A Teen Ellis centerfold....
p.s. please share any suggestions, criticisms. etc. Ben, yr suggestions for "An Itch In Mind" have been implemented--thank you! Tom, yr spellchecks...still working on 'em...
Monday, September 29, 2014
Teen Ellis in "MAN-STANDING"
This is to be the centerfold of my in-progress comic book.
A Teen Ellis centerfold....
What an appropriate subject, too, 'cuz we're celebrating Ellis's GOOD NEWS tonight!! Congrats, my Oklahoma buddy!
p.s. please share any suggestions, criticisms. etc. Ben, yr suggestions for "An Itch In Mind" have been implemented--thank you! Tom, yr spellchecks...still working on 'em...
A Teen Ellis centerfold....
p.s. please share any suggestions, criticisms. etc. Ben, yr suggestions for "An Itch In Mind" have been implemented--thank you! Tom, yr spellchecks...still working on 'em...
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20 comments:
That parallel - story within the story is about as sophisticated as it gets. And great drawings.
You need to be "discovered" by Fantagraphics.
This is what Gary Groth lives for . Comics that aren't pedestrian. That have real big art goals.
Move back to Seattle.
Thanks, Elz!
Knock 'em dead today!!
p.s. it was Portland for me, not Seattle--love to live there one day!
You are all welcome up here, although I'll warn you that Fall has arrived here... the days are colder and wetter than just a week ago.
Nice work Marty! I love stories that can only be told in a comic format, and this stands among the best I've seen. And there's actually a story there, too. Seriously, this is a gem.
I was so tickled to hear that you implemented my suggestions that I tried and tried and tried to come up with something. So here's a reach, maybe --maybe second horizontal, change Teen Ellis's head position in the imaginary scenes (?)(But then again it parallels brooding Ellis, I don't know, nevermind). I like the second panel that although it is read left to right, the action is coming from back to front toward Ellis, like a first person shooter. Maybe (maybe) play with the size of the Robot and ship from sequence to sequence to emphasize that (?)
I like the heavy outline on the top of Teen Ellis' head. Make sure you keep it.
Now I have some suggestions for Peyton Manning on throwing that football thingy
I think the third panel is very Eisnerish.
Weird Marty. I've just recently decided I wanted to live in Portland instead of Seattle. Close to Waterfront park for my jogs and walks.
Ben is right. You're getting Eisner-esque. Need to get this book out. So the Davis train can really start to roll.
Rick, thank you so much for the kind words. I'm trying to keep it "comic-y"!!
Ben, I am so glad you're tickled by my use of y're suggestions--I really appreciate anyone taking time to look at work and make any sort of comment--but I especially appreciate the thoughtful (and useful) ones!
Funny story--took the files to the printer this a.m. bleary-eyed...realized as I left that I HAD NOT made the spelling corrections Mr. Tom Moon had pointed out ("dilema", etc.)--OOPS! Fixed the files and ran back, got them to let me update them...
Elz: Portland is great! Waterfront Park is great--and fun ped trails on the bridges to cross back and forth over the river. But the best is the huge Forest Park. Loved riding my bike over there. So shady under the towering pines. Always 5-10 degrees cooler than elsewhere in the summer.
Dude, I hope things went well today!
Absolutely terrific! Yes, the half-visible scenes of Teen Ellis fantasizing are wonderful. Just a thought, if only the robot or alien looked like Chick and Teen Ellis rescues Princess Jaynelle...?
Tommy: HA!
Oh, there is more coming in the Chick/Jaynelle/Teen Ellis triangle, just you wait!
And thank you for posting, Tom, and giving your thumbs up, b'cuz now I can rest easy...See, I had an alternate version of the strip with an extra though balloon for The Teen Ellis...he says to himself, "ARE YOU GONNA TAKE LIP--FROM THAT OL' RUMMY? BE A MAN!!" before he tells the guy "GO DRY UP!"
But I thought it was too "on the nose." Tho' it does reinforce the whole "Man-standing" theme/title....But if no one thinks this is too vague, then I'll keep it this way (I like the post-rant grrggle pause--tho' I have to redo all the bum's dialogue--make it sound more foreign, 'cuz of course he is Horst TenDraap, the fallen animator and erstwhile creator of Chubby Cheekers).
Ah, great idea the wino being the creator of Chubby Cheekers. Can't wait to read all this beginning to end.
It's great the way it is, but if you want to keep the whole focus of the strip on the "Be a man!" thing, it would be even better! A couple of little things you might consider, Teen Ellis's first three thought balloons could be more about him fantasizing about his heroic self, the super-Teen-Ellis who "doesn't take crap" from anybody. Teen Ellis does want to be a comic creator when he grows up, but for this strip he really wants to be an actual super-hero. And the bum's taunts could be about Teen Ellis just reading comics rather than wanting to write and draw them when he grows up. While it is natural that the washed up creator of Chubby Cheekers would rail against a kid's ambitions to be a comic artist, we don't have to go there yet.
Maybe rather than say " oh dry up!" To the bum, he could do something more directly drawn from the fantasy he's just been having, like strike a karate stance and yell "Cease your prattling base villain!"
"Cease your prattling base villain!"
This always happens. Tom Moon improves things too much and discourages your own talent.
Kidding Tom. Good suggestion. But Marty is the guy with the plan. He asked for it though. He asked for Moon's gravity of suggestion.
Tommy, that's a good suggestion...I'll have to mull that one over!
(I saw his fantasizing as a more absent-minded thing--didn't see him as removed from reality as, say, Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel. But maybe that's a better angle to take?)
"Moon's Gravity of Suggestion!"
!!!
Those suggestions certainly aren't necessarily the better path to take. The only reason I make them is that your comments seemed to indicate that you wanted that kind of "traditional" gag structure strengthened. You know, Chick taunts Teen Ellis about being a wimp and tells him that reading a comic book will teach him to be a man. Teen Ellis reads it and fantasizes about being manly. Then the bum tells Teen Ellis the exact opposite, that reading comics is for pantywaists (or some such taunt). Then the moment Teen Ellis tries to BE manly he gets scared away, end of gag, ha ha. There's that immediate, "Oh I get it" feeling. That's the plus. The minus is that it can also feel too "pat".
So maybe that's not what you really want at all. Maybe the storytelling style of Teen Ellis is not meant to be so hard-edged, since something is not sitting right with you about the "obvious gag" path.
That's the great thing about any art; always infinite solutions, right? Whenever we do a drawing there's that constant decision-making process, hmmm, should I strengthen this element and bring it into the foreground, or fade it out, push it into the background and make it more subtle? And the real right solution is the one that honors the artist or writer's intention.
As artists struggling to learn the art of storytelling, that's the constant question before us, "Now what exactly am I trying to say here?" Yes?
Horst TenDraap! Ha! Is that an homage to Doug TenNapel?
It's weird that tone is always going to be subjective. Someone thinks it's being played for laughs, someone else thinks it's a tragedy. I'm a big Donald Westlake fan. Just for some of his work. Especially series work like Parker and Dortmunder. Dortmunder (The Hot Rock) is especially hilarious.
But some of his work involves people giving in to the impulse to kill and try to profit from the killing. I find these especially grim and hard to take. I read one that I felt was too grim but also read a review- with the reviewer thinking the story and character were a laugh riot.
Story involved a guy killing people that were applicants to a job that he needed. He had it very scientifically worked out. And even if it sounds like that could be funny, it wasn't. To me.
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