Late last year, our retro sci-fi epic “U.F.O.” was nominated for Best Webcomic by The Project Fanboy Awards. Though sadly we didn’t take home top prize (presented at MegaCon in Orlando), we were frankly tickled pink to be considered one of the nine best comics on the web for 2009. …READ MORE »

This is the first in an irregular series of reviews I’ll be writing on the many comics instructional books available, as well as other instructional books that might be of relevance to aspiring comics creators.

And believe me, there are a lot of them out there.

Since I’ve already made a thorough study of these books, my reasoning here is why should you have to sift through them all when I already have. Thus, I’ll recommend those you should definitely check out, those you can take or leave, and those you won’t miss by missing.

So without further ado, let’s begin.

THE ART OF COMIC BOOK
INKING, VOL. 2
by Gary Martin

This is the second volume in a nice little series (if two books can be said to constitute a series) called The Art of Comic Book Inking, assembled by veteran comics inker Gary Martin and published by Dark Horse Comics. As with the first volume, this book brings together a fine group of professional comics inkers and shows you examples of their inks over the same penciled pages. Four penciled pages are each inked by four different inkers, for a total of sixteen samples. The author inks an example of each penciled page, so we have the work of thirteen inkers in all.

The book is broken down into four sections, one for each of the different penciled pages. The original pencils are shown first, followed by the various inked pages which illustrate how the different inkers approach the same pencils. Each inker also includes a page of text discussing the materials they used, their approach to inking that particular page, and thoughts about inking in general, working with pencilers, and so on.

As instructive as this is, this volume is on the whole less enlightening than the first. The artists, both pencilers and inkers, are in general lesser known than in the first volume–and sometimes for good reason. The penciled pages vary widely in style and quality, which I think is the point: to show the range of possibilities a professional inker may be faced with when accepting an inking assignment. However, the weakness of some of the pencils and the occasional mismatch in styles between pencilers and inkers renders this volume less instuctive overall than the first volume of the series.

Next Wednesday: I’ll continue the review in: The Art of Comic Book Inking, Vol 2, part 2!

THE ART OF COMIC BOOK
INKING, VOL. 2 pt 2

Last week I began the first in an irregular series of reviews I’ll be writing on selected comics and other instructional books that might be of relevance to aspiring comics creators, beginning with The Art of Comic Book Inking, Vol. 2 by Gary Martin. To read Part 1 of the review, go here.

As I mentioned last week, the book is divided into four sections. In the first section, the illustrative Brent Anderson makes generous use of soft shading in the pencils he provides for inkers Gary Martin, Steve Leialoha, Mike Royer, and Anderson himself, giving the inkers a nice dilemma: how to translate those lush grays into black ink. The varied solutions arrived at include feathering, hatching, dry brush, and zip-a-tone and may well be the most instructive instances in the whole book of exactly what an inker can bring to a project.

Somewhat less instructive are the inks in the next section by Martin, Alex Garner, Michael Blair, and Rachel Dodson over the pencils of Terry Dodson. Dodson’s pencils appear influenced by Adam Hughes–supple figures surrounded by big outlines with relatively little detail inside. Backgrounds are starkly linear and feature large areas of black. Put together, the pencils provide fewer decisions in interepreting the image than with Anderson’s, so the inkers tend to focus more on line weights for the figures and spotting blacks in the backgrounds.

Probably least instructive are the inks by Martin, Karl Kesel, Hilary Barta, and Randy Green over Green’s pencils. The pencils are spare, with heavily outlined figures over backgrounds that are mostly flat silhouettes. There’s just not a whole lot here for the inkers to work with, so the results end up looking pretty much the same between inkers. In their notes, the inkers sense this and dutifully blame themselves, but in this case it’s unquestionably the pencils.

Finally, over the Manga-influenced pencils of Adam Warren we see the inks of Martin, Al Gordon, Randy Emberlin, and Warren himself. To ink Warren’s Manga figures is mostly a matter of choosing line weights, but where the inkers really show their stuff is in the handling of the dense backgrounds and textures, particularly a leather jacket. The solutions are strikingly different and serve as a fine bookend to Martin’s introductory essay on cartoon inking and texture inking, both of which come into play nicely in Warren’s pencils.

Next Wednesday: My wrap-up and conclusions in: The Art of Comic Book Inking, Vol 2, part 3!