I’m thinking of changing the example panels. I don’t like how the last one turned out and I want them to be more interesting narratively. I’m going to keep this in mind as I work on the next few pages.
n i j o m u
comics, art, and writing by Nick Mullins
-
n i j o m u
Nice. “Similarity creates pattern, dissimilarity creates depth.” That is very clearly stated. I learned a thing or two reading this page.
Thanks. When I collect all this, I’ll put footnotes, because some of these ideas were inspired by outside sources. One such source is a graphic design teacher I had in college (one of the four art classes I was able to get into) who was really into Gestalt principles. The line above is also very similar to ideas presented by John Adkins Richardson in his book The Complete Book of Cartooning. It’s a dated book, but he has ideas in it that I have never seen anyone else mention.
John Adkins Richardson, did we talk about this? I’ve had that book since I was a kid. Every once in a while I pick it up and read a bit. I’m always surprised how much sense he is making. I ruined a good deal of the illustrations in mine trying to improve them. I filled in J. Catherine Jones’ hatchmarks in the Aristotle comic. To this day I look for an unscarred version of those drawings. They are on her web site but the resolution is no good.
As far as I can tell, I’ve only mentioned the Richardson book here and here, and there are no comments from you, so I don’t think we’ve talked about this. You’re the first person I know who has actually read the book. I think my dad bought it for me when I was a teenager. He also got How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way for me around the same time. The contrast between the two books is kind of in the background with what I’m doing. Anyway, I never liked the art in the Richardson book (his art, anyway), but his advice is really good and practical. I have an unscarred copy; I also have an old Heavy Metal with Jones’s Aristotle. I’d scan it in and post it, but I don’t want to piss anyone off.
Oh and this site has a lot of Jones’s work.
Who you gonna piss off? Sadly, she’s dead. I corresponded with her briefly a several years ago and she was a remarkably generous person. Just look at her personal web site, it in itself is an act of extreme generosity. If you scan it and send it to my e-mail I promise not to tell anyone.
As for Richardson’s art, yea, I also had a problem with it. Particularly the multi-faced caricature of his wife and the self-portrait on the back of the book. I do love the pages from Eisner’s Spirit that are in there, and the ones from Corben’s Click Lick (eerie story) whatever it is called. Also, the “threshold rendering of Thomas Nast’s Boss Tweed. I got my Corben fix on e-bay (I read him at an inappropriately young age and so his work holds a special power over my psyche) and got the click lick story in the original magazine printing.