Comic book workshop in Pico Rivera this April & May

I have a new round of Comic Book Workshops starting this April at Pico Park in Pico Rivera, CA.

A comic created by one of the students in my January 2011 class. How awesome is that title? Poor Chocolate Chip Cookie Boy...

The description for the class is:

A five week class that teaches your child how to make their own comics!  This class will cover character design, creating stories, tips on drawing and storytelling fundamentals.  At the end of the course, students will receive a printed copy of their own comic book.  There is a $5 supply fee due to the instructor on the first day of class.

Yes folks, that's right! Other classes may send your kid home with a bunch of loose, floppy sheets of comic pages they've drawn, but in my class they get photocopied editions of their 4 page stories! They can share them with family, trade with friends, even put them on Ebay and start their art school tuition fund!

We're offering two classes per week. Wednesday class is for kids ages 6-12, Thursday classes for ages 13-18. These have proved pretty popular, with many of the kids from the 2010 Fall classes having taken the class again this past January.

Schedule is as follows:

Wednesday (Ages 6-12): April 6 - May 4, 5:00-7:00 pm.

Second session May 18 - June 15

Thursday (Ages 13-18): April 7 - May 12, 5:30-7:30 pm.

Second session May 19 - June 16

Pico Park, 9528 Beverly Boulevard, Pico Rivera, CA.
Phone: 562-801-4470

Visit or call the Park to register, or register online at the Pico Rivera website. And feel free to email me with any questions: misterjav@gmail.com

Okay, I'll just come out and tell you right now: One of my nieces took the class, too. The story involved a group of kids at a comic convention trying to stop a thief who stole a copy of (I kid you not)...EL MUERTO #1!!

Aw shucks, Caroline....

New interview at RETCON Podcast

 

On St. Patrick's Day I spent an hour or so talking to the RETCON Podcast, a comics and pop culture show. I was interviewed by Henry Barajas and Eric Schock . We talked about, surprise, surprise... me and my comics work!

Among the topics we kicked around were creating comics with a D.I.Y. aesthetic, race & culture, teaching comic book workshops, my in-progress WEAPON TEX-MEX Vs EL MUERTO comic and the upcoming LATINO COMICS EXPO at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. 

Interestingly, I was also asked about the EL MUERTO movie, which was released in 2007, but it was nice to talk about it again. As I had never been on the RETCON Podcast, it was a fresh subject for us to talk about. Actually, doing an interview about a film several years old now allows me to approach it with a certain perspective. I shared some behind-the-scenes anecdotes regarding the film, and it was nice to be able to relate the positive experiences I had with the production.

Another thing I mentioned on the podcast was that just this week a college student has ordered some of my books from my online shop, in preparation for his upcoming thesis on Latino comic books! That came out of the blue and it was quite a proud moment, I must say. 


You can listen to the podcast by following this link, or listen via iTunes (just search 'Retcon Podcast' in iTunes and download Episode #9).


My thanks to RETCON for having me on the show, and a tip of the hat to hosts Henry and Eric for their engaging questions.

 

Weapon Tex-Mex vs El Muerto: Creating the Story

Sorry for the long delay, but here's Part 2 in my series chronicling the behind-the-scenes process of my upcoming comic book, WEAPON TEX-MEX Vs. EL MUERTO: THE BATTLE OF SANTA MUERTE!!

 (A sketch for an upcoming promotional piece of art)

The reason I haven't been posting for the last 3 weeks was that I've actually been busy drawing the actual comic book. As of today, I can say I've penciled and inked the entire story. Of course, I need to go back and finish details on most of the pages, a few panels here and there. The way I worked was to sweep through the 18 pages, making sure all the figures were inked, and most of the backgrounds. What I need to go back and finish are mostly drawings of cars and interiors of buildings. As those will take a little more time (such as the perspective involved with some of the shots) I didn't want to 'slow' down my inking pace. 


In the first part of this series (scroll down this blog or click here to read it) I talked about what inspired me to create a Tex-Mex Versus Muerto story. Here I'm going to talk about how I put the story together.

Once I came up with the idea of having my two characters duke it out in a comic book, the first thing I did was come up with a sketch, something I thought could be used as a cover. Well, the second I finished the sketch, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this had to be the final cover. There was something about the outrageousness and sheer audacity of the image that made me both laugh out loud and tingle with that excitement you sometimes get as an artist when you've 'stumbled' across a gold nugget in your own mind. Often in these type of superhero crossover battles (again, see the images from the previous blog post) there's a strong desire, at least for the cover image, to make sure each hero has equal standing with the other, where one character isn't getting the upper-hand on the other. 

Well, these are both my characters, so I didn't have to worry about offending anyone. And since Tex-Mex is a rip-snorting, hulking brute of a man, why the heck wouldn't he be plowing the 5' 10", 160 lb El Muerto through a concrete wall?! Plus I like the fact that even though El Muerto is my signature character, with much wider recognition (the dude's got a movie made about him, for cripes sake!), he's on the receiving end of a good ol' Texan butt-whippin'!


This isn't actually the first time Muerto and Tex-Mex have been seen on the same cover. That milestone happened on my last book, COMIC POP, (with me thrown on there to further increase sales) :

 

They didn't actually appear in a story together, that comic was a collection of reprints featuring individual stories with them as well as some other rarities. But the idea putting them together really appealed to me.

 

My plan for the Versus story was that I wanted to make it a short story, primarily for the fact that the two previous Weapon Tex-Mex comics were short tales, really short. The first was 3 pages, the second a whopping 4. Since this is technically a Tex-Mex story, I wanted to keep to the shortened story format. Originally I thought I could do this story in about 8-10 pages. Eventually it clocked in at 18 pages, but it's the only way to have told the particular tale I came up with.

 

When I sat down to thumbnail the story, I didn't really have a definite idea where I was going, or at least how I was going to get there exactly. Just so you know, I don't actually write scripts for myself, I literally have to see the story in visual form, that's my 'script'. I prefer to deliver the story from my mind to the paper with the actual images of the story, unraveling the narrative through images, panel by panel, page by page. I knew the main story points I had to hit, but when I sketched out the first pages of thumbnails, it was almost like watching the story unfold right before my very eyes.

 

Here are the first three pages of my thumbnails (these are drawn on plain 8.5" x 11" sheets of white paper).  Page 1, first panel was going to have the title and credits, then followed by the first two panels, setting up the opening:

 

Page 2, a meeting between Tex-Mex and someone looking to hire a zombie hunter:

 

As you can see on Page 3, I stopped drawing when I got to the bottom of the page:

The reason I stopped was I realized that I was eating up 3 pages already, and I was hoping to tell this story in under 10 pages! So I knew right away I had to find a quicker way to start the story. I eventually got rid of the guy hiring Tex-Mex, or at least substituted another character for his role, and reworked the opening into a tighter narrative. So these pages go into the 'deleted scenes' folder...

 

Getting the tone of the story was something I always had to keep in mind as well. Tex-Mex is more of a satirical, humorous character, and his two previous stories reflect that, while El Muerto is much more along the lines of a tragic, cursed-hero figure. I don't want to give too much away here in regards to the final project, but I just crafted the story with the idea that these two have to meet in a story, and they have to be who they are, and the narrative has to tell their story. Obviously what they have in common is that I've drawn them before in their own stories, and even though they have their own distinct voices, I'm the one doing the 'talking'. So I think the way I confronted this issue was to simply just write them together in a story, keeping their unique identities intact, and make the story work. 

Another reason I wanted to bring these two characters together was I plan to debut this comic at the inaugural Latino Comics Expo, being held in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum on May 7 & 8.  It seemed like such a natural idea to have a comic featuring Weapon Tex-Mex and El Muerto at such an event. In fact, I'm also aiming to produce a special limited edition of the comic exclusively for this event, with an entirely different cover and some extra added bonus item. More on that later...

In my next post for this series, I'll share some of the actual inked pages and how I approached that stage of production.

Weapon Tex-Mex vs El Muerto: The Inspiration

So the other day my mind was struck with a stimulating bolt of creative lightning. Once it hit, my brain was sizzling from the primal energy of the idea. So I made an executive decision and immediately put my current comic book project on 'Stand By' status, as I want to get this new book produced and sent to the printer by the end of March.

There's a couple of reasons I'm doing this. One is that I have a couple of upcoming conventions in a few months, and I want to release a new book at these specific shows. But what really gave me the actual idea for the story was the influence of some old favorites of mine growing up.

 As a kid, watching this on TV, I thought it was the coolest idea ever. Having watched the original KING KONG numerous times, and my fair share of GODZILLA flicks, it as a real kick to see the two of them going at it. I'm not going to say I was real media savy, but I knew it was a rare treat to be able to see the two of them in the same movie, as Godzilla was a Japanese property and King Kong was a homegrown movie monster.

  

Even the superheroes got into the act:

I actually had this comic in a collection my older brother had given me in the early 70s. Not only was the Jack Kirby cover just screaming to me to read it, but the whole idea of Captain America fighting with Daredevil was a thrill. (Spoiler alert: Daredevil had a fever, causing him to recklessly attack Cap who was performing some exhibition fighting matches for charity!).

By the mid-70s, when I was buying my own comics, the greatest cataclysmic event in my young comics-reading career happened, right before my very eyes!

SUPERMAN VS SPIDER-MAN (1976), the first-ever superhero crossover comic between DC Comics and Marvel. And the really sweet thing about this was that it was printed up in the giant-size Treasury Edition format both companies were using at the time for special projects. This is truly one of my favorite comics of all time. The Treasuries measure about 10" x 13", and the size of the book really added to the impact of the historical nature of the story. In 1981 they followed up with this whopper:

As a comic fan, there is such a special excitement about seeing superhero characters from rival companies battle it out. It's not something that's going to be done frequently (if ever again), and they each bring their own extensive histories to the battleground. (If you want to read more about these books and Treasury Comics in general, check out my friend Rob Kelly's entertaining and informative site, TREASURY COMICS.COM)

In the mid 90's I became a fan of Go Nagai, the Japanese cartoonist who created both MAZINGER Z and DEVILMAN, two very famous properties of his that debuted in their own mangas (Japanese comics) in the early 70s. Amazingly, within a few months of launching each title, there were animated series for both characters. And within a year of that, there was the MAZINGER Z Versus DEVILMAN animated movie!

Here we actually have a crossover between one creator's characters. Such a smart move, because this way any profits (outside of whatever arrangement he made with the animation studio) go into Go Nagai's production company, Dynamic Productions. Plus he's getting two of his fan bases to watch one of his productions. And don't discount the merchandising possibilities, either...!

Just a few short weeks ago I learned that Go Nagai had published a brand-new team-up in manga called DEVILMAN Versus GETTER ROBO (another of his creations). I actually ordered it from a Japanese bookstore in Little Tokyo, and while I can't read Japanese, I was able to follow along somewhat with the story.

I really think this book is what really got me thinking about matching up two of my characters in one story. El Muerto and Weapon Tex-Mex seemed like an interesting fit. While the Tex-Mex stories (two short stories to date) are done much more in a humorous light, the El Muerto comics are created with a more melodramatic tone, with the gothic elements and human interest aspects blended in with the supernatural/superhero tropes.  


They're actually the first two comic characters I created that saw print (Tex-Mex in 1997, Muerto in 1998). So it's been a battle 14 years in the making! (Hey, gotta use that in the PR!)

I've already finished drawing the rough draft of the comic (the thumbnails, as we sometimes call them) and you can see the cover at the top of this post. (By the way, this is slightly revised from my first attempt at the cover. If you want to compare, check it out at my DeviantArt page).  

I'll be sharing some behind-the-scenes progress reports here for the next several weeks. Next post in this series will be how I came up with the actual story and the struggle I had in creating the rough draft. Taking two different types of characters, and putting them in a brand new story was an interesting exercise in creativity. Plus more insight into why these two characters actually work very well for what I have in mind.

And if you haven't seen it yet, my first ever WEAPON TEX-MEX comic is available to read, for free, right here on this very site, just click here, or scroll up to the top green tabs.

Upcoming shows: Latino Comics Expo and San Gabriel Valley Comic Book Festival

Two upcoming shows I'll be participating at include the first-ever LATINO COMICS EXPO being held on May 7 & 8 at the CARTOON ART MUSEUM  in San Francisco.

(Logo and illustration by Jose Cabrera)

The LATINO COMICS EXPO was an idea between myself and Ricardo Padilla (he curated my COMIC POP solo art show last year in San Francisco). We envisioned an event that would encompass a wide range of voices from Latino-themed comics from a variety of artists of Latino background. We approached the Cartoon Art Museum and they were very supportive of our proposal. I'll be posting up the names of confirmed artists next week, so please check back and make plans to attend!

 

(Robot monster painting by Ted Seko)

This is our 4th year in a row presenting our San Gabriel Valley Comic Book Festival. When I approached my fellow Nuvein Foundation Board Members with the idea of hosting our own local comic book show, they wholeheartedly agreed and now we have what promises to be our biggest show yet. Again, details on this will be forthcoming, but we're eyeing a June event this year.

When I started self-publishing my own comics years ago, it never occurred to be to one day become an organizer of shows. But sometimes you have to just take a step forward and make things happen that you believe should happen. Of course, nothing like this gets done on it's own, so thanks go to the many people involved in helping put these events together.

In memory of Lisa Nguyen

A few weeks ago, I was informed of the death of Lisa Nguyen, a 27 yr. old artist. I had met Lisa through another friend several years ago. Lisa was always very friendly and outgoing every time I met her, and her best friend would tell me of their many hilarious adventures the two of them had over the years.

 

 

Lisa's death is even more tragic, as she was murdered. The entire ordeal is a huge tragedy, and out of respect to her memory, her family and her friends, I'm not going to use this space to recount that incident. The fact that Lisa is gone is such a terrible fact by itself.

What I will share with you is that all my memories of Lisa are those of a young woman with a huge zest for living, a true passion for all matters of art, and a person with very close relationships with her large group of friends. I can't claim a close friendship with her, as I really only saw her through her best friend (my girlfriend at the time). I felt a real gratitude toward Lisa, because she would remark that I was 'good' for her best friend! But I feel she and I considered one another friends, because Lisa just made me feel that way.

The grief for those who knew, and loved her, has been tremendous. But so has the outpouring of support, friendship and love. I created the above piece of art for the tribute show her friends have put together to honor Lisa's life and artistry. 

The Fabulous Life of Lisa Nguyen
A tribute show
February 6 – 10, 2011

Opening Reception:
Sunday, February 6th in the Werby Gallery, 5:00-7:00PM
Student Gallery courtyard at Cal State University, Long Beach
 

Gallery Hours:
Monday – Thursday, 12:00- 5:00PM
Wednesday 12:00-7:00PM

Proceeds from the sale of work go toward the Lisa Nguyen Memorial Scholarship

My upcoming comics for 2011 and beyond...

I'm working on my latest comic book right now, I've written a script for another book to be illustrated by another artist, and my research for a 3rd project has begun. Here's a look at what I have coming up in my publishing plans for 2011:

EL MUERTO: DEAD & CONFUSED Pt 2

In the time since Pt 1 was published, we saw the publication of MANGA MUERTO Vol 1, MAN-SWAMP, COMIC POP, The COMIC POP SKETCHBOOK and the limited edition WANTED:WEAPON TEX-MEX (all currently available in my Web Shop!). But now it's time to finally getting back to the continuing adventures of El Muerto!

Here's the first page I've inked. It's not actually the first page of the comic, but I wanted to start off with working on a splash page as a way to hit the ground running. Also, this way I have something to show you with a little extra pizzaz! The page needs just a couple of details finished, then it will be scanned and taken into Photoshop for the inevitable clean-up. 


Here are a couple of shots of my thumbnails, the 'rough drafts' of the actual story:

I plan out the majority of the issue in my head, kind of like running a movie in my brain, where I literally see the visual narrative of the story. Then I scrawl out the story onto paper, often noting the placement of word balloons. Sometimes I'll add the dialogue, but more often than not I keep drawing, as I haven't decided upon the exact words I want the characters to say, although I know what the scene is about, and how they're expressing themselves. Once I'm done doing the thumbnails for the whole book, I'll pencil and ink the entire story, at full size, after which I scan the pages into the computer. I bring the images into Illustrator and create the word balloons, and dialogue the entire story, at this stage.

I'll be posting lots more about the production of DEAD & CONFUSED Pt 2 over the next several months, along with sneak peeks and publishing dates/details. The other comic that I currently have in the works is:

CALACAS OF JUSTICE

 Dead Dinosaurio, Sharpie drawing on canvas board.


This comic is a change of pace from the Muerto story I'm working
on for several reason. One of the things about this comic is that it's conceived and geared to be an All-Ages book, meaning the content is appropriate for younger aged readers. Clean, action-packed, comic book fun, like a Saturday morning cartoon. The other thing that makes this book different is that while I created all the characters, I'm only going to writing this one. I'm working with a fellow comic book creator, John Narcomey, who'll be penciling and inking the book. We're doing a coin toss who see who'll color it!

BatiCalaca, acrylic painting on canvas.

John's the creator of GHOST FACE, JUNGLE JIVE and a few other titles. I've know him for some years. A lot of times, artists tell each other "We should work on a project together." Well, the timing, and project, were right, and so John's on board to help me launch the CALACAS OF JUSTICE. I'm finishing up some of the character designs for John, but I'll update you folks here in the coming months on the progress of that book as well, including the first look at John's take on these characters.

 

Spider-Calaca, acrylic painting on canvas.

Who are the Calacas of Justice? A team of superheroes from the afterlife city of Posadaville. 'Calacas' are the skeletal figures which are commonly used in the art of Dia de Los Muertos (The Mexican Day of the Dead). These characters are inspired by the popular superhero archetypes we all know and love. Visually, I wanted to give them a certain design that calls to mind those illegal, knock-off toys you occassionaly see of Superman or X-Men, for example. The colors and details are sometimes off, but they resemble the original characters to a point. But they're often wonderfully garish and bizarre looking.

 Calaca Americano, digital drawing created in Adobe Illustrator.

SECRET MYSTERY COMIC

My final major project I'm working on this year is Top Secret. It's a fictional tale based on a real person. A famous person, for that matter. What's really interesting for me is to actually be researching my subject. I've never really had to do much research for my previous comics, other than the usual visual references (what's a crocodile look like, carnival scenes, taking photographs in my city, etc.).

But due to the fact that this is based on a real person, I wanted to get a pretty good idea how the person thinks, acts, talks, etc, plus accumulate as many relevant biographical anecdotes as possible. This has included purchasing a handful of books (autobiographic & biographic) and DVDs, and even getting a Researcher's ID card at particular local library/museum. Also, doodling the character's likeness, along with other supporting characters, is something I do to help me get familiar with the subjects.

The primary focus about this Top Secret project that I'll be working on, while I produce the new El Muerto and collaborate on the CALACAS, will be to continue taking notes from the various books and films I'll be watching when I'm away from the art table. I won't start drawing any of the actual pages until El Muerto and the CALACAS are done and printed. I'll also be updating you here as I go along into the research, and how it impacts my storytelling. My best estimate is that I'll start drawing this book in the Fall of this year. For now though, I guess we can refer to this mystery comic as:

PROJECT: Z-XOZ

  

One word about another project people have asked me about. Last year I announced that my political/satirical comic, DEMOLITION DOVE, was going to debut as a web comic. Well, it's still going to be my first webcomic, but I'm going to move it to next year. 

What happened was that after the horrific tragedy in Arizona, with the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords and the murder of 6 innocent bystanders, the airwaves were filled with all kinds of emotional and vitriolic talk about violence and the so-called 'targeting of politicians' by political 'hate speech'. Well, I'm not going to turn this post into my own political rant on the subject, but it was because of this climate that I decided to hold off a year on putting my story out in the public arena. Of course, predictably, even as the President himself declared that the shooting was not a direct result of the influence of political speech, the same hysterical feuds between the left and the right have resumed. There really is no hope for the two parties, is there? And to be very honest, having the webcomic run during the 2012 election year is just a way more smarter move, as a publisher!

DEMOLITION DOVE deals with an alternate world, parallel to ours to a point, populated by a different species. Think PLANET OF THE APES with bird people. It's a nightmarish world, told through scorching satire and black humor, where the most extremist elements of the left wing and the right wing are battling for control of the government, the media is an immoral law unto itself, and the world's terrorists have formed a corporation. 

The main protagonist deals with it in the only way that works in this world gone mad:

 (You can read the Demolition Dove preview story online at Webcomics Nation by clicking here)

There will be no shortage of targets and bullseyes and surveyor's symbols in this book! But, and I'm going to have to make sure to repeat this periodically, this is a fictional, satirical story, not a blueprint for political assassination. 

So these are the primary comic book projects that I have on the assembly line. There may be a short story or two that pop up, and of course there are other matters to attend to this year, like conventions, my increasing amount of comic book workshops and any other artistic endeavors that I end up pursuing. But this year, the focus for me will be on producing some new comic books!

Personalized artwork from a student and an El Muerto birthday party

Last evening in my comic book class, one of my students gave me this:

 

Me dreaming about my comic book creation, El Muerto...! 

The student's name is Matthew, and for Christmas I had given him a sketchbook to encourage him to keep a lot of his drawings together in one place. I met his parents at a Starbuck's over the Christmas break and gave them the gift. That's such a cool drawing, and very much appreciated.

 

Matthew was in my class last Fall, and I actually met him and his parents earlier that year at a local library where I was doing a Live Art presentation with the Cartoonistas. One day I received an email from his mother asking if I'd be willing to perform a Live Art/comic drawing demostration at her son's upcoming birthday party. I thought it was a neat idea, and so we settled on a price and some months later I did my first ever birthday party performance. We even ordered a custom-made El Muerto piñata for Matthew! And his mom had ordered a custom-made El Muerto cake as well. It was a superhero themed party, so the whole day turned out to be a real fun event, even for the kids!

 

It's great to see such supportive parents of a talented child. Matthew's got a lot of creative outlets for his talents, and there's no reason to think he won't remain active with his art as he gets older. 

Thanks to Matthew for the wonderful drawing he gave me, and to Ben & Cathy for being supportive of my work as well!

Comic book workshop starts this week in Pico Rivera

This week I'll be conducting a couple of 5 week Comic Book Workshops at Pico Park in Pico Rivera, CA.

If you know of any young artists who like drawing and telling stories, consider signing them up for my class. I've been teaching classes in the city of Pico Rivera for about 7 years now, and I'm always glad to see a new group of kids taking the class and seeing their individual takes on comics creating.


If you need any more info, please call or email the Park at:
562.801.4470
recreation@pico-rivera.org

Or email me directly at:
misterjav@gmail.com


You can also register online at:
Pico Park Online Registration

STAN LEE WEEK: My favorite Stan Lee comics

It was a little tricky having STAN LEE WEEK run across the Christmas holidays, but I wanted to make sure I would be able to crossover with his birthday (which was yesterday's post). There was so much going on during Christmas week, and even this week leading up to the New Year's Day. Often that's a time I use to catch up on end-of-the-year tasks, and also a time when I catch up with certain friends and acquaintances. So I wasn't able to cover all the topics I wanted to, or stay on a tighter schedule for posting, but, I guess we can all come back here next time for SON OF STAN LEE WEEK!

But I have one last post today to wrap up this series. I'd like to share with you some of my favorite Stan Lee-written comics. After all, his role of writer and co-creator of some of my favorite heroes and comics books is really the core of his legacy, in my opinion.

AMAZING FANTASY #15, the first appearance and origin of Spider-Man. By far my favorite superhero, and this is actually my favorite single comic book of all time. AMAZING FANTASY featured several short stories, dealing with sci-fi or mystery/horror stories, ending in Twilight Zone-type twist endings. Well, for the final issue, #15, published in June 1962 , Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created a new, off-beat brand of superhero: a teenager with zero popularity amongst his friends, given superpowers by a radioactive spider. A stupid, arrogant act on Peter Parker's part leads to the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, and henceforth decides to use his newfound powers to fight crime. What a hang-up! Immediately appealed to my young Catholic guilt when I read it for the first time (as a reprint in the mid-70s)! The peculiar art, fascinating costume and atmospheric nature of the storytelling by Steve Ditko had the strongest appeal on me. Stan's deftly clever and melodramatic scripting was the perfect icing on the cake.

 

Stan and Steve produced 38 issues together of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, (plus two Annuals) and ranks as my all-time favorite run of superhero comics. The early soap opera life of Peter Parker was a tumultous tornado of emotional turmoil: Constantly caring for his Aunt May, who was terrified of Spider-Man (whom he actually made a widow by not acting to save his Uncle when he could have),  not being able to commit to Betty Brant because of the specter of Spider-Man coming between them, his destructive relationship with his boss, and Spider-Man's constant foe, publisher J. Jonah Jameson, and on and on.

Stan was relentless in getting the maximum emotional angst out of all the situations Peter Parker found himself in. And Ditko's artistry and storytelling made me a life-long fan of his work, even after he had left Marvel. So much of what I love about good old-fashioned American superhero comics is found in the 1000 or so pages of Spider-Man by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

My other favorite Stan Lee written superhero comic book series has to be the first 100 issues he created with artist Jack Kirby. Debuting in 1961, THE FANTASTIC FOUR was to be Marvel's answer to the then popular JUSTICE LEAGUE published by DC Comics.

Right from the beginning, the Fantastic Four were different. They had no secret identities they kept from the public, and didn't even get costumes until the 3rd issue! They were also banded together as a family, not just a group of people joining together to form a team. Reed Richards and his girlfriend (later wife) Susan Storm were joined by her younger brother Johnny Storm and Reed's friend Ben Grimm on a private flight to space. Bombarded by cosmic rays, they returned to earth with fantastic superpowers, which they soon used in a lifetime of adventures thwarting giant monsters and evil masterminds.

 What was so gripping to me about the Fantastic Four was their very nature as a family. And being a family meant they could actually fight amongst themselves, even as they're trying to go about their duties as superheroes! Ben Grimm, now The Thing, would sometimes go off his rocker with anger at being turned into a monster. Or he and Johhny Storm, the Human Torch, would try to one-up each other with wicked pranks, never mind that the Torch was a teenager and Ben was pushing 40!

Again, Stan's whirlwind writing had to give each member a distinct personality as well as move the story along with a mix of science fiction, adventure and family melodrama. The other half of the creative team was of course Jack Kirby, by far the most imaginative, dynamic and inventive storyteller and creative dynamo Stan has ever worked with, in my opinion. In Kirby, Stan found a creator who pushed the boundries every time with new imaginative ideas, a plethora of amazing villians & guest stars, and enough explosive drama in his penciled drawings to inspire a round table of writers.

For me, the entire 100 issue run of FANTASTIC FOUR by Lee and Kirby is the pinnacle of 1960s Marvel Comics dynamic superhero action. Kirby left after issue 101, and Lee stopped writing the book at issue 114, but what a great run they had.

Another one of my favorite runs of Stan Lee's writing is THE SILVER SURFER, the 18 issue series done in collaboration with artist John Buscema. Originally created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee a few years previously in the pages of the FANTASTIC FOUR, the Silver Surfer was given his own title in 1968.

Granted cosmic powers from the Fantastic Four's supreme adversary Galactus, under Stan's hand,  the Surfer was often portrayed as a sort of extraterrestrial philosopher, commenting on the inhumanity he often saw displayed upon the planet he was exiled to, Earth.

  
With the expressive, classical and lush artwork of John Buscema, Stan was able to really expand on the Surfer's role as an almost Christ-like figure of piety and innocence. The Surfer would often find himself attacked for no reason other than being a stranger, or he might get befriended by someone only to have them turn on him once their trap was set. And always, the Silver Surfer would travel our world and lament the bigotry, the wars, the crime, the inhuman suffering he would witness.

I read these stories as reprints in the early 1980s, but the emotional content was just as relevant. It was really fascinating to see someone write a character like that, even though it was in the context of a cosmic powered superhero, fighting fantastic monsters and
supervillians. While just as melodramatic as his earlier comic book writing, the Surfer really gave Stan a platform to write more poetic, flowery dialogue, speaking to concerns the author and a good percentage of his readership shared. The Surfers quasi-Biblical metaphors, his Zen-like reflections, his commentary on man's cruelty to his fellow man did something to raise the content on a superhero title. 

These are only a few of my favorite Stan Lee comics, but they're definitely the top of my list. I can surely fill a lot more blog posts reminiscing about more comics, but we'll close off the STAN LEE WEEK with this entry.

Thanks for reading along, and thanks to those of you who've been commenting to me hear or elsewhere how much you've enjoyed these posts about Stan Lee, and how much his work has affected me as a reader and creator.

Until next time......... 

STAN LEE WEEK: Stan Lee turns 88

Happy Birthday, Stan Lee!

 

STAN LEE WEEK: How I learned to draw comics... my way!

After a brief interuption for the Christmas holiday, I'm back with a new entry for STAN LEE WEEK!

In my previous post, I provided a link to a Youtube video showing a clip to Stan Lee and John Buscema from the "HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY" video. Based, of course, on their best-selling book of the same name.

My actual copy of the book, some 30 years old and well-read.


I must have been around 13 or 14 when I first got this at the local bookstore, BOOKLAND. What a thrill it was to get this, after reading about it in STAN'S SOAPBOX (published in the Bullpen Bulletins every month in Marvel Comics). Here was the book that showed the techniques and steps an actual Marvel artist took to create a comic book.

John Buscema, one of Marvel's top pencillers (SILVER SURFER, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, THE AVENGERS), had been teaching a comic book art class in NY, and it was decided that he should design and illustrate an instructional book showing his process. Stan took the writing chores, and giving it the hyper Marvel spin, added a friendly, conversational tone to the project. 

This image, early on in the book, really captured my attention, and made me fantasize what it would be like to become a comic book artist, sitting at my very own drafting table creating my own comics. The artist in the drawing didn't look that much older than me, making the possibility even more tangible.

The book lots of the basic lessons you see in most books of this kind, demonstrating how to look at the human figure as individual shapes, and how to construct your drawings using stick figures which you late flesh out. Because this book was to show you how to draw like a Marvel artist, though, emphasis was placed on choosing the more dynamic pose available. Not stiff and pedestrian like Marvel's competitors!

I certainly wasn't even thinking of becoming a self-published cartoonist at that early age (if I even thought that that was even a possibility), but I wasn't necessarily wanting to become an artist working for Marvel either. I just loved seeing how the comics were created and hoped to one day do the same.

As in the sample below, Stan's commentary planted in my head that the artwork should always attempt to really showcase the action and emotional intent of the scene, before the dialogue is even written in the word balloons.

The chapter where they finally showed you how to create an actual comic page was probably the highlight for me back then. It was interesting to the how figures were constructed, and how perspective and panel composition are created, but to see all the elements come into play for an actual page, well, that was the whole gist of what I wanted to see.

 

Around the same time, 1980 or so, I most likely had read or seen other cartooning books on how to draw characters and faces. But this was my first time really seeing how an actual comic page was done. Stan's commentary clearly explained what John was demonstrating, and with his relaxed conversational style, Stan made the lessons much more approachable, instead of feeling like a dry textbook.

I think that, as a kid, knowing the comic book characters probably also added to the interest in the book, making the material all that more familiar.

As I mentioned, Stan would often emphasize how many of the approaches in the book were the way which Marvel artists worked, creating more dynamic artwork and storytelling than the 'average comic book company'. But even without that layer of hype, the book was an extremely important tool in my development of a comic creator years later. While there were many other influences that developed my style of art, and personal aesthetic, HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY was an early and powerful influence.

I recently taught a 5 week comic book workshop to a group of young kids. I don't use this book in class as a guidebook, but the fundamentals found in it's pages are still a part of the lesson plans I use. I think one of the things I always try to stress to my students is to vary their 'camera angles' in their panels, so as to not always get those static shots that an 'average comic book art student' would do!

The actual comics themselves are of course the first and primal inspiration, but books like this and ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS took away the fourth wall and gave me a direct access, through Stan Lee, of the secrets behind the comics.

Speaking of 'Secrets Behind the Comics'....

In 1947, Stan Lee wrote this 99 page booklet, with illustrations by Ken Bald. It's one of the very first 'how to draw comics' instructional books ever made. A few years ago I bought my copy on Ebay. This was a reprint from sometime in the 1970s. At least, that's what the listing stated. I very much doubt I got an original 1947 edition. But if I did, I got a great price and it's in miraculous condition! 

Tomorrow on STAN LEE WEEK, we'll take some time to celebrate Stan's 88th birthday! See you then, heroes!