Anatomy of a fight...scene.

I have always had a tough time with fight scenes. I am not talking about a shot of two opponents squaring off against each other; I am talking about a panel-to-panel sequence that lasts longer than a few frames.

Partially this is due to the fact that I do not practice any martial arts and that I have not been in a fight since 5th grade...maybe 4th. This really became a problem recently when I got my main character, Niko, involved in a fight that was going to last most of the issue (interwoven with other events in the storyline), I wanted something that made sense and not just a collection of shots of two toughs. I was not even sure how to begin.

I was kind of stuck until I remembered that at the fitness center, where I work out at lunch, there is a jujitsu class that is being taught every Tuesday and Thursday. I came up and introduced my self to the instructor, John Nguyen, and asked for help.

John graciously agreed and after we talked for a bit about the set-up, he started introducing some very cool ideas. Thanks to him, the fight is starting to take shape and is much more involved than just two guys duking it out. There are now different phases to the action, each involving a different element (fire, water) and it has it's own rhythm that is echoing the beats in the rest of the story.

Below is the opening sequence:

Review

Since the trade collection came-out a while back, there is not much in the way of reviews anymore, but someone sent me this link of a recent (and very nice) review:

RPG.NET

Storytelling

When Robotika was being published I did a few internet interviews about the series. It seemed like every interview ended (or begun) with a question about influences. The truth is that I am influenced by just about everything that I came into contact with: all the comics, books, movies, paintings, animation...

Sure, I get excited about some particular techniques that I see in comics and illustration, but it does not motivate me to sit down and draw for 8-10 hours. I file stuff like that away in my mind and look for an opportunity to use it some day...most of the time with mixed results :(

What really inspires me to continue doing pages is talking to people like Jim Williams III, Ryan Sook, Norman Felchle, Brian Apthorp, and Frank Cirocco who are always thinking about experimenting with storytelling and are always pushing themselves to continue studying all aspects of drawing. These guys are amazing and it is my privilage to know them, but there are also other very talented storytellers whom I never got to met who challenge me to think about my work. Folks like Rodolfo Damaggio, Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Marshall Rogers, Alex Toth, Sergio Toppi, Claire Wendling, Will Eisner, Damion Scott...the list is never ending :)

Talking about storytelling here is a cool bit from a recent Ryan Sook story in Worldstorm #2:


Believe it or not, I did the layouts for the bit below before I saw Ryan's page, but I must admit that by the time I executed the actual drawng I was well aware of the Worldstorm story and I am sure it influenced my approach:

Friday the 13th

Ever since I got to buy a Swamp Thing reprint back in the late 80's I have been a huge Wrightson fan. Wrightson was somehow able to take the ugly and the scary and draw it in a way that made it look fun and playful...with an edge to it. I still spend hours looking through the "Look Back", "Swamp Thing", and "Frankenstein". It's beautiful stuff.

Recently Ryan did a cover for Friday the 13th series from Wildstorm that had the same effect on me. The subject matter is crazy, but the picture is executed with perfect lines and beautiful anatomy, mixing the innocent with the horrific and flowless technique with the unthinkable subject... everything in perfect balance. I am simply fascinated by this...work like that doesn't just inspire me to try to do better, it makes me understand things about drawing that always seem to elude me.

David Petersen

A cool interview with David about his work on Mouse Guard, movies, and artists who have influenced his art. David is so enthusiastic about his work and the medium that it is hard not to be excited about making comics after reading his answers:

David Petersen

And it is now official:

Nominations

New Pencils

ForeWord- Book Of The Year Award (!!)

Robotika has been selected as one of the finalist for the ForeWord Book Of The Year Awards! I am not sure what the chances of winning are (check out the other finalists!), but it is an honor for me to be included:

ForeWord

Random Panels

I am penciling on this smaller size boards and the pages seem to be moving much faster...a coincidence?
Some random panels from the last few pages:

New Links

I just wanted to take a moment to mention that I have added a few more links.

I was introduced to Brian Churilla via Leif when Leif moved to Portland. I have already mentioned Brian in an earlier post. Brian is not only a very talented artist, but is also a very charming individual. He has contributed a short Robotika story and a pin-up that will appear in the second series. Brian is also working on a creator owned series titled "The Engineer". I was so impressed with the artwork and the storyline that I recommended the property to Archaia Studios Press and I hope to see "The Engineer" as part of their line-up some time soon.

Brian in turn exposed me to the work of Joe Suitor and Joseph Cross. Mr. Suitor is working on a series "Monoluminant" that will be published by APE Entertainment and Mr. Cross is developing a storyline titled "Kyogen". I am very excited to see both of these series develop and if everything works out to be able to feature some of their work in Robotika :)

Old School

Archaia Studios has been getting lots of nice press lately. Here is a sample of what folks are writing:

ComicReaders

ForeWordMagazine

A few weeks ago I got together with Ryan for lunch. We showed each other the pages we were working on and just had a great time talking and hanging out. At one point during the art "show and tell", Ryan casually mentioned that my originals are "giant". I was kind of surprised at that, "I work in standard size" I replied. Ryan gave me a sidelong glance and said, "Standard in the 70's maybe." I looked at his originals for the Wildstorm story he is working on and sure enough they were smaller...I went home and looked at the Dark Horse pages that Brian sent me...sure enough the space is only about 9x13.25 (as compared to 10x15 that I have been using), that is a huge (!) difference.

I just finished cutting a new batch of bristol to the new specifications...I am really looking forward to trying this new format.

A review of HC at IGN.com

A very thorough review by Dan Wrobel at IGN.com:

IGN.com

Here are also the pencils for the newest Robotika pin-up. It is a reworking of a pose from an older page (the opening of "The World of Robotika" from issue #1) that I have always wanted to re-draw.

JPKComics and PopCultureShock reviews

A very nice review by of the hardcover collection by Jonathan Kuehlein (scroll down to January 15th reviews):

JPK Comics

and another review of ASP as a publisher with a nice Robotika write-up:

PopCultureShock

Page 1

This is page one of the first issue in the new mini series. I wanted to do something to pay tribute to Robert Altman and thus I am starting out with 3 panels (that I feel go together compositionally) and even though they appear totally unrelated, fit into each other like puzzle's pieces as the story progresses.

The captions are taken from a speech by one of the main characters from the middle of the book and I think fits in nicely with the images.

Script is by David Moran.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly....

A very cool review:

Fist Full of Comics

Robotika Hardcover Review

Monday, Robotika hardcover got reviewed over at Loadpoet.com and I wanted to share the write-up:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

I have also just completed my first pin-up for a Dark Horse book (!) called "Samurai: Heaven & Earth". I wanted to design the illustration keeping the title of the book in mind. The woman represent "heaven" and thus is placed in a vertical shaft of light and the graveyard/shrines represent "earth". My hope is that the woman's face is the focal point and her robes lead the eye down to the sword, across the samurai's back and down into the ground. Then the eye comes across from left to right and goes up the shaft of light back-up to the face.

Best Of 2006...the rest :)

It is so cool that Robotika got mentioned in the wrap-up of the year over at Comic BooK Resource website. ASP got nominated for the Best Publisher of comics and I got the "The Nuke Laloosh Award" (by the way it is very much an honor for me to be associated with anything that relates to "Bull Durham"!).

ComicBookResources

Also I wanteded to share a Robotika piece recently completed by Mahmud Asrar:

How cool is that?!

I was very pleased to learn that Leif Jones, a friend of many years and an awesome artist, will be illustrating an issue of a comic book published by Zenescope Entertainment based on David Fincher's SE7EN.

Leif's issue will be part of a seven issue series, each issue being devoted to one of the deadly sins (with each issue done by a different creative team), and although it covers the same events as the movie, the comics will show the events from John Doe's point of view. The issue Leif will be illustrating is the sixth and most tantalizing: ENVY.

The writer on that issue is David Mack, who is known as the creator of Kabuki and who recently did a successful run on Marvel's Daredevil.

I am very excited about seeing how Leif is going to approach this project and as a fan of his artwork I can't wait to see a full book of Mr. Jone's "goodness". I know I will be checking Leif's blog (and so should everybody) frequently for any updates he might post.

Infuze Magazine Review

A new review of Robotika #1-4:

Infuze Magazine

Norman Felchle, Brian Churilla and Mahmud Asrar

I have always dreamed of being an editor. Not the kind of an editor who worries about the deadlines, or about what will sell and what won't sell, but the kind of an editor who matches up cool stories to talented artists with awesome comics being the result.

Working on Robotika gave me a chance to do that a little bit. In the first series I was fortunate enough to recruite Leif Jones and Travis Sengaus to do 6 page back-ups and I also was very pleased to offer pin-ups by Frank Cirocco, Jeremy Mohler, Benoit Springer, Norman Felchle, Jim Williams III, Ryan Sook, and Tony Salmons.

Working on the second Robotika series is proving to be an even better experience. In part this is due to the fact that I am now working with David Moran, who is a real writer and who has been delivering excellent scripts. I have already mentioned that Brian Churilla is working on a 6 page back-up called "Once Upon The Time..." and I am now very pleased to announce that Norman Felchle has agreed to illustrate a 6 page Dr. Agon origin story called "Dr. Agon or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Cyber-Robotic Enchancements".

Norman started out working in comics on such titles as "The Griffin", "S.T.A.R Corps", "Legends of the Dark Night" and "Spider-Man". Recently he has been applying his talents designing video games and in fact gained a following for his work on the "Alice" game for Electronic Arts. He has a great Sketchbook available that showcases his abilities and features lots of unpublished design artwork. I am very pleased that Norman has agreed to make a "return" to comics with Robotika and I am very much looking forward to seeing his interpretation of David's script.

I am also working with Mahmud Asrar, a very talented artist from Turkey. I was first introduced to Mahmud's work at Digital Webbing and have been following his postings on his website. Mahmud just recently got signed-up to draw "Dynamo 5", a new series from Image. I hope to be able to feature a few pin-up and maybe a short Robotika back-up story by him in the upcomming Robotika sequel.

Hardcover review

Here are some very kind words of support for the hardcover edition from Randy Lander over at his Inside Joke Theater.

Randy Lander