vozwords

Days at Charlton

2012-03-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

Mike Vosburg Interview

CS: Please tell us something of your life before Charlton. Things like where
and when you were born, early comics you read, artistic aspirations…

I read all kinds of comics as a kid. There weren’t a lot of superhero titles other than Superman,
Batman and Wonderwoman when I was growing up. There were lots of westerns, funny animal books, Classic Illustrated (my favorites) and lots of mystery comics. These especially appealed to me.

I was never very interested in science fiction, so most of the outer space monster stuff and the majority of the super hero comics that starting appearing in the 60’s had little appeal for me. If I liked the artists, I’d follow the strip, but the stories themselves had little appeal.

After I was about 13 or 14 I don’t think I ever read my comics, certainly none of the Marvel stuff which truly bored me. I was much more interested in reading books. For me comics were essentially a visual medium, so I loved looking at the illustrations and emulating them.

My favorites artists were Joe Kubert, Russ Manning, Al Williamson and Kurt Shaffenberger in comics and Leonard Starr and Hal Foster in the newspapers. Steve Ditko was the Charlton artist who really appealed to me. I loved his otherworldliness.

CS: Can you remember your first Charlton comic? Any particular titles,
characters or series that stand out in your memory?

My first Charlton story was “The Arena of Lost Souls.” I was working for DC or Marvel at the time and there kept me fairly busy pencilling, but they never let me ink the work.

Al Milgrom, (who very kindly always let me stay at his place when I was in NYC) and I took the train up to Connecticut to meet with Nick Cuti, who was the editor then. I’ve worked with Nick since on a few animation jobs here in LA...always a great guy. We also met George Wildman who looked over our work. I think we both got a couple scripts to work on. The attraction for me was that I could ink the work myself.

Looking back on my beginnings in comics I always had good people inking my work, but the end result was always so foreign from what I was attempting that I can never look at it enthusiastically. When I look at the work I inked myself I see a completely different artist. When I failed, I failed utterly because there was no seasoned inker to correct my mistakes. But I found that when I inked my work I took the pencils to another level. I pretty much knew what I wanted in terms of style, but lacked the drawing skills and technical tricks to get there. Because I wasn’t finishing the majority of my work, I wasn’t aware of the problems I was causing for the inker...once I had to do the work myself I had a much better understanding of how to resolve the problems.

As a result, the Charlton stories I did and the Star*Reach stories were my favorite stuff from that period of my career.

CS: At the time of your work for Charlton, George Wildman was the editor.
Can you describe your contact with him and any other persons associated with
the Charlton outfit?

MV:

I did a total of four horror stories, two romance stories and two covers and three separate one page fillers. I also did the one war story. I was (and still am) very anti-war and not very enthused about doing the war story. I think Nick asked me to do it as a favor. I wound up doing the entire job with swipes from Joe Kubert’s Sgt. Rock stuff, so at least it had some appeal.

Ironically, the most financially successful comicbook I’ve been connected with is G.I. Joe. When people joke with me about drawing pornography because of my Lori Lovecraft stories, which are truly innocent and inoffensive, I always like to point out that the only REAL pornography I’ve worked on is GI Joe.

The horror stories were always great. The first was “The Arena of Lost Souls” about a doomed businessman (the character was actually a swipe from Mary Perkin’s agent from the Leonard Starr strip) who tries to cheat the devil in a fight to the death. He picks out the puniest guy in the place. As they fight a full moon rises...of course the guy is a werewolf. Where the art works, it really works. Where it doesn’t, it’s really amateurish.

In “A Nice Place to Die” an old couple saps the life from a worthless young couple. (Ghostly Haunts #39.) My favorite was in Ghost Manor #23, “It’s a Gas”, written by Nick, about a young girl and a con man named Calabah Quint. I think Nick wanted to do more stories with the character, but nothing ever happened.

The last horror job was certainly my best effort. I remember the late Grass Green gave a me a hand lettering the job and ghosting some of the pencils...and the story was appropriately titled “The Grass is Always Greener.” (Creepy Things #3)

When I was doing the romance stuff I was very much influenced by Frazetta’s “Untamed Love” stories and a Spanish cartoonist named Carlos Jimenez (Dani Futoro and Delta 99), a more unlikely combination you couldn’t imagine. The Frazetta stuff was so rendered and realistic and Jiminez's work was always so cartoony and stylized.

I really enjoyed drawing pretty girls, so the romance stuff was always fun to do. My first samples for comics were actually romance pages I showed up at DC to Vinnie Colletta....but that’s another story. The one painted cover I did was perhaps the only painted cover I ever did for comics. I remember
using markers and it looked like it. Not a bad design but the color and execution left a lot to be desired. (Secrets of young Brides #5.) The cover to “I Love You” #120 was inspired by Bob Peak...still one of my favorite early efforts. I think I was probably getting a lot of input from Howard Chaykin and Walt Simonson at the time.

MV:
My other Charlton memories are designing a character (a woman with a short shag haircut, abbreviated leather outfit and whip) for a strip Nick was planning. It eventually went to another artist and Nick apologized profusely. My attitude was if there was a better artist for the job, they should go with him. This is not a business to be in if your feeling are easily hurt.

I also remember doing a short story for Bob Leyton’s Charlton fanzine in early seventies. I forget the character’s name, but I do recall it had a lot of Jiminez and Ditko influence. And Bob has always treated me wonderfully- so it was a pleasure working with him. I remember at the time his ex-wife commenting that if Bob spent a couple weeks practicing, he could probably get a job in comics. I was probably a little skeptical of that time frame, but I recall the next time I saw Bob he was a working professional.

Life After Comics

2012-02-24T14:29:00.003-08:00

"…the occupational hazard is my occupation's just not around…"
Jimmy Buffett- A Pirate Looks at Forty

I really love comics; they're what made me want to draw. I've never thought of myself as an artist, always a cartoonist- a storyteller.

For the first time in my adult life I don't have any kind of a comics project that I'm working on in any form. The irony is that when I was younger and wasn't very good at what I did, I always had lots of work, but as I acquired skill and taste, the jobs got harder and harder to find.

Part of that is the reality of working in any form of the entertainment business. A bigger part is that commercial comics as an industry died in the early 80's. There are still a lot of folks living off the carcass ( especially in the movie industry), but no one does comics just to make money off comics- because there is none. It's all in the ancillary income.

I don't think I've had half a dozen paying jobs in comics in the past twenty years, but I still remain enamored with the art form. There isn't an instant's regret for the all the unpaid time I've spent on my Lori Lovecraft and Retrowood projects. Most of the commercial books I worked on in comics I always thought were crap- but I'm extremely proud of my independent work.

But the work is intensely demanding. And my energy level isn't what it used to be. If I continue to work on comics, the reality is that I don't have either the time or energy for anything else. And the bottom line has really nothing to do with money. The reality is that I simply don't have the passion required to produce the material anymore, or the outside stimulus to keep at it. I don't want to just do comics; I want to do better comicbook work than I have ever done before. I just can't see that happening in the current circumstances.

While I never say never, I am hoping to take a bit of a sabbatical from comics and work more on my illustration- which is another labor of love with a minimal monetary return.

But it sure is fun!

So here are my latest finished pictures. First there is George Sanders as Gay Falcon, as I mentioned previously the first adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel (Farewell my Lovely) for the screen. It's always a bit of a problem doing color versions of characters who were filmed in black and white (although it was a process that was used all the time for lobby cards and movie posters). And likenesses are also tricky. It's not enough that your drawing/painting looks like the person, it also has to be immediately recognizable as the person. And the best part of George Sanders was that wonderful voice, which you can't draw or paint.

There is also my homage to Jon Hamm as Don Draper of Madmen. It might have worked a bit better if I had Mr. Hamm in a 60's Brooks Brothers suit. But the tribute is as much to the wonderful ad art of that era. It gave me a chance to do some studies of Al Parker, Coby Whitmore and Bob Peak for the background. I kept the overall color scheme (which I worked out in Photoshop at an early stage) very warm, with a few cooler neutrals, similar to the Sanders picture.

(Above were the three illustration I copied from Al Parker, Bob Peak, and Coby Whitmore.)

And of course, there is another watercolor- one of my former cats Jezebel and Sand Serif.

Next it's on to a portrait I've started of Bill Nighy, and another of Barbarella visiting Falling Water. I can't wait; actually I won't. As soon as I'm done typing this blog it's back to the drawing board.

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Practice, practice, and more practice

2012-02-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

Lately the job I was doing and a lingering cold have completely destroyed whatever schedule I was trying to keep on this blog. But since the job has ended and the cold is finally not getting any worse, maybe I can get back to posting again on a regular basis.

For now I'm just going to stick up what I've been working on the past couple of weeks. Inspired by friend Norman Mallory, I tried doing a watercolor portrait. Actually, I started this thing four or five years back and it just sat on the shelf unfinished. I finally pulled it back out and jumped in and finished it up. The big thing I apparently learned in that time was start working with a lot bigger brushes.

There are some new kitty paintings. I never get tired of drawing my feline friends. And they charge so little for modeling fees.

There are also a couple of pieces in progress. Here are the pencilled versions of portraits of Jon Hamm and the original Saint, George Sanders, who also was the first actor to play Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Of course he wasn't called Marlowe, but Gay Falcon, in the l940's "The Falcon Takes Over", the initial adaptation of "Farewell, My Lovely. There's also a version of the two pieces at there present stage.

Al Parker (1906-1985)

2012-01-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

The invention of the camera shattered art in the western world. For several centuries one of the primary goals of the artist was to reproduce as realistically and objectively as possible life as he saw it. Products of the industrial revolution, artists struggled with the disciplines of draftsmanship and perspective with the ultimate goal a photographic likeness. Cameras made that approach obsolete, and 150 years later the art is still reeling from the fallout.

This same situation happened in the field of illustration, though it took a while until the printing industry could catch up to produce economic photography. As the process began to happen between the world wars, the magazine illustrator - once a celebrity as popular as actors and athletes- has become an endangered species.

Al Parker worked, survived, and prospered through a long period of this upheaval in illustration. Witnessing the changes constantly besetting his colleagues Parker became the greatest innovator of his era, continually altering and adjusting his style to fit the dramatically changing times. Where others copied the latest trend, Parker created them.

The grandson of a famous riverboat pilot, Alfred Charles Parker was born in St. Louis, Missouri. While still at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, Parker often supported himself playing saxophone and clarinet in his own jazz band on riverboats steaming up and down the Mississippi. Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie were among his friends and although a career in music was an option, art was his primary interest.

In l935 Al moved to NYC with his wife Evelyn and his family eventually settled near the NY/Conn. border, the home of many of the major contemporary illustrators .He became a regular contributor to Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and the Post as well as many other magazines working on both story illustration and advertising.

His very early work reflects an art deco influence. His brilliance was in creating “glamour”. In the 1940’s his “mother and daughter” covers, where both wear matching outfits, set a style imitated by women over the next generation.

Parker worked in all mediums from oil to gouache to ink to color pencil; he was fearless in experimenting and trying new and fresh styles with his pictures. His graphic approach to design, mixing his solid drawing ability with the use of negative space and flat color, served as a jumping off point for Bob Peak, Bernie Fuchs, Ted CoConis and so many other illustrators in the 60’s.

But along with the graphic technique, what has always impressed me about Al Parker was his fascinating use of the model’s mannerism and gesture. He preferred to work from life rather than photographs for this reason. His illustrations are filled with subtly positioned hands and half hidden faces, often tightly cropped, always reflecting more emotion than an overtly placed expression.

Along with Robert Fawcett, Albert Dorne and Fred Ludekens, Parker was one of the original founders of the Famous Artists School, still the best compilation of how-to information assembled for the student of picture storytelling. (Originally Parker, Dorne,Von Schmidt, Fawcett and Briggs each did separate volumes which were compiled into the final course. I have copies of the Briggs and Fawcett; anyone out there who can provide me with a xerox of the Parker, I would forever be in your debt.)

The Parkers moved to Carmel, California in the early 60’s, where he spent the rest of his life continuing to work at his craft. A guiding force behind the establishment of the Monterey Jazz Festival, he also never left his music.

(Thanks to Fred Taraba, Walt Reed, and Dugald Stermer for information from their writing on Al Parker gallery. His magic goes on.

Above is a sampling of some of Al Parker's great illustrations, but don't be afraid to google this incredible illustrator for more images.

Moriarty, The Lazurus Tree

2011-12-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

This month I have an issue of a comic book out on the stands. It is Moriarty: The Lazarus Tree, published published by Image.

Moriarty is the brainchild of writer Daniel Corey and artist Anthony Diecidue, and of course the central character is the villain from the Sherlock Holmes stories. However, Dan has added a number of interesting twists to the plots and has really explored the character beyond his relationship to Holmes. The series is a fun read and watching both these creators develop over the past couple of years has been a treat. (They also have a trade paperback version of the first series, Moriarty, the Dark Chamber, that is available.)

(Lira posed for a number of Retrowood paintings I did for development.)

Anyway, Anthony had a big wedding coming up to the lovely actress and model Lira Kellerman, and this slacker actually wanted to take some time off from his schedule for a honeymoon. So I got recruited to do a fill in issue. Because of my schedule, I realized I'd have to do the job very quickly, so I decided to approach the work less as I would a traditional comic and instead draw it as if it were a storyboard. People are always hounding me to have my comics have more of the spontaneity of my boards, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The entire twenty pages took my seven working days, and I don't think I ever worked more than 7-8 hours a day. There certainly is a freshness to the finished work that I really like. Dan was gracious enough to provide me with excellent reference on the stories specifics, so I didn't have to spend much time on that. I was also very familiar with the period so my reference time was kept to a minimum. And I had the excellent help of my assistant Mitchell Reslock, who handles all the hard stuff I didn't want to spend time on, like backgrounds, spotting blacks, erasing, scanning,etc. Ideally, I'd love to just have him do all the work and then I'd just sign it.

Of course Anthony couldn't keep his hands out of the mix, and he ended up coloring the book. A beautiful job that really takes the work to another level. But that was hardly a surprise since I've worked with Anthony on a number of jobs and have always loved the results. (As I finished the comic in record time, it was ready to go months ahead of schedule. Consequently, Anthony also had me do layouts for the previous issue, which you can also probably find at your local comic shop.)

So break open that piggy bank and head down to the comic shop and look this stuff up. You'll thank me.

Prom Night at the White House

2011-12-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

In 2008 I had the chance to storyboard a documentary called Prom Night in Mississippi. The story revolves around a school in the South that, in the 21st century, still had segregated proms (one for blacks, one for whites). Morgan Freeman, who was from the area, offered to pay for the prom and everyone's expenses if instead there was simply one integrated prom. While a majority of the students readily accepted the offer, and plans went ahead, a small segment of the school and their parents insisted on having a "whites only" prom.

(Director-Producer Paul Saltzman and producer Patrica Aquino on the road outside the White Prom.)

Paul Saltzman, the director who had been shooting footage of this from the beginning, now ran into a snag. He was denied access to film anything connected with the white prom. Paul needed a series of illustrations depicting all of this action. That was where I was called in.

I wound up doing about thirty plus drawings for six or seven sequences. Paul was always really easy to work with. (With what he was paying me, he couldn't afford to be too picky.) And the project was one I was extremely proud to be a part of. (Two out of three isn't bad.) When I wound up watching the finished film I found it intensely engrossing; Paul brought a warmth with his interviews with the students that made the film a very personal experience. It's definitely worth adding to your Netflix list.

Recently Paul sent me an email to let me know there was going to be a special showing of the movie at the White House. So just in case he'd never seen an episode of Tales from the Crypt, G.I. Joe, or any of the Narnia movies, President Obama was now going to have a chance to view MY work. I'm excited about this. However, when the president does see my drawings, I hope he realizes that, like many Americans, I am often looking for work that is usually hard to find.

Mata and Sidney: SPIES

2011-12-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

People always ask me what my favorite story is I did for Marvel Comics. It certainly wasn't any of the superhero books that I did. I did enjoy my short run on John Carter of Mars, but in retrospect it wasn't my best work;just where my life was at the time I was constantly looking for shortcuts and timesavers while I was working on the pencils. The best stuff I did for Marvel was when I was doing my own creations for my editor and friend Carl Potts: the creator owned Off-Castes, and the short story "Spies".

At the time I was doing a lot of storyboarding work in animation, and seldom had the chance to work in comics. When Carl created the title Amazing Stories as an anthology series, it was the perfect opportunity to do something, and a heartfelt thank you to him for giving me the chance to do something for the book. It also was the first time I worked with the master letterer Kenny Bruzenak; he did manage to spell my name wrong in the credits, but I'll accept that any day for the elegance and graphic design sensibility he always brought to the job.

When PBS started running the series "Reilly, Ace of Spies", I was hooked from the beginning. Sam Neill was brilliant as the scheming Sidney Reilly, and Leo McKern (best known as Rumpole of the Bailey) was the unscrupulous arms dealer Basil Zaharov. Set in pre- World War I Europe, the series follows the life of the Russian born Reilly who winds up as an exile, begins working for the British as an agent (and the British are never really sure he is working for them). When WWI breaks out and the Russian Revolution begins, Reilly returns to his native land to try and take over the fledgling government, and comes close to succeeding before his eventual mysterious demise.

Ian Fleming, who worked in the British Secret Service with Bruce Lockhart (whose father worked with Reilly), claimed that SIdney Reilly was his major inspiration for the ultimate spy, James Bond.

At the same time I was reading a biography of Mata Hari who was the other legendary spy of the era. It seemed only natural to me that the two of them should eventually meet, and be pitted against each other. And that the instigator of this meeting should be Basil Zaharov, whose business interests had him selling arms to both sides in the unstable political climate that led to the War to End All Wars.

So here is a reprise of SIdney and Mata, in "Spies".

Using Reference

2011-11-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

One of the myths that all artists have to dispel is that we all make it up out of our heads. Everything that ends up on the drawing board is a distillation of the mass of influences that permeate our lives. While some artists might claim they don't use reference, they might more honestly explain that they can't remember where they got their inspiration from. As Mark Twain wryly commented, "amateurs are inspired. Professionals plaguerize."

Above is a painting that I finished a week or so ago of a character I have been developing called Gris Gris Girl. So here is a look at the working process from start to finish.

This is the original rough I did for the painting. I had picked out the model in the photo below for what I thought worked for my character. However, as I was going through more scrap, I came across the second photo and realized this model has much more of the attitude and character that I needed for the story.

For the Voodoo elements of the picture I went to my files on this subject and picked out a few items. From these I selected bits and pieces for arcane props that would apply.

I have no shortage of cat reference pictures, and my little friend Repo wound up modeling for the feline in this shot. For the crow, I googled some reference off the net. For the tree and the swamp reference I went to my personal library and found a National Geographic book with the right image.

Even for color I tend to look at a lot of stuff. While I loved the model I chose for the picture, I had to find some different reference for the proper skin tones for a black woman. Playboy is always a good source. I also pulled out some Bob Peak drawings that used very hot colors that work very well on darker skin.

I started a storyboarding job this week that will keep me fairly busy for the next few weeks, so my blog might be a bit irregular for a couple months. But I will have lots of time to think about what I want to rant about next.

My lovely wife Annie and myself in a recent photo.

Working for the Hell of It

2011-11-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

I've been working on some paintings and drawing more in my sketchbook the last couple weeks since work has slowed down. Above are a couple of pages from my current sketchbook. The page at the top was from a photo of one of the Russian women who was a survivor of Chernobel and the ever lovely Toni Czechorosky, one of the best life models in LA, and always a remarkable conversationalist. Not only are the poses superb, but the drawing sessions are never boring. The life models on the other page are all from sessions at Bill Stout's workshop, and the background images are just me doodling away to create an interesting composition.

This is a painting I just finished of Jon Hamm of "Madmen" fame. I thought I would try a more appropriate Don Draper by surrounding him with iconic ad art images of that era, so the pencil below is my attempt at that. The background images are from illustrations by Al Parker, Coby Whitmore, and Bob Peak. The other pencil study is of Bill Nighy, who is currently in the PBS spy thriller by John LeCarre, "Page Eight."

Living in LA I've really been blessed with an incredible selection of life drawing models over the years and two of my favorites are Sara and Cassandra, who were the inspiration for my Retrowood story, "The Gypsy Twins." I've been working on some new paintings of each of them with different degrees of success. Below is a frame from that story and below that the latest painting of Cassandra.

More than any model I know, Sara brings a sense of drama and story to every pose she creates. In the photo session we did a couple years back she used this incredible cloak as a costume and a prop combined, and the hourglass was also her addition. I threw in the cats, raven and rune stone backdrops. While I love the compostion and story of the dancing cats, I was unhappy with fleshtones on the one painting. I was much happier with them on the hourglass piece. But, with models like these, it's difficult not to come up with something that works.

And here is one I did a while back of Sara which gave me a chance to try a study one of Picasso's paintings. Jezebel, the one time mistress of the household, managed to wander into this one.

One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

2011-11-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

One Picture is worth a thousand words.
(This was an interview I did for a promotional blog on Prince Caspian about storyboarding.)

Film is a visual medium where the story is told by using a series of images or pictures, with sound(dialogue) added for clarification. That might be an oversimplification, but I don't think many would argue with the definition.

The storyboard artist takes the script (or treatment in its initial stages) and starts to translate it into a series of pictures. A simple phrase (...the hero rushes in and saves the girl...) might turn into a sequence of several hundred frames, while a page long description of a characters internal distress might be capsulated in a single drawing if the expression is right. But in successful collaborations, the

storyboard artist enables a viewer to "look" at the story rather than "read" it.

Not all movies use storyboards. Some directors feel more comfortable letting the pictures materialize through the use of the camera. And boarding out a long dialogue sequence for a Robert De Niro would be a waste of time.

But on ]"The Lion,The Witch, and the Wardrobe" we storyboarded the entire film so that it could be viewed on an animatic. Then Andrew Adamson is able to watch a test version of the film. He can suggest changes..so we draw new frames...he makes more changes...we draw more frames...he makes more changes...we draw more....well, you get the picture. His goal is to solve whatever problems there are in the story and visualization of it before any of the movie is shot.

And the storyboard artists aren't the only ones involved in this process. Pre-Viz, which creates Computer Generated Images , also produces sections of the film, sometimes using our boards, sometimes starting from scratch. And all this is orchestrated by Sim Evan-Jones and the editorial department who actually take the sequences and put them together for viewing in an animatic We get our marching...er drawing orders from them.

How much time is spent on a sequence depends on a number of factors, the first being the deadline. There is also a difference in the amount of finish on drawings depending on whether they are being used to "show" an idea or "sell" an idea. "Showing" involves doing a quick pass to demonstrate how you think something should be done. For "selling" more polished drawings are done to convince those
viewing it that this is the best way a scene can be done.

The other big factor is competition. Everyone who has worked on storyboards on this film has been a real talent. If you want your own work to stand out, you really have to push it. As a result, a lot of extra effort goes into the work from all of us because our crew has really had a mutual admiration society.

The actual process of working is fairly simple. Watch any five year old lying on the floor with a box of crayons and a couple action figures and you get the idea of what happens. One of my mentors once told me, learning to draw is a prerequisite for this job, but the drawing should always be secondary to telling the story. I use of lot of reference to make sure things are accurate, but I also simplify everything in the pictures so that not only can they be drawn quickly, but that they read quickly.

And at some point, almost all the departments involved with the film will see the storyboards, and use them in their preparation. It's an exciting process having so much to do with the initial planning of the film. It's equally rewarding when you can see the finish product and your contribution to it.

For the entire sequence of "Aslan's Death" check out my Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157625907881621/

RETROWOOD ARRIVES!

2011-10-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

My boxes of Retrowood books showed up this week from Ka-Blam Printers and I've been busily shipping out copies the last couple of days. Doing comics anymore is a real labor of love, and seeing this one gave me a special feeling of satisfaction, since the initial concept was something I started working on way back in the late '80s. It's good to know that things do eventually happen.

There are still a few copies left of this very limited print run for any of you interested. And I thought I'd post more drawings from the next Retrowood story that is in the works: All Roads Lead to Rome.

DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO OWN YOUR COPY OF THE
LIMITED EDITION RETROWOOD TRADEPAPERBACK.

128 PAGES

B&W WITH COLOR COVER THREE ORIGINAL STORIES
WITH BONUS FEATURES INCLUDING SKETCHES AND
THUMBNAIL PAGES. ALL FOR ONLY
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EACH SIGNED COPY WILL ALSO COME WITH A PIECE OF
ORIGINAL ARTWORK FROM THE BOOK SIGNED BY VOZ!!

ONLY 200 COPIES OF THIS BOOK WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE

For more information go to: http://vozart.com/Retrowood5

FOREIGN ORDERS CHECK FOR ADDITIONAL POSTAGE

Since this is the eventual fruition of one project, I thought it only fitting that I should post some of the sketches I've been doing over the past year of a strip that I started developing as "The Cat and the Crow".

The central character is Nefertiti, a young girl caught between technology and mysticism. The cat and crow are the guides that have been sent to help her along the way. One of the things that inspired the drawings was a clip I saw on YouTube about a crow that had adopted a starving kitten, and the two became fast friends.

We'll see how this develops. I've already seen a major shift of characters and location.

Coby Whitmore Revisited

2011-10-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt the most popular blog so far has been my post on the great illustrator Coby Whitmore. So here are a bunch more scans from my huge tearsheet collection of his work.

In the few conversations I've had with Bob McGinnis, he always talks about Coby as one of his biggest influences from the time. Likewise with Joe Bowler, Whitmore's onetime assistant. I'm sure if you talked with more illustrators from that era, many of them would also say the same thing. While Coby Whitmore didn't have the versatility to handle a number of story types like Al Parker, as the boy-girl romance king, he remains unchallenged.

I've been unplugged the last week since my computer died and I had to replace it. Hopefully I'll have a couple more posts following quickly after this one.

For more images of Coby Whitmore's work you can see the files I've posted lately on the Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157627118206312/

"Those European Guys"

2011-10-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

Early in my career when I was discussing my latest work with my editor Joe Orlando, he sighed, shook his head, and said, "You're looking at those European guys too much." For anyone other than Joe I probably would have taken that remark as the ultimate ignorance, but Joe was a man who understood and admired the finest art and illustration in comics. An excellent cartoonist himself, Joe had originally worked with Wally Wood, did several of the famous E.C. stories, was a mainstay at Mad Magazine before eventually working as an editor at D.C. Joe was the one who brought to American comics as entire school of brilliant Phillipine artists such as Tony DeZuniga, Alex Nino, and Alfredo Alcala.

The essence of what Joe was trying to say was what he had experienced firsthand from the fans reaction not only to the Philipine artists, but also to the likes of Alex Toth: in comics, style was more important than substance. And the current style was exaggerated super heroes. Fortunately, I took Joe's advice with a grain of salt. I've told folks many time, as I wasn't the most popular or skilled comic book artist, no one ever said, "Don't change!" Success often has a way of stunting your creative growth, but consequently I was free to experiment and learn and move forward as an illustrator beyond just comics. In the other fields of advertising, animation and movies, the skills were more appreciated.

What I've always admired is draftsmanship, clear storytelling, and dynamic composition. And lots of those European guys were masters at these qualities, because they started out studying the "old masters", as well as the current cartoonists. They were more influenced by the greats of the comicstrip (Foster, Caniff, Raymond) than the current Marvel style.

Two of the earliest examples I saw were two Spanish cartoonists. When my friend Augie Guzman came back from a trip to Mexico he brought back a book with art by an artist named Esteban Maroto; there was another strip called Delta 99 but it was unsigned. The Maroto story was printed in blue ink instead of black and the work blew me away. His male figures were strong and muscular, but elegant and graceful. His women were just otherwordly beautiful. He was another Al Williamson. And all with an exquisite art nouveau background. I was pleased in later years to start seeing his work regularly in the Warren books.

Howard Chaykin introduced me to the work of Carlos Giminez, via a wonderfully whimsical strip Dani Futuro. His work reminded me a bit of both Wood and
Eisner, but again with a definite art nouveau influence. And lo and behold this was the artist who had drawn Delta 99. My Starfire pages were full of little bits and pieces (we call them swipes) from Giminez. And I also found his work in Trinca, one of the many imported books Doug Murray gave me as payment for a poster I had did for him.

Trinca was one of Europe's best anthology books, featuring several strips ( among them The Smurfs) and it introduced me to another lifelong influence, Victor De La Fuente. The two strips that De La Fuente had in the book were Haxtur and Matia D'Or, both post-apocalypse barbarian strips. Victor's figures were skinny little wiry guys , but they looked like they could rip any Marvel superhero to shreds in the real world. His gutty penline and sense of realism gave the stories a vitality I'd never seen. Later, I discovered he also worked on any number of Western strips.

Another of the books that Doug Murray passed on to me was Paul Gillon's Les Naufrages Du Temps, an elegantly drawn sci-fi strip. Oddly enough, I didn't respond to the work much at the time, perhaps because it was in black and white with a single neutral tone on it. It was only in later years when I saw his work in full color (La Survivante,Le Plan Aspic) that I really started to examine and emulate the work. Chaykin had dubbed him the French Leonard Starr.

The regular artist on the Warren strip Vampirella was Jose Gonzalez. His work was stunning, and you never knew what to expect. His color work was as alive and vibrant as San Julian, and his black and white work was always a conglomeration of charcoal, ink, pencil, marker and wash...but all brought together in a cohesive pattern.

When I started sharing a studio with Chaykin in the sleepy LA suburb of Montrose, he introduced me a number of other of my influences. One was Alfonso Font, who did several stories together with Carlos Gimenez about the Spanish Civil War. There was such spontaneity and life in the drawings, and his use of spotting blacks was masterful.

If "Shanghai" was the only album Attilio Micheluzzi ever did in his short but brilliant career, I'd still have him as one of my favorites. It's the closest thing I've ever seen to competing with Caniff's early Terry and the Pirates work. The man definitely had a movie camera behind his eyes. I'm often amused, noting Micheluzzi's architectural background, to often find him choosing to place words balloons over people instead of buildings. His Air Mail strip is worth hunting down. His last work was on a series called "Afghanistan", and was printed in the European magazine Comic Art. The last story, published unfinished, shows his working style with a combination of pencil roughs, line work, and finished frames.

Ferdinando Tacconi did several of the Un Uomo Un'avventura books along with Sergio Toppi. Tacconi's work was light and breezy and whimsical like Gimenez, but with a wonderfully controlled looseness. Sounds contradictory, but it worked for him. And the use of blacks would make Toth and Kubert jealous.

You can see the influence of Tacconi in Walter Simonson's work, and even more so with Toppi, one of the great illustrators to come out of Italy. The design and penwork is of such facility and confidence. The graphic design breathtaking. I'm not sure if he was influenced by Brad Holland or the other way around. Whatever, the man just makes me want to draw.

But all of these continentals made me want to pick up a pen or pencil and just doodle away. There were a number of others who were inspirational such as Moebius, Druillet, Palacios, Loisel, Bernet...the list just goes on. While I grew up on American cartoonists and they are my roots, certainly the Europeans were my step toward maturity. I've found a few links to some of these artists, but it would be well worth the time to google them all and study the images.

Carlos Gimenez: http://www.comicvine.com/carlos-gimenez/26-28387/

Esteban Maroto: http://www.estebanmaroto.com/

Victor De La Fuente:http://www.dandare.info/artists/fuente.htm http://www.dandare.info/artists/fuente.htm

Paul Gillon:http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/naufragesdutemps.htm http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/naufragesdutemps.htm

Attilio Micheluzzi:http://comic-historietas.blogspot.com/2009/09/attilio-micheluzzi-y-el-cuarto-se-queda.html

Jose Gonzalez:http://www.vampilore.co.uk/artists/gonzalezJ.html

Ferdinando Tacconi:http://www.dandare.info/artists/tacconi.htm http://www.dandare.info/artists/tacconi.htm

Sergio Toppi: http://www.ultrazine.org/ultraspeciali/ultratop/ut001/eng.htm http://www.ultrazine.org/ultraspeciali/ultratop/ut001/eng.htm

PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!

2011-09-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

Many years back the great Green Bay Packer running back Paul Hornung was caught during the season coming out of a night club with a beautiful blonde on his arm in the wee hours of the morning. "Paul, how do you do it?," the reporter asked referring to Hornung's ability to excel both on the field and at partying. Hornung winked, grinned, and quoted his famous coach Vince Lombardi: "Practice, practice, practice!"

(Recent paintings where I've tried mixing watercolor with Golden acrylics.)

I think to do anything well you have to first love what you are doing and then, practice, practice, practice. When the work is going well, practice can be fun. And when it isn't, which usually says more about your emotional state than the quality of your drawings, the trick is to stay at it- and eventually good things being to happen.

(Some life drawings from Bill Stout's workshop.)

So here are a bunch of my latest practice work. You clients are never really going to push you to get better; their interest is in the commercial success of your work. So if you want to improve, you really have to do the work on your own.

(More life drawings where I've added doodles later.)

Whenver I find I have time, I like to work on my painting skills. The sales of my paintings are a miniscule part of my income, but what I learn from the work has catapulted me into many jobs. And I love the results of the hours of painting.

(The bottom drawing I'll likely add some work to in the background. Of course it is hard to improve on Sara or Nicole- terrific models!)

I'm also a compulsive sketcher. In the mornings I try and do a 30 minute still life warmup. I also try and make it to a life drawing class at least once a week. Sometime I'll hit the perfect drawing on the page, and when I do I leave it alone. But most of the sketches I use as composition exercises, adding little doodles around them at a later date. Sometimes they are studies of my other artists whose work I admire, sometimes objects around the house or studio, and occasionally things that just jump out of my imagination.

(These are charcoal sketches with pastel color added. Mostly stuff around the studio and one of my wife's sandals.)

I also keep a smaller sketchbook in my car. There are always five to ten minutes waiting at the doctor's office,Post Office, or lunch when you can squeeze in a doodle. And I have a pocketsize Moleskin sketchbook that I take on my morning walk in the beautiful hills around my house. There's never a shortage of subjects.

(Some morning a pure white marine layer oozes in between the hills. That's my idea of a special effect.)

What happens with all this practice is that you being to get an inkling of the old Zen philosophy, that the destination is unimportant, but that the journey is everything.

Tales4-Counting Coup at the Crypt

2011-09-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the midwest the two sources I had for dramatic entertainment were either the mysterious costumed religious rites on Catholic holy days, which had an emotional appeal that was tough to match, or the movies. The latter couldn't always compete with God, but there certainly was a world of magic in those darkened theaters. One of the great perks of working on Tales was that I got to meet and photograph so many actors and directors.

Amanda Plummer and Lea Thompson were two of the first actresses I met, and I was astounded how quickly they merged into their characters when I approached them for photos. Brooke Shields had a bone-crushing handshake. Vanity started to pose the minute she saw a camera.

(Anita Morris above and Rita Wilson below.)

(The very witty Wendy Malick above and Isobella Rosselini below.)

(Priscilla Presley above and Lysette Anthony below.)

And beautiful women- there was Vivian Wu, who later did The Pillow Book. Anita Morris was amazingly stunning as was Lysette Anthony. Wendy Malick was not only beautiful, but had a
great sense of humor ("Sure, take my picture for whatever disgusting thing you have in mind.") Priscilla Presley looked truly frightened when I walked toward her on the set, until I explained who I was and what I was doing. Isobella Rosselini made it impossible to take a bad photo. And then there was the lovely dark haired Rita Wilson, whom I later learned was Mrs. Tom Hanks.

(Tim Curry above and Roger Daltrey below.)

There were musicians. I was a big hit with my niece when I sent her the picture of Adam Ant and another one of Slash from Guns'n'Roses. I was pretty impressed with getting to take some shots of Roger Daltrey of the Who. (On the same episode, I also met a newcomer named Steve Buscemi.) While he's not as famous for his singing, I got to meet Frankenfurter himself, Tim Curry, in a very creepy makeup.

(Dan Ackroyd and Kirk Douglas/)

When I told the same niece that Kirk Douglas, a REAL movie star, was in this week's show, she asked, "Is that, like, Michael Douglas's father?" Kids...That episode, directed by Robert Zemekis, also featured Dan Ackroyd, who constantly seemed to be jumping in his jeep to drive off with other crew members to a nearby hill for a smoke. Another SNL alumni was Jon Lovitz, who asked me, "Who died and made him director?", after getting some advice from the director. His co-star was John Astin, who went to college with my father-in-law. John was quite surprised to hear how well my wife Annie's dad had succeeded.

(John Astin above and Stephen Webber hamming it up below.)

Isaac Hayes told me to draw him with hair. When I told Cheech Marin he was funny, he replied, "Then give me a dollar." I still tried to convince Sam Waterson that he had starred as Simon Wiesenthal, even after he told me hadn't. (Yes, it was Ben Kingsley in that role.) He
avoided me the rest of the day. Martin Sheen signed my Bob Peak Apocalypse Now poster, and Billy Zane a copy of Orlando for my friend Zahra. I found out that Stephen Weber was a fan of Bernie Wrightson's. Ben Cross was despondent that he hadn't made a great film since Chariots of Fire. Kyle MacLachlan, on his directorial episode, signed the Tales cover I did from the show he had been cast in earlier, which featured the buzzard pulling out his eye.

(Sam Waterson and Kyle MacLachlan above and Cheech Marin below.)

(Treat Williams above and Kevin McCarthy below.)

Tim Roth was scary, but Malcolm McDowell made me feel too intimidated even to approach him. Sugar Ray Leonard just asked me if he looked completely silly in his costume. I lied. Treat Williams gave me a great cover idea; not bad for an actor. I fell in love with Whoopie Goldberg, even before I found out she was a comics fan. I agreed to trade watercolors with John Lithgow; he still owes me his. Twiggy Lawson was an icon from when I was a teenager. Kevin McCarthy seemed to have great delight in mugging for me.

(Wayne Newton above and Bill Paxton and Brad Douriff below.)

One of my favorites was Bill Paxton, who spent a lot of time talking about his upcoming roll in Tombstone. I recommended the Loren Estleman book on the subject. I told Wayne Newton my wife was a big fan. Later in the day his bodyguard walks up with a camera, takes me over to Wayne, and has me pose for a picture with him. When Mr. Newton left the set for the day, he greeted me by name, as well as lots of other crew members. He really charmed everyone.

(Cynthia Gibb and Harry Anderson above and Richard Lewis below.)

And of course, there were my "fellow actors", whom I did cameo appearances with. I was Harry Anderson's hand double in "Korman's Calamities." I kidded him that it was a good thing he was also left-handed or they might have had to replace him. I had also met Harry when he visited Howard Chaykin's studio a couple of years earlier. Later I did some boards for him for a project he was pitching. Unfortunately I never took him up on his offer to attend one of shows at LA's Magic Castle. And Rita Rudner and Richard Lewis were a delight; they were the stars of "Whirlpool", where I was typecast as comicbook artist at the EC offices.

There were many, many more I met over the years. It was always interesting. What amazes me are all the stars that were on the show that I didn't meet for whatever reason. Brad Pitt, Patricia Arquette, Katy Sagal, Iggy Pop, Meatload, Patricia Clarkston, were just a few. There were also a number of the English actors from the year they shot the show in London: Bob Hoskins, Francesca Annis, Ewen McGregor. For some reason the production never took me along- they just sent me stills to work from.

(Stephen Hopkins directs Tony Goldwyn.)

And then there was Stephen Hopkins, who when I was introduced, told me he was a big fan. I thought he was just being polite, but then he asked what I had been doing since the Marvel creator owned series "Sisterhood of Steel". I was floored. He was a lot of fun. I showed up one day and he grabs me and tells me to get to the set; Kathy Ireland and Mimi Rodgers are doing a nude scene. I rushed over, only to discover that in transit something had happened to my camera, and it was useless. That he got a big laugh out of; and nobody else lent me a replacement. Life in Hollywood wasn't always perfect.

(Mr. Mike with the lovely and very patient Rita Rudner.)

For more of my Tales From the Crypt pictures be sure to visit my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157626855479920/

9/11 MOTION COMIC

2011-09-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

http://spiritclips.com/films/laddersix

Here is a link to a remarkable motion comic I worked on about a miraculous story of courage and
selflessness that took place during the World Trade Center bombings. And since the video is
devoid of any political overtones, I'll refrain my own tirades on this subject.

The people that I worked with on this project, Chris Commons and Tyrrell Shaffner were excellent
to work with, which is always the most important thing in job evaluation.

While the money looked good to begin with, I learned that drawings seem to explode exponentially
when working on a motion comic. A word of warning to anyone who takes one on of these. It's the
first job I've had in a long while where the work truly overwhelmed me.

Retrowood Hits the Presses

2011-09-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

This week I sent out the final amended proof of my Retrowood graphic novel and within the month I will have the finished copies of the book. I started this project literally ten years ago, so seeing it finally come to fruition is a big deal for me. The idea was originally to do a limited series about the 30's, but this morphed into a Hollywood period piece called Dreamtown, and eventually into a detective story set in Retrowood, a faux Hollywood of that era. Whenever I had time I spent it either on research, sketching, writing plots, or drawing the pages.

The Great Depression has fascinated me since my childhood. This economic disaster that struck in the 1930's was the defining event in in the history of the twentieth century America. Forget WWII; that was merely a bump in the road after the hard times of the decade before. Life was tough. Money, jobs and even food was scarce worldwide and no solution seemed in sight. It was an environment that brought both a Hitler and a Roosevelt to power. One created an atmosphere of fear, the other of hope. While some turned to alcohol and drugs and a some turned to Jesus what got the majority through were movies, the radio, magazines and popular fiction of the time.

While I found the history fascinating, it really were the stories created by Eisner, Chandler, Hammett, Steinbeck and a 1000 black and white Hollywood screwball comedies and mystery thrillers that stuck with me. So while based on historical people, events, and locales, Retrowood is a fictional world - though most will recognize the Southern California setting. You have the glamour of the blossoming movie industry contrasted against the stark attempt at survival for most folks: a world of startling, soul crushing poverty contrasted against the sleek cars, slinky clothes and gated mansions.... and everyone wore hats. I found that like Alex Toth, I came away with being far more interested in the entertainment of the era than the era itself. But then I've always been more of a romantic than a realist.

In the middle of this mix is J. Parker Wrighte, a young private detective with the Kinchay agency. His quest for upward mobility in this two tiered society is fraught with compromise, and it's it taking its toll on our protagonist and he blends back and forth between the two societys.

(A birthday card Steve had me do for Chris. )

And I've had lots of help from my friends along the way. I met Christopher Markus and Steve McFeely when we were all involved in the Narnia films. When they told me that they had done a movie for HBO (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) I jokingly told them they would soon have an Emmy, since I worked at HBO and they got me one. It turned out to be a prophetic statement, as they did indeed win an Emmy for writing the screenplay. I think my favorite of their work is a little gem of a comedy called You Kill Me, with Tea Leoni and Ben Kingsley. They have recently worked on the Captain America film...and were generous enough to write an introduction for the Retrowood book. They are not only talented, but they have proven to be great friends.

Norman Mallory and Stephen Kloepfer are both college professors that saw my work online and contacted me. Conversation with either never lags, and I always come away not only entertained, but usually with a new bit of knowledge on some topic. Both of these gentlemen did extensive editing on the stories and some rewrites. And both are skilled artists as well as writers. They've taken what was hopefully good material, and really made it better.

(One of my sketches from the late night drawing class with the twins.)

One night I went to a figure drawing party/workshop and was treated by two of my favorite models dressed as Siamese twins. What as creepy was that I could hardly tell them apart. They were the inspiration for the "Gypsy Twins" story. I never get tired of drawing either Sara or Cassandra. While the former is still in LA (and strangely enough not looking any older that when she first posed at Bill Stout's studio over a decade ago), the latter has moved to the other coast to pursue her modeling career. We miss her. Sara was the model for the famous Nip and Tuck DVD cover, and Cassandra often works with Annie Liebovitz, who featured both of these models in a photoshoot for Vanity Fair.

(Cassandra posing for a FuManchu illustration. Below Sara and myself.)

Working with Howard Chaykin was also a big motivation in creating the series. His love of the era was always a great sounding board. So a very aged version of him is Parker's boss.

Writer Henry Gilroy served as the model for Henry Irving in H.I. or L.O. Henry's been "cast" in a few things I've worked on over the years. For a lot of the characters, I simply selected people I liked to draw: Gary Cooper was the model for J. Parker Wrighte' ,Bill Powell is his friend Iggy' Chloe Sevigny as the devious Mrs. Orwell, and Jennifer Connelly as Velvet Arpak. But when I use these folks, I try less for a dead on likeness, and more for creating an interesting character.

Welcome to Retrowood.

(And a special thanks to Jen and the folks at Ka-BLAM Printing for handling
this project with excellent service and very affordable prices.
http://ka-blam.com/printing/)

Foreign orders please check for additional shipping costs.

WORKING FOR THE FAN

2011-08-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

WORKING FOR THE FAN

As a freelancer I've always made a good living working for whatever company that is in need of my services. You're always on a bit of a roller coaster as good times and bad times come and go. But whatever the job, you are always adjusting your work to the needs of the client. As long as the pay is good, the people you work with are pleasant, and the work isn't too weird, it's not a bad way to make a living.

Working on your own personal projects is much more rewarding, but the pay is usually very little. And while you are always hoping that whatever creation of yours that you are working on will bring you fame and fortune, the real motivating factor is that you are doing exactly what interests you.

The one job that is a bit of a crossover between the two is drawing commissions for fans. I try to keep my prices on this work as reasonable as possible, since these folks are the true patrons of my art. While they are often specific in what they want, they tend to let you work in your own direction, and certainly at your own pace. And the fact that they are laying out there own hard-earned money for the artwork is the ultimate compliment for me.

True, there are occasional difficult ones, but I assume these people are the folks who will eventually wind up being either an art director or an editor. And I've rarely had the problem of doing something for a discounted price, only to see it up on e-bay soon after.

So here are a few examples of some of the commissions I've had over the years. You're my favorite
people to work for, so never hesitate to drop me a line: vozart@gte.net

There a many more of these on my flicker site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157625621840721/

Austin Briggs

2011-08-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

In the 70’s there was a retrospective of the great newspaper strips that featured a figure or Flash Gordon drawn not by the creator, Alex Raymond, but by some guy named Austin Briggs. As a youthful idiot, I was incensed by the outrage - who’s Austin Briggs?

It wasn't until much later that I discovered more about Briggs and what a talented illustrator he was. Born in Humboldt, Minnesota in 1909, Briggs was raised in Detroit, Michigan where he studied art at City College. His first jobs were drawing figures of fashionable people to enhance automobiles in advertisements.

As this work went out of vogue, jobs were hard to find in the Depression, and Briggs turned to doing comic strips for a number of years (during which time he did the offensive Flash Gordon figure.) He was also moonlighting for Blue Book Magazine doing several illustrations a month from 1935-45. As Briggs recalled: “These were experimental years. I explored new compositional approaches, new techniques or variations of old techniques, and new manners of working with limited means.”

In the 40’s Briggs was developing as a great commercial success, but he felt something lacking in his work: his own individuality. When problem solving he always turned to others for for solutions, usually the current popular favorite. Feeling he was losing his ability to learn and observe from nature, he took a sabbatical to the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada for four months. Here he sketched and painted anything and everything from nature.

Briggs felt this trip was a “declaration of independence” and his future work became more intrinsically his own. But for Briggs this trip was only one of a series of continual steps forward, because like all dedicated artists he refused to stand pat on his achievements and constantly searched for the means to improve himself. He started out a good draftsman with an understanding of the black and white medium and ended up one of the most brilliant painters and designers in all of illustration.

With his friends Robert Fawcett, Al Parker, Albert Dorne and several others Briggs was one of the founders of the Famous Illustrators School. His abilities as a storyteller and communicator also made him an excellent instructor.

(Briggs using his friend Robert Fawcett as a model in an illustration.)

In 1969 he was inducted in the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. His work, constantly in demand, appeared in the Post, TVGuide,Look,Cosmopolitan, and many other publications. He died in Paris in l973.

And I wasn’t all wrong about that Flash Gordon drawing. Raymond’s work exuded sexuality and romanticism. A realist and a naturalist, Briggs couldn’t compete when imitating Raymond. But when he became his own man, that was another story. Hanging in a place of honor in my house is an Austin Briggs drawing- I’ve yet to shell out for an Alex Raymond.

Briggs' job description of an illustrator is well worth remembering:

“The illustrator must combine the knowledge and talents of a dramatist, stage designer, costume designer, director, stage manager, lighting expert, photographer, research man, advertising man, art director, salesman, diplomat, accountant - and painter! Every illustration he makes involves all these varied skills and talents. Unless he is accomplished in these fields , his technical abilities as an artist will be of little financial value to him. It is true that what he finally sells is a painting or a drawing - but the actual art work is only the final culmination of many different kinds of activities which are completely foreign to the purely aesthetic painter.”- Austin Briggs

There are several more Austin Briggs illustrations up on my Flickr page.

Amy At Bill's- AcrylicPaintingDemo

2011-08-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick demonstration of my painting process. I usually have a stack of reference pictures that have caught my attention from various sources. I periodically go through and pick out things that I think I might like to draw in my sketchbook, or use for paintings.

In this case the reference was a photo of Amy Adams from one of my wife's magazines, an old photo of my friend Bill Stout's studio (when it was still relatively uncluttered,) and a snap I took of my cat Repo's mother Maw, a beauty that my wife rescued from a feral lifestyle.

The first step was doing a little rough combining all the reference material. (Upper left. When I am at the drawing workshop at Bill's I tend to do one or two life drawing sketches on a page. Then as another type of compositional exercise, I add little doodles around them- either roughs for future paintings
of little studies of anything and everything. You can see more of these if you check out the sketchbook section of my Flickr site.)

Step two was doing a detailed pencil study for the painting. I'm usually very linear in this approach,
with the only real value studies on the main focus of the planned illustration.At this step I want to make sure that the drawing and perspective are correct, and eliminate any compositional problems, such as the ever present tangents that always show up. This drawing was done with a 2B pencil on illustration board (which is Bristol Board glued to a thicker backing.)

I next tape the drawing down on a piece of masonite (since it tends to warp and curl with the very wet approach I use to painting). I then do a quick wash of watercolor over the entire piece to have something to work against. Like the pencil, the watercolor will eventually be painted over. I did leave a bit of white on the dress and window, since I felt those might be white in the finish.

I work with Liquitex Acrylic paints since they are fairly smooth to put down. I also tend to water them down so it's almost like working in ink (but without the shellac they put in commercial acrylic ink). Using a mixture of Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Red Light I draw everything in lines of varying degrees of darkness. I use sable brushes that can give me a good bit of control

for this step, usually a #1 or #3.

Taking the same three colors, I mix up pools I can use as washes to create a series of values. In this case, I tried to keep the benches, chair and back wall with warm neutrals, and the floor and trim with a cooler, and darker neutral.I use acrylics as if they were watercolors, but they tend to dry much darker and are essentially lightfast. But in the course of a painting, my board is going to see a lot of water. When I apply washes I use as large a brush as the area I'm working on will allow.

I continue with the process of washes, adding darker values to the floor and trim to create more of a feeling of depth. The window is far too light and needs to be toned down. I've also added on a lot of white opaque to create highlights on the hair and skin, and have started to flatten the dress with a coating of white. I've also added on a few highlights on Maw.

Painting is all about trial and error , and the beauty of the the studio today is that we can try things in Photoshop to see if they might work. I rescanned the painting and started working digitally. In this case, I've intensified the dark values and added a lot more opaque white. In terms of value, this is

pretty much what I want for the final picture.

(I should have taken a couple more scans during this process so you could see more how it progresses.) First off, using the Photoshop study I brought all the value in the background up to a finished level on the actual painting. I opaqued the window to a murky yellow that pops against the flat white I used on her gown. On the step and the braces, klieg light, tablets,etc. I've added opaques to pop things.

The most defined areas were first doing the finishes on Maw, by adding a very dark value with some opaque white and orange highlights. I then added the fleshtones and highlights on Amy, and tried to create as readable a likeness as possible, adding in the extreme darks and then highlights on her hair.

Over all this I washed a bit of local color using a very warm pallet. I generally use very little color on the paintings. I like a lot of neutrals with just a bit of color to pop things.Over the entire painting I added a wash of very light yellow orange. When this was dry, I went back and punched up the white on the dress and a few highlights on her flesh.

The final step was adding a thin wash of glazing medium, which both adds a sheen to the work and increases the brilliancy of the colors.

Whenever you're working on a painting, when to stop is always the major consideration. All of us have stacks of things where we should have quit earlier; and that is balanced by looking at a framed painting sometime later and realizing you should have taken it a couple of steps further. And there is always a spontaneity and life in the work at some time in the process that is always so difficult to keep in the final product.

I'm certainly not a proponent of "my way or the highway", especially with something as nebulous as the process of painting. If something works, stick with it, if not, continue on your highway and enjoy the ride. That's what makes the creative process so interesting.

The Hollywood Club

2011-07-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

(Storyboard frames from Prince Caspian, by Mike Vosburg.)

Life as a freelancer is always precarious. I was offered a job last week working on the proposed remake of the James Thurber classic, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty . In this slow economy, this was major excitement. However, once I talked with the coordinator, I was told politely that they couldn't hire me because I wasn't a member of the Local 800, the Hollywood live action storyboard union. Despite my resume and list of credits, I've had this same situation happen a number of times over the years. It's always a source of frustration.

Unions are essential for an educated, talented and utile labor pool. I was in college when I started my first real job in the summer of 1966 ; I worked at Yellow Truck and Coach in Pontiac, Michigan, making busses.I became a member of the union. When I started teaching school, I became a member of the teacher's union. When I started my comicbook career, there was no union, and despite the attempts of many of the older artists to establish a guild, nothing really came of that venture. I saw firsthand how difficult it was to negotiate with a company on a solo basis. When I moved to LA in l985, I started working in animation and I joined the union and I am still a member.

(Storyboard frames by Trevor Goring for National Treasure.)

But a few years later when I wanted to move into live action films, I tried to join their union and was told I couldn't join. You had to have a job to get in the union; to get a job you had to be in the union. (You figure out the logic.) If you are a qualified person looking for work you will always be welcomed by a true union, because they understand implicitly that there is strength in numbers and solidarity.

(Storyboard frames from Skycaptain by Anson Jew.)

If you are a qualified worker seeking employment, you are eligible to join the union. The problem that we have with the live action storyboard "union" is that its leadership has chosen not to represent a large section of its constituency. In the movie Norma Rae Ron Leibman plays a union organizer in the south who runs into resistance from a group of white workers who don't want blacks in the union; his answer was simple and elegant:"Anytime you have a union that excludes a section of the work force, you don't have a union, you have a club."

(Frames by Tom Nelson)

If admission to the "club" was based on a qualified entry process that might be more acceptable.But there is no portfolio review or even apprenticeship in the process. If artists were being excluded because of race, sex, or age there are fair hiring laws to protect us. Myself and others aren't being blacklisted, as many creative people were in Hollywood in the 50's, we are simply being "non-listed". The "club" process is supremely arbitrary. If you're in,you're in, if you're not, you're not.

(Storyboard frames by Aaron Sowd.)

The great irony of course, is that virtually the only way you can get in the union these days is by becoming a "scab" and taking a non-union job. The hope is that the project will go union, and you will be "grandfathered" in. The union and their membership always caution us not to take those jobs, since we are hurting their bargaining position whenever we do so. But if you don't take those jobs, you will certainly never be admitted to the union. It is a "catch 22."

(Storyboard frames by Josh Sheppard.)

I used to think I was the only board artist in Hollywood with this problem. Unfortunately, what I have discovered as I have talked to more and more people in my field, is that there are just as many, if not more, storyboard artists who have both the ability and the experience to do the job but are excluded, as there members of the storyboard "club." And now the Local 800 is currently expanding, seeking to unionize the Previz sector of the industry. But while new workers are being sought out for the "club" those of us who have long sought membership as qualified board artists are still being excluded and denied representation.

Imagine that you wanted to make a film and cast a John Hamm, Robert Deniro or Mila Kunis, but were told you couldn't use those people because they weren't in SAG, and couldn't join. What happens is that you are creating a product without having access to the all of the best people who are available. For management and the studios the negative side is that there are excellent people available for jobs that you can't use. The positive side for these groups is that in fact you have a large low income labor pool constantly available. And for the Local 800 that means you've lost a lot of clout as you negotiate from a weakened position.

(Storyboard frame and concept design by Jerry Bingham.)

The job that we do is very competitive. When I was teenager working on my comicbook fanzines with dreams of working as a cartoonist, my competition was perhaps 500 other kids across the country who had the same dream. Now there are at least 500,000 young artists across the world who all want to do this work...and the number of new jobs have not expanded in proportion to the labor pool. The only way you can stay competitive is to continually improve on your abilities and to market yourself efficiently. Now you have the added difficulty of being excluded from the prime jobs.

If you are one of the few in the "club", you can shrug your shoulders and smugly feel secure that you will have job security. But that certainly isn't what a union is about. The Animation Guild has never excluded members, and Local 800 members are always welcome to join if they want to work on an animated film. But when members of the Guild try to apply for union jobs, they are turned away. It is not a matter of us trying to steal your jobs. The only thing that will protect your job in the long run is your skill level, not a discriminatory practice against those with similar skills.

(More Prince Caspian boards by myself.)

I don't expect this entry to suddenly change the union issue in Hollywood. There are complexities that I am certainly not privy to and don't understand. However, I do implicitly understand from reading history just how ineffective a union stays when it restricts membership, and refuses to represent its constituency. This is particularly distressing when you become aware of how small the number of unionized live action board artists is compared to the actual labor pool.

I'm reminded of Ben Franklin's quip as he signed the Declaration of Independence:"Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we will certainly all hang separately."

(In all of the artwork I've posted I've avoided specifying which artists are union, and which are non-union since I think the latter title belittles our abilities. Maybe you can figure out why the Local 800 refuses to represent some of these artists.)

(Frames that I did for an independent film called Beheading Buddha.)

Masquerader: Celebrating 50 Years of Fandom

2011-07-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

(The cover of Masquerader #1, drawn by Paul Seydor.)

At the San Diego Comiccon this Saturday night there will be a celebration of the 50 Year Fandom Anniversary. While I won't be there in person, I will be there in spirit. Comic fandom was a major part of my life when I was a teenager.

When I was a freshman in high school I put together a planned issue of a fanzine, which I called Masquerader (hey, Alter-Ego was taken). It was about 18 pages of material: a couple of ads for comics for sale, an article comparing the Justice League and Society, an article on Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu books, and my own comic strip, Dr. Destiny. I was so green that I everything I drew was in ink on paper, and the text was typewritten with the drawings pasted on. Very pretty, but there was no that I could print it. On my next attempt, I used the standard spirit duplicator method, drawing and typing everything on stencils. With this process there were limited print runs; after about 200 copies, the pages started to fade out rapidly. And there were frequent accidents with the originals; if they weren't properly clamped into place they would often wrinkle, ruining the page.

But this mock up issue, with Fred Jackson contributing a number of pages, I sent that around to probably Ronn Foss, Jerry Bails and two or three others asking for suggestions and criticism. Everyone was always very helpful, but Ronn and Jerry were certainly my mentors in the field. Their input into what I needed to do to take my fanzine beyond the "crudzine" classification was essential. And of course, the unsung heroes behind all this were my parents who always gave me their support; my dad give me access to the duplicator machine (and paper supply) at the school where he worked as head custodian.

(One of Fred Jackson's illustrations for the first issue.)

The first issue of Masquerader that was published featured a Hawkman drawing by Paul Seydor on the cover, my rehash and review of one of the JSA issues, my take on the new Marvel heroes, Dick West's article on the New Age of Comics, a piece on the Shadow by Fred Jackson, and Mike Touhey's review of The Hangman. There were several pinups, and two strips: The Blue Bolt (by Fred and Larry Charet with my drawings ) and the Cowl (with my writing and drawn by Ronn Foss.) The strengths of the issue were some really beautiful drawings by Paul, Fred, Ronn and Biljo White. One of my innovations was "justified margins" with the type.When I would type out the articles, I would add a series of "bullets" at the end of each line; when I did the final typing on the master I would add a space for every bullet, so both the left and right edges of the columns looked like a professional magazine. The biggest weakness was that too much of the art was my own crude scribblings. But as a first attempt it wasn't bad.

(This was Biljo's White's drawing for the ad section of the zine.)

With the second issue there were two major problems. The first was that I decided to use black masters instead of the traditional purple. Unfortunately, the "black" reproduced as a light medium grey, and while the purple masters would usually last 2-300 copies, the black dittos were starting to die after the first hundred pages. The second problem was that I wound up doing most of the artwork. I was in a hurry to produce another issue, and the really good artists were booked up for months in advance. The overall effect was that the issue was a step back from the first.

(This and below are two of Ronn Foss's stunning Hawkman drawings.)

The articles were solid: Howard Keltner's "High Flying Hawkman", "Meet Doc Solar" by Gregg Way, Margaret Gemignani's piece on Hourman, Steve Perrin's piece on the Jaguar, my own on Mandrake, Rick West's excellent article on "The Birth of the JSA." Ronn Foss did two beautiful illustrations of Hawkman and one of Captain America for the letter's page, and Grass Green had a great cartoon. Unfortunately, after that there was a whole lot of my doodles, including a really abysmal cover drawing of the Comet, that just proved I had a LOT to learn.

So issue three was bound to be an improvement. In retrospect, I am amazed that I was trying to produce the issues on a bi-monthly schedule. But what really amazes me was how much I apparently improved in two months; while I did far fewer drawings in this issue, they were all remarkably stronger. The only articles were one on Fighting American written by Mike Touhey that I did the art for and a short piece by Foss (using the pseudonym Scott Russell) on defining amateur zines. There were two strips. The first was an Action Ace and Thrillboy story by Grass Green that was the highlight of the issue. The other was Astro, written by Phil Leibfred and drawn by yours truly; whatever else there was to say about it, I believe it was the first "color" strip produced for a fanzine. My cover was well designed and not badly drawn, but again the best art was the spot illustrations by Ronn (Newsboy Legion and the Guardian) and Grass (several ACG heroes). And "Quotes from the Readers" did feature letters from both Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert.

(This strip by Biljo was actually a continuation of a strip started, and continued, in

another fanzine. I'm not sure how often that was done in early fandom.)

The fourth issue was probably the best of the ditto issues. Once again, Hawkman was featured on the cover, drawn by myself. Ed Lehmann did a knockout article on Simon and Kirby called "The Donnybrook Boys", with several illustrations by Ronn. Mike Touhey did a piece on the Shield, illustrated by Grass, and Howard Keltner contributed "The Story of Mr. Justice", with drawings by Biljo White. "Captain 3-D was written by Margaret Gemignani with one of my drawings. My personal favorite was Rick West's piece about Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, "Lord of the Si Fan", again with my artwork. Ronn also had a sweet little illo of the Spectre. There was also the knockout strip Astro Ace- the 8th Astronaut, by Biljo White- which was quite stunning. All in all, I was really proud of that issue.

What stands out about issue five was the amazing technical feat of having three different artists all draw their favorite character on the cover: Biljo White did Batman, Ronn did Hawkman, and Grass did Fighting American. What this entailed was sending the dittomaster to each artist in turn, have them do their character, and then send the master on the next artist, and finally to me for printing. You don't think I was nervous when I finally fitted that sucker onto the spirit duplicator machine. One wrinkle and my life was over!

(In the days when you could actually depend on the mails not to lose things

this cover had to be sent to three artists and then myself. )

"Stan Lee, the Man Behind the Comics," was the lead off, which I wrote and Ronn profusely illustrated. Ed Lahman did a piece about five of his favorite characters which Grass did the drawings for."Radar- International Policeman" was written by Ray Miller and featured the first artwork by Alan Weiss in Mask. Margaret Gemignani wrote about Bulletman and Bulletgirl, with my illustrations. It also featured a foldout pinup of my drawing of Viking Prince. We weren't always brilliant, but we were innovative.

Which is why I chose to print the sixth issue of Masquerader on a photo-offset press. Producing the pages for the press was much more difficult than working on the ditto masters. With every page I had to cut out whatever I typed and carefully place it and glue it into place on the master sheet. Same thing with any artwork. Then any excess rubber cement had to be cleaned off. It was a time consuming process.

(More of Ronn Foss's artwork.)

Masquerader #6 was one the very first comicbook fanzine printed this way; Alter Ego #5, which Ronn Foss produced, came out just before this issue. I do remember was that the issue was ready to print long before I had the money to pay for the printing, which was about $250. At 50 cents a copy that meant I had to sell 500 copies to break even, and that was before postage. With the limited size of comic fandom that wasn't going to happen. Fortunately, my parents who supported me in all this weird comicbook stuff, stepped in and told me to invest some of my own money and get the issue printed.

Then I had to wait about five weeks for the printers. Patience was not one of my virtues. The spirit duplicator had always been so instantaneous. You finished the masters, ran over to dad's school on a weekend, and printed an issue. I was getting pretty antsy....but eventually I got the call that my issue was ready. Well, not quite. They did advise me to wait two to three days for the ink to dry properly before I started to assemble the issue. I couldn't afford to pay the additional fee for machine assemblage and trim.

(An early drawing by Alan Weiss, who developed into a magnificent talent.)

There were eight to ten boxes of ledger size sheets. I would lay out stacks of the seven sheets (each with four pages printed on each one) and the cover sheet (on a different blue stock). I conned my younger sister Sue, who was about six at the time into helping me put the pages in the right order. Since I didn't have an oversize stapler I would open the one I had and put two staples face down into the center of the pages with a heavy piece of cardboard under them. Then I would pull pages up and manually fold down the upright staples. It really was a work of love. Then the issues had to be addressed, a stamp stuck on them, and they were sent out.

You can view the issue on my flickr site, so I won't take a lot of time describing it. The highlights for me were Ronn's beautiful pages of the Cowl, the two full page illustrations Dick Memorich did as a tribute to Jerry Robinson's Batman, and the Viking Prince splash by Kubert that was reprinted for the article about Joe. My correspondents were very generous with their praise of the issue, but I'm not sure I ever saw or can remember reading any "reviews" in what there was of the fan press at the time. But after a year and half of publishing, I was pretty burned out. My fanzine days were pretty much at an end.

In later years I would come out with two oneshot zines: Savage Princess and Beyond Infinity. But both of them were more self-published comics than zines. The first was done on the dittograph and my pastiche to Kubert's Tor and Frazetta's Thunda with a dash of Wood and Williamson thrown in. I doubt if I printed more than a hundred copies. Beyond Infinity was another photo-offset book, with three E.C. type stories in it. Sales and distribution were very limited. Both of them were attempts to establish myself as an artist; I had little or no interest anymore in establishing myself as a writer or editor.

The great highlight that I talked about in Bill Schelly's book on fanzines was the amount of mail I received. A lot of it was envelopes with nickels, dimes, and quarters to pay for an issue of
Masquerader, and a lot of it was correspondence with so many wonderful and interesting people who didn't seem to mind writing to this nerdy teenager.

One of the most important things I learned from working on my fanzines, was the importance of drawing for reproduction. It didn't matter how beautiful a drawing was in its initial stage, the real test was when it was copied and printed in whatever medium you were using. Working on the dittomasters required a very simply linear style. You could be a bit more clever with the line for the photo-offset jobs, but you quickly learned that those delicate fine lines that look so pretty on the original are quickly lost in this process; and too often cross-hatching would just turn to a blot.

(This and below are a couple of the covers for my Avalon sketchbooks.)

The other edge that working in fanzines at that time brought me was being able to network with people who would be my future competition and employers. At the age of 16 I was already introduced to most of the people that I would work for and with when I was ready to begin a career in comics 8 years later. I was corresponding with the likes of Joe Kubert and Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Alan Weiss, Al Milgrom, Jim Starlin and so many others whowere part of my fanzine circle, and those contacts would be invaluable later on.

And the competition! The professionals who drew the books were in their own unapproachable universe; at best I could strive to do my own poor imitations of their work. But with fanzines I was suddenly seeing what other amateur artists were doing and it was the spur I needed to start dramatically improving my own work. With the occasional homemade comic stories I was doing, I was laying out the pages with more care, using a lettering guide, and inking them with a pen and brush and even coloring them with ink washes. Both Ronn Foss and Grass Green were great mentors with helpful hints, passing on invaluable information to me; they would send me issues of their homemade comics to study. I was in heaven.

At the same time I was doing Masquerader I was also keeping a monthly "sketchbook" that I called Avalon (after the street that I lived on.) It was composed of story ideas, character designs. pinups and rough layouts of stories. I always had a part-time job during high school and got excellent grades; I really don't know where I found the time for all this. But then, I wasn't going out on a lot of dates. Apparently this schedule finally got to me in college when I became obsessed with playing basketball. Most of my drawing and fanzine work dropped dramatically in priority during this time. It was only after I was teaching school that I seriously sprained an ankle that kept me off the basketball court all summer; I rediscovered drawing and comics again, quit my teaching job and have never looked back. However, I still am obsessed with basketball.

(That was then)

(This is now)

Vokson-Comics Made by Kids

2011-07-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

(One of my first comic characters:the evil villain Sahib X.)

When I was a kid I always had stacks of comics to read. They were all types: funny animal, western, horror, Archie, Batman and Superman and my personal favorites, Classics Illustrated. I was probably the only kid on the block who didn't have TV, so along with the occasional Friday night movie, they were my source of visual entertainment. While I was also a fan of the Sunday funnies, they were always vignettes that left me waiting, while the comicbooks were complete stories.

(Another famous villain that fascinated me, and still does, Dr. Fu Manchu.)

From the time I learned to read, I wanted to become a writer.. My earliest creation was something called the XX Patrol. In those days we had these oversized winter coats that were belted, and the buckle was two interlocking X pieces- so as soon as I donned my uniform and clasped that belt together I was an officer in the XX Patrol. My stories were more a way to create a doorway to my fantasy life than anything else; I wasn't interested in having anyone else read them.In fact I can remember being furious when my older brother found one of my stories and read it out loud to the family. His motivation in this was probably just sibling harrassment ;my family was impressed, but I was certainly outraged and mortified.

(Fred Jackson III from a newspaper photo a couple of years back.)

When I was in sixth grade I met Fred Jackson, who astounded me by showing me the homemade comics he had created. I liked to draw a bit, but it had never occurred to me to put words and pictures together in my own comics. Fred was definitely management material. We soon had our own company, Vokson, and a number of titles that we created and traded back and forth to read. Fred's Cool Calm and Crazy and my Dumb Drastic Demorilizer were both Mad parodies. His action stories were Smollett Jones (using the Sherlock Holmes "o-e" homage) and Jetman (with the son of Fu Manchu) and mine was The Purple Plum (a beatnik expresso house -the concept was Maynard Krebbs meets 77 Sunset Strip) .Another title wasVokson Presents, where I did pastiches of my favorite books- one I remember clearly was The Cursed: Sherlock Holmes,Van Helsing and Nayland Smith team up against Dr. Fu Manchu who has created a super-villains group of the Wolfman, the Mummy and Dracula. Wait a minute...was I anticipating the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

(If only I'd sent this comic to Hollywood sooner!)

For the comics we usually took a piece of typewriter paper and folded it in half, and drew and both sides, giving us four pages for each sheet. The stories were drawn in pencil. We'd either cut the sheets in half and staple them together, or open up the stapler and lay it flat to put two staples in the center of the page. My innovation was adding a construction paper cover to a lot of the books, and using different color ballpoint pens for some of the work. Fred's work was infinitely more advanced than mine. I used to call them my 2-minute comics....meaning I tried not to spend more than two minutes on any page. I was far more interested in story and continuity than in drawing pretty pictures. On a side note I still use the same approach when I'm working on comic stories to this day: I use a sheet a typewriter paper, divide it in half and lay out two pages on each sheet. However these days I don't try to draw on both sides of the paper...and now my deadline is 3-4 minutes a page.

(One of my favorite movies was George Pal's The Time Machine . I did my own sequel.)

(Fred wound up drawing the big battle panel on the left hand page. I couldn't handle

that many figures in a frame.)

Looking back on those comics I found that what I was really experimenting with was continuity. I knew so little about drawing that I rarely attempted to make an interesting picture or illustration in any frame. What I was beginning to understand was what I should show in each frame and how it was connected to the preceding and following one. I was discovering how to "write" with pictures. And I found that telling stories with pictures was a lot more attractive to me that just using words.

(Mary Roberts Rhinehart villain, The Bat soon found his way into my beatnik comic.)

( When you look at these early drawings, you realize that if there was hope

for this kid, there's hope for anyone in the field of art.)

Fred and I worked together on Vokson during the 7th and 8th grades. Somewhere along the line I started to abandon my two-minute deadline and actually started to improve the drawing. I was starting to pay more attention to what my favorite cartoonists were doing in the comics world and emulating them. Joe Kubert and Leonard Starr were my two main inspirations so I was looking a lot at what they did. My favorite comics were the ACG line, which published a lot of mystery type books and most of there artists had realistic styles. At some point I stopped trying to turn out "issues" and instead was trying shorter stories where I put a lot more work into the drawing of each page, often inking the drawings with a ballpoint pen in and adding some colored pencil to them.

(I loved Jack Kirby's Fighting American strip when I saw it. It was just so FUN!)

Without Fred's friendship and common interest in the creation of comics I'm sure I never would have followed the path that led me to making a living as an illustrator. For that I'll always be grateful to him. While Vokson hasn't published anything new in the past 50 years, Fred and I still keep in touch. Fred continued to do cartoons, and for years sold his gag strips to magazines. Coincidentally, Fred's current passion is creating crossword puzzles, and one of his clients is the LA Times, a puzzle that I work on every morning.

(Proof of the debilitating nature of cartooning. On the left, me at 13 when I just

started drawing comics. On the right three years later.)

With the onset of what's called "The Silver Age" of comics, a Detroit area university professor named Jerry Bails, had a letter in one of the DC comics telling of an amateur publication he had created called Alter-Ego. Now there was direct link between the people who created comics and the fans who read them. I was a freshman in high school and I can remember getting copies of Alter Ego and On the Drawing Board, a newsletter about comic book news; a whole new world opened for me.

Once I entered the world of fanzines, I learned about editing...and that started with my own work. With my homemade comics I never changed a thing...and rarely used an eraser. . What I understood from the beginning with publishing a fanzine was that whatever I produced was going to be seen and commented on by the public. I didn't want to embarrass myself with my work.

Thursday: Jumping from homemade comics to fanzines! Be there!

Father Pat: Creating Secondary Characters

2011-07-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

Retrowood is my attempt to do a detective graphic novel that looks looks like a black and white Matinee movie of a bygone era. The protagonist is private detective J. Parker Wrighte, who finds on his upwardly mobile career path that every advancement comes with cost and compromise. I've avoided doing a straight period piece by condensing the history and geography of the mid-twentieth century into a Depression era version of Hollywood and Los Angeles. While the stories have the hardboiled plots of Hammett and Chandler, the tone remains as whimsical as Eisner's Spirit.

While the detective is the center of all the stories, I've tried to surround him with a continually expanding cast of secondary characters that bring a nuance to his world. One of my favorites is Father Pat, the alcoholic priest who is tied to Parker's past.

(A painting of Gary Copper and the lovely Lira Kellerman for Retrowood development.)

Retrowood is a two tiered society, where there is one set of rules for the rich, and another for the poor. Parker has little interest in being a social reformer; he's far more interested in moving out, moving on, and moving up. He morphs from Jimmy into J. Parker, which he considers a much more posh title. But every time he thinks he has created a bit of distance between himself and his former surroundings, he manages to run into Father Pat.

While he was once an energetic and idealistic young priest, Father Pat has seen too much injustice and misery in his labor class parish to have much of either quality left. For him, alcohol has long been the answer as he watches the immediate world around him continue to deteriorate.

Parker desertion has been one of the tougher blows, since the priest is a sort of foster father to the detective. After Parker's own father disappeared, Father Pat began a long standing affair with the boy's mother, who is his housekeeper at the time. His mother is now dead, but Parker's sister Mary has remained close to the priest, working as a teacher at the parish school. Parker escaped the neighborhood with a college basketball scholarship. He is trying to keep the move permanent by working in the fashionable Kinchay Detective Agency and rubbing shoulders with the rich and connected. But that task is more difficult than he realizes, and Father Pat lies at the center of dilemma.

(A sequence from an upcoming Retrowood story "All Roads Lead to Rome" with Father Pat.)

A lot of the Retrowood back story and material I tried to take out of my own life experiences.I was brought up Catholic, went to 12 years of Catholic school and taught for three years at Catholic schools. As I tell people today, I went to church almost every day of my life for the first 20+ years...but I haven't been since they stopped paying me to go. My dues are paid up for a while. If they had an All-American team for altar boys, I might have been picked for it.

(Two pages from the "H.I. or L.O" story in the Retrowood graphic novel.)

My older brother , who was in the seminary, committed suicide at 19. Father Pat (my brother's name) is a bit of an extension of what he might have grown into had he lived. Even as a kid I could see that ifyour were rich and went into the seminary, you were eventually going to be a Monsignor or Cardinal; if you were poor you were going to wind up working at one of many low income neighborhood parishes. And growing up Pontiac, Michigan in the 50's/60's I saw a continual line of priests like Father Pat burn out in my parish .

(A few frames a Spawn storyboard with the mad priest character.)

I used my own likeness as the model for Father Pat. It's not the first time I've been cast as a priest. I was also the model for the psychotic bomber cop-killing priest in Spawn, Souls in the Balance. But despite being typecast, once I decided as a youngster not to be a cowboy or a viking, I never had any inclination to be a priest. After I saw Miiko Taka in Sayonara at the age of eleven, I had no interest in the celibate life. Of course I had no idea then that in the real world it wasn't necessary to take any of these rules seriously, as long as one maintained a decorous front.

Father Pat has learned that in Retrowood, and Jimmy Wrighte is trying to decide whether the rules or the front are more important.

(A cover rough for Gypsy Twins...enough priests...more women.)

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No Ordinary Family

2011-07-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

(Both of these drawing were my pencils and inks with Anthony's colors.)

One of the jobs I wound up working on last year was generated by the TV show No Ordinary Family. While I never got the exact story of why this was being done, the assignment was to create a "comicbook" type drawing featuring each of the 25 families who had taken place in a blogging contest promoting the show. In the blog the contestants all explained what would be the superpowers exhibited by their "ordinary family". The job was to design a drawing featuring all the members of the family demonstrating their super abilities.

Piece of cake....did I mention that all of these families tended to be quite large. Forget getting away with two or three figures per drawing.

(This was my initial rough- no costumes on this first drawing.)

Because of the scope of the project and the deadline involved (as usual, someone else had dropped the project for various reasons, and now the deadline had already passed ) I immediately enlisted the help of my good friends Jerry Bingham and Anthony Diecidue , since they are both incredible talents and we work well together without a lot of ego problems. (Well, they don't have ego problems...you might want to ask them what it's like to work with me.)

(And here is the pencilled and inked versions.)

We presented a sample drawing. Likenesses on very tiny figures were an issue with the original art director. I was in the process of being close to passing on the job when the client came back with rave reviews on the what we had sent them. What with the insane deadline, after that we had carte blanche.

(Voila! Mr. Diecidue has added his magic paintbrush.)

Jerry and Anthony and I were all involved in the thumbnail/comp process. Working with the character descriptions sent by the agency, the reference photos and information from the family blogs, we would work up a rough and get it approved. Then one of us would take the drawing to a final pencil stage, get that approved, and then either I or Jerry would ink the drawing, and Anthony would provide his incredible digital coloring skills as the icing on the cake.

(One of Anthony's pencils.)

Working with good people is always the most important part of the process for me, and Anthony and Jerry, as well as our ABC liaison Kevin Costley get a big thumbs up from me. All in all, a job that could have been a nightmare was quite an enjoyable and profitable venture. The client and the agency were both quite happy with the results, and here's hoping all those families out there who received the drawings were just as pleased.

(Jerry Bingham's roughs and pencils with my inks.)

(Another of Jerry's pencils with my inks.)

(Reverse! I pencil and Jerry inked this one. By now we were

drawing costumes on virtually everyone.)

Coby Whitmore-Illustrator of the Good Life

2011-07-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Coby Whitmore is my favorite painter of the sophisticated romantic scene. He painted the "Good Life". As he described it his interests were “racing cars, illustrating, and smart clothes on good looking women.”

Born in Dayton Ohio in 1913 Whitmore decided to become an illustrator when he observed the dapper dress and lifestyle of McClelland Barclay, a premiere illustrator of the early 30’s. It was the Depression, and the juxtaposition of Barclay against the poverty of the time convinced him that this was indeed the way to live.

He moved to Chicago. Here he used the skills he had learned while attending the Dayton Art Institute to land a job.By 1936 he was working on his own producing illustrations for the Chicago Herald Examiner. After a short stint working for a studio in Cincinnati, he moved to NYC and became a fixture at the prestigious Charles E. Cooper studio. Like his idol Barclay, he also became one of the premiere illustrators in America working for the Post,Good Housekeeping, McCalls,Ladies Home Journal, Sports Illustrated and several other top magazines.

Elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1978, he lived the last years of his life with his wife Virginia in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

(Bob McGinnis once told me that Coby was one of his idols.

You can certainly see the influence in this illustration.)

Coby worked mostly in oils, but was adept with a number of mediums. Like his contemporary Al Parker, Whitmore started his career using the painterly style popular between the wars. But like Parker, he didn’t stop there but created a graphic approach to his picturemaking, using a combination of his painting techniques with a stunning use of negative space.

“Coby epitomizes the great sharing of knowledge and information in the tradition of history’s finest artists who pass on to others what they have learned from earlier generations. He has been the most important person in my development as an artist.”
Quote from Joe Bowler, another of America’s great illustrators and former assistant to Coby Whitmore.

For more images of Coby Whitmore, check out my Flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157627118206312/

Tom and Jen

2011-06-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

(A sketch of Jen I did at HBO)

Two of the dear friends I've been blessed with over the years are Tom Nelson and Jennifer Yuh Nelson. You couldn't ask for a kinder, gentler, more gracious pair.

I first met Tom and Jen when I was working at HBO Animation on Spawn. We were all doing storyboards and shared the corner penthouse office (42 Floor) in the Twin Tower Buildings in Century City. While I was working diligently away, Tom was listening with great sympathy to Jen's current romantic situation. ("How could anyone every treat YOU like that,Jen...). Then Tom asked our boss Catherine Winder (another wonderful person and great friend...but that's another post) if he could move to another office. Then he moved back into our office. Was I the only one working during that time because Tom and Jen sure seemed to spend a lot of time talking together.

(My wife Annie in our HBO office; Tom and Jen and Jen's mom at the Emmy's; me hard at work)

"You know", I remarked to my wife Annie,"I think Tom and Jen are going to end up together." She was skeptical...but I knew better. Next thing I know they are married; and I didn't even get asked to the wedding. Well no one did...it was a small family affair.

(A design sheet I created with Tom as one of the VERY out of character villains.)

After HBO, when Tom was working on Harry Potter merchandising, he brought me into the project, and I returned the favor when the Narnia movies rolled around, and later on we both wound up on Stan Lee Presents. His work always amazed me in it's simplicity and emotion. Whenever we went into a meeting, Tom was always convinced they were going to fire him. I knew different. I just wanted to stay friends with him so they would continue to use me. When you're good, you're good. Tom's latest was storyboarding the Thor movie.

(A sample of Tom's boards from Prince Caspian.)

Jen's dark sense of humor and incredible artistry seemed to go hand in hand. Her work was always a treat to look at. And even though she still has never seen Casablanca, she can still tell a pretty good story.

(A cell from Spawn featuring Tom, Jen and myself as the addicts in an alley)

Jen has gone on in her own direction, working at Dreamworks since she left HBO.(Oh how I wish I could print the little poem she wrote for her letter of resignation!) Just recently she became the first woman to be the solo director of a major animated film, Kung Fu Panda II. But enough about her. Just listen to her interviews on NPR, or read Variety, or watch footage from Cannes. She's a celebrity.

(Another sketch of Jen from the HBO days)

So you have these two incredibly talented artists living together. What amazes me about them is that they simply aren't competitive with each other. Haven't they ever seen A Star is Born? But congratulations to them both. It's good to see that in a world where the bad sleep well, good people also reap rewards.

Retrowood Page-Start to Finish

2011-06-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

(Here is a page of my thumbnails for Retrowood. Page 4 is at the bottom right.)

Recently I started working on another Retrowood story. Well, that is a relative term, since I actually started working on this story a few years back and took it to a thumbnail stage. Now I'm in the process of doing the finished art.

Most of my career I have been working on comic books pages that will end up as traditional "pages in print". However, with this recent project it has become increasing clear, that the work should be prepared for digital publication. And working digitally presents you with a lot of options.

I look at the work of folks like Anthony Diecidue, Marcos Mateu-Mestre and Dan Milligan and their painterly approach to the work, and I really have thoughts about emulating their styles. But I am also in love (and a slave) to the traditional process of black line drawing...which is how I was trained and a system with which I have much greater facility.

(These frames were all "inked" using the cintiq)

So while I stuck basically with what I am familiar with, I am still trying to learn and incorporate new things into the process. But the bottom line is that the work will end up being seen on a screen, and not as printed material that you hold in your hands. So you adapt.

Once I've worked out the plots on the stories I then do a quick version of the book as thumbnails. I try to keep these as simple and as bold as possible. I think every artist struggles with the decision between spontaneity and precision. There is always a life in the rough drawings that is missing in the finishes; but there is also a quality to the finish that isn't there at the beginning. You just have to try and reach a happy medium. My cronies are always suggesting that I work more in my looser storyboard style for my comics, and believe me I am always trying to achieve that end- but it is unbelievably easier said than done.

(The next three frames are my pencilled frames for the page)

Using whatever reference is needed, I work up a pencilled version of the thumbnails. When working with pencil, I try and keep a certain amount of tonality to the drawings. In the later stages when I am doing the inked version, a lot of the tone and rendering will be eliminated for a clean and simple look. I don't try to make my pencil drawings look line they were drawn in ink. Pencil is grey...ink is black.

I don't have a single approach to the inking process. Sometimes I outline everything first, and then add in blacks. In this case, I followed Noel Sickles and laid in all the black with a big brush first, and then added what pen lines were needed after that was finished. It's basically like working on a watercolor where you establish your big shapes and then refine in the latter stages.

(I wasn't happy with the face in the last frame so I redrew it.)

I literally tried things both ways on this job to see what worked the best for me. I want to become more adept at using the stylus and the cintiq, so I wound up using Photoshop to "line" a number of frames, and then added on the "brush" work. The two problems I have with this is that I while I have been using a cintiq for years, I have nowhere near the facility with that tool that I have with the traditional ones. The other problem is that I haven't worked through a process in photoshop to lay in the blacks first. So after doing a number of frames, I stuck with my traditional method.

(The basic ink done traditionally and scanned in)

Once I scanned in the inked pages, I pulled out my pencil pages again and used them while I added a layer of pencil on top of the inks. The beauty of the digital process is that you can add this effect to soften the line and create a bit of shading. This was similar to the Craftint process I used at one time, but infinitely more subtle. I found I created a "charcaol" brush that gives me the rough texture I like for the pencil "line".

(Here the layer of "pencil" has been added in Photoshop.)

The final step is adding on a layer of black and white tone to the work. My goal is to make these stories look as much like a 40's noir detective movie, and this technique really helps me achieve this. I find I usually lay in a flat (or gradated) tone over the entire frame, and then come back in with the airbrush tool and add in darker or lighter values as needed.

(Here the final tones have been added)

I sometimes add a layer of opaques if I want to add in a bit of white highlights, smoke,etc. I also find that I am starting to select more of the background areas and knock them back to a dark grey, to create that bit of atmosphere. Again, I'm really looking at those folks I mentioned above to see what I can learn from them for some of these subtleties.

Another advantage of publishing online is that color is just as cheap as black and white. And while I don't want to do Retrowood as a color book, I have been toying around with converting the pages to a sepia tone. What do you think?

DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO OWN YOUR COPY OF THE
LIMITED EDITION RETROWOOD TRADEPAPERBACK.

128 PAGES

B&W WITH COLOR COVER THREE ORIGINAL STORIES WITH BONUS FEATURES INCLUDING SKETCHES AND
THUMBNAIL PAGES.
ALL FOR ONLY
$25.00
EACH SIGNED COPY WILL ALSO COME WITH A PIECE OF
ORIGINAL ARTWORK FROM THE BOOK SIGNED BY VOZ!!

ONLY 200 COPIES OF THIS BOOK WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE

For more information go to: http://vozart.com/Retrowood5

Designing With Story

2011-06-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

There is a great exercise in of the Famous Artists Course, called "Basic Thinking and Arranging", where you are given three design elements and by manipulating them you work out what you want to do with your picture. I've always thought the exercise was brilliant, but I've tried to add to the process.

With the Famous Artist Course you are only dealing with design, and how reworking that can change the impact of your picture. The major element that isn't discussed in this case, is story: what is the creator of the picture trying to communicate to his viewer.

For myself as an illustrator, STORY is the essential ingredient for the design process. The Famous Artists Course stresses the concept of keeping things simple. When I am drawing a frame, I usually try to identify it by a single word (fear, disgust, death) or phrase (moves toward, hides from,etc.). Once I have that basic concept in mind I do one, or a series of quick "thumbnail drawing." Thumbnails are small quick sketches used to plan the finished drawing. (The word “cartoon” actually defines the initial planning sketches artists used for larger works of art- now when we talk about “cartoon” it can be the finished work.)

Each drawing you design will probably have three or more “elements”, which make up a finished picture.An element is simply any object (or grouping of objects) that is used to create a picture. Each drawing in a story has a foreground (even if it’s only the panel border around the picture), a medium ground, and a background (even if it’s only a flat color.) I try not to have more than three elements because it’s simply TOO much to ask the reader to digest.

If your pictures start getting too ornate and difficult to follow you need to do some editing. Your pictures can still be complicated, but they should be concise. Often times several objects, props, or characters, might serve as a single element, such as a crowd scene. One element might be an elaborately decorated piece of latticework, or a cityscape with people in every window. That elaborate and highly textured cityscape will still be read quickly and be assimilated if it is properly designed. My favorite illustrator is Robert Fawcett, whose pictures are always a myriad of texture and detail, but the basic shapes in the composition are always few.

Each of the elements are little clues which give the reader a hint as to what is happening in the story. As you design your pictures, decide which is the key element in each frame and make sure that is the center of attention. You don’t want your reader marvelling over your elaborate buildings if Batman is missed doing something important in another part of the frame. Each and every time you change an element in the picture you are changing something about the story. A change for aesthetics must also reflect plot. Any time any character, prop or setting has more, or less, emphasis placed on it, your story is going to change.

I prefer not to get too “finished” with my thumbnails. This gives me the opportunity later to adjust compositions, change the angle of shots, and rework scenes if necessary. If the thumbnail is already a tight little drawing I’m less apt to want to take the work to go back and change it. My old friend Eric Radomski got me used to using the fattest marker I could find for this process, which forces you to work with big shapes and very simply. You can always make the drawings pretty later on in the process. (And if it looks too pretty to begin with, you might hesitate to make the necessary changes. )

Your story will be told on a “stage”. It starts out bare and you will be the set designer. Two of the storytellers I really admire are Frank Miller and Will Eisner; both take a similar approach to setting their stage. Will certainly inspired Frank, but the latter has added his own unique style. They bring nothing onto their “set” that isn’t an “element” in moving the story along. While their backdrops may occasionally look very complex, there is never anything that is extraneous to the plot.

You can break all of your shots down into three basic types: Establishing (long) shot, Medium Shot and Close-up. Each of them has a specific purpose ( and an infinite variety of approaches.)

So let's look at this process using a very hackneyed plot concept: A young woman alone in a house is threatened by a maniac with a knife. The three "elements" I've chosen for this picture are 1. the woman, 2. the knife, and 3. a window.

If I were to label this frame "suspense", I might design something like the picture below. The woman is in the foreground, in danger but unaware, but the window serves as a buffer between her and the hand with the knife outside.

By changing the picture, this ups the suspense, since the woman can now SEE she in in danger.

Changing the position of the elements again changes the story and again ups the suspense. The danger for the woman is immediate....although she is now unaware.

This frame we can simply label "fear". The woman faces an immediate confrontation.

You could also work up a series of frames where the attacker in "inside" the window, and the woman is outside. Again, it suggests a different story:"Don't go in the house!".

And the permutations are endless as you change "elements" of the elements themselves.
A butcher knife suggests something different from a stiletto, and a butter knife suddenly changes it to comedy.

Who holds the knife is another question. In a massive hand, it suggests one thing, in a delicate hand there is a different story.

How we dress and cast the women is also essential. The sympathy of the audience reacts differently to a women dressed as a hooker, as opposed to a sweet and innocent young girl. And if the woman in the picture looks like Emma Peel, then we know it's only the attacker who is in trouble.

Whether we show a close up or the full figure is a major decision. Close ups are great for emotions,
long shots are great for setting the scene. And the emotion of the woman can change the story dramatically: is she terrified, or ready to take charge.

The window itself is also important. Does it suggest a suburban home, an office, or a mysterious gothic setting. Not to mention whether it's a bright sunny day or a dark stormy night. The more you think these things through, the more you can control what you are trying to convey to the viewer.

And lastly, how you choose your camera angles, and the lighting you set up will also be a factor.
Hey, it's not easy, is it. And just think, this is only one frame. Comics and storyboards are made of up hundreds (or thousands) of little pictures. and then there are story beats and continuity....but that's a discussion for another day.

A special thanks to Tom Wagman for suggesting I run this exercise. And to Emily Beihold for
teaching me the basics of blogging, and to Blogmaster Mitchell Reslock for putting all these blogs together for me.

Tales From the Crypt 3

2011-06-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

Joel Silver was the heart and driving force behind Tales. He took a very active part in each and every show. I remember getting a call one time to Joel's office late in the run of the series. Now getting a call like that was like being summoned before the king: you were either going to get a bag a gold, or have your head chopped off. After waiting in the outer office at Silver Pictures somewhat trepidatiously for some time, I was finally ushered into Joel's office. Several people huddled around his desk; his hand suddenly shot up and he beckoned me forward:"Mike, you have to see this!"

Tales was unveiling their new website, and since I had been finishing the covers digitally for some time, everyone assumed I was a cyber wizard. So as I stood next to Joel he was proudly displaying the site on his computer monitor. He explained that all my covers were now available for viewing when you clicked on an icon- which he did. However, this was back in the days of 28k modems...and very slowly, line the line, the image started to appear on the screen, to a very impatient Joel. Finally, a bit exasperated, he said:"Well, you get the idea." And I was dismissed.

To pass the time while the picture was slowly scrolling up, I commented to Joel that he should get a trackball (the latest in 90's technology;now an item that's virtually obsolete) instead of the ineffectual mouse he was trying use. "Oh, I am going to get one," Joel assured me. About two weeks later, there was an article in the LA Times as a publicity piece for the unveiling of the Tales From the Crypt website. The first line of the article was :"Joel Silver sits manipulating his track ball in front of his computer screen." Oh, the power I had in Hollywood then. There was no bag of gold, but I didn't get my head chopped off either.

What did strike me about that episode was both Joel being considerate enough to call me in and show me the site before it went up, and secondly his enthusiasm about everything connected with the Crypt. He definitely had a passion about the work. I also wound up doing an mock Crypt cover that appeared in Variety congratulating Joel on being named Producer of the Year. The ad was to be a surprise; apparently someone in the office got nervous and the ad was shown to Joel before it appeared, and he gave me a call to tell me what changes he needed.

Richard Donner was the other real creative partner in all this. I remember meeting him on the set during about the third season. He was very affable, and quite friendly to me. A couple days later I was back on the set again and I had brought my assistant at the time, Don Cameron, along with me. I had jokingly told him what a close friend I was with Dick Donner. We're standing on sidelines watching him work with the cinematographer when Dick spots me, stops everything and calls out, :"Mike, you've really have to see how this shot is set up. Take a look through the camera." I was a bit surprised, but as I caught his reaction out of the corner of my eye, I saw my stock with Don had gone up considerably.

It was very flattering when I was on the Warner Bros. lot a few years later to discover that Richard Donner had on one wall of his office reproductions of all my Tales covers.

Robert Zemeckis's office gave me a call at one point to see if I would some storyboards for a TV series he was doing for a show called Johnny Bago. I showed up on the lot, where I had to follow the Zemeckis Winnebago, filled with his cinematographer and a number of others connected with the shoot, out to a location on the beach in Malibu. Once we were there, Zemeckis proceeded to run through the scene with all of these folks explaining what he was planning to do. I waited patiently on the sidelines, waiting to speak with him about what he wanted for boards. At the end of the conference, he suddenly turned to me an said, "Well, did you get all that." Of course I did! Thank god I'd been listening.

I brought in the boards a couple days later and Bob went over them all. Good! Nice shot...that works, etc. Then when he was finished he looks and me, and says, "Great stuff, but we decided to cut the scene." Nonplussed I gave him a copy of my Off-Castes series and pitched to to him. He turned it down because he was too busy working on a new project- something called "Forrest Gump."

When Gil Adler took over the production reins in the third season, I found myself at the set on a much more regular basis. I had grown used to show then, and understood a bit more what was needed to make the covers work. Gil was very easy to work with, and very pragmatic. I'm not sure there was much of a likeness between us, but I was mistaken for Gil on the set a few times. When they were shooting "Split Personality", I looked up to see a beautiful girl in a bikini waving frantically at me. I looked behind me, didn't see anyone, and as I turned back she is walking quickly toward me. When she is about a half a dozen paces away, she stops, looks at me, and announces: "You're not the man I thought you were." My friends on the set all got a big laugh out of that one.

You couldn't help but be starstruck by the show. It seemed that everyone who was working in Hollywood at the time ended up on the show. Next time, more art and photos of my favorite shows and stars.

See more Tales From the Crypt photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157626855479920/

Tales From the Crypt 2

2011-06-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

The first show (All Through the House) was directed by Robert Zemeckis and featured his wife at the time Mary Ellen Trainor, and Larry Drake as the pschotic Santa Claus ax murderer.I can't really remember what reference I had to work on for that first season other than head shots of the characters, and the scripts; I don't think I ever saw any outtakes.

I would do several roughs for each cover, and they would pick one. I do remember that Joel was the final say on all of them. Whichever rough was chosen I would do a traditional pen and ink drawing. We'd get a stat shot of the cover and a negative and create a blue line version on a board which Richard Ory colored. It was much more illustration than just doing a comicbook cover.

Tales had rented a soundstage in Culver City and I'd drop off the originals at their offices there. There was a connecting door next to the business offices that led to the actual soundstage. I was never asked inside. I'd do whatever business I had with Bill Teitler and Connie Johnson and then leave. However, at some point I remember having a problem with a likeness on one of the covers and Bill Teitler suggested that I shoot a couple of reference shots of Lea Thompson...so I finally made it behind that door.

Lea was working with some makeup with Kevin Yeagher at the time, so I was introduced to him which was a big thrill. We chatted about art stuff for a few moments while the actress waited patiently. When I did explain to her what I needed I was amazed that she immediately snapped into character and gave me the perfect shot for the cover. She was so professional.It was definitely easier work with than getting the guys at our studio to pose for shots; and she was so much more lovely.

When the second season of Tales rolled around, I definitely made a point of asking Bill if I could shoot some photos for reference on the set. He agreed tentatively, but there were reservations. First, don't get in the way or be a nuisance to the actors. Secondly, there was already a still photographer for the show, so don't be redundant. What actually happened was that I wound up having access to the a lot of the still photographer's shots, which were all much better than anything I could have taken. And let's face it....I was much more interested in just being on a movie set than having the convenience of shooting my own reference photos.

In fact, I'm not sure how often I was on the set that second year. Certainly not more than once a week. What I learned about being on a movie set was that while the first half hour was really exciting, unless you had a specific task to do it was really a bit dull after that. I'd usually check with the office the day before to see what was being shot, show up take a few pictures, schmooze a bit with the cast and crew, and then head on my way. But the shots I took were really invaluable in creating the covers. And I also had a great source of reference material for my eventual Lori Lovecraft series. (In fact, I met writer Pete Ventrella through a mutual friend on Tales.)

Next Week:Tales From the Crypt with Joel Silver, Richard Donner, Bob Zemeckisand more!

Tales From the Crypt 1

2011-05-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

TALES FROM THE CRYPT

While I was sharing a studio in Los Angeles with Howard Chaykin, he decided to leave the world of drawing comics to pursue a career in screenwriting. During a pitch to Joel Silver, the noted producer asked Howard if he would be interested in creating some comicbook covers for a TV series he was working on with HBO. Howard demurred, but passed the job onto me. Thus began a fabulous run on HBO's Tales From the Crypt, a job that introduced me to Hollywood and the magic of movie-making.

When I met with Bill Teitler, who was the production head of the series, comic book covers were never discussed. What he was really interested in was producing a series of inspiring visuals that could be used as a basis for the introduction for the show. Bill ran through the scenario as he saw and I quickly created an abbreviated storyboard of the action, starting with a lightning flash on the exterior of an old mansion, then a quick truck into and through the doors, across the abandoned parlor, then through a secret panel bookcase, down the stairs of a secret passage to a a subterranean chamber where a coffin sits and out of which the Cryptkeeper pops up as we zoom in. My job was to create a set design for each of these environments.

The storyboard was an afterthought that served more as a map from me, but I am always amazed at just how closely the finished piece of film followed my scribblings.

I came up with a number of roughs and discussed them with Bill, and we worked through what changes were needed. Then, with an assist from the talent Richard Ory I created five key environment drawings for this sequence. I thought that was the end of my involvement, but a couple months later I got a call from Joel Silver's assistant, Connie Johnson, asking me to come in and discuss some cover ideas for the six shows they were producing.

Joel's office blew me away. First off, it was on the Warner Bros. lot, which I had never visited before. I felt like a peasant who was being admitted to the castle for the first time. Joel was a great admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright (he lives in one of the fabulous Wright houses in the Hollywood Hills) and his office was designed and decorated with lots of Wright design elements. The room for my meeting was lined with bookcases filled with scripts; I can remember seeing ones for The Watchmen (this was l989) and Sgt. Rock. Bill Teitler came in and explained the nature of the job: they wanted to open the show with a faux Tales From the Crypt cover that would feature the stars of the episode and done in the classic E.C. style. Was I interested? Was I interested!!

More Tales next week!

DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO OWN YOUR COPY OF THE
LIMITED EDITION RETROWOOD TRADEPAPERBACK.

128 PAGES

B&W WITH COLOR COVERTHREE ORIGINAL STORIESWITH BONUS FEATURES INCLUDING SKETCHES AND
THUMBNAIL PAGES.
ALL FOR ONLY
$25.00
EACH SIGNED COPYWILL ALSO COME WITHA PIECE OF
ORIGINAL ARTWORK FROM THE BOOKSIGNED BY VOZ!!

ONLY 200 COPIES OF THIS BOOK WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE

For more information go to:

http://vozart.com/Retrowood5

Vozwords Begins

2011-04-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon: a new blog from Mike Vosburg.I'll be writing about my experiences working on Tales From the Crypt, the Narnia Movies, GI Joe, my amateur comics and fanzine days, thoughts on storytelling, and discussing some of my favorites illustrators, writers and moviemakers.

And be sure to check out all the new artwork I've been posting on Flickr:

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vozart/sets/72157625621840721/