Greetings Dieselfunkateers! Many years ago Jean Giraud (aka Moebius), and Alejandro Jodorowsky collaborated on an aborted DUNE movie. The story behind it ultimately produced the 2013 entertaining cautionary tale documentary, ‘Jodorowsky’s Dune”. But apparently the partnership would continue in the graphic novel series L’INCAL. One of the ground breaking characters created in the series was the ultimate warrior, METABARON. After the main L’INCAL story was told, Jodorowsky took it upon himself to continue the story of the Metabaron legacy. The artist chosen for that series was the great Juan Giménez, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Giménez’s art and mechanical style had a huge influence on my work over the decade.
I became aware that a book would be produced honoring Giménez’s life and work. Amazing artist, Miquel Montlló (of Starship Warship Jolly Roger fame) was gracious enough to put me in contact with comic historian, Emilio Gonzalo Mallo who was organizing the project. I was amazingly given the green light to produce an image and of course, The Metabaron came to mind.
It was my honor to be a part of the project which will be announced at a future date.
Greetings Dieselfunkateers! Just getting back in from our most recent stop on The #mattysrocketbooktour. Just before leaving, I was honored to be interviewed by the Legend, Calvin Reid, Senior News Editor ofPUBLISHERS WEEKLY. I was recently having a conversation with a colleague about how important Calvin’s work is with regards to the medium of comics and graphic novels. The medium has in this gentleman, an ambassador and town cryer; something every industry needs in order to survive. Everyone has that thing that they do well, do with passion, and would do for free. Calvin LOVES COMICS.
We talked about Matty’s Rocket, my process, Black Panther, Dieselfunk Studios, and our upcoming graphic novel, INFINITUM.
Calvin is like ‘The Shadow’ with that frikin ring. He turned it towards me and I suddenly got dizzy and had to follow his commands. Unwillingly!:-) I gave a scoop for MATTY’S ROCKET BOOK TWO!
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.
Greetings Dieselfunkateers!I was always a HUGE fan of Bande Dessinée, the name for Franco-Belgian comics.When Heavy Metal magazine hit, it completely changed my life. Stories like ‘The Airtight Garage,’ ‘The Long Tomorrow,’ and ‘Exterminator 17’ completely altered my life. It wouldn’t be for a few years till I became aware that Heavy Metal was merely the american offshoot of Metal Hurlant. This European publication was started by a group of hotshot fantasy illustrators and cartoonists.
Now take the fact that I lived in the middle of a Cotton Field reading this stuff was amazing…particularly for the fact that they didn’t sell comics in Clarksdale MS beyond 1978. At the very least, it definitely made me unpopular in school:-)
I always wanted to see people of color depicted in such fantasy and science fiction scenarios. In fact, there was one obscure Heavy Metal installment done by a man of color, Ed Davis’ ‘A World Apart: The Golden City.’
I LOVED…
Jean Giraud’s ‘ARZACH’
Enki Bilal’s, ‘THE WOMAN TRAP’
Phillipe Druillet’s ‘LONE SLOANE: DELIRIUS’,
and Richard Corben’s ‘Den’
Even still, I wanted to see more. Which was about the time I realized I’d have to do it myself. More on that later.
IF you always wanted to see Afrocentric and afrofuturistic comics done with the level of craft and adventure present in fully painted bande dessinée…
I became aware that a book would be produced honoring Giménez’s life and work. Amazing artist, Miquel Montlló (of Starship Warship Jolly Roger fame) was gracious enough to put me in contact with comic historian, Emilio Gonzalo Mallo who was organizing the project. I was amazingly given the green light to produce an image and of course, The Metabaron came to mind.
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