A lot of people ask me, “Rick, just what is an ‘Agitainment’, anyway?” Well, I’ll tell you. Agitainment is part entertainment, part agitation. It’s revelry that shakes things up, that breaks a few rules, that does more than simply give a few moments’ diversion (though I hope it does that, too). In short, it’s entertainment that moves you. …READ MORE »
People sometimes ask me, “Rick, where do you get all your crazy story ideas from?” To be honest, most of the time I have no clue. Usually it’s a random confluence of events and impressions that come together without my knowledge until one day, BOOM!, a story concept just drops into my lap.
There are a few occasions, however, when I can pinpoint the exact moment a story came together and the inspirations that helped usher it along. “The Collector” is one such occasion. …READ MORE »
Last week, my account of the various inspirations for the story of “The Collector” ended with a teaser about a recent discovery that took the comic collecting world by storm.
The same week I read about the amazing discovery of the Edgar Church Collection (and if you missed last week’s soapbox, not to worry, you can read it all here), I found a newspaper article about another discovery, this time of over 11,000 high-grade Golden Age comics in a garage outside New York City. If the Church collection had been a find in 1977, some 40 years after the publication of the first comics in its collection, how much more so was the Davis Crippen ‘D’ Copy Collection discovered almost 30 years later! …READ MORE »
As I was collecting my thoughts for this, the final installment of the many inspirations for “The Collector”, I realized there was one inspiration from my childhood that had completely slipped my mind. In fact, I never would have remembered it if I hadn’t chanced to pick up a copy of Creepy: The Classic Years this past week. There, at the very end of that wonderful anthology, I found a story that I had much admired as a youngster and that had obviously left a lasting impression. …READ MORE »
HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
THE AGITAINMENT WAY!
The real-life saga of one man’s struggle against his art materials!
Now that I’ve got your attention, frantic reader, I want to talk to you about something that’s been on my mind lately: namely, what it takes to be a comic book artist. …READ MORE »
HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
INKING WITH A BRUSH pt 1
Continuing the real-life saga of one man’s struggle against his art materials!
Let’s face it, inking is hard. The thought of putting that first ink mark onto a clean white sheet of paper can be terrifying, even to an experienced artist. I mean, what if you make a mistake? There’s almost nothing so permanent as ink on paper. Pencil, you can erase; paint, you can cover over; charcoal, you can rub out. But ink? …READ MORE »
HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
INKING WITH A BRUSH pt 2
Continuing the real-life saga of one man’s struggle against his art materials!
For most of us, using a brush is just plain unnatural. We’ve all grown up with pencils and ball point pens, and frankly a brush just feels weird. When you push a pencil against paper, you can feel the paper pushing back (assuming you have a proper drawing surface underneath). The pressure tells you how hard to …READ MORE »
HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
INKING WITH A BRUSH pt 3
Continuing the real-life saga of one man’s struggle against his art materials!
Another difference between drawing with brushes and pencils is this: The harder you bear down on a pencil, the darker the line you get—while the thickness doesn’t change. With a brush, the harder you bear down, the thicker the line–but it’s always black! So the brush gives no control over …READ MORE »
HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
INKING WITH A BRUSH pt 4
Continuing the real-life saga of one man’s struggle against his art materials!
Let me back up a little and talk about the kind of brush to use for inking comics.
Unlike oil or watercolor painting where you use a variety of brushes on a single painting — from flat to round, large to small — on a comic book page you can do all your inking with a single brush. In fact I typically do. Which means choosing the appropriate brush is …READ MORE »