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!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Judge Parker
Now the Terminator is out of the way, maybe it's time for the JP crew to enjoy NYC.
I like how you are going for a bit of the photo realism style that Stan Drake/Leonard Starr/Alex Kotzky did with their strips. Drake and Starr were absolute masters. Plus Drake went onto draw Blondie, which he said was actually EASIER, once he got the characters down. Stan was the MAN. His Kelly Green and Juliet Jones comics were terrific. His woman were sexy as all get out. Leonard Starr was also very, very good too. Very similiar to Drake. They teamed up on the Kelly Green comic series. All their woman were quite sexy as the men were handsome. What I marveled with those two was how detailed they drew the backgrounds and the characters in the distance. All maintained a very detailed, realistic look, even from afar.
I always thought that look would be great on Judge Parker. Harold LeDoux's artistry was good for a long time on JP, but Drake and Starr were in another league. If that is the kind of look you are going for, I would say go for it. Right on.
Thanks Paul,I am pushing it more realistic, I don't have the time assistants or budget for the models etc.
Those old school guys had a real team to help them, artists like Tex Blaisedel used to do backgrounds for several guys and they had letterers as well, mine is photoshop. Williamson used a ton of photo ref he shot himself or copped from Fumetti and Photo-Romanceos.
Starr is always underrated I think, he was really amazing, especially his inking with a brush, also the writing on those strips was tailored to what each guy wanted to do.
It was just a different era, the size of the strips ran large enough to appreciate that level of detail, at the size they run now that work would be lost in print. Even though JP runs on the web I must always consider PRINT as the default medium.
You are absolutely correct that Starr/Drake/Williamson, etc, all had tremendous help in drawing their strips, with the backgrounds, the lettering (by hand!) and whatnot.
It is to be truly appreciated that YOU have an appreciation for the legacy strips, like Judge Parker. What makes or breaks them is how their creators treat them. Graham Nolan does a very nice job with Rex Morgan and is now about to get his "Sunshine State" comic strip syndicated. A "humor strip". Paul Ryan still continues to make The Phantom look very good.
Ultimately, I think how the realistic the characters look and how GOOD they look makes a difference. Too many story/serial strips have gone away or lost lots of papers because they are shell of what they used to be. IMHO.
So, it is to be appreciated that you are making it look the best it can, mostly by yourself.
Now the Terminator is out of the way, maybe it's time for the JP crew to enjoy NYC.
4 comments:
Mike,
I like how you are going for a bit of the photo realism style that Stan Drake/Leonard Starr/Alex Kotzky did with their strips. Drake and Starr were absolute masters. Plus Drake went onto draw Blondie, which he said was actually EASIER, once he got the characters down. Stan was the MAN. His Kelly Green and Juliet Jones comics were terrific. His woman were sexy as all get out. Leonard Starr was also very, very good too. Very similiar to Drake. They teamed up on the Kelly Green comic series. All their woman were quite sexy as the men were handsome. What I marveled with those two was how detailed they drew the backgrounds and the characters in the distance. All maintained a very detailed, realistic look, even from afar.
I always thought that look would be great on Judge Parker. Harold LeDoux's artistry was good for a long time on JP, but Drake and Starr were in another league. If that is the kind of look you are going for, I would say go for it. Right on.
Thanks Paul,I am pushing it more realistic, I don't have the time assistants or budget for the models etc.
Those old school guys had a real team to help them, artists like Tex Blaisedel used to do backgrounds for several guys and they had letterers as well, mine is photoshop. Williamson used a ton of photo ref he shot himself or copped from Fumetti and Photo-Romanceos.
Starr is always underrated I think, he was really amazing, especially his inking with a brush, also the writing on those strips was tailored to what each guy wanted to do.
It was just a different era, the size of the strips ran large enough to appreciate that level of detail, at the size they run now that work would be lost in print. Even though JP runs on the web I must always consider PRINT as the default medium.
Mike,
You are absolutely correct that Starr/Drake/Williamson, etc, all had tremendous help in drawing their strips, with the backgrounds, the lettering (by hand!) and whatnot.
It is to be truly appreciated that YOU have an appreciation for the legacy strips, like Judge Parker. What makes or breaks them is how their creators treat them. Graham Nolan does a very nice job with Rex Morgan and is now about to get his "Sunshine State" comic strip syndicated. A "humor strip". Paul Ryan still continues to make The Phantom look very good.
Ultimately, I think how the realistic the characters look and how GOOD they look makes a difference. Too many story/serial strips have gone away or lost lots of papers because they are shell of what they used to be. IMHO.
So, it is to be appreciated that you are making it look the best it can, mostly by yourself.
Excuse me sir. Are you the same Mike Manley who worked for Marvel comics in the early 90s?
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