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"How come whenever I attempt to be social, I end up cracking somebody's head open?

OF COURSE THIS WOULD BE THE ONE PAGE I'M GOOD WITH. It needs filler text, according to this computer. Jesus jumping christ. I think it's a mag. thing. I'll have to be content with "okay" text/graphic arrangement. Bah.


"You flaw. At least I'm under the delusion of doing something productive." --Nny.

Comics


The first comic book I ever read was Wild C.A.T.S. when I was twelve. It grabbed me, but not in the same way that later, darker, and altogether more disturbing books such as Amphigorey (which made my dad want to put me in therapy) or Sandman (which my friend's mom denounced as "trash") did. If you have any interest in tehse books, go all for it-- you'll make friends.

.favorite comics. What, you can't see? Sandman, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and (to a lesser extent, because they're hard to find) Poison Elves, are my favorite comic books. I'm not going to go into too much detail on Sandman, because everybody has heard of it/read it and there are much better sites out there. Here's my two cents on the matter, though:

1. Sandman: You could write a doctoral thesis on Dream. He's dour, proud, a die-hard romantic, and a romantic figure in his own right. He is a member of the Endless, a group that personifies action significant to sentient life, who have both less and more power than gods. The Sandman story arc is a beautiful example of the craftsmanship of narrative. The artists change from issue to issue, so there's a wide range of styles on display throughout the work. The Dream in the sidebar is most definitely my favorite version.

2. Poison Elves: "CROW!" Lusiphur is a Poison Elf, and he's a little hard to explain. He's very much a man though, in that sometimes he can be pathetically little-boy cute and other times a psycho that you want to hide from. He's sarcastic, evil, and extremely funny. Not to mention the fact that he looks a lot like Trent Reznor. The art of P.E. used to really impress me, but now I've cooled on it; the eyes are too close together, and Drew (like me) hates drawing backgrounds. He is, however, a fucking master at folds.

Other Luse Quotes: "I have a job that allows me, a misanthropist, to thin out the human race, and I have the love of a woman who is as nasty as I am. Nope, sorry Par... I just can't get mad."

3. Johnny The Homicidal Maniac: This is one of the funniest things you will ever read. There is a sick, dark humor at work which is the result of an evil, genius mind-- and if you've never heard of Jhonen Vasquez, try pushing up on the rock you're under. The comic is about the antics of a homicidal maniac named Nny, who kills anyone he feels like deserves it-- at least, at first. The narrative arc has Nny slowly lose his self-control in the face of the collective evil of reality, which is trapped in his house behind a wall which must be kept wet with fresh blood. Nny's imaginary friends (who are also his worst enemies) collaborate with this evil to get Nny to kill himself and break the seal that keeps it trapped. Nny dies, only to discover that the cosmos-- in their sick fashion-- planned for him to die all along to flush the evil into the Void. As Senor Diablo puts it: "Neat, huh?" Anyway, Nny's existential angst is appealing, and you can't help but feel sorry for his psychotic ass.

Other JTHM Quotes:
"Damn, that one REALLY put up a struggle. Scraped me up like he was a cat on crack!"
"It must be nice to still have the opportunity to save the cohesion of your pretty mind. The best some people can hope for is to better manage their damage."
"Never expect anything but nasty irritation from anyone YOU didn't create."

DIY-- Draw a Comic.

Ever wonder how artists get those teeny, tiny little lines? Or what the deal is with the white outlines, when it's black on black? Alise, here, is the result of a drawing spree that took place a couple of years ago. I was attempting to draw a comic. I didn't succeed. And now, my non-succeeding ass is going to tell you why I failed so abjectly.

It's all about shrinkage.

Comic books are drawn on large pieces of paper-- one piece of paper per page in the book. Then (what I did) was cut the paper into a scannable size. Scanners usually enlarge comic book pages past all belief, which gives you the opportunity to clean up any obvious SNAFUs in a photo editor, like Photoshop. You then resize each piece and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle. You shoot for the size of a regular sheet of paper, so each section would be 1/4th of the whole. Obviously, all this shrinkage is going to make your line work look a lot finer. In fact, you have to draw a little thicker than you usually would, so that the lines don't disappear completely. To get the white outline, you either erase in Photoshop or (better) leave a white line uninked when inking in black against black. This white line will shrink down, producing that sexy white line we all love.

Materials
I worked in pen and ink to produce a black and white product. My paper was smooth, with little tooth, because I discovered earlier that the rougher the paper, the more the ink is going to spray/dribble off the pen and ruin the whole fucking page. (If you draw a comic, particularly a half-assed one like I did, this WILL happen to you about four thousand infuriating times. The pros probably have a way to avoid it. Me, I just try to work the ink dribble into the composition). NIBS WEAR OUT. YOU MUST BUY NEW NIBS. (The reason that's in caps is because mine is worn out and I haven't replaced it yet. Note to self).

Another thing you have to worry about is ink. I prefer a thicker ink. The thinner the ink, the runnier it is, the more likely it'll drip, and the more problems you have controlling your line. As for nibs, I'm a big fan of Hunt's 107. The 102 has a shorter chamber, resulting, again, in a thicker line. The thicker line is probably good for the comic guys, but I'm out of that racket now. Hope this helped, and have fun.