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NUMBER 9FALL 2004

THE PROFESSIONAL“HOW-TO”

MAGAZINE ON COMICS, CARTOONING

AND ANIMATION

www.drawmagazine.com

PLUS: Illustrator tutorials withALBERTO RUIZ

PVP’s SCOTT KURTZ

Bringing characters to life with TOM BANCROFT and ROBERT CORLEY

Product reviews withANDE PARKS

NOEL SICKLES, Father of realistic cartooning byBRET BLEVINS

IN THIS ISSUE!How to create a comic from script-to-print by MIKE MANLEYSee the process from pencils, inks, & coloring to lettering, printing, and distribution!

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FALL 2004 • VOL. 1, NO. 9

THE PROFESSIONAL“HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING

Editor-in Chief/Designer • Michael ManleyPublisher • John MorrowLogo Design • John CostanzaProofreaders • John Morrow & Eric Nolen-WeathingtonTranscription • Steven Tice

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ADVERTISE IN DRAW! See page 2 for ad rates and specifications.DRAW! FALL 2004, Vol. 1, No. 9 was produced by Action Planet Inc. andpublished by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow,Publisher. Editorial Address is PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082.Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh,NC 27614. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet Inc. All contribu-tions herein are copyright 2004 by their respective contributors. Action PlanetInc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submis-sions. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if work-for-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in saidartwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; andsaid artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with theconsent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historicalpurposes with no infringement intended or implied. Batman,Superman are TMand © 2004 DC Comics • The Dazzler TM and © 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. •PvP TM and © 2004 Scott Kurtz •The Thief of Time © 2004 Danny Fingerothand Mike Manley. This entire issue is © 2004 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrowsPublishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permissionof the copyright holders. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

COVER STORY CREATING COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT WITHMIKE MANLEY3

Front CoverIllustration by

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ADOBE ILLUSTRATORTIPS: BITMAP TEXTURE FUN BY ALBERTO RUIZ

CHARACTER DESIGNBRINGING YOUR CHARACTERS TO LIFE

BY TOM BANCROFT AND ROB CORLEY

PRE-PRESS, PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION

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THE CRUSTY CRITICPRODUCT REVIEWS BY ANDE PARKS

NOEL SICKLESBY BRET BLEVINS22

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56 PvP’s SCOTT KURTZINTERVIEWED BY JAMAR NICOLAS

This issue of Draw! and the crossover with our sister magazine write Now! was more

than a year in the planning and the making. And what could be more natural than a re-teaming

of write Now! editor and old Darkhawk writer Danny Fingeroth and myself, I ask you? A

DVD! Danny and I worked together back in halcyon days of the ’90s at Marvel on Darkhawk,

with Danny on the writing and me on the art. When we both ended up working for the same

publisher again some ten years later, both doing “how-to” magazines, it seemed like a great

idea to combine the thrust of both of our mags to give the aspiring cartoonists and writers a

complete overview of the creative process of a comic, from the script to the printed page, from

the Pro perspective. Do a real in-depth coverage of our process. After some good give and take,

Danny and I came up with our character The Thief of Time, and documented each step of the

creative process which you can read about in write Now! #8 and in this issue of Draw!

As Danny and I got underway and were working on The Thief of Time, preparing to

have both issues of our magazines ready to premiere at this summer’s San Diego Comicon, I

was contacted by Sputnik Studios from Toronto, Canada to see if I was interested in producing

a “how-to” DVD. “Heck yes!” was my answer. A rapid series of e-mails and phone calls ensued

between our publisher John Morrow, Danny, Sputnik and myself, and the deal was worked out.

We would now produce a “how-to” DVD covering our process and filming me live as I drew.

This also meant we had a very short time to do this in order to get everything done to debut the

DVD in San Diego. As you know by now, Draw! #9 was delayed in order to produce the art

for the DVD shoot and John and I decided it was best to concentrate on the DVD. Shane

McCracken, Jeremy McCracken and cameraman Sevan Frank piled into their car and headed south to my studio here outside of Philadelphia to film the

DVD. Danny came down for an afternoon to shoot our discussion on scripts and plotting for the DVD, as well. Over the next three days in the humid

Philadelphia summer, the swell guys from Sputnik filmed over 40 hours of video here in my studio documenting my working process, and the result is the

How to Draw Comics from Script to Print DVD. I’m really proud of how it turned out! But the race was not over yet. As the Sputnik crew headed back to

Toronto and their editing suite, I still had to finish the rest of the art and do extra work on the lettering and coloring segments and some extra voiceovers, as

well as finish the rest of the The Thief of Time comic which had to be held off till the filming was done. So now you hold in your hands the fruit of all of

our labors: Draw! #9, the second part of the crossover with write Now!, containing the complete The Thief of Time comic inside.

The DVD premiered with great success in San Diego and the Chicago Con, so much so we are already planning several more DVDs on drawing fea-

turing some of your favorite Draw! contributors. I also want to say thanks to this issue’s contributors Tom Bancroft, Rob Corley, and Scott Kurtz, who was

interviewed by new Draw! interviewer and fellow Philly cartoonist Jamar Nicholas. Be sure to check our Jamar’s weekly web strip Detective Boogaloo—

Hip Hop Cop on moviepoopshoot.com. Big thanks to Alberto Ruiz, Ande Parks, my pal Bret Blevins, and to my brother Dave and his friend Antony Bell

for doing the music on the DVD, and of course to Danny and John. A tip of the hat to Ryan D’Angelo for redesigning the Draw! website, and of course

you the readers and supporters of Draw! magazine.

See you in February!

Mike Manley, Editor

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2 DRAW! • FALL 2004

DRAW! • FALL 2004 3

TALKING THIEF OF TIME

Danny and Mike discussthe creative process

PART 2What follows is the conclu-

sion of the conversationbetween Write Now! editorDanny Fingeroth and myself(begun in Write Now! #8) out-lining how we came up withour Thief of Time character.We discuss what issues wewere dealing with as we triedto make something originalyet not completely unfamiliar,mixing genres to come up withnew takes on well-traveledarchetypes. Combined withthe notes and e-mails printedin Write Now! #8 we pick upon the conversation in thisissue as we conclude the dis-cussion of our creativeprocess.

Danny and I had a lot ofopen, honest, back and forthdiscussion, which is essentialto the creative and collabora-tive process.

—Mike Manley

[SPOILER WARNING: Details of Thief of Timeare discussed here. It’d be impossible to notdo so when discussing the creation of a newcharacter.]

ABOVE: This was the original penciled version of the cover to theThief of Time comic. In the beginning I was thinking of this as beingmaybe a comic in a slightly more humorous vein. I later repenciled thefigure of Heather Brascomb after Danny Fingeroth (my co-creator andwriter) defined the characters and the feel of the series more. Wedecided against a humorous or more cartoony feel in favor of a morestraight-forward adventure. RIGHT: My initial quick sketches ordrawings of the character. The first image that popped into my mind wasa female thief being chased across the rooftops of some European city,pursued by ninjas. These were done quickly directly with a brush andink, and it ended up being the gem of the idea that became the coverimage. I flopped the direction of the sketch to read better for the cover.

PART 2

that we have to put a limit on Heather’s time travelabilities. Otherwise there’s no problem the personcan’t solve by simply saying, “Well, I’ll go backfive minutes before that event happened.”

Danny Fingeroth: That’sright. We had this discus-sion about how timetravel stories canbecome incrediblycomplicated, and thequestion always comesback to, “if you cantravel through time, whynot just keep goingback in time until you getit right?” That’s actuallythe premise ofGroundhog Day, I sup-pose, which is in a waya time travel story.

MM: We initially said, okay,it’s going to be a thief, and wedecided we’ll make the thief afemale character. Then wetalked a little bit about themovie Entrapment, whichwas about a burglar, andlooked at the elements thatworked in that, and then westarted talking about time trav-el. I actually went on the Internet and spent sometime reading up on time travel. Some scientistsbelieve there is a possibility,depending uponfaster-than-light drives

or going the speed oflight, that it is possibleto do some form oftime travel. There areothers who believethere’s time travel possibilities via worm-holes, or black holes. There’re a lot of dif-ferent theories on it. So even though thisis a fantasy, you still want to be able tohave a layer in it that has some basis inscience, so that at least you have somefoundation on which to build a fantasyconstruct.

DF: There was one logistical problemwe came up with what I think is an elegant solution for. I was having ourheroine have to literally travel to different parts of the globe by jet orsomething, to then go back in timeso she would end up in that part of

COMICS MIKE MANLEY

This is the second half of the Write Now!/DRAW! crossover conversation phonediscussion between Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley. The first half ran inWrite Now #8.

Mike Manley: In creating a drama, be it comics or a movie,etc., it’s probable all the paths that you’re going to walk dramat-ically have been walked by someone before. So, all you can dois try to put a little spin on the ball. There’s been a zillion storiesabout pirates, or about private eyes, or guys flying through outerspace, starship captains, and super-heroes. Nothing is reallygoing to end up being completely unique. I mean, you hopeyour idea is fresh, but in genre fiction most ideas have probablybeen tried now.

So with Thief, my concern, visually, was try to do some-thing that’s interesting for the reader and that’s fun for me todraw. A story, that even if it’s time travel, not a unique idea cer-tainly, has something that’s a little different in some way. Somekind of hook. In one of the conversations we had we discussed

ABOVE: The final penciled version of the cover for The Thief of Time.On this page and the next page are some of Mike’s rough sketches anddesigns for the thief’s costume and appearance.


ing to findher father,who invent-ed this time-vest that shewears, andhe’s lost inthe timestream. Shewantssomehow,to locate herfather in thetime streamand basical-ly savehim. Andthen we hada big, longtalk abouthow there

had to be some reason why she couldn’t just pop in two sec-onds before he turned the vest on and got himself lost

in time, why didn’t she just do that?All of this is in my mind when I’m reading

your plot that you just sent, which was reallygood. I was thinking, what if the dad’s time vest was damagedand maybe there was something wrong with it initially, a designflaw maybe, so that he keeps skipping through time like a stonethrown across a lake, and every time that he pops into a differ-ent time, he sends out a slight “ripple.” And that slight ripplemaybe subtly affects time after that. So he’s sending out slightripples in time, that are generated by the suit “punching holes”through time. And, since it’s a random thing and her brotherHenry’s helping her track her father down, I was just thinking,maybe Henry’s job could be to track where his father goeswhen he’s using the vest. To see if there’s a pattern to the jumpsin time that their father’s making as he skips through time, try-ing to triangulate where Dad will be next, so that he can say,“Well, we think that, based on this algorithm that I’m run-ning”—some chaos theory computer program—“we predict ourfather will appear in 1776 in Malta,” or something like that.

DF: Yeah. From The Time Machine to The Terminator to Back

to the Future, to just about anytime travel story, Ithink you just haveto establish therules of time traveland figure the audi-ence will be willing togo along for the ride aslong as the story pointsare compelling enough tomake them want to.Otherwise, you go intoterritory where you’retrying so hard toexplain how and why

COMICS MIKE MANLEY

the world when she time-traveled. And you came up with thepseudo-science mumbo-jumbo (and I mean that in a good way)about some kind of global positioning thing, where she couldend up coming out in the correct geographical spot, which sim-plified things nicely.

MM: Well, I fig-ured since theEarth movesthrough timeand space, andsince she’sgoing to jumpthrough time, thetime-vest shewears wouldhave to havesome ability,maybe in conjunctionwith some machine, computer program, a guyworking the machine back at the home base,tracking her in relationship to the Earth, so thatyou can say, “When I’m going through time toApril 14, 1876, at 3:00 AM,” you wouldknow exactly where the Earth would be inorder to do that, or else you’d pop intospace, because the Earth might be on theother side of the sun.

DF: This new version of the plot felt more organic to me. Doesit work better for you?

MM: It does. And we were also trying to decide if the key timetravel scene in her first story would take her to ancient Greeceor medieval Japan.

DF: In this case, I think it’s more what you’re in the mood todraw. The story point would be similar in either case, so it’swhat’s more fun for Mike to do artwise?

MM: So I settled on ancient Japan, because, for me, ancientJapan and samurai or are going to be more fun to draw.

I went through step-by-step, reading the plot and wrotedown what Heather’s key motivation is. The fact that she’s try-


of something that’s impossible in the first place, that you end upsabotaging your story. Let’s face it, what do people rememberabout Back to the Future? The time-traveling DeLorean and thefact that Michael J. Fox had to make sure his parents got togeth-er so that he would be born, which, when you think about it, hemust already have succeeded, or else how could we be watchinga movie about his character in the first place? But you don’tthink about that as you watch the movie. You just take the film-makers’ and characters’ words for it that what they’re trying toachieve—the McGuffin, as Hitchcock called it—is important.

MM: Sure, the more logically you set it up, the more chancethe reader or viewer will buy into it.

DF: Agreed.

MM: I did think, at the end, in our story, having the fathershow up was kind of a cool thing. Now, we could have somereason that that happened, we’ll to work that out, because wehave a limited amount of space with the initial comic.

DF: That was definitely going to be the cliffhanger. Because, asyou were just saying, he pops in and out of time. There could bea pattern to it, but one that maybe they haven’t quite figuredout. Now, does he want to be rescued? That’s another issue.

MM: Basically, the main thing for me as an artist working onthe story with you was to figure out logical parameters withinthis fantasy construct so if this person can travel through time,they can’t just simply solve every problem they encounter byjust going, “Oh, well, I’ll just dial back before that happened,ding, problem solved!” So there should be some reason thatevery time they actually go into the time stream, there’s a realpossibility that if they do something wrong, they could reallyscrew up the present. I think it would be a good thing to have itset up at the beginning that there was a real consequence everytime Heather jumped through time, and if she did something


COMICS MIKE MANLEY

wrong, she could really screw something up.

DF: You know, this goes back to our original discussion, theway that you even said, “Why doesn’t she go back a week andinvest in whatever stock went up the following week? Whywould she have to be a thief?” Which is why I put the messagefor the father in there. Because we’re back to that same thing,why go to such elaborate means just to generate money if youcan know how future financial markets are going to turn out?

MM: Well, here’s the other plot idea I had in relating to thefather. Maybe via his skipping through time, he’s sort of sethimself up financially or science-wise. Maybe he’s trapped,maybe there’s some reason why he can’t take the vest off,maybe it’s bonded to his skin, whatever. So he’s always goingto have to jump through time.

DF: Because if he takes off the vest, he loses any hope of evergetting back to his home time.

MM: Right. And maybe he hasn’t been able to fix it because hedoesn’t have the 2004 technology to repair the vest. Or maybehe’s working on it, it’s going to take him a while in the past togather the materials he needs to fix the vest or something. Likea stone skipping through time, so you never know where thenext skip will send you.

DF: He has to triangulate where he’s going to be. So now thequestion still comes up, why is she stealing stuff in the past, ifit’s not to find clues for him? If she’s on an assignment from theEmperor of Japan, that’s one thing, that specific favor, or maybehe has something she needs.

MM: That’s a cool idea. Maybe she’s trying to track him, somaybe by stealing this mask from the past and delivering it tothe emperor of Japan in the future, he gives her some photo-graph or some information about where her father was in Japanat some point.

BELOW: My thumbnail breakdowns. This is where it all starts as Isketch out thumbnails based on Danny’s plot. These will go through arefining process but I want to get the visual images in my head down asquickly as they occur.

Some characterstudies of Heatherthat explore herpersonality andstylistic approach.

he vision and talent of Noel Sickles transformed and expand-

ed the possibilities of narrative comic strip art in fundamentalways that are still apparent in current comic books and graphicnovels. After this accomplishment he left the cartooning field tospend several decades as one of the grand illustrators of his gen-eration, and ended his career painting historical western imagesfor galleries across the Southwest. Sickles invented a technique

combining naturalis-tic drawing, cinemat-ic storytelling andrealistic lighting thatinvigorated the art ofnewspaper storystrips and gave birthto the melodramaticvisual intensity ofadventure-themedcomic books. In hisScorchy Smith stripwork we see the firstaggressive meldingof cinema cameratechniques with staticnarrative drawing.

Before Sickles,Hal Foster had createdspectacular realisti-cally drawn narrative

sequences in his Tarzan strip work, but his vision was a moreformal theatrical sensibility. Foster used no speech balloons,enclosing dialogue within captions, and his compositions wererooted in classical salon art and early magazine illustration tradi-tions. The quality that was new in Sickles’ work was a convinc-ing impression of spontaneity, as if the viewer were witnessingthe events in motion.

This sense of immediacy in Sickles’ work was his specialgift, and it invigoratesall his images. As ayoung teenager Sickleshaunted the publiclibraries and studied allthe artwork thatappealed to him, fromthe old masters to con-temporary newspapercartooning, but he also


sketched from life constantly and gradually coalesced his visioninto a personal approach to solving drawing problems. He beganhis professional career before the age of twenty, cartooning forlocal businesses and newspapers—in the early work reproducedhere his skill and adroit mastery of then-common pen-and-inkstyles is remarkable. In those days reproducing photography onnewsprint was difficult, and newspaper artists were often visualreporters, drawing people or scenes to accompany a news story.

When the opportunity to take over the comic strip Scorchy

Smith came along, Sickles used it as a vehicle to develop hisnatural way of visualizing dramatic narrative images. At first hewas required to imitate the style of the strip’s creator John Terry,who produced, in Sickles’ words: “...the worst drawing I hadever seen by anybody.” In the early Sickles example reproducedhere, the evidence of Terry’s crude rendering technique is evi-dent, though Sickles cannot hide his own mastery of form, arialdepth, perspective, and storytelling. Already we see here animportant element of Sickles’ revolutionary contribution—aflawless, spontaneous sense of objects and living forms existingand moving through real space, and a intuitive mastery of view-point and rhythm of scene choice—called “shot flow” in visualstorytelling parlance. Sickles wanted to “...bring the art out ofthe page.” He combined the pacing, cutting and camera mobilityof the black-and-white movies of his day with a graphic treat-ment inspired by a set of illustrations Harold Von Schmidt creat-ed for Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the ArchBishop.” (Seeexamples below.)

LEFT: An illustration from Life Magazine.ABOVE: A young Sickles. RIGHT: Thepower and moody atmosphere of VonSchmidt’s high-contrast line drawings inspiredSickles to introduce a similar approach to thenewspaper strip. Sickles pushed the simplifi-cation of detail further and eventually broad-ened the tonal range by introducing amechanical gray tone that allowed him toplay white edges against the gray, creating aremarkable impression of depth and air in hispictures. In the early strip below Sickles isstill imitating the crude parallel line renderingof his predecessor John Terry, but his mar-velous sense of spatial accuracy is alreadyevident—look how surely the weight of thespeedboat rides the heavy water—indicatedso simply you can count the lines!


PART 2: Expressions and posingBY TOM BANCROFT AND ROB CORLEY

BRINGING CHARACTERS TO LIFE

EXPRESS YOURSELF!Hey, all! It’s your friendly neighborhood animators Rob

Corley and Tom Bancroft from Funnypages Productions here.Thanks for the great response to our first article last issue on“Character Design.” This next article in our series of articlestouching on the finer points of animation is entitled “Expressionand Posing.”

Back in the early days, when an animated character had toshow a particular expression it rarely went beyond a few basicdesigns, such as lines above the head to show surprise or tearspouring from the eyes to show sadness. These tricks worked formany years on the old shorts, but as audiences became moresophisticated the animators soon learned that they needed tobring something more to the screen and to their characters.

One of the most important things we learned at Disney wasto avoid the “cliché.” Try to avoid using the first idea, expres-sion, pose, etc. you come up with for your scene. Some artists/animators lose an important opportunity to really push them-selves as artists and—ultimately—their scene to the “next level”by settling for the easy way out. It’s time to lock up that oldtoolbox of tried and true tricks or formulas and start reallygrowing artistically. Now we’re not saying that your first ideaain’t pretty, but it’s always nice to flex your artistic musclesfrom time to time. You never know, you just might surpriseyourself.

Ok now, you may be asking, “Where do I start if I can’tthink of anything else to do for my scene or drawing?” Onlythrough observing life around you will you be able to bringsomething new and fresh to your arsenal of creative talent.Watch people and observe how they act, how they move andreact to their environment. Peoples is such crazy animals, andnine times out of ten you will walk away with a library of infor-mation and material that could make your art/animation SING!

Some of the suggestions that follow are based on our per-sonal experiences and can also be found in a number of bookson the subject of animation. One of the most obvious would be

Frank and Ollie’s Illusion of Life and Richard Williams’ book The Animator’s Survival Kit. These are excellent books andshould be a permanent fixture in any character/story-drivenartist’s reference collection.

LET’S EMOTE! (No, Rob, that’s not what you put on toast.)

First things first. Let’s concentrate on the face. Normally,when you approach drawing a character, you should never sepa-rate the thought process between the face and body. This isbecause they are so integral to one another and the emotion youare trying to convey. That said, we do it here for ease of refer-ence and to concentrate on finer points. Later, we will add theall-important body to “push” the expressions.

Your character must be real to you. You have to be able torelate to what your character is going through in order to capturethe right pose or expression for your scene. What is your charac-ter thinking or feeling? Are they happy, angry, or confused?Use a mirror and “act” out the character’s mood or acting. Studyyour own attitude and ask yourself: “Does this pose feel right?Does the drawing I’ve created feel the way my face feels?”Choosing the right expression will make or break your scene ordrawing.

SOME BASICS:Let’s go over some fundamental principals first. Here is a

basic cartoony face with no real emotion. (fig. 1) Not all char-acters have cheeks and even pupils(like more “limited-style” charac-ters) but for these examples we areusing a more realistic design to showmore subtleties that can be achieved.The thing you need to notice on allof these examples is the “change” inthe drawings. Making sure there is aclear “change” from one emotiondrawing to the next emotion drawingis vital.

This is the second in a series of articles by animators TomBancroft and Rob Corley on the subject of “Bringing Characters toLife.” This article will discuss the second step: expressions andposing. While we are traditional animators and the examplesgiven will focus mainly on that style, we believe these articles willcontain information that will apply to the video game, specialeffects, comic book and comic strip industries, to name a few.

––Tom and Rob


We can see this by using this“happy” expression example. In(fig. 2) there is little difference or“change,” it may be overlooked.

In (fig. 3) there is no escaping thechange in attitude: notice how thatwhen the mouth goes up it pushesthe cheeks into the lower “lids” sothat there is a compression on theeyes? The eyebrows go up. Thereis even a slight stretch upward oneverything on the face.

In subtle acting, all these things arevery important. (fig.4) is an optional“push” if the character is “veryhappy.” As soon as a character showsteeth, the level of emotion increases.

THE “EYES” HAVE ITThey say that a person’s eyes are

a window to their soul. In Rob’s case,his eyes are a window to how much sleep he got writing thisarticle. For the purposes of a person creating characters that theywant to bring to “life,” the eyes are the MOST important part ofthe expression. People look in your eyes for what you reallymean or the context of what you are saying. In comic books orany print media, they are especially important as you don’t havea voice to hear to give more clues to the character’s acting.There are three main components to creating acting with the“eyes”:

EXPRESSIONS AND POSING BANCROFT/CORLEY

ONe, and probably the most important, is the eyebrows. Theyare the key to how the eyes convey emotion. How the eyebrowscompress and decompress the eye shape give the broad strokesof the emotion you are trying to covey. (fig. 5)

TWO, the Eyelids. The lids are more the “Supporting Cast” inthe overall emotion of the eyes but really help “push” an emo-tion. It should be noted that, though not shown, the compressionof the cheeks below the eyes help create some of these eyeexpressions. (fig. 6)

THree, is the Pupils. Eye direction can convey many subtleemotions. Psychologists say that when we are thinking of thepast we look up and to the right, when we think of the future,it’s up and to the left. Either way looking up and to the corner ofthe eye “reads” as thinking. Looking down usually says you areremorseful. Pupils in the middle of the eyes reads as attentive.Looking up can say “Here we go again.” While looking left orright in succession makes the character feel paranoid or sneaky.Wall-eyed or cross-eyed pupils makes the character look likeRob. (fig. 7)

TAKE YOUR “ORDER” PLEASE!Remember that you are creating a visual interpretation of a

particular mood or attitude. For each attitude there is one keyexpression that will illustrate what your character is thinking orfeeling. The thought process is revealed through the change ofexpression. What order and how many expressions you use willconvey different things that your character is thinking—or notthinking. One example would be if your character is happy andsuddenly becomes frightened but then becomes angry, you’llneed to plan out how you will get the best results as you movethrough each attitude. Timing in animation will help “push”what you are trying to convey but even in illustration the orderand how many expressions you choose is vital. You’ll need toshow that change from happy to frightened pretty quickly, butyou may want to spend a few more seconds (or drawings) on


ALBERTO RUIZDIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

A

Importing photographic textures and effects to add dimension and excitement to otherwise flat vector art is a lot of fun and it couldn’t be easier. Adobe Illustrator lets you bring Photoshop generated bitmap images through its “Place” command, which can be transformed with a click of the mouse. In addition to textures, you also have the capability of placing inked drawings, black-and-white photographs and sketches for easy coloring and tinting. A bitmap file looks deceptively like a good old high-contrast,black-and-white image. Its magic, however, lies in its transparency properties, the “black” part of the bitmap is opaque and can berecolored at will, while the apparent “white” area is actually 100% transparent, allowing for a myriad of design possibilities.

I scanned the above inked drawing as “line art/text” at 600 DPI, and saved the image in TIF format. After creating a new docu-ment in Adobe Illustrator, I placed the file by choosing “Place” from the File menu. By the way, most high-resolution TIF bitmapfiles are under a megabyte in size.

NOTE: It’s important that you keep all TIF files associated with the work youare doing in the same folder along with the main Illustrator document as

AI keeps track of the linked files’ location. I then locked the current layer (Layer 1) and created a second layer which I re-named “coloring” and dragged directly underneath.

You should also keep in mind that you can change the default grayscale (black)bitmap to any custom, CMYK, RGB, or PMS color you wish, but you can’tfill the image with patterns or gradients.

HIGH SPEED COLORING JOB



APPLYING FLAT COLOR AND/OR GRADIENTSWith the inked drawing placed securely in the layer directlyabove, I drew the different shapes that make up the car with thepen tool in a carefree manner and the girl was drawn freehandusing the pencil. Ellipses were used where appropriate and alsoto speed things up.

For this particular piece I offset the colored shapes a bit,but you can color yours as tight or loose as you want,knowing the black line or layered colors will overlap and

hide any inconsistencies.

THE FINAL ILLUSTRATION



COLORING A QUICK SKETCHAfter scanning in Grayscale mode, the contrast was improved using the level slider in Adobe Photoshop—Command+L(Mac OS), Ctrl+L (Windows)—and the image was inversed—Command+I (Mac OS), Ctrl+I (Windows). The mode wasconverted from Grayscale to Bitmap using the Diffusion Dither Method at an output of 600 pixels per inch.

In a layer directly underneath thebitmap image, I drew the “inner color”shapes using the pencil tool and added

the logo.

These settings workedfine for this image, feelfree to experiment.

GROWING UP

Jamar Nicholas: Where were you born?

SCOTT KURTZ: Watsonville, California: salad bowl of theworld. It’s Northern California near Santa Cruz. I still have family there.

JN: Are either of your parents artistically inclined?

SK: My dad is. He wanted to be an architect and studied as adraftsman. He’s more inclined to draw a building or a blueprintthan a cartoon, however.

JN: Did you draw as a kid? If not, when? Did you always wantto be a cartoonist?

SK: I always drew as a kid, but it wasn’t until my mom boughtme the first Garfield book that I decided I wanted to be a car-toonist. My first comic strips were all about fat cats. That was inthe fourth grade.

JN: Did you have any art schooling?

SK: Just the normal art classes one would have throughout highschool. I studied advertising art in college for three years beforedropping out. I did take a cartooning class one time at the WestDes Moines Civic Center but I never got much out of it.

JN: Did you have any art-related jobs outside of comics?

SK: I worked as a graphic designer at a couple of sign compa-nies out of college, and eventually landed a job as a webmasterfor KLTY radio in Dallas, Texas.

JN: Were you always attracted to this type of material as a kid?

SK: Yeah. My dad would bring me home comics from thenewsstands after work and I was addicted to cartoons growingup. Around the fifth grade, I had this friend named JansDykehouse who’s brother seriously collected comics. We snuckinto his room and read all the Byrne/Claremont X-Men he had.Afterwards we would run to the kitchen table and create ourown comics on reams of graph paper they had.

JN: What was it about cartoons that made you want to dothem? I know that I used to like Garfield because of Jim Davis’line-work, not necessarily his plots.

SK: Probably the feedback. When I would draw super-heroesand show it to my dad, I would get anatomy lessons. When Idrew a cartoon, I would get a laugh. Sure, in fourth grade, theyweren’t the funniest jokes, but they were clever and theresponse on a four-panel cartoon was immense. Especially if itwas about someone everyone knew or a topic we were just dis-cussing that day. I didn’t get that, drawing super-heroes. Thesimple, less complex line art was something I was always drawntoo. Never liked the rendering and crosshatching as much.

JN: What other comic strips did you study when you were thatage? I used to read Doonesbury that early. I didn’t get any of it,but I was entranced with the art style.

SK: I didn’t discover Doonesbury until college. My newspaperhad Garfield, and older strips I didn’t care for. But I could go toWaldenbooks and find comics that weren’t in my paper.

From the WEb to Print Comics, catching up with

PVP’s Scott Kurtz

Who better to interview one web strip cartoonist thananother web cartoonist? Jamar Nicholas, who doesDetective Boogaloo, Hip-Hop Cop over on moviepoopshoot.com,turns the mike on the always funny, sometimes contro-versial Scott Kurtz. Kurtz has turned his PvP internetcomic strip into a critical and financial success.

Interview by Jamar Nicholas, edited by Mike Manley

© 2004 SCOTT KURTZ

AN EARLY LINE-UP OF THE CAST OF PvP.



SCOTT KURTZWEB COMICS

Garfield was first, then a comic called SNAKE! Then came Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes. That was the progression.

JN: I’ve never heard of SNAKE!. Tell us about that.

SK: You can probably find it online. It was this cartoon about asnake in prehistoric times. He was always lamenting having nohands. And the girl snake had huge boobs. I’m not joking. Theart was similar to Garfield.

JN: That sounds BC-ish.

SK: But not as preachy.

THE DECISION

JN: You seem to have a direct sensibility tied to comic strips,with your timing and delivery. Did you have any comic booklove growing up?

SK: I didn’t really get into collecting comics until high school.My dad would bring me some occasionally, but I didn’t knowthe collector subculture existed. I didn’t know that people fol-lowed creative teams, titles, etc. I was taught all that after meet-ing some collectors. The first comic I collected was Alpha

Flight and I started with issue 11. The ad for issue 12 had thewhole team lined up and said “NEXT ISSUE ONE OF THESEHEROES WILL DIE!” I lost it. That was the longest month ofmy childhood.

JN: So you didn’t want to be a comic book artist, growing up,then? Most people would think that everybody wanted to drawSpider-Man when they were young.

SK: I remember having a heart-to-heart with my art buddy ScottGordinier. He loved to draw, too. I would go over to his houseand we would just draw super-heroes. He also had nudie-magsto reference for girl super-heroes. And I couldn’t get the hang ofdrawing super-heroes. But I was great at cartooning. It camenatural to me. And I remember getting all choked up and decid-ing not to draw super-heroes and concentrate on cartooning. Itwas a choice I made in junior high.

JN: “The decision.” I remember that. I think a lot of strip cartoonists have had that talk with themselves.

SK: I was heartbroken over it, because all my friends weremaking comic books and I was not going to be a part of theimaginary comic book companies we would create each week.

JN: They’re very different elements to doing strips vs. comicbooks. I don’t think people know how much effort goes into itand that both aren’t totally natural to each other.

SK: I knew that the secret to cartooning was to learn to simplifyand observe and those skills were going to take practice, and Icouldn’t do both I felt. If I studied cartooning, I was giving upstudying super-hero art.

JN: But on the same hand, a lot of comic book people couldn’ttell a gag in four panels, either. It’s like developing a muscle.

SK: Yeah, that’s the other thing. My buddies didn’t care aboutwriting. They weren’t looking to create a complete package.They were just working on portfolio pieces.

LEFT: An early cast drawing of the PvP characters. ABOVE: Kurtz’swebsite. BELOW: A Pin-up of Atari Nouveau.

© 2004 SCOTT KURTZ

© 2004 SCOTT KURTZ


SCOTT KURTZWEB COMICS

JN: Let’s talk about familysupport when you were coming up.

SK: My dad would criticizealways and my mom woulddote always. Dad would read astrip and nitpick. Do this,change that, add this. I wouldsay, “What do you think ofthe joke? Don’t focus somuch on one detail” and hewould say, “Do you want thecritique or not?”

JN: Criticizing your art abili-ties, or the fact that you shouldbe “doing something else”?

SK: No. He would never pushme to do something else. Hewas huge on having a backupplan... he never discouragedme, but he was honest.

JN: And mom?

SK: Mom would laugh at thestrip. Then I would look at her and say, “Doyou get the joke?” and she would say, “No, but Ican just tell it’s funny.”

JN: A lot of creative people know what they wantto do at a very early age. Usually the rest of yourfamily unit don’t believe you until you’ve accomplished it.

SK: Dad would always be realistic and tough on me. I wouldsay, “I’m ready to be a cartoonist,” and he would say, “Not yet.You need to be able to effortlessly draw this with a couple ofpen strokes. You’re not there yet, but you’re improving.”

JN: That’s classic right there. “That’s nice dear.” My motherstill does that.

SK: And Dad was huge on art, having studied to be a drafts-man. So he would push me to learn how to draw horses andtrees and I didn’t want to do that.

JN: Wow. That’s a huge plus, Scott. Some would kill to havethat kind of person in their corner.

SK: God, this one time.... He brought me a book on trees andtold me to draw all the different bark patterns, and after 10 min-utes I said, “ENOUGH! This is stupid. I don’t need this fordrawing comics.” And he pulled a comic off my desk (the firstone he grabbed), flipped through it and found this monster. Heput the comic right up against the tree picture. I swear to godthe skin on the monster was identical to the bark. It’s like the

artist used the tree book for refer-ence.

JN: That’s great. You didn’t seewhat he was getting at then.

SK: He taught me that cartooningis about breaking the rules of art,but that you had to learn the rulesfirst before you can break them.

JN: Did you have any art booksgiven to you at a young agefrom your parents? I think the

How to Draw Comics The Marvel

Way was a staple. That was backwhen the Borders didn’t have awhole section on comic art.

SK: I bought that one myself. Mydad had a stack of art books. Drawpeople, horses, trees, birds, dogs.All art books. Mom bought me acartooning book that I hated. Ithink it was written in 1935. It had

all these flappers in it.

JN: Did you actively try to use your dad’s books to work onyour craft, or were they too “old” for you?

SK: I used Dad’s books to draw when I wasn’t in a mood todraw cartoons. Or as reference.

JN: What kind of school student were you?

SK: Horrible. I had a very public rivalry with my high schoolart teacher.

JN: Were you good when you were younger, then deteriorated?

SK: I was good student through elementary. But I was distract-ed all the time.

JN: So what happened?

SK: I was too busy thinking about cartoons and comic strips.Ms. Allen was my art teacher and she hated cartooning. Hatedit. She discovered a student named Andy who was brilliant withpottery. Just... really talented. And she practically adopted him.Like, he lived at her house for a while. And she gave him thekiln room—like, converted it into a private studio.

JN: Couldn’t get away with that these days...

SK: Yeah, these days she’d be in jail. He was from Korea and

LEFT: A pin-up of Skull the troll as theDark Knight.

© 2004 SCOTT KURTZ


SCOTT KURTZWEB COMICShis momwent backand hedidn’twant togo. I’msure it wasall officialand legal,but still.So shewouldgive himpreferen-tial treat-ment, andenter himin all theart showsand thatwas totalBS. And Ihated him.I hated

him with the heat of a thousand burning suns. And he hated me.Of course, when he introduced her to Manga, she was thrilled.Then cartooning was okay. So I got to enter a comic book intothe big senior art show, and sparks flew when I won best ofshow over Andy’s pots. She hated me.

JN: Do you still have that comic?

SK: Somewhere, yeah. And, here’s the really sad thing: I wentback to gloat afterwards. Here are my comics and take a look atmy checkbook balance. And she was so small and frail anddefeated. She cried and told me her husband died of stomachcancer, and I lost it.

JN: That’s the opposite of what you wanted.

SK: I realized it was time to grow up emotionally, I think. Itwas more important to focus on making good choices at thatpoint. Life is short, you know? I was pissed, too, that day,because I felt she even robbed me of my gloating. Like... she

held me back for three years and I won, but I couldn’t spike theball at the end. My personal victory was all I got. Which ofcourse is enough.

JN: When did that happen?

SK: Early 2000. PvP was still small. It wasn’t like I had “madeit” officially. But it was enough that I was full-time at that point.I had great teachers who all saw my talent (other than the oneteacher that was paid to develop it). Yeah, my best teacher wasJeff Grim. He saw I was different. He wrote a recommendationletter that got me into college. It said, in part, “You won’t seeScott on the Dean’s list, but you’ll see his art making an impacton the students.” Basically, saying, “His ACT and SAT scoressuck, but he’s still worth taking,” and that letter got me in. Thecollege told me as much.

JN: Wow. So did you go to a Liberal Arts School for College?

SK: Kind of: UNT (University of North Texas). I took ad art forthree years and dropped out. I was wasting my parent’s moneyand these teachers were bitter ex-ad execs. I thought... “Do Iwant to be a part of this world? Do I want to be this smarmyguy? Or some production monkey? What am I doing here?”

JN: That’s very self-aware of you. So why didn’t you just fin-ish it out for the degree?

SK: My stomach would hurt every day going to class. I wouldskip class and it would hurt more. I had no clue what I wantedto be and all my choices seemed wrong. So I quit and got a jobat a sign company my friend’s dad ran. And that’s where I metAngela [Scott’s Wife].

JN: Did your dropping out cause problems at home?

SK: Yeah. My dad was devastated. Mom, just... she was a mom.More worried about making me and Dad happy and smoothingthings. Dad never went to a full four-year university and hismom (my harpy of a grandmother) brow beat him constantlyabout it. He got a two-year associates degree and no matter howgreat a dad, or how great a provider, it was never good enoughfor her. So he was huge on me getting into a university and

ABOVE: A PvP dailystrip from early on and arecent one (LEFT) clearlyshowing the evolution ofKurtz’s style and the devel-opment of the characters.

© 2004 SCOTT KURTZ

© 2004 SCOTT KURTZ

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