Radiant Comics

I wouldn’t call myself neat, not that I’m sloppy, but I would call myself organized. I’ve got a lot of art supplies and such that have to be in their place so I can find them but not tucked away where they are hard to get to. It’s the eternal balancing act between order and disorder. But sometimes I do have to tuck things away. Such as all the drawings that I make. They build up over time and the places that are at my finger’s reach get full. That means I have to tuck them away in a cabinet and it helps if they are not loose but in a box.

I like boxes. They’re good storage devices. They actually make storage boxes for art and I have bought some in the past but when I don’t have the money for them I make my own. I usually make them out of whatever scrap mat board or foam core board that I’ve got lying around.

I’ve never found a really good way to make a box. Mine are more practical than pretty. A week before I made my art storage boxes I made a box to carry comics in and it came out terrible. It was just a small box that fix about ten comics but it doesn’t look good, feel good, or function well. I cut the mat board a bit in order to fold it and then had to use tape on the folds to reinforce them and not of that worked well.

The main problem with making a box out of mat board is that the thickness of the board doesn’t make for easy folding. It’s not thin like paper but a paper box will do no good. For the comic book box I used the method where I draw a line where I want the board to fold, cut through the mat board a little bit with an X-Acto knife, and then fold along the cut.

Folding along the cut can be a real problem. I used to think the cut should be on the outside of the fold but found that the paper would tear away from the edge if I did it that way. With the cut on the inside of the fold the paper would tear on the outside (it was being stretched after all) but be more stable than if it was cut. On the comic box I used tape to reinforce the outside edge but that made it look ugly and it didn’t feel nice either. That box was a failure.

This past Saturday as I was fighting the battle between order and disorder I decided to build another box to put some of my drawings away in. I had a bunch of 6×9 and 9×12 inch drawing lying around so I decided to make a 10×13 inch box for them. Since I made that failure of a comic book box the week before I decided to not go with the X-Acto method. I had recently seen something called a folding bone for the first time and wanted to try one.

A bone folder is used by bookbinders to fold paper so I figured that would be a good tool for me to use here. The only problem was that I didn’t have one. So I decided to improvise. A folding bone looks like a big dull knife. It’s used for scoring paper. It uses pressure to push the paper down and create a valley in the paper to fold along. I went out to the garage to see what I could find among my tools to do the job. I ended up finding a bike tool. It’s a small metal tire lever that’s used for prying the tire tread off a rim. One end was smooth, rounded, and about the width of a quarter.

I wanted to make a box with a separate lid so I pulled out two pieces of mat board and drew the box on the first one. It was just a 10×13 inch rectangle with two more inches on all four sides to make the sides of the box. Then I put my straight edge along a line I just drew and ran my folding bone along the line. I did this two or three times to really press down the mat board. It tore the surface paper a little bit to but this couldn’t be helped. Since the board was so thick I decided to score the other side of the paper too. So I flipped the board over, marked the lines again, and scored along them.

It worked out pretty well. When I went to fold the mat board it folded fairly easily and though there was some tearing of the paper on the outside of the box it wasn’t as bad as with my other methods and I didn’t need to tape any edges. I made a top for the box and thought I was done. I wasn’t.

As I was trying to find a way to fit a new box into my cabinet of drawings and supplies a pile of 11×17 inch drawings that I had been ignoring couldn’t be ignored anymore. So I built a box for them. Then a ran across a pile of 5×11 inch drawings so I built a third box. Finally on another shelf in the cabinet I ran into an even bigger pile of old 5×11 inch drawings and so had to build a fourth box. I ended up spending a lot of my Saturday building boxes out of mat board.

It was really my new method of using a faux folding bone that made me build four boxes instead of one. After I had built that terrible comic book box a week ago I was in no mood to build any more. It was ugly and impractical. That didn’t inspire me to want to make any more. But I’m a tool guy in general so I like trying out new tool and finding the right tool for the right job. Now I need to try out some bookbinding tape.

It’s hard to get things done. Really hard. That thought was banging around my head today as I was making my comic book haul video and showing off some of the “Dreams of Things” faux comic book covers that I’ve drawn lately. You can ask anyone who is creative and makes art and most of them will tell you that it’s no picnic getting things done. Especially if you’re not making any money for it. Then you have to find other motivations to get things done.

I have heard artists describe how they don’t like making art but they like having made art. That’s because it can be hard to make art. Art often falls below the expectations of the artist making it. Or it takes a lot of concentration, time, and effort to get done and none of that is fun. But looking back and being proud of the art you’ve made can be fun. There can be more satisfaction in that than in the doing.

In talking on camera about my “Dreams of Things” I used the word “Comfortable” to describe working on them. I had never thought about that before but it is a very apt word. I like to keep busy. Keep busy making art that is. It’s good for my mental health. I may not have much in life but I have talent and the drive to nurture that talent. If I was to just sit around and do nothing I’m sure that would be bad for me. But the question for any artist is always “What should I do?’ Since it’s hard to get anything done that’s not an easy question to answer.

From September to January I made a lot of big ink drawings. I was on a roll and liked making them. Though I would not call them comfortable. It was physically hard making them. They were all on 22×30 inch paper and were drawn on my easel. That means a lot of moving around, twisting, and turning to get the drawing done. It’s more physically taxing than working on a smaller drawing at my drawing table. It’s more mentally taxing too since it takes three days to make one. It takes more mental effort to work on one drawing for three days than it does to work on three drawings in three days. That’s the way it is for me.

So for the last month after making those big ink drawings I’ve been working on my “Dreams of Things.” I have a different method of working on my faux covers. It starts the same way. I look through one of my ink book sketchbooks to find a thumbnail drawing that I like, print it out at 6×9 inches, make a new drawing, scan that drawing in, set it up in my “Dreams of Things” template, print that out on 11×17 inch paper, ink it, and then color it with markers.

What’s good about that method is that I can stop at any step. I can draw one, two, three or more pencil drawings and then put them aside if I’m tired of them. I can ink one of them when I fell like it and then put that aside. If I want to work in color I can grab one of the covers off the inked pile. As long as I have a bunch of them in various stages (pencils, inks, colors) I can pick whichever stage I feel like doing without a ton of thought as to why. After all the why can be fatiguing.

That’s what brought the word comfortable to my mind. Often we think we have to challenge ourselves and do something new In order to achieve greatness or even keep up with the world but sometimes to get something done it’s better to go with comfortable. Why make things hard if there is no reason for it? If you want to get art done putting obstacles in your own way is probably not the way to go. The world throws enough obstacles at us.

I also made some cartoon art cards for my “Drifting and Dreaming” comic strip. Those are not comfortable. I have to write, draw, and lately I’ve also been filming them. That takes a lot of concentration. Each video of me drawing them is only 10-12 minutes long but that’s 10-12 minutes of total concentration. Plus that’s not counting the 5-10 minutes it takes to write each one. I find writing those weird little sayings to be a chore. I have to clear my mind and roll ideas around in it too. I’m not much of a procrastinator but I find myself putting off writing those cartoons. There is nothing comfortable about writing them.

I also recently finished a big 22×30 inch photo of the 1996 Marvel Comics office Halloween party. That took a lot of time and a lot out of me. It took about 50 hours to make and was in no way comfortable. I never expected it to be so hard to make but there was a lot of photo retouching involved. More than I thought at first. Making art can be unpredictable.

I’ve been feeling a little down about my “Dreams of Things” covers as I’ve been doing them. That aren’t as big, striking, and ambitious as the big ink drawings I had been working on. After working at 22×30 inches 11×17 inches seems a little puny. Any individual one seemed a bit of a disappointment. I wasn’t getting a lot of satisfaction out of them. But then a funny thing happened.

I’ve been putting them up on my easel as I’ve been finishing them. That makes them easy to look at. I know have three of them in a row on my easel and seeing all three at once looks pretty cool. It’s an “Impressionist Stacking” way of seeing them. I used them as the background for my video so as to show them off and that’s when the word comfortable came to mind. That’s what they are to me in this moment. Art that I could get done comfortably. And that’s a good thing.

It’s time for my tradition of writing about what TV shows I’ve been watching. Here you go.

Russian Doll – A new Netflix show about a NYC woman caught in a Groundhog Day like time look. I found it funny and interesting. It was only eight half an hour episodes so it wasn’t very long but it didn’t ned to be. With these time loop plots I always find it more interesting how the characters deal with the loop rather than them solving the problem. I found that to be true here too but it was still entertaining even at the end.

FBI – A new police procedural show. I’m hit or miss with police shows but this one is a hit. It’s faced paced and is more involved with the solving the crimes than with personal lives. That’s how I like my police shows but your milage may vary.

Broad City – Our comedy duo is back for season five as we follow two thirty-ish women living in NYC. This one is zanny, faced paced, witty, and with some gross-out humor thrown in there. We usually get one or two episodes (out of twelve episodes a season) that are more experimental or conceptual than the rest and that’s fun.

Corporate – A show in its second season that I’ve only heard about now. It was mentioned in the back matter of one of the comic books that I read so I decided to check it out. It’s a dark comedy about working at a huge corporation. It’s funny but can also be depressing. So far I’m liking it.

Unsolved – I’ve been watching this Buzzfeed show on Amazon Prime. It’s in the tradition of “Unsolved Mysteries” in that it looks at crime, ghosts, and general mysteries. It has two hosts and any show of this type is all about the hosts. These two guy work for me. One is a skeptic and wise ass and the other is a believer and little too earnest at times. They make for a funny duo as we take a glance at the weirdness of the world.

Big Bang Theory – The twelfth and last season. I’ve been watching it from the beginning. It’s solid. I like it better as the seasons have gone one and the female cast member have been added. It’s never been my favorite sitcom but I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

Young Sheldon – I finally gave this one a try in season two. It’s a spin off of Big Bang Theory that takes place during the childhood of one of the Big Bang characters. I missed all of season one but that’s okay. It’s more of a family sitcom than Big Bang and is funny in its own right.

Supernatural – Season fourteen and another show I’ve been with since the beginning. What can I say about it? Our two lead characters fight monsters and keep it interesting. One of those shows that a whole new generation has discovered on Netflix. I’m with it until the end which is next year for its fifteenth and final season.

SEAL Team – Season two of our military show has been as good as season one. This show is about friendship, teamwork, and being in an elite military unit. It’s well done. On a side note I’ve been watching David Boreanaz on TV for a line time. Buffy-Angel-Bones-Seal Team. That’s a lot of seasons.

The Rookie – Nathan Fillion as an old guy who joins the L.A. Police force and is really old for a rookie. A police procedural about rookie cops. It’s fun. This one is as much about the characters and Fillion as it is about policing. It’s on the lighter side of cop shows. I’ve liked the show’s rookie year.

Lethal Weapon – Season three and they had to get rid of the actor from the first two seasons because he was too much of a pain in the ass. This third season hasn’t come together for me. I don’t like the new character and they seem to do less and less policing as the season progresses. This one will probably not be renewed and that’s okay with me.

Modern Family – Season ten and it’s as fun and strong as ever. I think I read that next year is its final season and I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

The Passage – A new drama based on some books about vampires. So far in the show they’ve created some vampires while trying to cure disease and the vamps are about the bust loose. It’s a little bit action, drama, and horror. It’s okay.

I Am the Night – Another new drama about L.A. In the mid 1960s. It’s about a 16 year old mixed race girl who goes to find her white side of the family, a burnt out reporter, and the Black Dahlia murder case. Lost of mystery, racism, corruption, and murder. It’s okay but not terrific.

Magnum PI – A remake of the old 1980s Tom Selleck show about a private investigator in Hawaii. It’s solid. It’s more action oriented than the original but it’s not very deep. I like it but it’s not always as involving as I like a TV show to be. Still the scenery and characters are all pleasant to watch and that’s not always easy to pull off.

Angie Tribeca – A fourth season of weird “Airplane” style humor except it’s a cop show. Lots of jokes and sight gags so don’t take your eyes off of the screen. I especially like the “Fargo” parody.

Brooklyn 99 – Another cop show comedy. I got cancelled on one network and brought back on another. This one is fast paced and fun which is just how I like my sitcoms. Terry Crews in in it so what more can you ask for?

The Good Place – The third season has ended for this one and it continues to evolve in new ways. It’s a comedy about the afterlife. Screw ups have happened and things are always being thrown into disorder for our six lead characters. It has a lot of heart and a lot of funny.

Man With a Plan – This show is in its third season already?!? It stars Joey from “Friends” and is a solid middle of the road family sitcom. I like it when I’m watching it but it doesn’t stick with me.

Superstore – This one is in season four and I think it’s gotten stronger with each season. It’s a sitcom about a bunch of employees at a big box store. It’s not breaking any new ground but I look forward to it. This one is somehow a feel good comedy to me.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel – An Amazon show that won a lot of Emmys for it’s first season is back for a second. It was as good as if not better than the first. It takes place in the late 1950s in NYC and a recently divorced woman is trying to start a career as a comedian. I’ve read it is inspired by the life of Joan Rivers. True or not the show is a lot of fun and has some great style.

The Umbrella Academy – I just started watching this one on Netflix. It’s based on a comic book that I’ve never read but now I want to. I’m only two episode in but I like it.

Manifest – A new mystery show in the tradition of “Lost.” A plane disappears but then five years later reappears and no time has passed for those on board. How could that happen? Who is behind it all? Is it a conspiracy? These are all the questions our characters have to find out. So far it’s been decent. Not great and a little too slow at times but I’ll stick around if it gets renewed.

“A Burst of Need” 22×30 inches.

I usually scan in my art as a matter of course. It’s part of my habit. A drawing, a painting, or a sketch in a sketch book, if it’s flat I can put it on my scanner and digitize it. It’s part of my working process. I make a thumbnail sketch, scan it in, blow it up, print it out, and then make a drawing right on top of the thumbnail, scan in that drawing, print it out, and ink over top of that one. Then I scan in the inks. If it’s one of my faux comic book covers I color over the inks with marker and then scan in the finished piece.

I tell you all this to let you know that scanning is no big deal to me. I do it all the time. I have a tabloid size (11×17 inches) scanner so that makes things easier since I often work on 11×17 inch paper. Back when I only had a 8.5×11 inch scanner I use to have to scan 11×17 inch stuff in two pieces and then stitch them together in Photoshop. I still have to do that when I make something 16×20 inches but it’s not very hard. I’ve been at this a long time.

But there is one scanning chore that I’ve been putting off for a long time. Scanning in my Big Ink Drawings. I first made some of these 22×30 inch drawings back in mid 2012 and kept making them until mid 2015. In the end I had made twenty six of them. Then from last September (2018) until January I made another twenty eight of them. That’s a lot of big drawings.

As I was making all those new big ink drawings at the end of 2018 I was thinking to myself that I would have to scan them all in. Turns out that just like with the first batch of those drawings that it’s easier to think about scanning them in then to actually scan them in. I think one of the problems was that I had no real reason to scan them in. I’ve photographed them all and have posted photos of them and it’s not like any of them have gone anywhere so why scan them? I have no real answer except for that I wanted to.

Photographs are okay for posting these big ink drawings on social media but not really for archiving them. If I ever want to make something printed from them I would need scans. I’m not even sure why I would need to make printouts of them but you never know. So over the weeks I got closer and closer to really scanning them until one afternoon I finally did.

I find it odd that I started the project in the afternoon. I’m a morning person. That’s my most creative time. Maybe that’s why when I contemplated scanning I didn’t want to start in the morning. It’s just too dull a job to be at my peak. So a few more days went by and I still couldn’t get it done. Then Saturday afternoon at about 3:30 I decided to just jump into it.

The first hurdle to scanning was that I had to move my scanner. It’s regular spot can’t accommodate a 22×30 inch piece of paper. If it could I would have scanned these in as I went along. I pulled out a spare table, set it up in front of my computer, and moved my scanner onto it. Of course I had to also unplug the power and USB cables before I moved the scanner adding to the chore.

The rest was as mundane as it gets. I’d place the top left quadrant of the drawing on the scanner, secure it in place with a piece of tape, name the file, scan, untape, move to the bottom left, tape (same piece), scan, untape, flip the drawing, top right, tape, set up the scanner to flip the image, scan, untape, bottom right, untape, and I’m done with that one. Repeat that 52 times.

The scanning itself didn’t take a long time. Being that I was scanning in greyscale (they’re black and white drawings) it took one third the time of a color scan. I’m not sure of the exact time but I bet it was about a minute a scan. That’s 208 scans and 208 minutes. The whole operation took me from about 3:30 until 8:30 with half an hour in there for dinner. That might have been less time than I imagined but it didn’t go quickly.

The most surprising thing about all that scanning to me was how physically taxing it was. I’ve spent days scanning in batches photos and negatives that took me more time but the photos were more mentally taxing than physically. Moving all the drawings took a lot out of me. The drawings are not heavy but they have to be handled carefully. Plus my hands are several feet apart as I move the drawings. Each one had to be picked up from the “To Do” pile, moved four times for four scans, and then be place on the “Done” pile. That adds up to more than I suspected.

After an hour of scanning I started to sit down between scans. I usually stand and work so it was odd to sit. Of course sitting didn’t always work because I has to get up so often to get the next scan going. I did have the TV to keep my company. I watched three episodes of “Friends”, one of “Broad City”, one of “FBI”, a one episode of “White Dragon.” At least that’s what I can remember. I think I watched some YouTube stuff in there too.

When I was done I was done. Wiped out. I was also a little bit afraid to put everything away. I would have hated to get the scanner back in its place only to find out I missed something. So I checked everything carefully and then finally put things back in their places.

The one thing that hasn’t happened with the scans yet is that they’re not stitched together. Each drawing is still in four separate scans. I have to put the pieces together. But that’s for another day. Who knows when that will be?

I love sketchbooks. What artist doesn’t? Also, like most artists that I know, I have more sketchbooks than I have time to fill them. Sure I have my main ink book sketchbook that I work in consistently but besides that I have a lot of others that I either hope to work in one day or that I’ve worked in now and again. Sometimes I buy sketchbooks just because they’re cool and sometimes people give me sketchbooks and they go on the pile. I never turn them down.

One of they types of sketchbooks that I like is the pocket sketchbook. The original one I got years ago is a Moleskine sketchbook . I heard a character on a TV show describe Moleskines as “The notebook for people with more money than sense” and I kind of agree with that. They’re on the expensive side. They’re really nicely made though. A small 3.5×5.5 inch hardcover sketchbook with nice creamy drawing paper in it goes for about fifteen bucks. That’s not cheap.

Since the success of Moleskine other companies have gotten into the act and have made cheaper versions of pocket sketchbooks. I have a few of these too. I have them at different shapes and sizes in hardcover and softcover. I’ve got a tiny 2×3 inch one that’s half an inch thick with paper. It’s tiny and big at the same time. I’ve never found a use for that one but I hold out hope. I’ve got a vertical 5.5×3.5 inch Moleskine that’s has some really nice watercolor paper in it. Not to mention a bigger 7×5 inch version of the same sketchbook. I don’t usually use watercolor so they sit unused.

I haven’t bought any new sketchbooks in a while (besides my once a year ink book sketchbooks) because I have six in the pile of unused sketchbooks right now. That’s a fair amount. I like them all but I don’t really need them at the moment. The main reason I don’t need them is that I’m not really one to go out and sketch things. A lot of artists who work in sketchbooks go out in the world, sit in the landscape (or cityscape), and sketch what they see in their sketchbooks. I don’t do that. I’m more of a studio artist. Though I have been drawing in the train station this month.

I’ve been commuting in to Manhattan to do some teaching so that means taking the train from Nanuet to Secaucus Junction and then into Penn Station from there. Since my class doesn’t start until 11 AM I’m not commuting during regular rush hour(s). I have few trains to chose from. Rather than cutting it close I go in a little bit early and wait at the Secaucus Junction Station for a bit. It’s much nicer than waiting at Penn Station. I pull out my ink book as I’m waiting and draw in it. But I’m not sketching from life. I’m drawing out of my head as if I was in my studio. One day I’ll have to try and draw the station but I haven’t yet.

My ink book is a spiral bound 5.5×8.5 inch sketchbook. That’s the type of book I’ve been using for about 19 years. I sometimes like to keep my sketchbooks for a single purpose so I started another one a couple of months ago that is just for superhero heads. I make comic book sketch covers with super hero heads on them and like to figure out how I’m going to draw them before I start the final drawing. So far I’ve only drawn three heads in it but I like the concept. If I want to draw a Spider-Man head I can use my sketchbook to figure out how and then use the book as a guide. Maybe I’ll fill it up someday.

Sketchbooks are on my mind because I pulled out an old one this week and was a little shocked that I hadn’t drawn in it for two and a half years. I dated the pages when I drew in it so I’m sure of when. Time flies.

I’ve long had the idea of a sketchbook as a piece of art. Normally my sketchbooks are what I’d call evidence of art. I start and work out ideas for art in them but they are not the finished art themselves. They’re a vital piece in the chain of making art but they’re not very mysterious or interesting. If you look at them you know exactly what they are. They’re the start of something. But what if they were the end? What if they were the art?

I think the idea for that comes form TV shows and movies where the characters find some mysterious notebook or sketchbook (even the mysterious notebooks almost always have drawings in them) that are filled with clues to some mystery the plot is trying to solve. The characters have to pour over and decipher what the book is saying. The book is the thing. It’s the end product with the answers to the mysteries being the art. I’ve always found that idea appealing.

According to the starting date of this sketchbook I bought it in May of 2011. The last page I drew on has a date of August of 2016. In those five years I only wrote and drew on 22 of the 80 pages. That’s front and back so it’s really 44 of the 160 pages but still that’s not a lot of the book.

The sketchbook even has a sort of theme to it. It’s called a “PresentationZen Storyboarding Sketchbook.” Some of the pages have squares on them to storyboard stuff, some have tiny spot drawings, and others have positive affirmations on them. I think the selling point was that the book was supposed to encourage ideas and creativity. I don’t know how well that worked for me.

Looking back at it I wrote and drew lots of ideas in the book. I even made stickers out of some of my photos and pasted them down on the pages at times. It may only be a quarter filled but it’s a pretty cool looking book. I don’t know how much good it really did me but that’s okay. I pulled it out this week because I’ve been trying to visualize some info graphics stuff and have been stuck on that. Maybe this past approach will help me in the present. Let’s hope so.