BREAKING SHIT
How to RESET YOURSELF and GET OUT of your COMFORT ZONE.
I recently was helping a friend reframe his comic book inking career. He was down in the dumps about a lot going on in his life. While you may not be going through the exact same thing or even in the same industry, there may be valuable lessons here you can apply to your own life.
Prefer a downloadable PDF? Get it here.
____________________
For a few years now I've been working to help people realign themselves and their expectations. In many ways it can be a painful process. It's like volunteering to break your own arm. Not easy. But the thing about breaking it, is the bone grows back stronger.
A lot of this is about self-assessment and being realistic of where you are today. Remember what got you HERE, won't necessarily get you THERE.
I like to always start out with what are your specific goals you're trying to achieve. And I try to work backwards from there.
For example, if you want to WORK IN COMICS? That's too general.
If you want to INK COMICS FOR A LIVING WAGE? That's obviously better.
But if you want to INK GEOF DARROW ON SHAOLIN COWBOY? That might be way too specific but it's not a bad thing, either.
Reaching out to modern pencilers and seeing if they have any old scans of hi-res pages might be helpful. Especially those who don't ink themselves, which granted, they're short supply. Which for them usually comes down to money. They want to make more so they ink themselves, right?
Tackling guys like Bryan Hitch who have big, beautiful scans is great. Stuart Immonen is really the basis for a lot of new artists out there. I see his influences everywhere (along with Wade Von Grawbadger inks. You remember when he used to ink like Neal Adams back in the 90s? People can change as the times change!)
I'd also look at indie books where the artist is doing a lot of the work and see if they wouldn't mind you inking a cover or a variant cover or even a pinup for FREE. Getting your work back in circulation is key. I did A LOT of pinups (mostly to test some things to see how they printed) and also in hopes that the writer or whomever would want to work with me in the future. In some cases that worked. I got calls early on from Rick Remender, B. Clay Moore and Robert Kirkman. Though...that phone hasn't wrung in a while. Well, B. Clay and I just finished a book [ENDLESS SUMMER], but it was because I was available to illustrate an OGN for FREE until we got a deal with Insight Editions.
But I think it's important to pull the lens back even further.
What are the current needs in comic books these days?
I've noticed more and more that, with comic book movies seemingly having the budget to do ANYTHING IMAGINABLE (which frankly was the leg-up comic creators used to have) the movies are feeding back into the comics. So now a lot of the BIG TWO comics are slicker, more involved, overly colored reads that still rely heavily on the same old inconsequential stories. Sure, that's a pessimistic view, but in reality nothing is really going to change about the title character.
Who's the competition?
What stand-alone inkers are nominated yearly? You have to know who you're up against and why they matter. In many cases those books are popular to begin with and the inker gets a free ride. Not always but it does seem to happen. More often than not though, it seems penciler/inkers are also nominated. Like Bilquis Everly, is a terrific inker. Crazy good.
A lot of the competition is foreign. That's worth noting as well. They have lower costs of living in many cases. BUT they still have to put in the same amount of time to do the job. OR they have assistants lined up to help them. Mike Deodato Jr. anyone?
You need to find a way to be UNDENIABLE in your craft. Your career probably had its high points early on from what I can tell. And that's great. But there is a reason why many people eventually wash-out.
Believe me, this is not a judgment of you or your skills.
I've never had a career high point, or worked regularly in comics but this transcends any industry. It happens to people all the time even most recently with my own wife.
For example...because I didn't do the HARD WORK...and STUDY like a motherfucker the trends in Concept Art, I got left behind. I relied on my drawing ability and creative thinking alone to carry the day. And while that worked initially, and I was busy doing other things, I woke up one morning and found that I couldn't hang with the cool kids. The TOOLS started DICTATING THE LOOK. Drawing and painting was still handy but there were a lot of ways to get around some really problematic things that would take a lot of time. Time that could be spent on output instead of handicraft. At some point CULTURE DICTATED THE LOOK of things with the birth of ARTSTATION. Many Asian-influenced artists were upping the game as well. Which is not much different than comics. Manga has had an undeniable influence on an American tradition. It's worth noting.
It's all to say this: Know the landscape in which you're operating in and grab the tools you'll need to survive.
If you're not already inking in CLIPSTUDIO then get on it. It's a cheap, powerful program that has a low learning curve (especially for inking) and a high ROI. It does make one a little slower initially, but in some ways, it eventually pays off with many of its rulers and guides.
SELF-ANALYSATION = SELF-REALIZATION
Look at your traditional tools. What percentage of the work are you using a brush? Compare that to the top selling books out there and you'll see that stuff is a lot more OPEN LINE. Colorists are now earning inker rates because of the heavy lift.
Can you ink with a quill? Pen nibs? Microns? Pentel pens? Brush pens? If you're not, then why not? Sometimes the tool dictates the style. jetpens.com has a great selection if you're not aware of them. The way I ink with a Pentel pen is different from even a quill or Hunt 102.
How's your handedness?
Maybe that's not a word for some but it's a way of describing your ability with your tools. Are they as smooth and slick as what's currently out there? Because in some cases people are outinking people using Clipstudio because the TOLERANCE SETTINGS for brushes are crazy good! So good in fact that if you use it for too long and go back to inking traditionally, you're gonna be in a bad way. Hence the trouble with keeping both traditional/digital plates spinning.
If you're losing your slick line, then lean into that. Learn a new approach. Push the mess. Can you live with inking like GABRIEL HARDMAN or AARON CAMPBELL? Can you do a BILL SIENKIEWICZ or a CHRISTOPHER MITTEN approach?
I get it, I really do. I love traditional inking circa 1950s-1980s. But there are super-talented guys like Jerry Ordway, Tom Grummet, Ron Frenz and Sal Buscema who are doing comics nobody sees. And they seem okay with that (I don't really know for sure). There are hundreds of creatives who have gone away unfortunately. SANDY PLUNKETT for godsakes should be eating everyone's lunch...but he's fine in Ohio doing his thing.
Part of being a great inker is being a great artist.
You've probably heard this ad nauseum. This is where DELIBERATE PRACTICE might help you. Going back to basics always helps. Drawing from life constantly. Reaffirming how to turn forms. Drawing still-lifes, sketching people while waiting for anything. Rendering in graphite different surfaces, from cars to clothing. Get that shit down. Because when it comes to inking, we're just really trying to convince people the shortcut we're taking is true.
Years ago, I had a very fortunate experience. Michael Kaluta invited me to stay a few days with him on the Upper West Side. It just so happens Dave Stevens had been staying there and he was leaving the day I arrived. We had dinner at a diner that Michael was a regular at and we talked about all kinds of things. Obviously, I was starstruck. I had known Michael from an online group that we were in and I'd worked on The Rocketeer license at a t-shirt company where there were several of us learning how to ink like Dave Stevens (good luck, right!). Anyway, one of the things Dave said to me that stuck was he learned how to get good at inking by inking over other people's inkwork. I remember years after that William Stout saying the very same thing. In between takes of shooting the Frazetta documentary Stout would drop these gems that were amazing. A consummate storyteller he never lacked for sharing his knowledge.
So yeah, I gave that a shot, too. I've inked over others' inkwork and learned a ton. I've also inked over non-traditional artists as well, like Leyendecker and Gil Elvgren (whose pencils are easy to find online). Another guy I wanted to ink was Al Buell's stuff. He did some amazing pinups...oh lordy if I could draw that good.
Anyway, part of being reborn is accepting that you've come to the end of the road. Your map is no good here. You need to blaze a new trail. That requires REINVENTION. If there's anything Americans are good at, it's reinvention. Our CAN-DO attitude is a lot of what drives us when it comes to self-discovery. But we have to be very honest with ourselves and put away misleading notions.
For one, while I love making comics, I realize that I'm not a good fit right now for the big two companies. A) I barely give a shit about their characters and their books because the stories I loved about them are in the past. What they're doing now, is incomprehensible to follow. B) At nearly 54, I'm not sure what I can offer that hasn't been done before if I haven't already made a name for myself already. It's not to say I would turn down a project if something were floated to me. But...I'd have to really think about what I'm putting out there.
What was interesting to me, and this by no means is meant to be derisive, is that Dave Wachter was getting Marvel work. This dude has put in the WORK! And he's just unstoppable. He toiled doing a lot of indie stuff for years. I think a large chunk of that was TMNT if I'm not mistaken. Is his style MODERN, who knows? But he's been SEEN around enough to be a familiar face and that's important. Because I like to do longer projects (GN) I crop up every five years or so. By then a lot has changed, so who the fuck am I, again? Exactly. I think Dave is great and I hope he keeps growing and succeeding.
THE HUSTLE
Social media is shit, but it's part of the game. I don't know how to get in contact with editors without being a fucking stalker. I've NEVER KNOWN. I don't do conventions anymore and even when I did, I didn't realize the DRINKING GAME was how you "got to know the editors". I was not very good at recognizing editors other than they always seemed to be the ones with their badges flipped around. I think the last interaction I had with an editor was in NYC. He seemed half my age and even less than half-interested in my work. He did that classic "look away" while talking to me and flipping through my work.
I take that back, actually Charlie Chu of Oni Press did the same thing with my Braun book I was pitching. The guy came off as an entitled dick (sorry, someone had to say it).
I was always curious when talking with creator friends at shows where they would always say they had several meetings that they set up with publishers. I was like, "how the hell does that happen?"
I tried it once with Eric Stephenson the Editor in Chief at Image comics, and he actually responded. Said he was going to be at the Emerald City Comicon. At the last minute he canceled. I told him know worries I was going to be in San Francisco in a few weeks if he had time to look at my Braun pitch. He agreed to meet at the Image offices in Berkeley. My wife had a conference in town, and I thought, great, I'll tag along.
We met, I pitched, he was enthusiastic and wanted to read the entire book that I had lettered and so I sent him a .pdf that he requested. He didn't want the printout of the thing that I offered to him.
Months passed and he said he'd get back to me after NYC comicon or something. And then...it vaporized. Nothing more. I reached out two more times and that was it. I ran the Kickstarter a few years later and did it on my own.
I saw Stephenson at one of my last shows and talked with a creator sitting next to him. I went to say "hello" to him, but he got up and walked away avoiding any eye contact. #comics.
There are other markets. YA seems to be perennial in its output. Children can be voracious readers for sure. Associating yourself with some of the "out of mainstream comic network" publishers might not be a bad idea. I realize inking is not exactly what people look for but as you look at other areas of comics and what comics can do you may be able to adapt to fit those markets in some way.
I remember you tweeting about stories and how you're not happy with people's response to them. I have to assume you've done some study in regard to writing. I mean, three things that make a writer better is READING, WRITING, and STUDYING ABOUT WRITING.
I've been doing all three since Amazon Game Studios fired me back in 2015. Sure, I'd been writing most of my life and had up to that point written three graphic novels (always had a problem writing shorter works). But from day one of recovering from that hot mess I wrote flash fiction (500-1000 words) every day for a year. 365 stories later I sat down to write a novel. Three months later I banged out my first. Today, literally...I'll be finishing my third (which was my goal from when I sat down to write the first one).
In that time, I've read a shit-ton of books on writing. Some of the better and more useful ones were:
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler (covers the strong basics of character and story structure)
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. LeGuin
On Writing by Stephen King (I don't care for his books, but this was great!)
The Anatomy of Story by John Truby (Very dense, very useful)
About Writing by Samuel R. Delaney (Gets to the heart of fiction writing)
Story by Robert McKee (despite a lot of criticism about the man, he has some very good points that I come back to time and again about rhythm and pacing)
I also took a year-long writing workshop for science fiction which exposed me to other writers and styles of writing. We read each other's works and gave feedback. It was alarming to find that my grammar was absolute shit. It took some soul-searching to realize I needed to humble myself to get back to basic basics. So, I got a bunch of books on grammar. I RETYPED Dune to understand Frank Herbert's structure (just like inking someone's inked work), which helped immensely. My grammar still needs work, but at least I'm more familiar with the tools to understand what I was doing and why it didn't work before.
Granted I'm probably going off in the weeds a little bit for you. But I'm covering a lot of bases for you that I think all feed into each other. They're the same questions and concerns I face all the time. But instead of being stumped or sidelined by them I reframe what they are for me and continually come up with new ways to approach old problems. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
First and foremost, after all this time, I've managed to become friends with few editors who have kept me in mind for more than one project (Mark Irwin at Mad Cave Studios and Rantz Hoseley at Z2 Comics). It's something I wished I was better at when it came to comic cons. But I kept things casual and when called upon I didn't say no, I just did the best I could. You should reach out to them. I know Z2 pays better than Dark Horse and is always looking for talent.
I may not have the answers you're looking for but at least I hope I've offered something of a catalyst for you to reexamine your career in comics and writing, for that matter. It's worth a second look if you love and are as obsessed with it as I am. As we get older, we tend to seek out comfort and to want to settle into something. I've felt it a lot lately. But I also don't trust things that are easy--never have. Adaptation is the basis of evolution. Understanding the environment is a large part of how you respond to that environment.
Good luck. And let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.
=s=
So yeah, that was a long missive. Funny thing, I never heard from the guy again. No comment, no “thank you” nothing. Oh well…maybe this will help other people. At least I hope so.