Today’s sketch is inspired by the ongoing debate permeating the comics internet community over kids comics and whether there ARE actually any comics for kids– or indeed what comics for kids actually are or SHOULD BE. Not too long ago, DARK HORSE COMICS had a (unfortunately) very short-lived imprint called VENTURE that they created to present foreign comic book material. They published some slightly larger-than-digest sized black and white books such as Franco Saudelli’s OTTO PROFIRI (incredible stuff…) and Carlos Trillo’s and Domingo Mandrafina’s THE IGUANA. But for me, the gems of the line were a couple of full color harcover albums by Tillo and Juan Bobillo (who’s drawing SHE-HULK for MARVEL now) called ZACHARY HOLMES. Zachary is a young detective with an odd little mouse-like creature/sidekick named Watson. Together, they solve supernatural mysteries and have gone up against such creatures as FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER and medieval ghosts. It’s a wonderful series keeping in the vein of HARRY POTTER and YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES. And although the art is much cartoonier than Bobillo’s MARVEL work (I actually PREFER his ZACHARY HOLMES work…), the stories are definitely not “dumbed down” by any means. They’re whimsical and intriquing– engaging and funny. You would be doing yourselves a huge favor by trying to track these books down. They’re still readily available through most online comic book sellers.

MY SKETCH

THE COVER TO THE FIRST ZACHARY HOLMES album

Steven Grant’s PERMANENT DAMAGE column has a great examination of the “comics for kids” debate this week. He brings up many points that I hadn’t considered– chief among them the fact that some of the most popular comics for kids in the 50’s were the EC HORROR comics– which weren’t written with children in mind. He points out that kids are much more savvy and intelligent than most folks give them credit for, and will gravititate toward ANY comic if it’s well done. I can’t summarize his arguements well enough to do them justice– so just go read his take on the whole issue. It’s a good one.

Bye now…

Mike

Just a couple of sketches today with very little commmentary to go along with them. The first is the last of the SHE-HULK/THING layouts. If you notice SHE-HULK looking out at you in this layout, that’s because Todd Dezago was keeping the story in the vein of what John Byrne was doing in regards to SHE-HULK breaking the fourth wall and talking to the reader. That was one of the most fun aspects of this story for me– that and the humor. Although the latest SHE-HULK series doesn’t have any of the “wall breaking” aspects, it’s still very funny and well written by Dan Slott– and the artwork by Juan Bobillo is simply AMAZING!

The second sketch is an unused cover idea for the 8th of the first TELLOS series (or mini-series, as the case may be…)– Todd’s and my first issue under teh GORILLA imprint. I originally wanted that cover to be a wrap-around, but time and budget constraints wouldn’t allow for it.

That’s it for today.

Mike

Resuming regularly scheduled programming…..

OK– I didn’t want to use up all my “stashes” too quickly, so I thought I’d give things a bit of a break over the weekend. I might start doing that regularly, or not. I’m still playing it by ear, but I’ll let you know in advance if I’m NOT going to be posting over the weekend on Fridays if I decide to go that route.

Over the weekend, I saw a wonderful program on the African mountain Gorilla on the DISCOVERY CHANNEL. It documented the daily life of a particular family of Gorillas– and it was amazing to watch them go about their routines of… well, mostly eating, resting and playing. They are very gentle creatures, despite their reputation built up by years of mis-representation in Hollywood as being fierce killers. Of course, the huge males– or Silverbacks, as they’re called– will valiently defend their families and “tribes” with great force if threatened, but barring that, he’s just as laid back as the rest of the troop. In fact, the Gorilla’s only natural predators are Leopards—- and of course, MAN. They’re being slowly wiped out by poachers looking to steal the babies to sell to zoos– and to take the heads and hands to sell as trophies. Like most of the natural wonders of wildlife in this world, human encroachment and greed has dwindled the Mountain Gorillas numbers to a dangerous level. It’s very sad to think of these gentle creatures in such dire peril. So, having said all that– what do I do…? I got inspired to do a sketch of a Gorilla, but I made him a gladiator. So sue me. And I think his head’s too big.

And here’s another layout from that SHE-HULK/THING one-shot. This one doesn’t even have a corresponding finished pencil page. There’s a couple like that–so I got more done on the project before it was cancelled the first time than I even remembered.

Tim O’Neil over at THE HURTING has what he calls “AN OPEN LETTER TO KYLE BAKER”. It doesn’t exactly address Baker personally, but it’s a great post. He laments the precipitous decline in sales of Baker’s PLASTIC MAN at DC. This is my favorite part of the letter:

“I feel bad for Kyle Baker. He gets nothing but praise for his graphic novels, which are perrenial “real world” successes. His latest, Birth Of A Nation, written by The Boondocks’ Aaron McGruder, will almost undoubtedly be a success as well, perhaps his biggest to date. But whenever he comes back to the ghetto of mainstream comics, he gets a proverbiual heap of shit for his efforts. Never mind that The Truth was a beautifully produced, thought-provoking and intelligent examination of racism and war – there are hundreds of retailers across the country who are using unsold copies of the book for insulation. The reason for this can probably be placed on Baker’s artwork. Only in comics could an instantly accessable, easy-to-read and blatantly commercial art style like Kyle Baker’s be so radically unpopular. The man is one of the most gifted natural cartoonists of his generation, and in the superhero direct market he can’t even get arrested. No wonder he’s so fucking cynical.”

This highlights what I see as an ever-growing (as much as something can GROW in the stunted and inbred community that the comic book crowd is these days) trend among comic book fans– in specific, the fan of the super-hero. More and more these days, I read on message boards the phrase (or variations of) “Ehh– that artists work is just too cartoony…!” The negativity over Baker’s work on THE TRUTH was so overwhelming, that the fact that the story was an incredibly innovative addition to the CAPTAIN AMERICA saga (and despite the annoying braying of the many nay-sayers to the contrary– WONDERFULLY illustrated) got lost in the mix. In a time when comic book writers are desperate to tack on their own little “addendum” to the history of a character, THE TRUTH was the greatest, most logical addition to CAP’s “myth”. But, by gosh, Baker’s work was just SOOOO CARTOONY…! Marvel has stated a new policy of moving away from more “cartoony” and “manga” styles (something so many fans seem to get confused about– many consider cartoony=manga– writing them both off as “trash”)– and more and more of the new books and new artists I see coming into the industry seem to be in the “realistic” vein. More and more young artists seem to be using photographic reference for their work– Alex Ross is still KING.

On the massage boards over at FANBOY RADIO, Kyle Baker was raked over the coals after a recent interview for the show, for stating that he would like to see stories that were more whimsical and full of wonder in superhero comics if he were going to read them instead of the boring rehashes of episodes of LAW AND ORDER or THE WEST WING (my examples, not his– see any issue of DAREDEVIL) they have become. ALL of this noise has led me to believe that another facet of the debates that have raged recently over kids comics vs. NO kids comics, “realistic” styles vs. “cartoony” styles is this: many comic book fans have lost their ability to use their imagination. In a society with instant gratification as its primary product– these fans don’t want to have to think about their comics anymore. They want to be spoon-fed every detail in the artwork– and they want their stories to be mundane to mirror what’s going on in the real world. Heaven forbid they should have to use any imagination to actually fill in some of the details themselves– or to have to stretch to lose themselves in the wonders of epic battles of good versus evil. No– it’s much easier to read stories where DOCTOR LIGHT is a rapist, or Hank Pym is a wife beater. The only stipulation they have is that these folks have to be wearing superhero tights when they’re doing their raping and wife beating.

So– to my mind, it comes down to this: these fans are so embarrassed to be reading superhero comics that they need to be able to point out to people that they’re “no longer for kids, by God…!”– and they don’t want to have to actually use their IMAGINATIONS when they read them. If these kinds of people were the majority of the fan base when Cole, Kirby, Infantino, C.C. Beck, Ditko and so many others (who gave us the fanciful characters that are still being published today) were working, the comics world would be so much poorer because these folks would have booed those creators off the stage.

That’s a world I don’t want to try to imagine.

Mike

…ME!!!

I’m the subject of one of Alan David Doane’s 5 QUESTIONS interviews over at NEWSARAMA. Alan is a tireless proponent of good comics, and you can see his very personal, opinionated (and sometimes combative) views on comic books and the industry as a whole over at Alan’s COMIC BOOK GALAXY website. He has a terrific array of articles, opinions and interviews as well as his own blog. Thank you for the exposure, Alan…!

Today features another layout from the pages I worked on for the SHE-HULK/THING one-shot. This is another page that I actually have a photocopy of the pencils for, but I’ve decided not to post a scan of the pencils, because looking at the one from yesterday, no matter how many times I tried to make the scan as clear as possible, it still ended up looking no sharper than the layout. So just layouts for the rest of the pages– they’re pretty tight anyway.

That’s it from me for now.

Mike

In recent years, MARVEL has been pushing their trade paperback program like crazy– maybe finally after seeing how much money it was making for DC for so long. I suspect that it was another of the many things that Bill Jemas pushed to have implemented at MARVEL. He was reviled while he was in charge by the majority of fans– but he had a lot of positive impact on the company (believe me– I’ve had my own issues with the man… can you say “The Mark Waid Debacle”, anyone…?). What’s interesting and kind of humorous is seeing so many of the same fans that constantly blasted the man on various message boards now express a growing feeling of nostalgia for his presence now that they see MARVEL seemingly taking a more conservative stance with their output due to their success in Hollywood. It never ceases to amaze me how some folks are NEVER satisfied or happy no matter what’s going on in the industry.

BECAUSE MARVEL has been so diligent in the reprinting of recent material, I find myself with a virtual “mini-library” of FANTASTIC FOUR trades collecting my work from the beginning of my artistic run on the book all the way up to my most recent issue (and of course, ALL of Mark’s writing [including the AUTHORATATIVE ACTION storyline, which I did no work on], since he’s there month in and month out, even when I’m forced to skip to the next story arc because I’m no speed demon drawing-wise). It’s the first time that I’ve ever had that happen. There’s a lot of debate as to whether it’s a good thing or not for sales of the monthlies when people know that the material is more than likely going to be collected shortly after it’s initial publication. The refrain “I’m going to wait for the trade…” has become increasingly common. But– for me, it’s thrilling to see it all in one place at one time.

“The Mike Wieringo FANTASTIC FOUR mini-library”

Under the catagory “Never seen print– never WILL see print”– I’ve come across some pages that I worked on for a SHE-HULK/THING one-shot that had quite an odd journey before it ever saw the light of day. I was on contract with MARVEL back when they first entered into their bankruptcy proceedings many years back– and it was a very odd time. They had cancelled SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN because they felt the market was too glutted with SPIDER-MAN books (my, how things change, hmmm?)– so I was kind of adrift at the company. They would have me start on one project, then the editor of said project would call me to tell me that he had been “downsized”. This happened many times during those dark days. ONE such project was the afformentioned SHE-HULK/THING one shot. It was written by my buddy Todd Dezago, and Brian Hitch had drawn half of it, but then bailed for some reason on the remainder of the book. I was asked to step in and finish it, but after finishing some 5 or so pages, that familiar call of “Uh…. Mike– please stop work on the book. It’s being cancelled and I’m being fired…” came. So I stopped. Years later, the project was resurrected and Ivan Reis (I believe) was brought in to finish it. But I still have the layouts as well as photocopies of the finished pencils that I produced. I think I sold the actual pencil pages long ago– so you’ll have to forgive the bad quality of the scans of the photocopies. So– here are the first couple. I’ll post more in the days to come.

LAYOUT

PENCILS

See you tomorrow.

Mike