Thanks Todd for the Scar Ref. Coworker Todd knows I'm drawing cats till I get it right.
Scar has nothing to do with the Tennapel link above other than I seem to remember Lion King is one of his favorite movies. And as such might inspire much of one of his own graphic novels. Doug is pretty informative about his process and how often times he's thinking in a very derivative way. Some of you with graphic novel ambitions might be inspired by his talk. I'm going over to his place in a bt to see his TWO! new graphic novels. One is Black Cherry (rated R). The other is called FLINK. I'll give the Blog a review before Moriaty does....maybe. Things come out of the chute fast on AintItCool.
I've reviewed the Books Black Cherry and Flink in the first comments.
Doug is ready for ComicCon. That's the understatement of the year. Black Cherry was a departure as a Robert Rodrigues sort of violent fantasy film noir with tough guy humour. The podcast gives you most of the big plot points. The main thing is it's very entertaining. Closer to Creature Tech than anything he's done recently. None of the pages had text but I was turning them following the story step by step as a film. Of course Doug was narrating supplying a bit of gritty dialogue her and there.
ReplyDeleteFLINK is the easy sell of the two. It's the Spielberg family film. I'm just now reading about 5 ERBurroughs, 4 Tarzans, 1 Carson of Venus, and I was struck how Doug was juggling a lot of the same flavor of material. Instead of Kala as a great ape adopting Tarzan, you have FLINK, the father Bigfoot, being forced to adopt a preadolescent boy. In FLINK we now know everything about Bigfoots. For instance, in a head to head fight with a gigantic rabid grizzly , the bear wins. Doug goes slower with the inking on this one and changes brushes to the windsor newton series 7 number 3 ( which research has shown him can be had for 9.99 at Dick Blick). The PodCast mentions he is getting some Waterson mojo going in this one and it's definitely there. Great sillohuettes, vignettes and the same sort of film experience. It really goes down smooth. The only down side of the story is the same thing I'd level at a lot of the Spielberg family stuff. It is very manipulative. But it's butter. A producer will see this and see the movie that can be made without needing a gram of imagination on his or her part.
ReplyDeletewhat happens if you hit collapse comment.? I'll try it on my own Blog. i don't want to lose my keystroking.. This makes it easier to read anyway. So that was my Graphic Novel Saturday with Doug. What a family. Angie is about to have their 4th kid. In about a week. Ahmie the oldest is 5 years old and is TALL! Shocker there. The main carry away was the enthusiasm Doug has for advocating to everyone he knows with his skill set, his art pals from Blue Sky and beyond, the need to get into what he's doing here. And he's right. All of us have this idea we'd like to be telling stories and don't get around to it. This should be the second job for everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd Now, cut and pasted from a letter from Doug, the final faggot on the fire...
ReplyDeleteEllis,
I didn't want to go through the trouble of getting a Google account so
you
can post this comment from me on your blog in my place:
"Ellis and all other competent TAG artists --and Marty,
You must contribute to the world of storytelling and we all know that
videogames isn't the place to do it. Video games is great for making a
living and as a family man with a retarded L.A. Mortgage I don't look
down
my nose at anyone making a living. But most of us got into art because
we
liked the stories we could tell with our pencil and paper. I'm not even
talking about sequential images, but I'm talking about the great
illustrators who had more to say than just, "This is the human figure."
I know Tom Moon loved Carl Barkes and I shiver to think what would have
happened if Carl just decided still imagery or illustrating Boraxo
adverts
was enough. Our heroes are Harryhausen, Peckinpaw, Wrightson and
Asimov. Why
would so many able-bodied artists devour literature, watch tons of
movies
and basically have internalized the Western Great Books plot structures
then
never turn around and tell their own stories? What if the Lord of the
Rings
of comics is sitting in your head and we never get to see it? Shame.
And shame on any self-respecting artist who dislikes 300. It's like
hating
Star Wars (1977).
But this goes out especially to Ellis. You're over-ripe, rotting on the
vine, do you want your legacy to be disembodied sketches of your
work-mate's
and Sean Hannity's face in a sketchpad or do you want to take a crack
at the
greatest sci-fi graphic novel ever written? Comics has such low quality
across most of its history that you have a better chance making a
Pulitzer-winning MAUS than you would if you gave TV, movies or novels a
shot.
...now let's get going on those note-cards.
Your pal,
Doug TenNapel"
Ellis, it sounds like you are ripe for being talked into quitting your day job and going for it. Are you going to do it?
ReplyDeleteNono. Don't start that rumour. I'm up to my neck in debt. And the IRS just sent me a little love tap for an extra 1500 for last year. My unemployment return year. But I have started my script. It's kinda Rich Corbenesque.
ReplyDelete