GREETINGS DIESELFUNKATEERS! BLACK HISTORY MONTH Begins with a BANG! Author, illustrator, and animator Tim Fielder, lands on…
Tim will signing copies of MATTY’S ROCKET BOOK ONE, The Matty’s Rocket 2018 Calendar, and Posters!
Photo Courtesy of Ed Marshal Photography
BRIC Radio has the full episode via SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/112bk/011018bk @SchomburgCenter
Greetings Dieselfunkateers! The Dieselfunk Train keeps on a-chuggin along ladies and gentlemen. Media work is in FULL SWING as we approach The 2018 Schomburg Black Comic Book Day.
TOMORROW MORNING January 9th 6-8 AM The Dieselfunk Crew will be interviewed on:
Pacifica Radio is known for doing cutting edge content showcasing the progressive ideals inherent in intellectual and progressive thought. Tomorrow morning, I, Tim Fielder, will be interviewed on WBAI about all things Matty’s Rocket. TUNE IN!!!!
and btw, FIGHT!
Greetings Dieselfunkateers! The Schomburg Black Comic Book Day happens this coming weekend. Part of life is a continual assessment of one’s goals. We rate, compare, retool, and strategize steps based upon our past , present and future. Our present thought, based upon past experience: No company can survive without content in the present and future. Thusly, right out the gate, Dieselfunk Studios is committed to DELIVERING PRODUCT, no matter how large or small.
ANNOUNCING: Matty’s Rocket 2018 Art Calendar. Keep your daily and monthly schedule while viewing wonderfully painted spaceships and world building to enjoy along the way. Premiering at The 2018 Schomburg Black Comic Book Day January 12-13th.
I’ve always loved the fully painted Calendars of the early to mid 20th Century. Whether the subjects ranged from naval, aeronautics, or Santa drinking a coke, I respect the craft and detail that each artist put into the work. Further, such a product extends the world-building of the primary Matty’s Rocket Story.
Consider the month of January: Matty pilots her Strato-capsule into Earth Orbit.
Or perhaps, June: Duke, the famed Jazz composer, comes to the Harlem Sector’s Apollo Pavilion. What sort of ride would Duke fly in look like? (Closeup below) Check out the Matty’s Rocket 2018 Calendar to see. 
Order:
Matty’s Rocket 2018 Art Calendar HEREhttp://dieselfunkstore.com/product/mattys-rocket-2018-calendar/
Matty’s Rocket: Book One HERE
Back to It!
Greetings Dieselfunkateers! LIGHTS, CAMERA, REFERENCE! Lighting in film and videogames is essential to storytelling. Meaning it’s a requirement for entry. But in comics, lighting is often a victim of technical limitations and time. Of course, masters like Eisner, Steranko, Gulacy, and Miller, have used cinematic techniques that derive from film. Lighting, what you can see and what you cannot, is all about communication.
Can you imagine Citizen Kane without the cinematography of Greg Toland?
Or more recently, Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Arrival’ would not have worked without Bradford Young’s lensing (Hey, cat’s on Ron Howard’s ‘Solo: A Starwars Story so don’t sleep on em).
This even extends to videogames. Take for instance the cut scenes from the Starwars: OLD REPUBLIC games. The level of detail, and to be frank complexity of story, largely dwarf the actual movies.
But for the monthly comics schedule deep lighting is a difficult task to do. Which is why I have a preference for the more methodical intricacy of Graphic novels. Take the beautiful example of Canales and Guarnido’s ‘Blacksad’.
Comics and graphic novels are all sequential art of course and, oddly enough, it’s where all of the mediums of animation, storyboarding and film meet. In fact, I’ve had film students that have limited drawing skills, who refuse to believe a rough stick figure or crude image can reveal all sorts of dramatic information. In the climax of those lessons, I take their “crude” drawings and add simple coloring overlays to demonstrate that any image is capable of evoking emotion through light. Photoshop MAGIC Baby!
ARTISTS!, Don’t let ANYONE tell you your work has no value or style, regardless of polish or crudeness. The fact is, light can illuminate even the most mundane of drawing.
Furthermore, I cannot state the importance that reference has played in my work as of late. This can be in the form of a photo shoot, images from the internet, or even stills from advertisements and film stills. You see a cool lighting scheme in a photo, steal…err, USE it. Also, consider using newer online tools that are utilized by photographers to bring dramatic narratives to form. I’ll speak on those tools in the future.
I try my best to take advantage of light. YOU should too.
Check out Matty’s Rocket here
Greetings Dieselfunkateers! I hope your holiday season is off to a bang. Work is still ongoing throughout the holidays in the lab. There’s been some quite fascinating discussion online regarding the state of black comics and how best to market and sell them. All very helpful and useful ideas. In the discussion, it occurred to me that all cartoonists of color could in theory hack the marketing of the upcoming Schomburg Black Comic Book Day and Black Panther Movie to spread awareness about how individual works and the body of work in general. Thusly, I wanted take a moment to formally send out a notice for the following hashtag phrase:
“ #blackpantherblackcomix Checkout www.yoururl.com @SchomburgCenter #Blackcomicbookday#ipfreeforall Won’thurt2tryit & other books:-) “
So for me this post would go:
blackpantherblackcomix Checkout www.dieselfunk.com @SchomburgCenter #Blackcomicbookday #ipfreeforall Won’thurt2tryit & other books:-)
Feel FREE to use it to your hearts content. Back to it.
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