#comic book stuff

[geegland]

weird lil color study wip of Ness

[chaoortu]

okay okay LOVING all the comic recommendations, i appreciate the heck out of you. i’m going to look into all of them for sure

i’m very intrigued by superman right now. it’s crazy because i’ve never seen a single superman movie, but with the new movie coming out i’ve realized that i don’t really know anything about him. the whole tone of his story is completely different than i expected (at least from what i can tell without having seen the movie YET) so any advice on where to start with him specifically would be awesome!

I will always say this: sometimes the most accessible way to get into comics is to watch the Animated media first. DC is superior to Marvel in that sense that when their characters are made for child consumption, creators really get to the root of who their character is. So... watch the Superman 2025 Movie, and then Superman 1978 (we haven't had a good Superman SINCE 1978 until Gunn's film. I wish I was joking.) Superman: The Animated Series is a GOLDMINE. I'm rewatching this currently. All Star Superman and Superman vs. The Elite, Man of Tomorrow, and Death of Superman (this is a MUST watch to understand a difficult time in comics history and is genuinely like really good while also being devastating.) Then watch Smallville. Yes it's corny, but it's also GOOD and honestly can be watched on an off. I grew up watching Smallville and it's very nostalgic in a good way! Now onto comics. Reddit is a good source for this bc Superman fans do not FUCK around and I have read all of the comics reddit recs for Supes, so....

Superman: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank

Man and Superman by Marv Wolfman and Claudio Castellini

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru

Superman For All Seasons by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

Superman: Man of Tomorrow by Robert Venditti and Paul Pelettier

Superman: Up in the Sky by Tom King and Andy Kubert

Superman: City of Tomorrow by Jeph Loeb and Joe Kelly

Superman: President Luthor

Adventures of Superman by Greg Rucka

Superman: Up, Up and Away by Geoff Johns, Kurt Busiek and Pete Woods

Superman: Last Son of Krypton by Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Adam Kubert

Superman: Camelot Falls by Kurt Busiek

Superman: Lois & Clark by Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks

Superman by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Action Comics by Dan Jurgens

Superman and Action Comics by Phillip Kennedy Johnson

Action Comics and All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

Also Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame by Neil Gaiman. I'm hesitant to recommend this as it's by Gaiman and Gaiman is... terrible! However, this is a unique comic storyline that I think is worth the read. Additionally: Absolute Superman by Jason Aaron, the Absolute series is a reboot so it's a good jumping off point for an "AU" of Superman if you will. Furthermore, all comic books are effectively fanfictions of themselves and in that end, if you end up hating one, just find a different writer and it's usually better or different enough that you forget about the other ones. DC doesn't give a fuck about continuity, so you can honestly just pick whichever storyline catches your fancy and move from there, which is what I recommend. However, as a longtime comics nerd-- read like ten issues from each era of comics. Superman first appears in Action Comics #1 (1938), the golden age. Then silver age (1956) and bronze age (1970), this will give you a good sampling of how Superman has evolved throughout the years and personally, the older comics are soooo goofy that it's just fun to read those old issues, especially in the 60's... that's the era where Clark Kent ate a bullet bc someone shot him and it fell in his salad and golden age Lois Lane is just... the best, she's a very unique superhero love interest.

Last rec:

Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2022)

[wanderingmind867]

I've seen posts on here where people talk about that League of Comic Geeks website. Namely, I've seen people use it to find their most read comic book characters. I kind of want to know if it can perform that feature for me, but I have questions.

Is it free to get the website to perform that service? I mean...I know I have to create an account, but is that one of the features you have to pay to access even after that? Because if so, forget it. I don't need to know that information that badly. That's my main question, because I think my comic book hyperfixation is slowly ending. But before it ends, it would be neat to have statistics written out to show what I've done in my year or two of reading comics. It's really the only thing I'd want to use that website for, so I'd probably create an account I'd barely ever touch.

But I'm a paranoid person who isn't very adventurous, so I had to ask if it was safe to consider all of this. If my questions get sufficient answers, I might be open to considering it. I might still tell my dad about this eventually, of course. But I just wanted to write this down before me and my dad have to leave for College at noon. I'm still super annoyed we have to leave at noon and be out til four, but I have a new post queued to be released in a few minutes that should address all that.

[chordsykat]

Alright so, more than anything else I get questions about comic books. That's all-inclusive, mind you... From writing them to drawing them, getting work doing them, and all points in between. I don't know if I could ever explain all of that in a single post but figured I could at least show you all what I'm doing currently... which is putting together a submission packet for a publisher.

My way of doing things in 2022 are a mix between digital and traditional methods. I started this process by drawing very rough full-page layouts in Photoshop. Actually, that’s a lie. I started this process by looking up the publisher’s submission guidelines and finding out how many pages they want (usually no more than 5), what format, and any restrictions or special requests that come with submitting artwork to them.

And believe me, when I say I drew the first parts rough, we're not just talking ball and stick rough, but blob, scribble, and what-the-hell-was-i-drawing-here rough. What you see in the images above came after about three layers of fine-tuning. Now, I wanna say something about the comic page, itself here, and it’s very important... The temptation to take things panel-by-panel is gonna be huge, buuuut if you're an artist drawing in comic book format, especially if your end product will be printed as an actual book, you gotta keep one thing in mind:

The page, and any page opposite it, should be treated as one whole piece of art.

Yes, the compositions on each individual panel can matter and need to be considered as you go about laying out your art... but the whole of the comic page is your first concern.

That means changing up camera angles, the size of your figures, and how much or how little background will be seen, etc. are not only paramount to the success of how each panel reads, but the page as a whole. Too -- you’re going to have to keep things like margins, gutters, safe areas and where text boxes and word ballons will fit, in mind. I'll get into more detail about all that in future posts, I’m sure... But for now, here's what my process has been once I finally had digital "breakdowns" of the art and how it would all lay out on a page.

My first stop was the UPS Store, to get some 11"x17" prints of my digital stuff, so it could be transferred onto comic board bristol (100lb. smooth bristol -- sometimes called cold-press board)

Using graphite, I coat the whole back-side of the page with scribbles. You can also use carbon paper, but if you can't find it or it's otherwise cost-prohibitive, just do the scribble method. I find things transfer about the same, if not a bit lighter when using graphite, and I tend to prefer the lines from my breakdowns be lighter at this point, anyway...

Next step is to line the prints up, cabon-side down, onto the bristol. I tape the paper in corners where there is no art needing traced with a little double-sided tape. Then, using my graphite pencil, I pain-in-the-buttingly go over each line to transfer it onto the comic board. I also trace the corners of my panels... I don't trace the whole edge since I'll be using a ruler to get those right on the final art, and really just need guidelines at this point.

Once EVERY DAMN LINE is traced... You get a light transfer to work your final lines off of. Buuuut we're not quite done yet. Grab your work-pencil (I have been a fan of the good ol’ Staedtler Mars pencils with 0.5 lead since the dawn of time), graphite, gum eraser and fine-point eraser, because we’re going to be doing some light detail work on those breakdowns.

The final phase of this process is to go in and lightly re-draw the transferred breakdown lines. try to keep things light as you work. Smudges are the bane of a penciller’s existence and I sometimes work with a sheet of paper under my palm as I begin to work on the bristol, to keep things from smearing around. Once I’ve got my lines covered to a point that I could work off of them without looking at my digital copies to figure out what the heck I was even drawing, the page is ready for the final pencils.

If I was doing the inking for these pages, and (perhaps most importantly) I had an editor who trusted me, I might even be bold enough as to go in and start doing that, to save time. But a pencilling portfolio is hardly the place to show off my inking abilities, so we’ll leave the process right here, for now. 

Join me next time as I do finished pencil work on these gargs!

[owltypical]

i have very strong feelings about superman because when he’s written properly, he’s a good boy with a good heart who was raised well and tires to put legitimate good into the world through love and compassion and understanding, an actual hero worth looking up to, but people always either whine about him being a ‘boy scout’ or try to make him edgy and weird and destructive, with both of these sides completely missing the point

hollywood in particular has been really bad about it post-reeves and post-dcau, their superman films are all about making him isolated and alien and knocking down tons of buildings with no regard for human life, like buddy did you even read a single comic before this

[twilightfanfictionreader]

Have y'all seen Kellan Lutz and Jackson Rathbone are in a superhero show on Netflix??? It's called Guardians of Justice, and it very clearly mimics DC comics staple characters but it's trippy af

[netflixandtchalla]

Now reading: "Back to Africa" fron Hudlin's run of Black Panther. T'Challa and Killmonger fighting in the streets like they always do smh (T'challa's medieval looking suit is A++++ btw)

There are also mutant monkey geniuses involved somehow and I - ok.

[baradorable]

So is Jason Aaron not aware that he’s written Robbie completely out of character? Does he not care, or is he actively trying to sabotage him?