Black Snow Comics

Black Snow: TDM page 53

This is a rough one.  Eric just knows all the wrong things to say.  It’s painful to see Angel reacting so poorly to Eric’s fumbling.

Alex is good at writing painful.  A lot of our dark humor derives from this.  Alcoholism, poverty, stupidity, unhappiness, awkwardness, anger; all these are common fodder for us.  Why so gloomy?  Probably extensions of our cynical life outlooks.

It’s not like we’re the only ones who make fun of such things; that’s why the term black comedy exists.  Occasionally we drift into silliness, but for the most part I’d say we stick with dark humor.

This page feels especially dark to me, not because the content is so horrible, but rather because it focuses so much on the failure to connect and having your dreams shattered.  I don’t even know if it is really comedy at this point.  It may just be a sad drama, depending on how much you care about the characters I guess.

Angel’s reactions to Eric are particularly painful because they are quite natural, and we’ve all probably experienced something like that in our lives.  Opening up ourselves to someone only to find that they don’t understand us at all, and reject us.  Illusions fade to realizations, which typically leads to devastation and depression.

The silence at the end…ugh.  One of the more unpleasant awkward silences we’ve done.  Only to be broken up by the delivery of the expensive and unwanted wine.  A fine closer to the scene.  I thought this was really funny when I read it as a script, but drawing it and seeing it…well, that’s something completely different.

Maybe it was written as more straight comedy and I just brought darkness to it through my interpretation.  I don’t know.  I do like the way it all turned out though, and this was a tight little scene that shows some dramatic improvement in writing versus how it would have been (and kind of was) handled back when we were doing the comic books.

Black Snow: Two Drink Minimum page 52

I will take credit for suggesting that Eric fumbles around with his “book” and a predatory jerk waiter tries to swoop in. Maybe Alex would have thought of them anyway, and he ran with the ideas, just saying I suggested them.

Anyway, this was the first page of the scene that I finished.  It just jumped out at me and was easy to picture.  It was also fun to draw.  We’ve got some interesting expressions going on with the characters’ faces here.

Alex really described how each character was emotionally reacting to what was said in this scene and I found that to be a good source of inspiration.  That last panel of an over the top distraught and shocked Eric in close-up really cracks me up.  His befuddled, out of his element, no clue face in the top right panel is really good too.  I thought it was a nice touch to emphasize how focused on his own nerdy project he was rather than actually participating in the date.  Poor socially awkward fool.

That stare-down between Eric and Angel on the bottom left may be the best facial profiles I’ve ever drawn.  And those serious looks!  I did something there that I don’t normally do, but I see a lot of other comic book artists do all the time (and it usually bothers me), but I don’t have their mouths open even though they are speaking.

The moment depicted in a comic panel is supposed to be a single instance that represents a larger period of time, and this can be a tricky concept for the reader and the artist.  So even though their mouths our closed at that exact moment we can assume they were open long enough to see those words during that panel of time.  Sometimes I don’t think this works well, like when people say a long statement during a brief moment (like saying a sentence or two as they are struck by a punch in the middle of a heated fight, or a lengthy statement as they pour a small cup of coffee or something like that).  You have to be careful with how the time correlates.

But I do see the logic behind not having someone’s mouth open in every single panel if you’ve got a lot of dialogue, as it gives you more visual variety and freedom.  I just think sometimes it makes things a bit too unlike the real world and harder to relate to.  But I’ve been playing with it a little and like the idea of using it sparingly.

Oh, I also like the close-up of that smarmy waiter.  I think I did a nice job of displaying a few different subtle, and somewhat restrained emotions there (like mockery, sarcasm, self entertainment, belittling, arrogance, etc.).  Can you tell what unlikeable celebrity (whom I think naturally embodies many of those qualities) that I based him on?

Yesterday I surprised some people by sharing these drawings I did for a potential mascot for a client (in my internet marketing day job).

Super Guy

Future Man

A traditional superhero and a retro space age hero.  To my non-surprise the client chose the more generic hero, while everyone one else seemed to prefer the futuristic jet pack man.  But I did seem to get the same reaction from most people I shared these with: shock.  Several variations of “You drew this?“.

Yes, I did indeed draw them both.  So why do they look significantly different then my normal stuff?  Because normally I go out of my way to draw more original “heroes”.  My heroes have bad costumes and spend the majority of time sitting around talking.  It is a lot harder thing to draw, especially to draw well (which I’m always working on).

Traditional heroes like these half a wealth of visual history behind them that you can reference.  For the top hero, there are about a million images of Superman and various rip-offs all over the comic world, so it is probably the easiest thing to draw a muscle man flying around in a cape.

When you read any  “how to draw comics” book the generic image they use to teach you hero anatomy is basically Superman.  As for retro space age futuristic superhero, just go back a few decades you will find plenty of them to borrow ideas from.

Not only do the “how to” books tell you to proportion your heroes as larger than life men, the teach you to position them in exaggerated poses.  Take the most extreme point of any action, exaggerate it a little more and that the one you should use.  Oh, and also use a plentiful amount of forced perspective or foreshortening.  Everything must be visually dramatic as possible.  Even the way a hero stands (Superman’s hands on hips with feet spread apart).

They don’t spend time showing how to draw an average sized man dressed as a hero sitting at a bar.  No, flying and throwing punches with musclemen is far more common.

So when it is time to draw a regular superhero (oxymoron?) it really isn’t that hard if you’ve done your studying and some practice.  What is hard is to draw completely original visuals that often go against the rules of how to draw a superhero according to all the books and most of the content out there.

It’s kind of sad in a way, because when people asked if I drew these I know it was partially because the style is so different, but also partially because they thought the art was better than my usual work.  That ties into the idea that these are the predominant images of comic book superheroes in our society’s consciousness, which equals “well drawn” in our minds.

Does that mean I should be just sticking to the traditional comic book fare of giant men having epic battles with superpowers?  Maybe.  I’d probably be more successful at it.  Alas, that is not the story I want to tell.  I’m not here to create derivative art and stories you feel like you’ve read many times before.

No, Black Snow Comics is about something a little bit different.  It’s about looking at heroes in original ways and telling stories that haven’t been told before.  It’s about going against the norm (and rules of the “how to” books) much of the time.  So, possibly to my detriment as a commercially successful artist, I will continue on with my journey of self discovery while attempting to improve at creating art that is wholly my own.

And hopefully that is good enough for everyone else.  And look, if you want me to draw something more traditional for you, well you just have to pay me!

What is Cinco De Mayo and why do we celebrate it?

I don’t recall Cinco De Mayo being anything until I was in my teens.  It wasn’t a big deal, even though I live in a community largely populated by people of Mexican descent.  Then all of a sudden people started going nuts with it.

People were showing Mexican pride with massive parties and parades…and rowdy drunken violence.  Now it seems to be equally celebrated by Mexican and white people, who basically use it as an excuse to get really drunk, usually on tequila (I don’t care for tequila, give me good old American whiskey any day).

If you ask most people what Cinco De Mayo is they would say Mexican Independence Day…and they would be wrong.  Almost no one I’ve talked to knows why they are celebrating the holiday.

You may be shocked to learn that this holiday is not even celebrated in most of Mexico, and is much more prominent in the United States.  Basically the only place in Mexico that celebrates it is the state of Puebla, who call it El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla, or The Day of the Battle of Puebla.  Why?  Because the holiday is literally just a celebration of an unlikely Mexican army’s victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

So people are celebrating a fairly obscure battle that they almost certainly have never even heard of.

Somehow it started being celebrated here, then spread when people erroneously thought they were celebrating Mexican Independence Day, which is actually September 16th.  It turned into a general celebration of Mexican culture, which later just became a trendy drinking holiday.  And that is where we are at now.

So now you can tell all your dumb friends why they partying, and look smart.  Or better yet just don’t celebrate a holiday that means nothing to you just to be part of the trend!

Happy getting drunk for no reason!  Who needs a reason anyway?

The More You Know...The Less Stupid You'll Be

Black Snow: Two Drink Minimum page 51

Eric and Angel’s date. Rough stuff.  Eric is such a dweeb who has no clue with the ladies.  A bit like when I talk about this comic with my wife.

As regular readers might guess, this was entirely written by Alex, and he seemed to crank it out rather naturally.  I think this is his favorite kind of thing to write.  When I commented on how easily he wrote this scene he laughingly said he was just writing down his real dating experience.

It took me forever to draw.  I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but for a number of reasons I kind of hit a wall with this scene.  Maybe I was a little burnt out from drawing a lot.  Maybe it was the pressure of trying to draw more realistic people.

I also had a couple personal things happening.  My grandma, who was living with my family, very suddenly had to have her leg amputated to prevent a terrible infection from spreading throughout her body and killing her.  So that created a lot of household turmoil, as you might imagine.  Shortly after my wife found out she was pregnant with our 2nd child.  While wonderful and exciting news, that comes with a whole new set of worries for a man who feels like he never makes enough.

So a lot of reasons I guess.  Not that I’m here to make excuses.  Thankfully I already had a couple months of material completed.  But I feel fairly bad about it.  At least the scene is finally done now and hopefully I’ll be able to resume a faster pace.

Looking specifically at this page, I spent some real time trying to recreate the setting of a real Detroit Italian restaurant.  I studies many before choosing the right one.  I tried a few things to draw it, and ended up mixing my drawing with some Google earth image manipulation.

I also spent a lot of time studying facial expressions to really get the perfect, more realistic reactions that I thought would really bring the scene to life for the reader.  I figured the more realistic it looked the more painful the experience would be.  I may tone it back a bit in the next scene, though I did learn a lot while drawing this that I think will enhance my overall style in the future.

It never hurts to have a better understanding of human anatomy.