These Panels Will Come to Order!

I like for students, when breaking down pages into panels, to make the reading order unambiguous.

But here's an case of a dangerous panel division actually being pulled off, I think. See if you agree.

In theory, when the reader finishes panel 3, he has two competing choices of which panel to read next: the one to the right, or the one below. Just the sort of momentary confusion that can be easily avoided and should be.

Except here I think the artist (a young Alex Kotzky, perhaps) has already finessed the situation. He has used a stack of three panels of equal width to make it fairly clear that readers are to read down. There's no balloon in the upper part of the tall panel to the right to lure our eye away. Indeed the upper part has almost nothing to draw our eye away--not the way a face or figure might.

It works, or so say I. Even the identical treatment of the captions atop panels 3 and 4 whispers gently, "read down."

JH

OK, This Is Interesting!

A firm called Graphicly aims to smooth the way for digital comics self-publisher. You won't believe how low the cost is currently.

I, and most everybody at ye olde Acad, thinks that soon the primary means for first contact between readers and a new comic has to be digital, and that a revolution is coming in the business, with technology lowering prices and printed comics being mainly limited to collections of established hits.

Graphicly might be the outfit to facilitate this change.

JH

Manga Machine

Look what I'm saying I found in an old magazine! Wow! Interesting. If I lived back then and needed to draw a pie-eyed, soulless kewpie doll, the answer would have been a little machine! Hella crazy.

JH

P.S.:  ;D Just kidding, mangaphiliacs. I love ya. You know that!

Sharing the "Wealth"

Here are some materials I did up for one of my directed study students today. She is someone who is already unusually aware of the little offsets and foreshortenings that make a face work in 3/4 view. The points made in these jpegs were offered as refinements upon that foundation.

I insist that paying attention to this stuff, which is all based on life, can add charm and convincingness TO A VERY WIDE RANGE OF STYLES.

Longtime friends and students may notice that one of these continues my almost-unhealthy preoccupation with eyebrows as indicators of dimensionality or, conversely, unsophisticated drawing.

(I am all about the sophistication, as you can tell by this grotesque kid in particular.)


JH
These are Copyright 2011 Academy of Art.

Hee hee

http://loopydave.deviantart.com/art/your-future-haircut-199796037?q=gallery%3Aloopydave%2F11702006&qo=11

Can anyone tell me who numbers 3, 5 and 6 are?
JH

A Mere Three Months Later...

I finally sucked it up and finished this pinup for Chris Mill's Gravedigger book, which, luckily for me, ran late. I am the unproud possessor of a sheaf of papers bearing flat, fruitless, dead-end doodles on the way to this. All things considered, I think it came out fairly well. I like that the cluster of centers of interest are placed assymetrically for one thing. Chris says he'll let me know when the book is out, which I guess is his way of saying that I won't be getting a free copy. Sigh... Times is hard in the comics biz.
 JH

JH

After Surgery

My cancer surgery of last week went well. The surgeon, Mark Singer, is a preeminent, highly skilled guy who also is very good-humored and reassuring--not that common a combination, I'm told and I believe it.

It's a good thing this is basically happening between  semesters. I look scary now and my voice is shot. But the body, even the post-middle-age body, is an incredible thing.

I want to thank everybody who shook my hand or sent me an encouraging message through email or Facebook.  There's never any need to feel called upon to say something special in such a case; I can tell you every expression of good wishes is gratefully banked and adds to the strength I can bring to bear in the situation.

(But when a friend quoted a line from an old Simpsons episode to me, "Chicks dig scars," that was kind of extra bonus special. :)  )


JH