Sketch Fridays #10 – 1939 Batman

Dec11
by on 11 December 2015
Sketch Fridays #10 - 1939 Batman. Click to enlarge.

Sketch Fridays #10 – 1939 Batman. Click to enlarge.

For some reason––for no good reason––during the last few weeks, I have become enamored by the original costume Batman wore in his debut in 1939 in Detective Comics #27. It’s not that it’s particularly good––it’s not, by modern design standards (like I know anything about design, but that’s beside the point; purple gloves!)––but I am fascinated by the costume in the context of what Batman has become.

Batman's first appearance was weird.

Batman’s first appearance was weird.

I have the first two volumes of a series of releases called Batman Chronicles which aims to reprint every Batman story in order on newsprint in handy collections. How popular characters start out always fascinates me, and Batman is especially fascinating because he is an American institution at this point, along with Superman, to be honest (and maybe Spider-man). These are characters that exist beyond their copyright (not legally, but you know what I mean), becoming vernacular to an extent for, at least, three generations of Americans. Since the character made a big splash onto our culture pre-World War II, “Batman” has become a cultural reference point, something that “everybody” knows (again, at least in American culture) and can reference without being a nerd, dork, or geek. That all changes if you read the comics, but that’s a different topic.

As clunky as those first comics are, I really enjoy reading them. The art is crude and the creators don’t trust the audience. However, I have to step back and admit that, at the time of publication, “superhero” was a brand-new concept. Sure, reading Detective Comics #27 is nigh insulting today, but the tropes, expectations, and advancements had not yet taken place save for Superman.

Really weird, but entrancing.

Really weird, but entrancing.

So, I enjoy looking at that first costume and realizing that Bob Kane and Bill Finger had no idea what Batman would become. Hell, they had no idea who the character was; Bruce Wayne’s tragic origin wasn’t printed until over a year later.

This Batman––the one with the curved ears and purple gloves––cracked down on criminals both petty and organized. He was known to use a gun once in awhile. He really was initially presented as a hardboiled detective in boxing shorts and a cape. Batman appeared the same year as Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and was a decade after Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. It was hardboiled detective fiction plus pulp radio with a dash of Superman minus super-powers. In other words, debut Batman was a very strange creature.

When thinking about this week’s Sketch Friday, I made a point to remember that this early Batman had been on my mind a lot. I’m not really a superhero artist, and with the above sketch I think it shows even my subconscious doesn’t want me to be one––I’m sure I can draw better, but I try to draw these weekly images as quickly as possible––but I was trying to be as evocative and as pure to my own artistic roots as possible.

I first got into comic books in 1991 with issue number 1 of a rebooted, adjectiveless X-Men title with long time X-writer (heck, he’s the X-savior), Chris Claremont, and artistic wunderkind, Jim Lee, at the helm. Jim Lee became the artistic idol for me and I tried as hard as possible to draw like him for the next few years (and every year since then I have tried to draw less like him; not for a lack of respect or dislike of his style––he’s still as amazing as he ever was––but his influence was so palpable that everybody started drawing like him). He has had a really interesting creative career, starting at Marvel, leaving them to help start Image Comics with other disaffected artists, leaving Image (and selling his creative output from that venture) for DC Comics to becoming that company’s co-publisher.

My Jim Lee experience.

My Jim Lee experience.

When he started at DC, he was a superstar, so he naturally was given the flagship character and drew what has become a major story in Batman’s oeuvre. His style is melodramatic and highly rendered but still cartoony/comic book enough to be appreciated and different from today’s high-contrast, realistic tendencies (yes, I’m complaining). In the interest of curiosity, I looked around the internet wondering if Lee had drawn Batman in his original costume (with low expectations), but no results surfaced. So, with my diminished, non-comic booky style, I felt I needed to meld the two.

One example of many displaying Jim Lee's penchant for drawing Batman Captain Morganing on a gargoyle.

One example of many displaying Jim Lee’s penchant for drawing Batman Captain Morganing on a gargoyle.

Now, of course, my style is not nearly as rendered as Jim Lee’s, and I go into this drawing with that intent, but quickly realized I didn’t have the patience for it. So, the image at the top is my best, though hurried, attempt at melding two things that have fascinated me at various points in my life. If anything, take it as a subdued invite and plea to have Jim Lee draw Batman in his original costume.

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Sketch Fridays #09 – Jessica Jones

Dec04
by on 4 December 2015
Sketch Friday #09 - Jessica Jones. Click to enlarge.

Sketch Friday #09 – Jessica Jones. Click to enlarge.

Jessica Jones, the latest product of the Marvel and Netflix team-up, has only been available for a few weeks and has, just as quickly, fostered its share of discussion both of the binge-watching, water cooler variety as well as more academic and/or socially conscious discourse. I don’t have much to stand on as of yet as I have not actually finished watching the thirteen episodes (as of this writing, Nicole and I have only watched eight), but even with a mere 60% of available episodes under my belt I have strong feelings about what has been brought to not only the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but to Netflix and to television (as much as it is actually television, which is debatable).

I hesitate to start lobbing superlatives around because, as informed and objective as I think I am being, it’s hard to really parse out what aspect of these feelings are genuine, deep-seated, thoughtful response and what is hyperbolic reaction simply because it’s new and different. For once, it’s absolutely true to say this: only time will tell. Despite that, I think Jessica Jones is a rather important text––more important than any other Marvel cinematic entry so far (movie, television, or digital)––because it is actually using the superhero genre not only as a narrative framework for a fascinating and original story, but it is also using superpowers as a powerful and meaningful metaphor and allegory.

What Jessica Jones is doing differently from all other Marvel properties (and DC, as well) is that it is transcending its super-heroic roots, baggage, and narrative (though it uses all of those very well and pushes that general genre forward) and became art. It is the epitome of what Art, or Literature, or Cinema does and becomes a vessel for a time and a place, for a people and a struggle––a voice screaming at the top of its lungs but is so well-crafted you could miss it if you don’t listen. Jessica Jones is a subversive commentary dressed as a hard boiled detective story using superhero, comic book language, and it is beautiful.

It embodies a concept I have discussed before but like to reintroduce when I can because it had such a profound effect on me as an artist and human being. While taking a “Great Books” class during my undergraduate education, we were reading various examples of Roman poetry/philosophy (such distinctions were undefined back then; a concept whose return I wouldn’t mind in many ways) and I came across Horace. He coined a concept that––more than any other codified theory or book about writing––made so much sense to me that it changed the way I looked at art, like putting on glasses for the first time and seeing the linework (so to speak) in the surrounding world. Horace argued that all art (including anything that can fit under that umbrella) should embody the principle of dulce et utile; that is, art should be “sweet and useful.” It should be entertaining––popularly so––but even the most aesthetically-minded of reader would walk away with a piece of some universal truth that may surface at any time and make that person’s life better. Art should inform how we live our lives, not just be an escape from it. Art should be a tool that unites ideas and knowledge like a hammer or screw.

Batting between being the best and worst praise for the Marvel cinematic content is that it’s “popcorn” or “blockbuster” or “stupid fun.” While that’s fine, for some––I hate to say it––that may be all they are: links in a chain.

Jessica Jones is not particularly fun. It’s brutal and heartbreaking and horrifying and scary. It’s not for binging. It’s for processing. It’s about the mystery of the main character and rooting for her to avoid a tragic hero’s fate, but it’s also about what she has gone through, metaphorically and literally, and a safe place to discuss those ideas and their cultural implications.

I speak in the abstract because I want to discuss no details; it’s best to see those with your own glasses on rather than having someone tell you about it anyway. Also, I’m not done with the show.

While predictions of the show’s impact are futile and possibly colored by its immediate praise or cultural trending, I honestly feel that what Jessica Jones is doing for live action superhero drama is what The Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen did for comic books. It’s saying something very, very important about our culture while breaking and bending the tropes of the genre it’s using. It’s not perfect, but that’s what makes it perfect for discussion.

I can’t stop thinking about the show; it swirls in my mind like a perfect song while simultaneously haunting me like a nightmare. For that, today’s sketch was more catharsis as it was an exercise. I can’t necessarily recommend the show, but when you think you’re ready for it you should definitely give it a chance. Just don’t expect it to do what Avengers or even Daredevil did for you. As with the character herself, Jessica Jones needs to walk its own path.

 

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Sketch Fridays #08 – Sketch Pile

Nov28
by on 28 November 2015
A Pile of Sketches. Click to enlarge.

A Pile of Sketches. Click to enlarge.

As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’ve been swamped since August. Since October, especially, things have been particularly rough.

I’m teaching a full load of classes (technically) this semester, which I’ve done before but it’s all sections of the same class, so everything is due on the same day, usually. This week is the pinnacle of such problems as I have six days to grade about 100 papers. Because of that, I’ve been creatively and mentally wiped.

I have sat down a few times to draw and, in addition to the exhaustion, I’m having a spate of “everything I draw looks like garbage.” Trust me, it does.I even tried doing a specific drawing for Sketch Fridays, but it was a disaster and I even committed the cardinal sin of trying to fix it in Photoshop. No doubt, there are aspects of the drawing that looks fine, but as a composition it stinks and isn’t something I want to share with everybody. But whatever:

Sometimes drawing with a pen results in "drifting eye" disease. Ugh. Click to enlarge, I guess.

Sometimes drawing with a pen results in “drifting eye” disease. Ugh. Click to enlarge, I guess.

Sometimes when I am just sitting on the couch with Nicole watching tv or something, I try to just doodle in a sketchbook and see if anything happens. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a doodler, or a sketcher; when I draw, it tends to be for a specific purpose. However, I want to get better and I know that a major part of that is drawing as often as possible, even if it doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything productive. Hence these evening doodles. I call these collections of assorted miscellanea “sketch piles” because that’s what it looks like. However, even when I tried to sit down and do that it was pretty lackluster, but I figured I’d share it with you anyway.

Sketch piles don’t start out with any rhyme or reason, which drives me crazy. So, I just draw lines and shapes and see where it takes me.

This particular pile was all drawn with a fine-tipped Sharpie, so I had to move fast and really make each line count or else it would be plagued by bleed-through and a complete obscuring of whatever it was I was trying to draw. With that in mind, most of the stuff on this page is just random (I even start playing with the bleed-through a bit). At some point, I got interested in redesigning Batman’s costume which lead nowhere. There are also some characters on there: Long John, obviously; Janester, a character from Eben07; there’s a wolf holding a mug of coffee which is one of my dad’s cartoons he leaves on napkins and receipts at restaurants with groan-worthy one-liners.

But back to the work thing, because I think it’s best to come clean if only for the fact that is impacted Long John so severely.

I’m a teacher, as stated above, and this semester I have been given new responsibilities as well as an ostensible full load of classes. I say ostensible because teaching five classes is considered full time and I’m only teaching four; however, I have the role of being a coordinator of a small program within the English department that I’m very proud to lead, and it counts the same as teaching a class.

Not only has grading been tough––I knew what I was getting into––but I’ve been hit with a major “first time” event that, with hope, most teachers don’t have to experience.

Without relaying the story in detail (and risk a tl;dr situation; though I’ll probably write it up at another time), in October I was informed by a student that another student––her close friend––had died in a car accident over the weekend. He sat in the back and was quiet. But he laughed at my dumb jokes (and my good ones) and, otherwise, didn’t stand out too much. He worked when he was supposed to and he asked questions when he had them. Like a student does. He was a student.

It was a tough thing to bring up with the rest of the class, and we talked about it and have moved through it.

At the beginning of November, Human Resources informed me that another student had died in a car accident. I didn’t know this one as well; I had never met him (he was a student in the program I coordinate which is a small class tutorial, divvying students between a number of tutors I employ), but I had the responsibility to tell the tutor what had happened.

But the semester doesn’t stop and I have to keep going. I have papers to grade and remaining students to get through the class. I had surgery a few weeks ago, with another one in March (nothing serious, but a long process nonetheless) and the healing, and medication, knocked me out for a solid week or so.

Like I said, it’s been rough. I’m not telling you this as an excuse, because it’s not. I’m sure more dedicated people than me would work right through this, using it as a cathartic exercise, but I can’t. Instead, I am eagerly looking forward to the winter break where I can just draw and let the stress go (until I have to go in for jury duty, ugh…). For the first time in a long time, drawing is all I want to do. I can’t wait for you to see it.

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