to play in Wayne's playground for two reasons. One, Wayne had kicked it out of the park and did that angle and pose about as good as it could possibly be done right now. I needed some time to digest from the artistic blow that Wayne had dealt. And I just didn't think I could add anything to that image at this stage. Two, I wanted to give the fans a fresh take. What's the point of having two pictures that look alike? Give em some options!

LINE ART

All I knew was that I didn't want to draw him facing us. For some reason I was obsessed with drawing this sneering profile. I then got drawing and realised it was SO hard! I actually had to do some sketches figuring out how his skull worked, and then had to figure out his lips so that we could see his teeth. It became kind of involved. What you see here is the finished product.

As you can also see, I'm leaning towards more linework these days. When I drew Zero G, I was very influenced by Steve McNiven. He has this very, very clean open style with minimal rendering and powerful flowing lines. I found that on my graphics tablet I couldn't create the lines that he did on a reasonable time scale. They just took too long! So I've been wandering back towards more of a Brian Bolland style, who, coincidentally (not ironically in neither the true nor Alanis Morissette sense) also works on a graphics tablet.

I really dig the visually heavy middle of the picture with his dark torso and her dark top and hat. Then it becomes really light around the bottom and the top. I especially like how the lines on the jeans turned out on both of them. I think they have a lot of energy. While I like Killeroo (and especially his hands) my favourite thing about the piece is Lee, the girl. She just has great energy and dynamism.

Having finished the piece I was about to start colouring. Then my conscience started creeping up on me. I just knew that I had to put a background in. Now remember I was talking about having no room for error? Well, you better shove over cos I made one in my haste. Now unfortunately, it's a bit low. If she's bending her knees like that, how can a bar stool (which generally sits slightly around hip level) be so far below her? It's like they're standing on boxes (or a pile of bodies?).

Oops.

It's a nice (though poorly placed) background though. When I go back to it I will fix it up.

BROWNING

I would say colouring, but really, it was just browning and exploring different shades of brown. I remember my friend, Mitch reviewing Carnivale (the tv show) as "brown".

I think there's some blue. Last I checked, that's not brown, but let's not let a little bit of a blue come between a good joke (in Aussie slang, a blue is also an argument or fight - so I just made some sort of lousy pun - no extra charge for that one!).

What I love about colouring is lighting. I love tones and the way light falls and reflects off surfaces onto other surfaces. So I love key lights. I will just zone out while I'm listening to someone talk and just be studying the lighting on their face. So if I get this weird look in my eyes, I'm probably doing that not planning to chop you up and put you in my industrial fridge.

As a last minute easter egg, I added the Claire from the last post as no one had seen it undistorted at that stage.

NEXT: So, I'm told Jim's, Annette's and my story will be up tomorrow, or tonight, or whenever. You know, sometime soon. So I will be posting about that next. You might even get to see the dodgy (that's "shady" to you Americans) and sordid drinking photos of Jim and I. Ok, maybe you won't. But there will be art. And naked chicks.