Sketch Fridays #80 – Darkhawk

Oct16
by on 16 October 2020
Sketch Fridays #80 – Darkhawk

This was drawn for my good friend, Kyrun Silva, of Taurus Comics, as part of his preorder of Long John, Volume 4 (every book order from the store comes with a free Long John sketch). Normally, I draw a Long John sketch, but knowing Kyrun––and his love for this ’90s Marvel Comics character, Darkhawk.

I was only marginally familiar with the character, seeing ads for his book in the pages of the X-Men comics I read, but beyond knowing his name and what he looked like, I was completely oblivious. So, drawing this was a lot of fun to get caught up in abbreviated time through image searches and Wikipedia articles.

Cover to Darkhawk #22 (1992). Art by Mike Manley. In an episode of the podcast, Con Artists, Kyrun told me this was his favorite cover from the Darkhawk series. Source: Marvel Comics.

Darkhawk is definitely a character that could only come from the ’90s in terms of design––edgy, the word “dark” in his name, claws, big shoulder pads, gritty action, daddy issues––but what’s interesting is that it was a character that burst from the Marvel bullpen like Athena from the head of Zeus: fully formed and ready for action. A lot of popular modern characters debuted in the pages of popular books and, if readers demanded it, they would be given the chance to break out into their own series. This was the case with characters like Wolverine, Deadpool, Punisher, and Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel. Darkhawk, however, debuted in the first issue of his own series.

I’m not sure of his current status in the Marvel continuity, but drawing this snapshot from the ’90s when I was deep in my comics fandom was a fun, nostalgic experience, and I think that energy came through in the final drawing.

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Sketch Fridays #79 – End of the Line

Oct09
by on 9 October 2020
Sketch Fridays #79 – End of the Line

This week, I’m taking a bit of a mulligan on creative endeavors because the day job has been incredibly busy, taxing, and stressful.

To combat that, I turned to another sketch idea that happened during my birthday weekend at the beginning of September.

The original quick brush sketch I made observing the actual event while at the beach.

As with the last birthday weekend sketch depicting our dog, Rusty, barking his brains out at an unaffected seagull, this scene was also something witnessed that made me laugh. Usually beaches are playgrounds for dogs, racing to catch the crashing waves and accost the oblivious seagulls. Behind them walks the owners, catching a blissful moment when they don’t have to entertain their dog––instead, they can just slowly walk along the shore, dodging incoming tides and shaking the sand from their shoes.

Imagine my surprise when I basically saw the wholly opposite relationship when we ambled down to a local beach during our getaway, where the gentleman was clearly more excited to be at the beach while his little dog, sending not-so-subtle hints, was ready to get back to a couch and reality tv.

An ink sketch of the beach view from our hotel room.

With the previous birthday weekend sketch, I captured a moment from the relaxing getaway in a style that I could only approach digitally, using the iPad Pro and the art app, Procreate. Since I was returning to the well, so to speak, I figured I’d give that pseudo-painterly style another go, and I’m glad I did.

I consider it less a digital painting and more of a digital conté crayon sketch, either way, it’s another example of breaking the mold of pencils––>inks––>colors and kind of going straight from sketch to colors. It flexes a different muscle and, I’ll admit, what it lacks in polish it makes up for in fun and experience.

The sped-up process video of this sketch being drawn in Procreate
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Sketch Fridays #78 – Blacksad

Oct02
by on 2 October 2020
Sketch Fridays #78 – Blacksad, created by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido

Blacksad was a comic I pined for.

It wasn’t out of reach for cost or even low print runs. The fact was that, until relatively recently, it was a European comic––made by Spanish creators Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist)––about anthropomorphic animals in a hard-boiled post-World War II New York City, tackling the issues of murder, extortion, racism, and drug use head-on. All while told in beautiful pen, ink, and watercolor pages that looked like a strange, alternate reality Disney animated film.

I saw the comic in low resolution images online in the early 2000s, and hungrily harvested the jpgs from web searches. It wasn’t until 2010 when an official English translation was published by Dark Horse Comics, collecting the first three stories in one bundle, which I preordered as soon as I heard about it. Receiving it––and reading it––was a bit like finding a buried treasure. Unlike the hollow greed associated with those stories, Blacksad was everything I hoped it would be.

Since then, two more stories have come out––and the stories have wonderful names dripping with noir flair such as “A Silent Hell” and “Somewhere in the Shadows”––and I pick them up as soon as they hit shelves because it’s a comic that, for me, ticks all the boxes.

The beauty of Blacksad is that it blends cartoony stylings with technical prowess and mature storytelling to create something truly unique. Art by Juanjo Guarnido, from Blacksad, “Somewhere in the Shadows” by Díaz Canales and Guarnido. Source: Dark Horse Comics.

It’s a comic of “despites”––despite being populated by anthropomorphized animals, Blacksad is a hard-boiled noir story. Despite being a hard-boiled noir story, it’s not afraid of taking place during the day, with low contrast lighting and saturated colors. Despite the cartoony designs, the book takes the characters very seriously and the technical ability of artist Juanjo Guarnido is astounding and masterful (Guarnido worked as an animator for Disney), giving nuanced life to these talking cats, weasels, and bears. Despite being a series of seemingly cliche noir stories, the characters have surprising depth and the narratives are motivated by serious and pertinent, modern themes. Because of all of that, I love it. (Honestly, for the closest cinematic version we have so far, check out Disney’s Zootopia; it’s like Blacksad but without the violence or nudity.)

Reading Blacksad in a sense gave me permission––along with Darwyn Cooke’s Parker series––to tell serious, sober stories with a cartoony style. One of the hesitations I had approaching Long John was that I worried people wouldn’t want to read a serious story with such stylized designs. Reading books like Blacksad, however, I learned that if people didn’t like it, that’s too bad for them because they’re missing out.

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