Let's talk Comics Culture & Criticism (Linkgasm)

It seems some folk in our little group aren't too aware of what's going on in the comics industry (glares at Lynne). So here are a few links to various review sites, blogs, and podcasts to help pop the bubble we sometimes get stuck in.

Comics Worth Reading

Comics Should Be Good

The Beat

Journalista

The Comics Reporter

Indie Spinner Rack

Comics Critics!

Comic Foundry

Feminist SF

Occasional Superheroine

The Savage Critic

Estoreal

Comics Oughtta Be Fun!

Comics 212

Dick Hyacinth Hates Your Blog

Every Day is like Wednesday

Eye on Comics

Girl Wonder

Living Between Wednesdays

Precocious Curmudgeon

Same Hat! Same Hat!

Barnacle Press

Your Webcomic is Bad and You should Feel Bad

Your Webcomic Can Still Be Saved (defunct)

And of course:

Tales to Mildly Astonish

Free Peanuts

Universal Syndicate's Comics.com has recently revamped their website. Along with a new look and navigation system, they now offer 50 years worth of free Peanuts cartoons!

Great news for people who don't want to schlep $29 (or $19 if you're buying it from Amazon.com) for those fancy Fantagraphic books.

The new Comics.com site also offers years of archives of other great comics such as Get Fuzzy, Liberty Meadows, Alley Oop and my personal favorite Pearls Before Swine. Another new feature is the ability to customize your own personal RSS feed or homepage to get only the comics you want see.

Snoopy.com, the official Peanuts site is also in the process of being revamped. Another thing to look forward to!

Advice from Dave Roman

Dave Roman, is a cartoonist/illustrator/editor who works at Nickelodeon Magazine. For those who used to take Klaus Janson's class at SVA, do you remember him coming by and giving us advice? Below is a link on his website which summarizes what he spoke that day.

It's always good to get a refresher on these kind of things.

Advice for building a career as a freelance artist and/or paid cartoonist by Dave Roman.

Travis Charest Step by Step

I am a BiiiiG Travis Charest fan, and I can't believe I haven't shared this article with you guys yet. It's a short tutorial on how he does one of his beautiful sequential panels. I have to warn you though, he uses good ol' ink and airbrushes, no computers!

To see more of his art check out the extensive Official Unofficial Travis Charest Gallery.

I also recommend you check out his Space Girl series.

All good stuff, all good stuff.

ILoveSketch: Sketching System for 3D Curve Models

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

From their website:

A 3D curve sketching system that captures some of the affordances of pen and paper for professional designers, allowing them to iterate directly on concept 3D curve models. The system coherently integrates existing techniques of sketch-based interaction with a number of novel and enhanced features. Novel contributions of the system include automatic view rotation to improve curve sketchability, an axis widget for sketch surface selection, and implicitly inferred changes between sketching techniques. We also improve on a number of existing ideas such as a virtual sketchbook, simplified 2D and 3D view navigation, multi-stroke NURBS curve creation, and a cohesive gesture vocabulary.

Hulk Smash Puny Rain!

So this is the first time I used the Cintiq to ink the lines. Previously I always scanned in pencil work and then colored it. A pain to clean up in Photoshop.

I was able to create nice thick & thin lines but next time I think I'll use thin neutral lines. I know people have already heard me say this but THE CINTIQ IS AWESOME!!!

Brian Bolland Tutorial

After being inactive for what seemed like forever, Brian Bolland's website is back online. Other than being able to view all his wonderful cover art, he has a 'Lessons' link which shares his process on creating a cover. The most interesting is the Gotham Knights cover, where he goes in depth about his choices and techniques. He mentions using Photoshop 5.5 so I'm assuming this is a fairly old article, but it's still very educational. Check it out.

Samurai Champloo Art

Samurai Champloo is just one of the long list of tv shows (it's on my Netflix list!) I've been meaning to watch. Created by the same director of Cowboy Bebop, it's a wild and energetic comedy/action/samurai/historical(?) anime, infused with hip-hop and rap.

For any who's interested you can view production art from this fansite and this french fansite. Not only do they have some neat rough key animation art, there are model sheets of characters and their weapons too.

Early Star Wars Storyboards

Some rare Star Wars storyboards. Just love the composition on some of these shots.

John Romita Jr.'s Cover Sketches

Coverbrowser.com has posted several of John Romita Junior's rough cover sketches along with the final product.

If you want to browse comic covers, this site is a great resource. They have art from Action Comics #1 to the most recent comic publications.

Emmanuel Guibert: Cool Inking Technique

Check out this cool way Emmanuel Guibert inked his graphic novel, Alan's War.

Gorilla Artfare

Gorilla Artfare is a collective art blog of a 100 professional artists. The art consists mostly of illustration, concept art, character and environment designs.

It's a great source of inspiration, especially for character designs. I highly recommend checking it out regularly.