Lightbox

By Randy Gentile

Today I started inking one of the 13 pages of NYComix I'll be inking, coloring and lettering over the next 2 weeks or so. If all goes well, my first trade paperback will be at the printer at the beginning of August and in my hands before the Comic Geek Speak Supershow in September.

I've been drawing all my life but I'm still nowhere near where I want to be as an artist. A teacher back in art school used to say: "It will be a long time before your hand can match your eye." Hopefully that day will come sooner than later. In the meantime all I can do is to keep plugging away. You can only become a better artist by doing, you can't get worse.

I find that I go through stages where I feel like I'm not making any progress whatsoever. Then I'll have a "breakthrough". That breakthrough can be as simple as drawing a nostril in a more interesting way to something really neat like finally making the foreshortening of an arm work out.

I was flipping through some comics on my shelves a few days ago and sometimes I just can't believe I'm even attempting to be a comic artist. There are so many talented creators that it gets frustrating looking at a guy's work like Paul Pope and then going back to my nowhere-near-in-the-same-stratosphere art. I talk about R. Crumb all the time here and just looking at his crosshatching on the side of building makes me feel like a monkey with a crayon. It kills me that I can't be that good.

But I've got to keep trying. I've put in too much time to throw in the towel now. There are too many sketchbook pages full of hands that are sometimes as boring as hell to do but are the hardest damn things to draw you can imagine.

How much shadow do I put into someone's top lip? Did I use enough black on this page? Did I use too much black on this page? Does that arm look longer than the other one?

It's an endless cycle of decisions that more often that not feel like the wrong ones. Yet you keep chipping away.

Then I flip through one of today's big superhero comics and I realize I'm staring at a light boxed picture of Jessica Alba in a Fantastic Four costume and I feel like all my frustration and laboring is worthwhile.

I'd rather be pulling my hair out than tracing Maxim magazine.

Sure, every artist uses photo reference and I'm no different. Hell, I should use more. It's a tool of the trade. Always has been. Always will.

But lightboxing? C'mon.

I guess I should explain what a lightbox is for those of you who might not know. Imagine a box with a glass top and a light bulb inside. You put your picture of Angelina Jolie on the glass, put your art board on top of that and viola! The Scarlet Witch.

Anyone who doodles now and then could come up with a half decent drawing/tracing and anyone with some drawing skill can really kick some ass.

But at the end of the day you're tracing.

If Kevin Smith can bust inkers balls for being "tracers" then I can bust actual tracers balls. Inker's aren't tracers by any stretch of the imagination.

There are so many things wrong with this I don't even know where to start.

First off, have some pride. Let's see your interpretation of the character. What does he/she look like in your mind? And if he /she looks like Halle Berry then it's time to be more imaginative.

Second. When you light box the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue circa 1998 you're ripping off another artist. The photographer. Ripping him off is no different than tracing a Jack Kirby panel from Fantastic Four #17.

Again, this goes back to having some pride in your work. It also means having respect for the fraternity of freelance artists all over the country who bust their asses hustling for work, paying insane health care costs and just doing everything they can to make a living doing what they love.

Third. If I want to see an actor I'll go watch the movie. I'm reading a comic because it provides a completely unique storytelling experience that movies can't duplicate. Let Sam Raimi worry about making his work feel like a comic book. It's almost like they're ashamed of the comics but so proud of the popularity of comic movies that they want match that movie feeling on paper.

Save it man. I'm in a comic shop, not Blockbuster.

Fourth. It's lifeless and static. It's like that picture you and your buddy take of you fake punching him in the face. You with your best Bruce Lee face and your buddy, the recipient of your faux-knuckle sammich contorting his face as he reels back from the blow. Sometimes funny, never lifelike.

Lastly, do you really want someone looking at your art and saying to himself or herself: "Hey! That looks like Tom Cruise?" Do you really want to inject that stuff into the story that you just sat at the drawing table over for hours and hours and hours?

Not to mention the time and effort the writer, inker, colorist, letterer and editors just worked their tails off on?

Pride man. Have some pride in your work. It's worth that, right?

Alright. That's enough ranting from me this week.

Before I close I want to thank Joan H. for sending me an email informing me that Gerard Way, writer of the amazing comic The Umbrella Academy, is in fact the lead singer of My Chemical Romance and not the drummer. I messed that up in last week's Font You!

I'm listening to Bob Dylan as I write this Joan, cut me some slack! :-)

Thanks for reading!

Font You!
--Randy

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