Featured Guest Lehigh Valley Comic Con

I'll be the featured gust at this months Lehigh Valley Comic Con
on Saturday August 25th. I haven't done any cons in the last few years so stop on by if you are in the area and chat and get a sketch!

PAFA CE Cartooning Class 2012

I just finished teaching my one-week intensive workshop on comics at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the Continuing Ed program. I had a great group of talented and enthusiastic young cartoonists who came ready to draw up a storm!  

 Just like last summer  I had a pretty diverse group and a pretty big class at 14 students. I felt lucky as this summer many classes have not run in the program, and thats probably due to the economy. I had two returning students from last summer and it was great to see the growth from last summer.
 There was at a good variety of interests and styles from manga to Indy, horror and humor, one student drew her own Adventure Time comic. I introduced them to the technical end as well as he artistic variety of come books and strips and everyone really churned out great pages. Even in a week long class that runs 6 hours, getting 3-4 pages done in that time is pretty hard work.

 Asher continued on with his theme of doing a war comic, this time based on a book he was reading about Vietnam. I showed him the work of artists like Russ Heath and he ate it up! Not everyone just drew comics, some wanted to draw illustrations of trains or the Beatles--and its all good! I introduced a student to the work of Peter max, Moebius, Virgil Finlay and the Art Nouveau--which she has never heard of but was drawing work very influenced by the 60's psychedelic and The Yellow Submarine cartoon.

I was honestly impressed by how talented some of my students were and how quickly the picked up the things I showed them, trying their hand at the pen nib and brush and not just the marker---and they really seemed to dig the results!

 It was a great group of young cartoonist and teaching them gave me a boost as well---its really great to see that there are a whole bunch of young cartoonist out there hoping to draw their way to fame and fortune, to lob the ball over the net and have it sent back with a little spin on it.

Judge Parker

This week's Judge Parker. The boys can stay!

Judge Parker

This week's Judge Parker Sunday, things seem to be getting a bit touchy....

Darkhawk Process

While going through the huge pile of old folders of my art I came across there two copies from my work back on Darkhawk for Marvel, these are circa 1991. DH was still a fresh experience for me and I was still pretty stoked to be doing my own book at Marvel from the start where I was the main creative artistic force. That feeling waned as I worked on the book as at that time the book didn't get much love from fans or even at Marvel. Those were the X-men days and anything NOT X-men was basically not cool. But I the decades following my run I constantly get people telling me how much they loved what I did, so maybe people just didn't write a lot, and this was the pre-internet days. I was inking with a combo of radiograph, Hunt 108 pen nib and # 3 or 4 Langnickle brushes, man, this were the BEST brushes.

Comic Process: Dr. Solar

While cleaning up and going through some files I cam came across these pages from my run on Solar back in my valiant days. I had fun on this book and think the inks by Bob Wiacek were great, I loved having him ink my work. I think tis is a great example of what an inker contributes and how much they can add to a page.

Judge Parker

Here is this week's Sunday---or rather lasts Sunday's strip. I am late with this due to my laptop crashing on me. the good news is that I'm getting a new laptop this week.

Judge Parker Process

I thought I'd post a little again on my process on doing Judge Parker after being on the strip for a while now. I am still very much a traditional artist, especially with comics and while part of the process is done in photoshop, like the coloring and lettering, but I am still all about having an original piece of artwork. Pen and ink on paper is the esthetic I was trained to and still subscribe to. In the past, when I first started in the strip, I used to do layouts for the Sunday strip. I can and have worked digitally, but the facts remain for me that in the future the paper original will last a lot longer than any digital version; it will have value as an artifact, a piece of art and craftsmanship--of history! Heck, in just the past decade so many platforms have come and gone, Syquest, Jazz, Zip drives, you name it. I am also far superior using traditional tools than any program, which at it's best is an imitation of what I can traditionally do. Nothing yet I have used on a computer has made the cut--nothing equals the tactile feedback of my hand on the paper, the snap of a fresh 108 nib, or the dry brush effects I can pull with a good kolinsky sable. Sure, some might say "who cares", but not me, nope, I trained like a super athlete to get these skills and I want to use them! So for me unless the job demands I do it, I will stay "old school" as they say.

Sometimes in the past I'd blow up the layout and trace it off using my lightbox, but now I just wing it and go for it, I draw straight ahead to the board and trust my guts. If I don't like what I've got going I just erase it and start again.

I think what I am after besides always clear storytelling and solid drawing is a freshness. I am a huge admirer of the work that Leonard Starr did on On Stage, one of the greatest comic strips ever as far as the soap opera types, and Starr was one of the best draughtsmen ever. The great, clear drawing and staging, the 'attractiveness" of the work was always top notch. I also think of John Romita's work and how he also made everything smart and attractive in his romance stories. He brought that sense of style and sophistication to Spider-man.

Judge parker however is almost never as dramatic as Spidey, and the format of the comic strip is much more rigid, especially the daily strip. I always admired how my predecessor on the strip, the late Eduardo Barreto made the strip more dynamic by playing around with panel sizes, etc. I think this can work well depending on the story or the sequence, but I also have the feeling that sometimes we let the camera shot, let the story play out and just draw it as best as we can. Sometimes being too funky with layouts can be distracting. The top tier or row the the sunday strip must always be laid out as it is above, and the row is also dropped by some newspapers who chose to run the Sunday strip in a shorter version which contains only the bottom tow rows. Of these two rows the last row I have the freedom to change the size of the panels, overlap, etc.

I pencil the Sunday on a sheet of 12 x 18 illustration board using an HB-B lead and then ink using a Hunt 108 and either Faber-Castell (S or M)or Pigma markers ( 0.5-1) and the markers I use are all archival and water proof. I like the markers for the small faces and anything mechanical or often backgrounds. I use Dr. Martins High Carb ink when I can find it and I have been using the Dick Blick Studio series, no 4 for my brush work. I still have some Kolinsky sable brushes I bought 20 years ago, but I try and save those. Typically I hop in and do all the line work first and then go back with the brush work for the blacks or feathering, still pretty traditional. You can compare and see what I change from my pencils to the inks as I feel the inks is the real final product so I am always adjusting things from the pencil stage.

The hardest character to draw is Sophie, being in that young teenage girl phase where she is just developing her figure. Too far and she looks 16, or 18, and not enough and she looks 10 or 12. Really its a fine line as some teen girls looks 16 at 14. I do try and do a lot or research and google to get images of girls around 14 years old, especially for the fashion. I really try and make her dressed as a typical modern teen not something out of 1970, though you'll be surprised how much fashions do retro in some things. I know maybe the old time readers of the strip object to things like change or the change of a character like Sophie into a teen, smart and sexy without being overt, but otherwise the strip becomes a relic and unrealistic for me to draw. Abbey is the next hardest to draw as she is this rich gal, a business woman and slightly conservative, so I also do fashion research and I kind of model her on Morgan Fairchild and in a way think of this strip as a sort of like a cross between the Rockford files and Dallas.I could never figure out the hairstyle Harold LeDoux drew her in all those years, but looking at Morgan Fairchild's hair gave me something that worked. It works for me, I can understand it, and if I can understand it I can draw it.

Judge Parker

This week's JP Sunday...

Guest Speaker Philadelphia Sketch Club

Over on my Michael Cole Manley blog I posted about my talk I gave at the Philadelphia Sketch club last Friday.

Philadelphia Plein Air Painters

I've help start an new Philly painting group, check out our new Blog!

Judge Parker

This week's Sunday Judge Parker

Judge Parker

This week's Judge Parker Sunday

Beaver Farm Paintout

The other day I was lucky enough to join a local group of painters and spend the day plein air paintings at Beaver Farm a part of the Camphill Special School which boarders French Creek out past valley Forge. Its this amazing bio-dynamic and organic farm which is part of the main school and runs a transitional program for older kids with special needs. It's an amazing place, beautiful grounds and facilities and lots of animals of all types, a great spot for kids and painters! I was invited to join the group by painter Nancy Bea Muller for one of the mini-paintouts which they do and then the big weekend paintout which happens later this summer, They then have a show at Rosenfeld gallery in Philly where half the proceeds of the sales from the paintings done at the event go to help the school.

I set up under a tree to try and keep in the shade while painting, i had my hat and my sunblock on so I was ready to go

I had my brushes and box of paint...but i forgot my liquin, luckily my friend Diane had some.

I decided to start with a smaller piece and hand an already primed board with a warm tone ready.

A bunch of the piggies sleeping...

Nancy gave me a great tour of the place.

Rachel Constantine paints next to me as we race the setting sun to get our last painting done.

Kerry Dunn paints away right in the sun. I took a class with Kerry at Studio Incamminati last year.

My buddy Dave Wilson did and awesome painting of the old pump house.

A pic of me painting away thanks to Diane.

Another pic of me thanks to Nancy B.

Here is my painting of the old pump house and below the last painting of the grazing fields as the sun set. both will be in the Rosenfeld show later this summer.

The group all came together to try and race the sundown and get one more painting in done.

Judge Parker

A new storyline starts...

The Graduate

Yesterday I graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine arts along with the rest of my DPC friends, it was a great day full of families and friends and the culmination of 5 years worth of school, hard work, lots of painting, and memories I'll cherish the rest of my life.

yesterday was also the public opening of the 111th Annual Student Exhibition and the place was jam packed with familes, friends, the media and public. the night before was the annual Woman's Board preview party where the high rollers pay a premium to come in and get a chance to purchase the art and see the show before the public opening. sales were great, I sold several pieces and got a commission and my fellow DPC members all did great with sales as well.

Some perspective buyers checking out my wall.

You also get to see and meet a lot of great friends and fellow artists like Diane Feissel, Angela Cunningham (Cambrideg Street studios)and Rachel Constantine.

Yours truly all gussied up in front of my wall.

Dinner with Will, Alina and Brie and her family.

Lunch with all of our families and friends right before graduation was to start.

The graduate walk up into the Historic landmark Building.

President Bingham presenting an honorary degree to artist and graduation speaker Audrey Flack.

The DPC all happy to be done!

It was a great time and the culmination of a lot of hard work over the years and the last week especially with getting everything up on our walls, the preview night and then graduation. We all celebrated at the end at the best Vietnamese restaurant in the world, Little Saigon! Ewardd, his wife Nancy and his daughters are like family to me and I couldn't think of a better place to end out great day with our families and friends. Congrats to all the graduates of the class of 2012!