WE'VE MOVED!

Please note that as of January 1st, I've moved my blog to http://wcgcomics.blogspot.com/.

While my MySpace site will remain as active as ever, I unfortunately found the site's blog interface for both users and visitors to be a bit unappealing, and clunky to use and post to. In addition, the blog's archive function was not very intuitive and difficult to find specific past posts.

Expect to see the usual updates about my adventures as the indie publisher of the comic-book series, Rob Hanes Adventures, as well as a running commentary about my latest interests, reviews of comics, television, films, books and other topics, and my personal life (including my family!!)

Happy new year everyone!

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Counting Down to 2008

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and Christmas!

Though I don't plan to make it an annual tradition, for the second year in a row, my family spent part of the holidays at Disneyland. Since it worked so well last year, we followed the same gameplan: spent Xmas morn opening presents and having a nice family breakfast; moseyed our way to Anaheim and checked into our hotel later that day on Christmas afternoon; entered Disneyland as soon as it opened; back to the hotel during the mid-afternoon to recuperate and give the kids a chance to nap; then back to the park until closing. We stayed a second night then, after a good breakfast, headed home the next day.

Our first stop was the newly re-furbished submarine/Nemo ride. Seemingly along with everyone else entering the park that morning, Nemo was our first planned destination; when the park officially opened, all of the attendants simply directed everyone to the line. While I was concerned about the wait, we waited less than an hour.

Fittingly, my 6-year old daughter rode the most rides. Last year, she was just tall enough to go on most of the rides at Disneyland and got a taste by riding the Matterhorn and Star Tours (twice). This year she went full tilt, riding the Matterhorn (twice), Space Mountain, Star Tours, and Thunder Road Mountain (also twice). My wife and I (and my brother, who accompanied us), switched off on watching my 2-year-old son while the other went on rides with my daughter. And of course, we hit numerous other rides together, such as Casey's Train, It's a Small World, and ToonTown.

Perhaps because of the cold weather, we were surprised at how much the park emptied that evening—late that evening, we were getting on most of the marquee rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted House, with literally no wait!

We even caught the noontime Star Wars show, where kids are plucked from the audience to get Jedi training then face off against Darth Vader. (As I jokingly intoned in my best Vader impersonation—"Has it come to this? Two shows daily and three times on weekends?")

All in all, another tremendous Christmas at the Magic Kingdom.

Photo above right: Darla the Fish Killer on the new Finding Nemo Submarine Ride; above left: Though the evening fireworks show was cancelled, it didn't stop the snow flurry finale.

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Happy Holidays

Best wishes from WCG Comics for a happy holiday season filled with peace and harmony!



To see the above image full size click here. To see a collection of holiday cards from years past, click here.

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Getting in the Holiday Spirit

My wife and I love visiting San Francisco over the holiday season. Though we live in Southern California, I have family in Northern California, which means we usually are in the Bay Area around Thanksgiving or Christmas. I've always felt San Francisco comes closest to capturing the vibe and energy of New York City where I was raised, and that's particularly true during the holidays. Walking around San Francisco bundled up during this time of year in the cold weather among throngs of holiday shoppers always puts us in the holiday mood.

We've done it so many times, we have a fairly regularly routine, which usually includes visits to two San Francisco landmarks I'd like to mention in this post, apropos of a comics-related blog: the Cartoon Art Museum and the Tintin/European character store called Kari'kter on Sutter Street's gallery row.

The Cartoon Art Museum has been in its present space since 2001 and is conveniently located not far from the Market Street/Union Square area of San Francisco. (It's the third location I've visited for the museum over the years!) During the time of my visit, exhibits were in progress on Edward Gorey's design work for the stage show of Dracula; of Disney animation conceptual artist Mary Blair; and Bay Area cartoonist Lark Pen. While I have passing familiarity with Gorey, I otherwise was not aware of Blair or Pen, and I enjoyed discovering their work.

The highlight for me, however, always is the opportunity to view the museum's pieces from its permanent collection. I saw originals from Roy Crane's Buz Sawyer, a Will Eisner Spirit page, a Milton Caniff Steve Canyon, as well as a very early Blondie, Popeye, Gasoline Alley, etc. It's always inspiring and revelatory to see comic artwork in their original state--the opportunity to see them full size and to examine the brushstrokes, use of white paint, etc., gives students of the form valuable insight into the way the methods of the masters.

Kari'kter is a delightful upscale store for aficionados of Tintin and other cartoon icons from the Continent, such as Asterix, Wallace and Gromit, the Little Prince, Babar, etc. They carry Tintin books, T-shirts, figurines, maquettes, prints, and a lot of terrific licensed properties. The store is both for serious collectors as well as families wishing to find a unique way to trick up their homes and children's spaces. Most of the items they carry may be found online.

By the way, another of our traditions when we're in the city is to visit the Japantown center (where we usually grab lunch or dinner) and, particularly, the Kinokuniya Bookstore. This is a terrific authentic Japanese bookstore with tons of Japanese magazines, books, CDs, etc.. There also are many English-language books featuring translated Japanese authors, Japanese art and architecture, cooking, children's books, etc. During this visit, we discovered they had just re-modeled and completely moved all their manga (Japanese comics) to a new dedicated space on the lower level of the mall where the bookstore is located. (In fact, the mall itself has received a much-needed facelift, and "J-town" looks like it's undergone a much needed minor facelift).

Anyway, if you're ever in San Francisco, I recommend you visit these places!

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Honoring Stan the Man

For a more complete report and additional photos from the event mentioned below, visit my full report and photogallery here.

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Wired for the Future

While the cover to the current issue of Wired (November 2007) boldly screams out "Manga Conquers America," also featured in the issue is a an article called "Japan Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex," which at first glance appears to be a report on the health of the Japanese comics ("manga") industry. However, buried almost furtively within this article is an interesting exploration about the function of copyright law in the modern era of digital technology that has made "remixing" and "re-sampling" very easy for users by putting the power of production on the user's desktop and made the classic distribution model less vertical and more horizontal (i.e., user-to-user).

The article talks about how there is a large movement in Japan of fan artists essentially publishing their own fan-versions of their favorite manga comics and characters; and though it's become a significant "above-ground" business (many are even sold at traditional brick-and-mortar stores as well as fan conventions), the manga publishers essentially turn a blind eye towards it, even in the face of declining sales in the industry. Apparently, the publishers feel it ultimately benefits the manga industry by generating interest in the characters and it has become a farm system of sorts for up-and-coming artists. A Japanese manga publisher states in the article that he does not think these books eats into the sales of the official series. It is the equivalent of people creating and selling their own version of Superman or Love and Rockets.

The article essentially calls into question the function of copyright law in a digital landscape where intellectual property is so fluid and easily manipulated, and goes to the heart of whether copyright law in its present form even continues to serve the public good and the purpose it originally was created for. Recent amendments to copyright law so far have primarily served to benefit large media companies. The copyrights of some of the earliest Mickey Mouse films, for example, were due to expire around the beginning of this century until Disney and other studios successfully lobbied for longer-term protection. But copyright law was never intended to be of unlimited duration, a proposition that has been implicitly affirmed by legislation.

I don't ever foresee the kind of flexibility described as occurring in Japan as ever happening in the U.S., partly because U.S. publishers historically and understandably have been very strident in protecting their intellectual properties (after all, piracy remains a matter of great concern, particularly in Asia.) On the other hand--and the article touches on this--you already see the envelope being pushed in other fields, such as film and music. There are tons of "sanctioned" web sites, for example, that feature fans creating their own Indiana Jones and Star Wars films or remixing existing copyrighted footage (or entire films), and there is Dangermouse's famous "Gray Album" that remixed the Beatles' White Album with Jay-Z's Black Album.

Anyway, it is a fascinating and thought-provoking article.

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WGA Strike

I wasn't planning on weighing in on the WGA strike partly because I try to avoid "political" issues here. Besides, I thought it was a no-brainer. But when I was reading a writer's blog about this, I was surprised at the number of uninformed comments some posters made, like

At work if I create a concept, idea, or program that makes the company millions I don't get any residuals, I am simply paid a salary so why should writer's get residuals?

To be honest the shows coming out of Hollywood this past 10 years have been crap with a few exceptions. Reality TV has ruined television, so why would I support people who have produced a lousy product to start with?

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J.C. Leyendecker Exhibition

Many years ago, the Norman Rockwell Museum in New England put together a traveling exhibition of Rockwell's work. Its California stop was in San Diego, and though I had a good reason for not seeing it (my wife and I had just had a child), I always have regretted missing it.

With this in mind, I made a point to find the time to see an exhibition of one of Rockwell's idols and forerunners, J.C. Leyendecker, at the Fullerton Museum Center in Orange County, Southern California. (It's a tiny but nice little museum with lots of character.)



Leyendecker was one of the premier commercial illustrators and artists of his generation—and he was working in what probably is considered the Golden Age of American illustration. Though not as well known today (at least among lay people) he is greatly admired by other illustrators, and much of his work remains iconic and recognizable. He is perhaps best known for his Arrow Collar shirt ads. But he also was known for many other advertising campaigns, as well as for his covers of the Saturday Evening Post (where Rockwell would eventually follow in his footsteps and gain his own legacy). Leyendecker produced more than 300 covers for the Post alone over a 40 year period. (Leyendecker also is credited with inventing the "baby new year" concept, which he produced variations of on covers throughout his career.)

The exhibition includes about 50 pieces, which obviously is just a tiny fraction of his full output. (Pictured above is a piece that was included in the exhibition.) And while the exhibition is fairly representative of the breadth of his work, it nevertheless would be challenging in such a small exhibition to fully capture the magnitude of his artistry and achievements. An original work of art obviously can take look very different than its printed reproduction, and its amazing to see what Leyendecker could convey with the boldest and simplest of brush strokes. (I'm fortunate to own a rare, out-of-print hardcover book of his work.)

Rockwell gained popularity for perfectly capturing and dramatizing the everyday lives and ideals of the average American. While Leyendecker did so to a degree as well, his work was much bolder and idealized—his figures, particularly his males—were angular and heroically proportioned. And his strong and powerful compositions and design sense underscored this aesthetic. (Please keep in mind I'm not saying that made either artist better or worse—this obviously was just a reflection of their styles and personal artistic philosophies.)

Anyway, the show ends November 18. I highly recommend this opportunity to see this rare opportunity to see the original work of one of the field's finest commercial illustrators.

(For more samples of Leyendecker's work go here and here.)

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Trying Something New

In follow up to my earlier post to my recent inking difficulties, I decided to mix things up by trying new inking approaches and tools. Given how much of a creature of habit I am, this probably shows how desperate I am to shake things up!

I purchased a bunch of different inking tools at my local art store, which included the Faber-Castell brush pen, pictured here in one of the color versions. It uses a permanent India ink (which is very important).

So far I've been fairly happy with it. Since it feels like a pen, you have to be careful not to instinctively press down on it like a regular marker, but if you're patient and careful, you can get a varied line akin to a brush. At the same time, I want to avoid making any "mushy" line that looks like it was made by a marker. For some reason, I love this look on sketches, but not so much in my original final art!

Anyway, I'm hoping this may work out. If so, it sure will be nice to finally give up brushes, which are a bit high maintenance!

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Inking problems

I'm at a weird place right now artistically. While I don't think it qualifies as "artist's block" (which I have experienced), I've been unhappy and tentative about my inking the past several pages.

I've never considered myself a particularly proficient inker, but even by my standards I haven't been very satisfied with the past few pages I've done. I suspect that the problem may lie in the penciling--which, after all, is the foundation of the drawing--but strangely enough I've been pleased enough with the pencils to move on to the inking stage. But I've found the finished pages disappointing!

I use a combination of a standard Uniball pen and a Windsor & Newton 3 brush for my finishes (brush is a fairly traditional and common inking tool in cartooning), but I've been dissatisfied enough recently that I've been experimenting with other inking tools. Right now I'm trying out a disposable brush pen.

Strangely enough, as challenging as a brush can be for me, making a change isn't so easy. Like many cartoonists, the brush is a familiar tool, and I find other tools off-putting. For example, even though I love the look of my sketches using standard felt-tip pens (usually done at conventions for fans), I tend to freeze up when using it for finished work.

This is a great time to be an artist, as there are numerous inking choices. But one has to be careful about being sure to use a device that uses permanent ink. Some inks fade over time, while others are not waterproof and may easily smear.

Anyway, I thought I'd just post this to show what kind of issues often come up for artists. I usually simply work through such problems, but this is a little bit more serious in that I'm actually considering alternative inking approaches, which would be a big change for me!

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