Kandinsky, once said “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
See page 9 here
The Score refers to music among other things, so to draw music it seemed appropriate place to start with Kandinsky’s approach and incorporate into the structure of a comic book page, to me at least. Having been assigned him for a semester as an artist to swipe and study in painting class probably helped too.
I admit I’m more fascinated by the rythym of a comic book page then I am by what the heck the characters are doing. I love the pace of a Jack Kirby comic just the flow if images and the scale he manipulates, the flatness against pattern against the perspective space.
In 1988, Jeanette Kahn hired Mark Nevelow from the fashion industry to start a new line, Piranha Press. Nevelow had a mission statement to do diverse material. The DC office was weirded out as Nevelow commissioned a group of projects that ranged from science fiction, mystery to odd ball unclassifiable work. To the office fanboys wasn’t doing wasn’t comics.
DC’s editorial staff had said ” Badger doesn’t draw comics”
I had just finished Martian Manhunter and Masque for Dark Horse. A more perceptive person then myself would have seen my interests in abstract art, politics and weirder comics did not fit the tastes of any editorial staff at the companies in those days. While I grew up on Kirby, Adams, Frazetta and Windsor Smith I had kept looking at more art and was paying attention to Jim McMullen , Henri Mattisse, Jose Munoz and Richard Diebenkorn. Them ain’t “real” funny book artists.
But my work did fit Mark Nevelo’s wider definition of comics. He offered me a four issue , full color, series with Gerard Jones, despite the crappy contracts it was hard to say no.
DC hated “adult” comics
It’s a short and ironic story but the Score led DC Comics to make it’s first and only strike for “truth justice and the American way. Which I’ll cover eventually. In the end Gerry and I ended up with ownership of the Score, it’s the work of youngsters and I’m putting it up on the web recognizing it’s work of our youth. So check back Modays Wednesdays and Fridays for new pages.
And it’s still a learning tool
I’m going to use it as an excuse to learn php and WordPress beyond the basic interface. I’ll also be playing with the art in Flash with Actionscript as a way to explore interface, drawing and storytelling
Can blog posts be used to beat artists and editors over the head? This should be as it looks at the new editions of Moebius Incal work and the terrible coloring. The early Epic editions in America had some of the greatest coloring ever done in comics. the work was destroyed in the new edition.
What makes comics cool is the balance between line drawing and representation, line allows an abstraction and a personal handwriting that “painting” just can’t match. Painting take time and you can’t make a detailed painting that is catching a moment in time. The new technology is destroying the hand in capturing the moment almost every day.
Which is of course why I work in Flash and limit myself to three values so I have some sense of gesture and drawing although I’m painting as I color work.
