Brandon Graham's Blog, page 177

Is the cover of chapter 2 of Habitat traditional or digital art? Looks traditional to me but sometimes it is hard to tell.

All the art for habitat starts with traditional ink and pen, but is colored digitally like so: 

Inks

A file i made in 2010 thats a bunch of layered inkwash textures gets dropped on there

A layer mask gets applied to that and i erase and render away where the light falls, to define the shape more

that gets zapped with a brown gradient map and some blues for the shadows

some colors on there

and some extra effects! Done. (there are like a million more microsteps then what is shown here but thats the basic procedure i’ve been using)

islandcomics:These are a couple of the shots from the 4 page...

islandcomics:

These are a couple of the shots from the 4 page fashion spread I ( @boysfantasy )  did for Issue 5 of Island. IT*S COMING OUT SOON! YEAAH! The backgrounds are just photos from vacations and stuff, and the clothes are.. kinda based on real life. I think huhu

hchomgoblin:Late night sketches from reference.Marian draws...

hchomgoblin:

Late night sketches from reference.

Marian draws nice

twiststreet:Comic Nerdery: Just woke up and somehow ended up...

twiststreet:

Comic Nerdery: Just woke up and somehow ended up reading this super fucking dopey dumb “twitter conversation” between Kurt Busiek, Tony Daniel, Greg Capullo and Jonathan Ross.  Conversation’s not really the right word– Daniel and Capullo are both reacting to an artist not getting credited for a book; as part of expressing frustration over the situation, Capullo’s like “Without the artist there isn’t a comic” and then Ross and Busiek crash through the wall like motherfuckin’ Kool-Aid Man to yell “NOT ALL COMIC WRITERS” or something, and to be like “no no no you need a writer.”  Which is weird behavior in and of itself, because jesus, who gives a shit, (a), and also it becomes pretty clear they don’t know the context of the conversation, (b), but you know, these things happen.  Internet.

But what interested me wasn’t the internet-y slap thing so much as when people were trying to argue that comics didn’t need writers, they could only point to a silent issue of GI Joe.  Like, that was the only example they had.  (Which then became a weird semantic argument about whether that issue had been “Written” because it was just made by Larry Hama– people just don’t think of comic as a verb, because that’s not really how words work, (a) or how the industry around them lets them think of it, (b)).  (Jonathan Ross even brings up the Walking Dead as an example of Doing It Right instead of as an example of comic writers getting sued by their artists, and nobody ever caring, which probably goes way more to the “look how comics shove the draw-monkeys into the toilet forever” point the conversation originated at– but Ross is just like who you have to settle for when Graham Norton needs a nap, basically?, (a), and that guy’s not really my dude, British comedy-wise – Norton 4ever, (b)).  

No one mentions Airtight Garage (which is where my mind goes to first I guess because I don’t think of as having been “written”, in at least any traditional sense of that word, without abusing the English language), let alone abstract comics or anything like that (which I guess I only know about because they made that book about them). Let alone Red Colored Elegy where you know, the “writing” only explains like 10% of the choices being made in that book– all the stuff that’s just not “Writer’s books”.  Or just all the times dudes just drew cool pages and then went to some writer and was like “Add some words”, where talking about those being “written” is just kinda silly. (Remember when older dudes on the internet would misspell “cool” as “kewl” to show how above the Concept of Coolness they were…?  God, those people were the worst). 

Hank Kanalz wasn’t really anybody’s favorite part of Youngblood, that I can remember.

Given the lack of just comic literacy even being a thing anyone cares about (and I’m no believer in canons or any of that shit either because man, who wants to hear people jerk off to the same 5 books again), people constantly end up in these crazy debates about comics that are just limited to, you know, Marvel Comics: 1960-1992, or something.  “All comics are ___, provided you never read outside these arbitrary borders that we’ve allowed these entirely evil corporations to sell to us as the official history of an entire artform.” I do it too a lot probably– it’s probably pretty natural thing to do, but still, with comics, it always feels like people put this little fence around this great big thing.  (A), (B).

Word. The art form is HUGE. It also opens up a larger conversation about what is a story–

aleneigen:For my birthday Alex gave me this Dark Horse...

aleneigen:

For my birthday Alex gave me this Dark Horse Presents issue from 2011 with “The Speaker,” the Brandon Graham story that’s been floating around online for a while.

9emeart:HistoiresDessin : Jose Muñoz - Scenario : Carlos...

9emeart:

Histoires

Dessin : Jose Muñoz  - Scenario : Carlos Sampayo

adamwarrencomics:So, yeah: Empowered, my ongoing “sexy...

adamwarrencomics:

So, yeah: Empowered, my ongoing “sexy superhero comedy” series published in print form by Dark Horse Comics, is now being serialized as a webcomic here: http://www.empoweredcomic.com/

The online series, hosted by the fine folks at the creator-owned webcomic digital studio and publisher Hiveworks, kicks off with an at-launch archive of the first 108 pages or so of Empowered
vol. 1, which takes us up through the introduction of the “Big Four”
main characters—Empowered herself, her ex-Witless-Minion boyfriend
Thugboy, her hard-drinking BFF Ninjette, and (of course) the inimitable Caged
Demonwolf.

Note that every page of Empowered‘s online version features commentary on said page by yours truly, in an effort to
give current readers of the series’ print version an incentive to check
out the webcomic. Hope you enjoy that part, longtime readers!
That is, I really hope you get something outta that, as I’ve
spent many an hour cranking out said commentary. (That said, I’m
promising to do commentary for all of vol. 1’s pages, at least; I’ll
have to reevaluate the viability of the rather time-consuming commentary process we get into
vol. 2.)  

I should also note that, as part of my deal with Hiveworks, we will be doing some form of Empowered
merchandise at some point, as in prints or T-shirts or the like. (In
fact, I might try reformatting this very promo illo into an
merchandisable image!)  

Finally, credits on the second illo: Line art by me, color art on the main Emp by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird.

simon-roy:If you’ve been interested in picking up some...

simon-roy:

If you’ve been interested in picking up some original art from “Prophet” or “The Field”, there’s a holiday sale going down at Cadence Comic Art where you can grab some! 

“Make someone on your christmas list the happiest person, with a Simon Roy Original ™”

Curious. As productive as you are, do you ever get burnt out on an idea part way through and don't want to finish it?

I did in the past. There’s a story in my Walrus book that was about an astronaut that meets god. I think other projects just got in the way of it and it never got past a few pages.

These days I feel like the comics I’m doing for the most part are planned pretty far ahead. Like I know what I’ll be drawing in the next 8 months. There’s a freedom in that. I know what it will be but I don’t know how I’ll show what it is– and I try to allow myself to rewrite and change whatever I’m working on as it goes. I always describe it like running around a room trying to balance a broom on your hand– and just going where you have to in order to keep it balanced. 

Is it true Island 7 has been cut down to 70-some pages? And if so what up? (It's a fantastic book by the way.)

(I’m glad you like it –thanks) ISLAND #5 is 80 pages. We’re still messing with different sized for issues and whatnot. 

I feel like I should contrast it with how the vast majority of American comics are around 20ish pages (with some filler ads past that) for $3 to $4. So Island being 80 at $8 still seems decent to me. 

It’s selling like 7k now. Which isn’t amazing but hopefully we can keep it up. Image is talking about taking a break after #6 to plan it out better. I hope we can keep it running– It feels like the most important thing I could be involved in and I know me and Emma would run it for the next decade if things work out.