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Draw! #16 Fall 2008 (magazine review).

As you should spot from the cover of Draw! # 16, the main comicbook artist interviewed is Howard Chaykin, giving a bit of his history, his apprenticeship with four significant key artists and showing how he draws. His layouts are literally stick figures and he confessed that he relies on the inking stage to sort out the details. Pondering on the latter, I suspect that although he does this to avoid duplicating the work, it does explain some elements of stiffness in his figurework and facial expressions.

I was less surprised on his reliance on marker pens used for inking although surprised he hadn’t discovered some of the oriental brush marker pens that gave variable lines. I do think that Chaykin’s appeal is more to the fact that he’s a stylist more than an artist and can see how this works for many people and helped him get jobs in other mediums. Oh, keep an eye on the small print when it directs you to the colour section for completion.

From a cartoonist pov, people in America might have come across Canadian Jay Stephens more so than we people in the UK. From his extended interview, his various creations include ‘The Secret Saturdays’, ‘Land Of Nod’, ‘Atomic City’ and ‘Tutenstein’. It’s rather interesting contrasting ambitions as a comicbook artist to cartoonist, let alone getting a career in it and switching to animation where he made his mark.

Interesting, for a change, in ‘Comic Art Book Camp’, Mike Manley and Bret Blevins differ in their views on using photo-reference in art. Although this was written 12 years back, I do think modern artists don’t rely on building a photo morgue from magazine sources anymore but googling a topic. As the search engine only presents a limited choice of photos this must risk too much duplication. Oddly, both of them give good reasons in terms of accuracy and detail against deadline. Equally, I could also argue only detail fanatics would worry about the make of a car as opposed to showing a car capable of speed.

Although there is little more than a couple large interviews in this particular issue, there is plenty in here that should make you want to have a look at this early issue of ‘Draw!’. Read and learn.

GF Willmetts

November 2020

(pub: TwoMorrows Publishing. 82 page illustrated magazine. Price: $ 6.95 (US). ISSN: 1932-6882. Direct from them, you can get it for $ 6.95 (US))

check out websites: www.TwoMorrows.com, http://www.draw-magazine.blogspot.comand www.penciltopencil.com and https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_59&products_id=653

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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