Columbia will be hosting a couple of conventions the first week of May that you may be interested in:
DoDeca-Con: The first ever DoDeca-Con is a comic book/pop culture convention being held in Columbia, MO at Kemper Arena (1270 E Boone Industrial Blvd Columbia, MO 65202) on May 4th thru 6th 2012. It will feature independent comic book creators, retailers of comic books, anime/manga, costumes and many others, as well as, a number of informational and educational (though entertaining) workshops on comic creation, cosplay and gaming. The current guest list includes William Woods, Mick Beyers, Randy Taylor, Leonard Steinman, Scott Quick, and Mandalin Knottyfingers. Table and booth registration is still open, and tickets are also available.
Werewolf-Con: The first ever Werewolf, Therian, Shifter, and Otherkin conference will take place May 4th – 6th 2012 at the Midway Exposition Center just outside Columbia Missouri. The con will feature an food vendors, an art show, short films, a fashion show, a burlesque show, and a werewolf ball concert. Special guests at this point include comic artist David Gallaher and illustrator Steve Ellis, with more to be announced. Vendor registration is still open, and tickets are also available.
We’ll try to post some more info closer to the event dates. Mark them on your calendar!
Meet Virginia. Straight-A student. Co-captain of the girls’ soccer team. Senior Class Vice President, Truman High School class of 1999. Full ride to Washington University in St. Louis. Virginia left all of that behind to become Volcano Girl, the government-created-super-powered- guardian of Chicago. Increasingly distracted and alienated, Volcano Girl is slipping in performance. A phone call changed her life. A former classmate somehow tracked down Volcano Girl- as Virginia Patterson. As senior class vice president it is her responsibility to plan the 10-year reunion. She has neither spoken to her friends nor been home in six years. Her friends are clueless to the nature of her profession and abilities. “Anyone But Virginia” is a superhero book, but it owes more to movies like “Grosse Pointe Blank” and the films of John Hughes.
The project got a boost this last year with a successful Kickstarter campaign to finish the final issue of the series.
Vox magazine has put up an article about recent developments in print and digital comics. Specifically it addresses how Rock Bottom Comics may benefit from a recent move by Barnes & Noble to drop a few graphic novels from their store inventory.
It’s time for the annual Free Comic Book Day on Saturday, May 7th. There are two locations in Mid-Missouri who are participating:
Rock Bottom Comics, 1013 E Walnut St, Columbia, MO
Hastings, 2233 Missouri Blvd, Jefferson City, MO
According to the Free Comic Book Day website, Rock Bottom Comics will be hosting Brad Desnoyer to sign books for fans. He’s the writer of Detective Annual 12 and Batman 80-page Giant 2010.
We recently caught up with local comic artist Jamie Hibdon. This last year he interned for Fanatagraphics, has been featured on the repanleled blog, and has traveled to the Center for Cartoon Studies for portfolio day. He is always working on various comic and illustration projects that you can see on his blog MC.Goodwin’sDoneFor, or on his Flicker page.
What are you working on now comics-wise?
Currently, I’m working on Lingua Franca, a series of strips centered around an extra-terrestrial named Uchu and his adventures on and off planet Earth. I usually confine myself to 4 or 6 panels with these strips, so I can create something a bit irreverent that is very focused on timing. This strip will be ongoing until I get bored or run out of ideas, and is ideal material to be distributed through mini-comics or zines. At the moment, it’s just a matter of accumulating material and finding a good format. Aside from that, there’s a Batman/Zorro story that’s been waiting for its finishing touches for some time, and three upcoming collaborative projects including a one-shot involving some pretty well known characters which I will be inking and co-writing with my cohort at Go For Red Lion, another series based in Columbia written by a good friend with art by me, and lastly a sort of wildcard project with Mary at 2 Smelly Kids That Like Each Other. After I get some headway on these projects, I’m going to venture briefly away from fantasy to work on a short story about deer hunting I just finished scripting. I’m also researching pretty heavily right now for a space story which I hope to submit to the Xeric foundation.
In addition to those projects, I recently submitted a Madman cover to Robert Goodin’s covered blog, and try to submit consistently to Smoke Signal, and plan to Hive and Electric Ant when I get some free time. Whether or not I get rejected, I like the pressure a deadline presents, because I’m a notorious procrastinator.
Last Thursday, Jeni DeFeo took Jefferson City Public School’s teacher of the year award for 2011. She is an advocate of using comics in the classroom, and spoke this last weekend at the Boston Comic Con. In March, she gave a chance to her students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School to talk to comic artist Jeremy Dale via Skype, and KRCG news covered the story:
Chiara, a 7-year-old girl from Columbia, recently won a contest and was drawn into a nationally syndicated Oh Brother! comic strip. The contest solicited parents to send in a funny story about how their kid is a character, with the top prize being an appearance in the comic strip. Oh Brother! was started in June of last year by cartoonists Bob Weber Jr. (Slylock Fox) and Jay Stephens (The Secret Saturdays, Tutenstein, Oddville).
The Columbia Tribune has an in depth profile of webcomic artist Mick Beyers. Beyers celebrated the one year anniversary of his Buster Drake comic this last week, and has relaunched it as a larger weekly comic (Previously he updated the site with smaller strips three times a week.). In addition to the new schedule, his site has a new look and he’s also added Michelle Rivas as colorist for the comic.
Hi-Fi Color for Comics instructs you through all the steps needed to color comics in Photoshop. Topics include:
Scanning comic artwork and combining multiple scans into one large image
Flats, breaking down images into flat color
Rendering and painting with light
Color holds and knockouts
Color separations with trapping for professional commercial printing and publishing.
It includes step-by-step tutorials on how to do all the topics above as well as a tips and tricks section on how to do common special coloring effects like fire effects, flares, sparkles, glows, muzzle blasts, and more. A DVD is also included that contains all the layered files used so you can work alongside with the book. (The library copy is missing the DVD.)
Some of the information I found useful were the parts on how to set up your digital files. This is great information to know before you even start drawing your comics. It was also the only book I’ve ever agreed with on how to decide whether to set up your documents in RGB or CMYK.
If you are wanting to learn how to digitally color comics, this book is for you. You can find it at the Daniel Boone Regional Library.
The classic “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” has been updated and expanded into a larger and much improved edition. It now includes information on making comics digitally along with all the other standard comic-making topics.
One of the new, digital tricks I found most interesting was how artists now use Google Sketchup for laying out scenes. With this 3-D tool, you can create, or download, objects to build environments for your characters. Once created, simply place the camera at the angle or perspective you need for your scene and you have the perfect reference photo.
The drawing tips are much better than the old book, but still focus on superheros and costumes. (I’d expect no less from Stan Lee.) If you aren’t doing superhero work, you can skip those parts. The rest will still apply.
I still would not approach this book as a way to learn to draw. It does recommend using real life as reference, but it doesn’t go into much detail on how to render form and light. Anatomy and the human figure aren’t really covered either. If you want to learn to draw, I’d find an art book on the subject, or better yet, take a life drawing class from one of the many colleges in Columbia.
How to Draw Comics is a big improvement over the previous edition and has some great information, but it lacks drawing fundamentals. Maybe if they cut the history of comics section they’d have room for it!
If you really want to know how to draw comics, I’d check out “Making Comics” by Scott McCloud. It’s more comprehensive and covers topics that apply to any comic genera and not just super heroes. Plus, it’s written by a guy who, you know, actually draws comics.
Writer Josh Eiserike would like to up the ante for local cartoonist Zac Crockett to finish drawing their series Anyone but Virginia, so Eiserike has started a Kickstarter campaign. The idea is to pay Zac for his time on illustrating Anyone but Virgina #5 (the final issue), and keep him away from other commissioned projects until he finishes the series. If you pledge your support for the series, there’s lots of goodies available for various pledge levels.
Batman is based off of a painting of Mars by Diego Velázquez. The original hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The artist (Velázquez) reveals a sense of humor in the painting as the infamous war god is portrayed here not as a strong warrior (as his armor is stripped from him on the floor) but as a weaker more human-like version. Here Mars is not a fighter, but a lover as this is a scene portrayed from Greek mythology where the warrior god has been caught in romance with the love goddess Venus. Rumors state that this painting was also a portrait of King Phillip IV, who was known himself to be the flirtatious type with the ladies. One of the strongest themes in Velásquez’s painting that con-temporized his works was that of banal humanity. The artist was representing the average person as mythological god. In essence Velázquez takes a god from above and brings him down, making him human as he stripped his armor to the floor. Batman attempts to meet Velázquez in the middle, rising from below (A pile of comic books on the floor) to become human.
The “Peanuts” characters we all came to know and love on the comic strip page come to the stage, now in their teens and facing situations far more troublesome than kicking a pesky football. Deemed an “unauthorized parody,” the characters bear different names but also vestiges of very familiar personas. In Royal’s paradigm-bending world, Linus is now on drugs, Pigpen is an abrasive homophobe, Lucy is a pyromaniac, Charlie Brown is finally popular but with a few secrets, and Snoopy is no longer with us, having succumbed to rabies.
The play, written by Bert V. Royal (Easy A) and directed by Bryan Vandevender, will be held at the Corner Playhouse at MU.
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DoDeca-Con: The first ever DoDeca-Con is a comic book/pop culture convention being held in Columbia, MO at Kemper Arena (1270 E Boone Industrial Blvd Columbia, MO 65202) on May 4th thru 6th 2012. It will feature independent comic book creators, retailers of comic books, anime/manga, costumes and many others, as well as, a number of informational and educational (though entertaining) workshops on comic creation, cosplay and gaming. The current guest list includes William Woods, Mick Beyers, Randy Taylor, Leonard Steinman, Scott Quick, and Mandalin Knottyfingers. Table and booth registration is still open, and tickets are also available.
Werewolf-Con: The first ever Werewolf, Therian, Shifter, and Otherkin conference will take place May 4th – 6th 2012 at the Midway Exposition Center just outside Columbia Missouri. The con will feature an food vendors, an art show, short films, a fashion show, a burlesque show, and a werewolf ball concert. Special guests at this point include comic artist David Gallaher and illustrator Steve Ellis, with more to be announced. Vendor registration is still open, and tickets are also available.
