Radiant Comics

To continue my story from last week about the new brush I bought I worked on a second painting with it. It was a little bit different of a challenge than last week in that I continued a painting that I had already started and intended to do in my old method. I hadn’t put down any oil paint yet but had painted the black line of the picture in acrylic as I usually do. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to shift gears an do this painting in acrylic in the new style I had done that one painting in. It ended up helping that my new style doesn’t really exist yet. It’s in development.

The problem I ran into was the broad expanse of color. How do I paint large areas of color and make them interesting? In my oil painting style I know how to. I can use the texture, direction, and size of the brush strokes to create an interesting visual surface. I can make a large area of the same color paint look nice. It’s what I’ve been doing for twenty years. But acrylic paint isn’t oil paint. It doesn’t have the same surface. In last weeks painting I was using long brush strokes of color to make the surface more interesting. But since this canvas was already started as an oil painting I didn’t have the same long strokes in the image. Hmmm…

One of the things I’ve always thought about when making a painting was impact. Near and far. I use images and I want the image to be interesting when you look at it from across the room but the painting also has to be just as interesting as you step up close to it. The image is the first thing you see but as you step closer you see the paint itself. That’s where the surface comes in. How, why, and where the paint is put on the canvas has to be as interesting as the image itself. The two things working together is what makes things work for me.

So in making a painting with acrylic paint I know I can get the image part down. It’s when you step up close that I’ve been figuring out. It this second large acrylic piece I ended up using more surface texture than in the first one. Though I didn’t want to imitate one of my oil paintings I did imitate some of the texture of oil paint with some acrylic gel medium in spots. This allowed me to hold the brush stroke in certain areas and build up the close up visual interest that I wanted.

I also worked in some brush strokes with my new brush in areas that were, at first, not obvious to me. I started seeking spots out and seeing shapes a little differently. I found that the new brush was also good at making spirals. I like spirals they are always good for visual interest in my mind. The have a life of their own as they reference their own making and continue to swirl in the imagination.

It’s still not there yet this new way of my making a painting. But I am enjoying it. I especially enjoyed stretching my thinking on this one because I didn’t know if I could do it. One of the reasons I’m trying this different way of painting is that I had my normal way down cold. I had a vision of this painting finished before I painted it. By vision I don’t mean any angels coming down from the clouds sort of thing I just mean that I knew what it was going to look like in the end. It certainly can be a good thing knowing what I want something to look like and then making it so but lately I’ve grown tired of it. I want to meander through for a while.

I’m still picking away at this one. A stroke here. Some texture there. I’m nut sure if it’s done just yet. It might need a little more something but I’m not sure. I guess that’s what meandering is.

Being a comic book collector I’ve been contemplating rarity lately. A lot of comics are considered valuable because they are rare. But that’s really only one consideration out of two. The second consideration is that a bunch of people want to own it. That is an even more important consideration.

I have a lot of comic books in my collection. I even have a lot of rare comics in my collection. But I don’t have many, if any, comics that anyone would consider valuable. I do have the first issue of the new X-Men plus the first appearance of Wolverine and these books would be considered valuable except for their condition. They are my copies from when I was a kid and they’re pretty well beat up.

Condition is everything when it comes to the value of comic books. Well, since I mentioned rarity and demand it’s maybe not everything but a blemish or two could be the difference between a $100 copy of the first appearance of Wolverine and a $1000 copy. My copy has so many blemishes it’s probably worth around $10. Nobody wants to pay a whole lot of money for a beaten up old comic unless it’s really really rare.

I do have a lot of comics that, by numbers alone, should be considered rare. At a guess I’d say that the Hulk issue from the 1970’s that had Wolverine’s first appearance sold around 250,000 copies. Of those how many could still be around? 100,000? 50,000? I really have no idea but I’m betting there are still a lot of them in existence. It’s not that rare. But when Wolverine stars in a couple of Hollywood blockbuster movies that gets a lot of people interested in him then demand drives up the price of his first appearance. And that’s exactly what happened.

Due to my peculiar taste in comics I buy a lot of what is referred to as “Small Press” comics. That means the print runs are no where near 250,000 copies. A lot of the print runs are under 10,000 copies. Many closer to 2,000. That would make them pretty rare but not in the least bit valuable because hardly anyone wants them. The demand for these small press comics, if you could even find them, would be almost zero. I imagine part of that is not only the general public’s disinterest but because the people who, like me, actually bought them probably still own them. I don’t think small press fans get rid of their comics as readily as mainstream comics fans because we know that they are hard to find even if they are worthless.

I was once at my regular comic shop buying one of my regular small press books, they ran about $3 a piece then, when the owner of the shop noticed there was some defect in the printing of the cover. As I said before, condition is everything when it comes to comics so he asked if I wanted him to reorder the comic to replace the flawed one with a pristine one. I do like to keep my comics in nice shape but I declined. I told him not to bother because in ten years my flawed copy will be worth exactly the same amount as a mint condition one. “They’ll both be in the 25¢ bin?”, he replied getting my joke. It was one of those jokes that was funny because it was true.

One of the things that has been making comics less rare these days has been reprint collections. I don’t even think they’re referred to as reprints anymore. Just hard cover and trade paperback collections. Some people buy those exclusively and have no interest in the individual monthly issues. But I’ve noticed that now some of these collections are going up in value as long as a) they are out of print and b) it doesn’t look like they’ll be coming back into print anytime soon.

The one book the jumps out at me that fits into this category is “Avengers Assemble” Volume 2. Volumes 1 and 3-5 can be found in print at Amazon.com and the likes for cover price, about $35, or less but volume 2 is out of print and can only be found used at Amazon for $150. The book is only four years old and the original comics it reprints could probably be found pretty easily and cheaply but since this volume is not likely to be reprinted anytime soon the price has risen on it.

I just completed my collection of hardcover reprints of the Dark Horse “Conan” series this week. I used to buy the monthly comics but sometime around the third hardcover volume I decided to sell my monthlies and get the collections from then on in. Except I didn’t realize that the first volume was already out of print. It’s been on my back burner of things to get and I finally pulled the trigger on a used copy. It was no where near as expensive as “Avengers Assemble Volume 2” but at $35 it was $10 above the original retail price.

“The Eternals Omnibus” by Jack Kirby is another out of print book that went up in price. I was going to get it but never did. It’s original $75 price tag (it’s a big book) is now at around $150. I ended up getting the original 1970’s issues on Ebay for around $20. How’s that for a strange twist of comic book fate? As long as the package is nice and it’s out of print the collection of reprints can be worth more than the original comics. As long as someone wants them that is.

I’m no good at staying up late anymore. Yet another conclusion I’ve come to in my middle years. Not that I ever liked staying up late anyway. Y’see I’m a morning person. In my youth my limit for staying up late was usually somewhere around 2 AM. That meant that wherever I was I wanted to be out of there by 2 AM. That would be considered staying out late for me. Of course sometimes I was out past that time but that usually meant I was out too late.

As I said I’m a morning person. That means I’m up early every day regardless of how late I go to bed. I can’t sleep in. Not possible. When the morning comes I’m up. If I got no sleep the night before then I’ll be dragging all day. Maybe I can sneak a nap in but I have to be careful with naps. A morning or early afternoon nap is fine but if starts to get late in the day then a nap isn’t advisable as it will just keep me up that night. Beware any nap where it’s light out when you fall asleep and dark out when you wake up.

My recovery time has also lengthened over the years. It used to take me a couple of days to feel normal after losing sleep but now it’s more like five days. And I’m not even talking about staying up late partying. I’m not a drinker so I don’t have any hangover to recover from. I’m talking about recovering from just the loss of sleep.

I don’t even stay up working late as a lot of freelancers I know do. I’ve always managed to get the job done without staying up late. Of course if the job meant staying up late I might not even take it. A lot of the freelancers are night owls anyway and like to be up late drawing or some such into the wee hours. They’re night time people and like the quiet. Not me. From about 7:30 AM until around 2:30 PM are my best hours. Not that I can’t get things done at other hours it just takes more effort as I’m usually not at my sharpest.

Where staying up late really kills me is when trying to do my own art work. It takes a lot of motivation, concentration, and energy to work on art when there is no pay involved. It’s easy to stay up late and then go into the office and be a bit of a zombie all day. Tired or alert you have to be there anyway. Doing the job might be a bit harder but as long as no one’s life is at stake it usually doesn’t matter. Plus there are coworkers around to cover for you.

It’s not even too bad for me to get my freelance work done if I’m tired. Sure it’s harder and there is no one to cover for me but it has to be done so I may as well do it. It’s not going to do itself. I find it easier to get work done and then goof off then to goof off when I have work to do.

No, the reason I find it so hard to stay out late is that then I can’t get any of my own work done. That’s the first thing to go when I’m tired. My motivation to work on my own art. It all seems so pointless when I’m tired. I look at my paper, paints, canvas, computer, or whatever and see no reason to pick any of them up. The effort takes more energy than my tired self has.

If I stay out late on a Saturday night I can count on not getting anything significant done until Wednesday or even Thursday. It slows me down. Plus it’s real easy to give up and do nothing but watch TV. I see a lot of people do that and the reason is because they’re tired. Mostly from the nine to five grind but also from not sleeping. The two do go hand in hand.

I’ve actually known people, night owls usually, who stay up late at night just because it’s their own time and not their employer’s time. They’re not staying up late doing anything that takes self motivation but just staying up. Often playing video games. The sacrifice of being tired all morning at work was no sacrifice at all for them because they didn’t really want to be at work anyway. And being awake and alert at work in the morning would not be an improvement in their eyes anyway.

But I can’t do that. Self motivation takes a lot of energy. Making things takes a lot of energy and work. In some ways I’d like to live a languid lifestyle staying up late and never putting much energy into anything. Watching instead of doing, going to shows, reading a lot, and generally not thinking about much. But I really like making stuff. So therefor I don’t like staying up late anymore. Think I’ll got to bed.

As I like to write about every now and again here is a round up of some television shows that I’ve been watching this summer.

“Burn Notice” – One of my favorites is back for a new season. I like the edition of a second burned spy to help out the usual crew. He adds a nice spark to the show that I think was missing in some early episodes last season. There was also a nice guest appearance Burt Reynolds as and old retired spy in trouble. It’s a good show that continues to entertain me.

“The Lost Room” – This is a Sc-fi channel mini series that originally aired in December of 2006. I watched it back then but recently pulled it out for a second viewing this summer. I like it. I’m not a big fan of the Sci-fi channel’s original programing but this is an exception. It’s not even really sci-fi but whatever.

The show is about a cop who discovers that there is a magic room and all the items that were once in this magic room grant super powers of various usefulness. His daughter gets lost in the room and now he has to try and get her back. There is also a couple of secret societies dedicated to tracking and using the super powered objects. It’s fun, imaginative, and well done.

“Entourage” – Another show back for a new season. I still maintain that the first two seasons of this show were the best. It was the anti-Sex and the City. One friend became a huge movie star and his brother and two buddies from home were along for the good time ride. The first two seasons were all about having a great time and were nearly plotless. Now we’re entering season seven and it’s a plot driven show like any other. There is still fun to be found and I like it but not like I enjoyed the early years.

“Hung” – Another HBO show. This one in its second season. It’s the story of a divorced high school baseball coach who runs into money problems so he decides to leverage his best skill and become a prostitute. I’m still not sure if I really like this show. It’s kind of goofy, kind of serious, and kind of pointless. Since it’s only a half an hour long I’ve kept watching it but it’s hardly a favorite.

“Penn& Teller Bullshit!” – I’m a skeptic in general so I enjoy this show. It’s in its eighth year and most of the easy target are gone but they still come up with stuff. There is a lot of bullshit in the world and a lot of bullshitters. Plus they like to throw in gratuitous nudity every week. I don’t always agree with them but generally they’re on target.

“Lovejoy Mysteries” – I’ve seen every one of these episodes many times before but I haven’t watched them in years. In the 90’s I had VHS tapes of the series that I taped off of the TV and I’d run them often as I worked on some drawing or painting. “Lovejoy” stars Ian McShane before he became famous in the US for swearing a whole lot in “Deadwood”. He plays Lovejoy who is a lovable rogue of an antiques dealer in East Anglia over in England. He’s always getting in and out of trouble along with the other show regulars who are his compatriots. And old favorite that I’ve been revisiting.

“The Prisoner” – A famous show from the 1960’s that I hadn’t seen until about five years ago. It’s an interesting one about a spy who tries to retire but is instead kidnapped and taken to “The Village” where they attempt to find out what he knows. He doesn’t even know which side is holding him. An interesting show. AMC did a remake of it recently that wasn’t very good. Stick with the original. A weird last episode though.

“Cannon” and “Barnaby Jones” – After being made sick of modern TV by shows like “Lost” and “Flash Forward” I watched some 1970’s detective shows. They may be a little dated and not filled with unexplained mysteries but they told a story with a beginning, middle, and end all in one episode. Each and every week. I never watched either of these shows much before now and neither is a favorite but I did enjoy them.

“I Rock” – An Australian TV series about a small time rock band trying to make it. This one was pretty good. Nothing profound or great but I got caught up in the character’s stories and found them interesting. A fun mix of personalities and goals. It’s only eight half an hour episodes and they go by quickly.

“Sherlock” – I’m a Sherlock Holmes fan and this BBC series could have gone very wrong. It’s a modern take on the Holmes characters which sets them in modern day London. I’ve seen the first two episodes and they’ve done a nice job. All the personalities and their interactions are there and so are cell phones and computers. They also do a nice job using special effects graphics to visualize Sherlock Holmes’ thinking. I’m surprised that I liked this so much.

So what have you been watching