G A N Z E E R . T O D A Y

I've never cared much for the Fantastic Four. But you have to understand; my formative comix-reading years were the 90's. I started off by reading my older brother's comix, which was mostly stuff from 80's, and before I could totally comprehend much of the dialogue, it was mostly the pictures I was reading. And y'know, compared to 80's X-Men or Ghost Rider or Firestorm... the Fantastic Four just looked a little... meek.

I'm a big believer in seeking out the influences of your influencers though, and both Alan Moore and Warren Ellis have—on more than one occasion—raved about the effect early Fantastic Four had on them (and on the medium as a whole really). So, upon coming across a discounted copy of ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR, VOL. 1, I snatched it up and read the entire thing during my recent time off in Mexico. And friends, let me tell you... them eccentric Englishmen did not lie.

I could not for the life of me put the book down, and just devoured one adventure after the other. It's obviously goofy as hell, but also... wild? I mean, some of the ideas in there are still just crazy imaginative even by today's standards. The complete lack of inhibition is awfully infectious! There's a scene where Doctor Doom pulls the Four's tower out into space using a magnetic apparatus! And later you have the Submariner hopping between speeding asteroids to make it to Doom's spaceshuttle! Let me say that again: The Submariner (deep sea prince) hopping on asteroids in space!

But the purpose of this post isn't to sing the praises of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four. Too many people have done that already, I'm just [super] late to the party.

One of the things I'm concerned with is devising methods to make comix at great speed. And Jack Kirby isn't only the king of comix, but you can also count him as king of the 1000mph club (before there was ever a 1000mph club). It is said that he did about 5-6 pages a day in the 60's. He slowed down a little in the 1970's during his stint at DC, churning out something like 15-20 pages a week (which is still a whole a lot!). If I could sustain an output of half that number per week, I would be so very, very proud of myself. And so it only made sense to carefully study the king's panels and see if there was a code to be cracked. One thing I noticed is that the Kirby reused a lot of the same (or close to the same) panel compositions and figure poses, often within the same issue, multiple times! Here's a rundown of some of the ones I picked up on.

Jack Kirby's Go-To Panel Compositions:

1) Crowd (foreground) pointing at something/someone in background.

2) Figure (background) pointing at something/someone in foreground (or off panel).

3) Close on hand (foreground) pointing at something/someone in background.

(The last one isn't pointing, and it's from late stage Kirby's SPIRIT WORLD, but it operates on the same basis.)

4) Close on reacting faces (and fit a hand in there).

(Last example from late stage Kirby's SPIRIT WORLD.)

5) Figure running towards reader.

(Last example from late stage Kirby's SPIRIT WORLD.)

6) Full figure running in profile.

7) Medium on character in foreground, with full figure(s) in background.

8) Back head in foreground, medium(ish) character(s) in background.

(Last example from late stage Kirby's SPIRIT WORLD.)

9) Close on hand holding something.

(Last two examples from late stage Kirby's SPIRIT WORLD.)

10) Full figure's rearside in foreground, striking or being struck by something/someone in background.

(Last image from from late stage Kirby's SPIRIT WORLD.)

It's likely that every speedster has their key go-to panels that help them burn through pages without having to spend too much time overthinking things. Wally Wood had his notorious 22 Panels That Always Work, for example.

I'm lead to believe that most comix artists today don't necessarily employ such techniques, but most comix artists today lead a miserable existence and/or collapse on a regular basis.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to go back to basics and pick up a thing or two from the oldschool masters who built the foundations of the entire medium to begin with.

Important to note, of course, is that Kirby neither inked nor lettered his own work. Still, that doesn't take away from the achievement of 15+ pages of strictly pencils on a weekly basis.

If one inks and letters their own work, but wants a little exercise in Kirbyism, perhaps go a few weeks doing only pencils with the goal of trying to achieve that same benchmark in a comfortable enough fashion. Once achieved, then you can get to inking and lettering, see how long those tasks take, and then include that in your calculations of how long a page takes. If one can make it anywhere close to 6 pages a week, fully inked and lettered? Well damn, that would be one hell of an achievement, wouldn't it?

And hey, no harm in eventually outsourcing those tasks to collaborators you can trust and rely on.

(This, by the way, is all addressed to myself more than anyone.)

#ComixEngine

Found myself creating an alternate version of yesterday's piece today.

My RSS fetcher (Newsflow) was overflowing with too many unread posts (600+), so I spent a bit of the morning skimming through 100+ posts until I decided it's okay to obliterate all the rest and start fresh. Every once in a while I get into the habit of developing The Fear [of missing out], but then remind myself that it's okay to not keep up with all the things and just limit to the input my lifestyle's bandwidth can handle. Just as we gotta be realistic about our output, it's not a bad idea to be realistic about our input (and hey, maybe that'll give us more time for more output 😁). Removed a few feeds and unsubscribed from a few newsletters to bring it down to a manageable input flow.

Today is farmshare day where we pick up a box of fresh veg before venturing to the supermarket for kitchen staples. Papertowels and handsoap were still nowhere to be found last week.

There should be enough time to fiddle with a TSG page which I estimate will be finished by tomorrow.

It is a steamy 29C/85F today and very oppressively humid. Inbox down to 2, iced coffee keeping my brain in operation. No coconut oil in this one (it would solidify). Instead, a spoonful of coconut sugar, which I'm told is even healthier than the raw turbinado stuff.

#Journal #Work

In my youth, I used to frequent Cairo's annual book fair, part of which included an exhaustively large open air used-book market called Azbakeya (named after the original location where many of these vendors sell year round).

(Photo via Almasry Alyoum)

The fair gets around 2 million visitors, and one of the biggest attractors is Azbakeya because it's where you can get a lot of books (and magazines and other printed ephemera) for very little money, be it local printed matter or international. It's where I scored many an English-language paperback, vintage Egyptian film posters, obscure publications dating back to the 1920s, slick European design magazines, and also... comix.

But because it's a labyrinth of hundreds of booksellers with hundreds of thousands of people going through their largely unorganized wares at any given minute, you can imagine that going through the stuff to find what you want is, uh, challenging. Knowing that results in a lot of the sellers resorting to shouting, announcing what it is they're selling to the swarms of eager bibliophiles who can hardly see anything because of all the crowding. And this goes on nonstop throughout the day without pause or rest. Of course, with hundreds of sellers shouting over one another, its still hard to hear anything, but somewhere in the frenzied noise of book types and special deals I would be able to make out the singular howl of someone shouting “comix begneih, comix begneih!” (comix for a pound), my annual beacon of joy.

I loved that he used the term “comix” and not the proper Arabic terminology “kesas mosawara” (pictured stories). And in conversing with him, he would say “comix” whether its in reference to multiple comicbooks or a single one (“This comix is brand new.”). In his usage, comix isn't a plural of another word (comic), its entirely its own word that specifically applies to this medium of pictured stories. It's almost as if comix were a material, like wood or metal. It doesn't matter if it's a lot of metal or a little bit of metal, it's all still metal.

That's what “comix” signifies to me. It's the medium. It doesn't matter if it's a single page, a 22 page floppy, or 400 page hardback. It doesn't matter whether it's independent or corporately produced, whether it's superheroes, romance, or memoir, whether its digital or printed. It's all, in essence, the same “material”; it's all: comix.

#ComixEngine

What can I say? I've never been particularly good at escapism.

This is one of those things that came to me and I just had to immediately get out of my system in absolute heat.

Available from Garage.Ganzeer, by the way. Limited to 100.

#work

Just realized I never shared this one here.

As I type this, it is 4:40 am. I've been up since 2:30 am after having only gotten a couple hours sleep. Mind ablaze but leading nowhere.

Goodbye, Monday.

#Journal #sketchbook

A 90-page publication, 3 times a year is still a little too ambitious, I think. Unless the rate of release is significantly slower than the rate of production, one is prone to screwing themself over.

Paradoxically, the rate of release can't be too slow for a reader's ability to maintain interest (a trap I fell into with THE SOLAR GRID, which very quickly went from bi-monthly to embarrassingly irregular).

I'm also interested in a publication that can include many or most of my other interests and not just comix.

I think one page of comix a week is a reasonable release rate. I mean, there're a couple instances when I've done 8 pages in a single day, but if you count on that as a regular rate of production, you risk terrible burnout.

I think one of the mistakes I made going into THE SOLAR GRID was not having a fixed page-limit per chapter while assuming I could maintain a fixed release schedule. That just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Add to that that financially speaking it was hardly bringing in basic rent expenses. Which meant there was no way I couldn't take on additional work to survive. An obvious recipe for disaster.

Back to sustainable formats though:

So, one page a week is a totally reasonable goal I think. Especially if you're writing, drawing, inking, lettering and doing all the things. If there is the occasional week where you crank out more pages? Well great, you're ahead of schedule.

Which means a monthly release of 4 lousy pages. Not a lot.

Obviously not worth printing, so we're talking digital releases here. A reasonable price point in my mind you can charge anyone for a PDF is $1, because it has to be competitive with what you can get in print. Of course new print comicbooks can get pricey, up to $4, but there's always the $1 bin full of old, unorganized comicbooks. Perhaps not fair to put those in the same category as new comix, but y'know what? It's still a print publication containing 20ish pages of comix. If as a digital publication (containing a much lower page count no less) you can't compete with that... then it doesn't seem like a very lucrative product to me.

Now, a 4-page PDF for $1 still comes off as overpriced to me. And therein comes the other things I can produce that aren't comix. A short 1000-wordish prose story per month is very doable. Laying that out in a PDF, along with an illustration, will probably take up around 4ish pages. Probably enough time in the month to fit in a short essay, say 2 pages worth. Add cover art and whatnot and that's pretty much all that ought to be [reasonably] done within a single month.

10 pages + Cover art, comprised of: – 4 pages of comix – 4 pages of prose fiction – 2 pages of essay

For $1.

Now, unless you have a sustained readership of at least three to four thousand, you're screwed because chances are you won't have a whole lot of time in the month for side gigs.

On the upside though, it would result in a sustained output of a 120-page annual publication—which isn't too too bad, is it?

#ComixEngine

Wife walked in and saw this on my desk and her face was overtaken by horror. IT'S FOR MY COMIX, I shouted, I'M NOT CRAZY!

In the end, I'm opting to go with the smaller, typed out text.

Started painting future child's room yesterday, and tidied up a bit around the office, but also made the time to read a little bit. It was good to step away from the drawing table. But with that comes a different perspective and thoughts on “the bigger picture.”

Friends in New York are either foraging for edible greens in what little shrubbery the city exhibits or—for those who could afford it—have fled out to the countryside.

Things aren't nearly as bad in Houston, but the situation is still dire as it is globally, and as I paint future child's room I find myself thinking about the future in ways I never have before.

#journal

I lied; I couldn't let it go. Cut out the two figures that were bothering me the most and I think the page is now much better. Will probably redraw them and paste directly onto the original pages (because I hate having sub-par originals).

Tried the thing I wanted to do with the gutters and I think it works (Although, what is included right now is just some preliminary text for a quick mockup, just to get a sense of the look of the thing). You get a real train-of-thought vibe, like this character's mind is really at work and he just can't shut it off.

My initial idea was to have it all handwritten instead of typed, like such:

Looking at both of them now though, I can't quite decide which one I like better.

#Work #TheSolarGrid #MakingComix

Not the best to be honest, but it's one page in a 400+ page book, so I may have to learn to live with it.

There's an exhausting idea I'd like to try out with the gutters, but that may have to wait till Monday. A bunch of house-maintenance stuff to do this weekend.

#Work #TheSolarGrid #MakingComix

Coffee is shaken, not stirred. That's what creates the foamy top, together with a tablespoon of coconut oil and a dash of goat's milk (I used to take my coffee extra sweet for years, but I've been off sugar for two months now and the coconut oil—although nowhere nearly as sweet as sugar—cuts through the bitterness some).

It's time to ink today. For which I'll be using a series 795 Round Loew-Cornell #2 brush for the first time (I usually use Trekell's Kolinsky Sable Round 7000 series in a size #3 for brush work, Zebra's G nib for, uh, nib work, and Staedtler pigment liners—mostly 0.3 and 0.1—for straightforward “cleanline” styles).

(Which should not be confused with the European “Ligne Claire” approach, which still offers a degree of line-weight variation. That's what the Loew-Cornell is for, it's what Chris Ware uses. The Kolinsky #3 is what Eisner used, and offers thicker strokes. G Nibs are used by Naoki Urasawa (I think?), and pigment liners are used by Mignola.)

Excited to see what the Loew-Cornell will do.

#Work #Journal #TheSolarGrid #MakingComix