MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER 3 Layouts

Magnus NO. 3 hit the stands last week and so I thought I would post some of the layouts I did that Bill Rienhold did finishes over. I am really happy with what Bill did, it is a great looking comic, the coloring by Wes Dzioba is one of my favorite coloring jobs ever. So often I am just really dissappointed by the coloring which can really destroy the art on a book and ruin all your hard work--but not here, Wes really enhances what Bill and I did. Unfortunately I am off to other things as due to the dreaded deadline doom Bill has moved onto doing a Magnus origin story--so no layouts will be needed to speed the deadline.

Bill's inks!

This was hard book to layout from Jim Shooters scripts, Jim is a guy who has definite ideas about how his comics should be laid out and that honestly left me at times kinda' hemmed in compared to the way I usually work. Shooter believes in the strict panel grid in laying out a comic, no bleeds, no inset panels etc. I hate the term "old School' but that might apply here--or maybe the world conservative would. yet artists like Kirby and Ditko worked most of their careers in the grid--did their best work with the grid--so you can still go good comics, I think however the past 40 years teh grid has been really blown out and much more cinematic and "designed" page layouts have become the norm.

I knew from working with him at Valiant Jim would not be going for that--so I was not surprised at the way he wanted the books done, but at times I felt honestly a bit constrained as I could think of much more dynamic ways to layout some of the scenes. But those were the rules on this gig and so I spent my effort on making the panels the best compositions, the acting of the characters and trying to make the layouts as dynamic as possible knowing that there might be changes by Shooter and that Bill would make the art look sweat--and he did.


If you see this issue you can see there were changes to my layout.

I was thinking that I would just knock the figures in and let Bill "dress them up' as at this time they were still trying to come up with Magnus' new costume.

I got to do some fun future design stuff and again I just roughed in Magnus so Bill could add the costume when it was agreed on. My idea when laying out a page is the story is first, and I want to keep the figures and shapes of the background and elements reading clear. Strong clear gestures that can read in a silouette especially in panel 4 where Magnus uses his internal com-link to talk to A-1.


I'll post some more layouts in the next few days!

Magnus Robot Fighter

Since the issue is now out on the stands I thought I'd showcase some of the comic work I did doing layouts of Magnus no. 2 to help my buddy and excellent artist in his own right, Bill Reinhold. Bill was up against a pretty tight deadline so he asked me if i could jump in and help by doing layouts for him from the scripts by Jim Shooter. In the old days at marvel these types of things were pretty common, so common they even had levels of these layouts depending on the amount of detail in them. Workhorses like Gil Kane and both John and Sal Buscema were legend for being able to jump in and layout a whole book in a matter of 2-3 days sometimes.

they had breakdowns and then shakedowns, shakedowns being really almost just a break down of the plot into panels with very simple drawings, the breakdowns were more detailed. John Buscema was the king of this and could do such amazing pages this way that were later given to inkers who were finishers or really artists in their own right such as Tom Palmer, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson and a host of artists from the Philippines like Alfredo Alcala and Ernie Chan to just name two. marvel ran this way for many years depending of the excellent drawing and storytelling skills of these handful of pencillers to defeat the dreaded deadline doom. My work is somewhere between breakdown and pencils as i don't do this all of the time and sometimes need to get into a drawing more myself to make it work out. Bill is right up there with those golden age greats as far as drawing and finishing skills and the changes you see are partially his own and the changes asked for by Jim Shooter who writes the book. I always like the man in the pink metal skirt, Magnus has been a fave of mine since a kid and reading those original Russ Manning Gold Key Comics. Its always hard jumping into the middle of a job, middle of a story but its easier when you have a feeling for the character. I even did a cover or two for Magnus back when it was at Acclaim. I'm helping on issue No. 3 as well doing layouts, so when thats out I'll post some more pages.

My layout...
Bill's finishes.

My layout
Bill's finishes