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!