Hello I'm Mike Manley, welcome to my studio Blog. I am veteran comic and animation artist and I created and edit Draw! Magazine. This blog is a chronicle of what's happening in my studio. Follow my process and path as an painter, cartoonist and teacher and find out how they inform and enrich each other!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Turtles Inks
Here is the inked version of the penciled page I posted recently.
Thanks. Golden was hard work to ink... since his penciling was sooo tight. It was a dream job in some ways and a lot of hard work in others. I have been a fan since I was a kid reding his Micronuats issues.
I was suppoesed to ink it all but Golden fell way, way way wayyyyy behind schedule, so i lost out on inking those pages, I even penciled and inked two versions of those pages Golden inked himself from scratch because DC neede to have the books ship, but Golden also penciled and inked them the same weekend so they went with his. I had my pages posted on my message board a while back.
There is an interview in progress with Grist as a matter of fact and I will schedule it when I have it finished.
Golden is great. I really got into the Micronauts series a few years ago when they were in the .50 cent bins. I can't remember the other stuff Golden did in that era, but i've picked up a bunch of them. He might have done some Iron Man (?)
I still love that old-looking Turtle on the far left!
Funny how you mentioned those two artists, both who are very talented, pretty unique, especially Golden, and two artist who always had deadline issues.
The big difference between artists now and artists then is that those great comic artists were often first generation children of immigrants trying to escape poverty, war, crime etc. They were not making more than $5 a page in the 40's, and speed was a must. thus they were trained for hard work, and rewarded for hard work and speed. That entire generation knew war, depression, persecution and the value of $$ and hard work, today peope are pussies!
The field just isn't the same today.It's like a vanity press in many ways, and in general most artists just don't want to work that hard. Some artists are rewarded despite being slow, blowing deadlines, often costing fellow freelancers income and the company money if they are popular enough. Conversley, artists who deliver on time, do good solid work are routinely fucked over and give short shrift in editorial offices if they are not "hot" and editors seem to fight over the same 10 guys because they are competeing for way to 'stunt up" sales and sell more product to fewer aging babyman fans in a market that is stagnat at best. New readers or potential readers are flocking to manga not Batman, thus we as a industry have trained fans to reward and expect this type of "event" publishing, just as the memory scent of the high 90's brief $hot$ speculator-event publishing market destroyed the stability of the influx of new readers and growth as an industry as a whole. New readers would routinely come in, become a fan of say, Fantastic Four,X-men etc., and proceed to buy back issues. Back issue sales often being upwards of 40-60% of the avaerage retailers income. Now I bet it's 15-20% at best.
The retailers effect the artist in the long run, a 'trickle down" economics. If lets' say Alex Ross covers mean a 10% boost in retailer orders that means Ross does more covers for DC. Also if that means editorial get's the idea then that "realistic art" is in, then artists who may have a different and as legitimate style are suddenly out of favor. These are often forces that you as an artist have no control over at all and all you can do is keep your nose to the wind and not count on any one source of income.
3 comments:
Thanks. Golden was hard work to ink... since his penciling was sooo tight. It was a dream job in some ways and a lot of hard work in others. I have been a fan since I was a kid reding his Micronuats issues.
I was suppoesed to ink it all but Golden fell way, way way wayyyyy behind schedule, so i lost out on inking those pages, I even penciled and inked two versions of those pages Golden inked himself from scratch because DC neede to have the books ship, but Golden also penciled and inked them the same weekend so they went with his. I had my pages posted on my message board a while back.
There is an interview in progress with Grist as a matter of fact and I will schedule it when I have it finished.
Golden is great. I really got into the Micronauts series a few years ago when they were in the .50 cent bins. I can't remember the other stuff Golden did in that era, but i've picked up a bunch of them. He might have done some Iron Man (?)
I still love that old-looking Turtle on the far left!
Funny how you mentioned those two artists, both who are very talented, pretty unique, especially Golden, and two artist who always had deadline issues.
The big difference between artists now and artists then is that those great comic artists were often first generation children of immigrants trying to escape poverty, war, crime etc. They were not making more than $5 a page in the 40's, and speed was a must. thus they were trained for hard work, and rewarded for hard work and speed. That entire generation knew war, depression, persecution and the value of $$ and hard work, today peope are pussies!
The field just isn't the same today.It's like a vanity press in many ways, and in general most artists just don't want to work that hard. Some artists are rewarded despite being slow, blowing deadlines, often costing fellow freelancers income and the company money if they are popular enough. Conversley, artists who deliver on time, do good solid work are routinely fucked over and give short shrift in editorial offices if they are not "hot" and editors seem to fight over the same 10 guys because they are competeing for way to 'stunt up" sales and sell more product to fewer aging babyman fans in a market that is stagnat at best. New readers or potential readers are flocking to manga not Batman, thus we as a industry have trained fans to reward and expect this type of "event" publishing, just as the memory scent of the high 90's brief $hot$ speculator-event publishing market destroyed the stability of the influx of new readers and growth as an industry as a whole. New readers would routinely come in, become a fan of say, Fantastic Four,X-men etc., and proceed to buy back issues. Back issue sales often being upwards of 40-60% of the avaerage retailers income. Now I bet it's 15-20% at best.
The retailers effect the artist in the long run, a 'trickle down" economics. If lets' say Alex Ross covers mean a 10% boost in retailer orders that means Ross does more covers for DC. Also if that means editorial get's the idea then that "realistic art" is in, then artists who may have a different and as legitimate style are suddenly out of favor. These are often forces that you as an artist have no control over at all and all you can do is keep your nose to the wind and not count on any one source of income.
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