Comic Talk: 1
Inspiration:
I received a couple of comments today from a few different people and it got me to thinking. (Happens from time to time if I'm not careful.) The first person compared my work to Walt Simonson. Which I can see. I've had my work compared to a ton of different artists over the years. It's always interesting (sometimes quite interesting) to see who people connect me with. I'd have to guess that my influences are similar to any artists. Basically, whichever comic book artists I saw when I was eight did it for me. Whoever was "hot" at the time.
The second person asked about my influences. I'm not sure if he was speaking of my art style in general or of "DUST" specifically, but it made me think of "DUST" specifically, so that's where I'm gonna' go with this. (Deal.)
"DUST" was "inspired", if it was inspired by anything (or anyone), by Jack Kirby's "cosmic" comic books. Silver Surfer, The Eternals, The New Gods etc. There was just something about those books that hit me visually. I didn't actually "read" comics back then. I looked at the pictures and read enough to follow the story and somehow this strange combo made the images seem real to me.
Peek on this:
The early scenes concerning the main character of "DUST" is obviously a play on early 1970's Silver Surfer. (Stan Da' Man!) The Silver Surfer "I" knew. I was about seven years old when my brother brought home a stack of comic books he'd gotten at a rummage sale (or somewhere). In that stack of dusty comics was a book called Silver Surfer. It was written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema. (The king of comic artists.) Of course I didn't know any of this at the time and didn't really actually read the story but a few of the panels stuck in my head and never left. A cosmic being pontificating about the human condition and seemingly inconsolably melancholy. His hands gesturing dramatically as if he were (over) acting in some off Broadway stage production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. With these few panels I saw an entire universe and a complete character. A character that I could never find "in real life" comic books. Every appearance I've read since of the Silver Surfer wasn't the same character I'd seen in my little head at all. The mystery of who the heck he was had been stripped away. Why he was doing what he was doing was explained and that mystery was gone as well. He was no longer that mysterious, cosmic being full of misery and self-hate. Of course, maybe he never was what I'd imaged him to be when I was seven? If he was, he wasn't for long. What I'd loved about the character (or rather, those few panels I'd seen) had vanished as if they'd never been and maybe they never really were? The truth is that I don't really know, but I do know that that mysterious, cosmic melancholy character I'd imaged didn't really exist anywhere except inside my own little tot's head. So with "DUST" I decided to create the character I'd imagined.
Now, decades after I'd first imagined the character, he finally existed ... because I created him.
And from those initial inspirations come brand new creations:
So the theory goes.
Everyone is inspired by something or someone. Every artist, every writer, every concept, character and/or idea was inspired by something. Even the biggest, most well-known and easily recognizable characters in the world have their roots firmly set someplace. Superman was inspired by "The Gladiator", by Doc Savage and by Buck Rogers. Doctor Who has a certain "Sherlock Holmes" feel and Holmes roots extend back to Edgar Allen Poe's C. Auguste Dupin. They say that there are no new ideas and maybe that's true. There are just new ways to "see" old ideas, new ways to imagine old stories, new ways to combine, and re-combine and mix and re-mix. Bake at 350 degrees stirring occassionally. Serves six.
I guess if there's a question to ask yourself when beginning the creation process, it's why? Why? Why do you want to create? What is it that you hope to accomplish? What is the story you want to tell?
Does it really matter? Not to me but it should to you. Without proper motivation you'll find the hard work involved in the process far too difficult and not worth the effort. Well, I would. Make no mistake, art is hard work. There are far easier ways to make a buck.
So the theory goes.
I received a couple of comments today from a few different people and it got me to thinking. (Happens from time to time if I'm not careful.) The first person compared my work to Walt Simonson. Which I can see. I've had my work compared to a ton of different artists over the years. It's always interesting (sometimes quite interesting) to see who people connect me with. I'd have to guess that my influences are similar to any artists. Basically, whichever comic book artists I saw when I was eight did it for me. Whoever was "hot" at the time.
The second person asked about my influences. I'm not sure if he was speaking of my art style in general or of "DUST" specifically, but it made me think of "DUST" specifically, so that's where I'm gonna' go with this. (Deal.)
"DUST" was "inspired", if it was inspired by anything (or anyone), by Jack Kirby's "cosmic" comic books. Silver Surfer, The Eternals, The New Gods etc. There was just something about those books that hit me visually. I didn't actually "read" comics back then. I looked at the pictures and read enough to follow the story and somehow this strange combo made the images seem real to me.
Peek on this:
The early scenes concerning the main character of "DUST" is obviously a play on early 1970's Silver Surfer. (Stan Da' Man!) The Silver Surfer "I" knew. I was about seven years old when my brother brought home a stack of comic books he'd gotten at a rummage sale (or somewhere). In that stack of dusty comics was a book called Silver Surfer. It was written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema. (The king of comic artists.) Of course I didn't know any of this at the time and didn't really actually read the story but a few of the panels stuck in my head and never left. A cosmic being pontificating about the human condition and seemingly inconsolably melancholy. His hands gesturing dramatically as if he were (over) acting in some off Broadway stage production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. With these few panels I saw an entire universe and a complete character. A character that I could never find "in real life" comic books. Every appearance I've read since of the Silver Surfer wasn't the same character I'd seen in my little head at all. The mystery of who the heck he was had been stripped away. Why he was doing what he was doing was explained and that mystery was gone as well. He was no longer that mysterious, cosmic being full of misery and self-hate. Of course, maybe he never was what I'd imaged him to be when I was seven? If he was, he wasn't for long. What I'd loved about the character (or rather, those few panels I'd seen) had vanished as if they'd never been and maybe they never really were? The truth is that I don't really know, but I do know that that mysterious, cosmic melancholy character I'd imaged didn't really exist anywhere except inside my own little tot's head. So with "DUST" I decided to create the character I'd imagined.
Now, decades after I'd first imagined the character, he finally existed ... because I created him.
And from those initial inspirations come brand new creations:
So the theory goes.
Everyone is inspired by something or someone. Every artist, every writer, every concept, character and/or idea was inspired by something. Even the biggest, most well-known and easily recognizable characters in the world have their roots firmly set someplace. Superman was inspired by "The Gladiator", by Doc Savage and by Buck Rogers. Doctor Who has a certain "Sherlock Holmes" feel and Holmes roots extend back to Edgar Allen Poe's C. Auguste Dupin. They say that there are no new ideas and maybe that's true. There are just new ways to "see" old ideas, new ways to imagine old stories, new ways to combine, and re-combine and mix and re-mix. Bake at 350 degrees stirring occassionally. Serves six.
I guess if there's a question to ask yourself when beginning the creation process, it's why? Why? Why do you want to create? What is it that you hope to accomplish? What is the story you want to tell?
Does it really matter? Not to me but it should to you. Without proper motivation you'll find the hard work involved in the process far too difficult and not worth the effort. Well, I would. Make no mistake, art is hard work. There are far easier ways to make a buck.
So the theory goes.
posted by Mark A Lester at
1:49 PM
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