Are Traditional Inkers Being Phased Out?

Yes.... and No.

For the past few days I have been corresponding in several forums on this very question. For the uninitiated, an inker is someone who works in comic books. He or she receives finished pencil drawings of comic book pages and goes over them in black ink to make them camera ready. An inker has been called a simple tracer of lines but this is so very far from the truth. Inkers are terrific artists in their own right. As a traditional inker in the past I have had to redraw hands, correct perspectives and fill in backgrounds or create visual effects the penciler didn't have time to correct.

With the quantum leaps in computer speed and memory and graphic art programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator a lot of the inkers work is being done directly in the computer with a Wacom tablet and stylus. Time and money saved is the key here as publishers try to keep the retail price of their books down. Anyone who is a collector these days is shelling out a lot of cabbage each month to get their favorite books.

Marvel had their famous bullpen where all the individual artists came to work in the same building and worked assembly line fashion to get out the monthly publications. This is not the case today. Pencilers, inkers, letterers and colorists are scattered all over the globe. Penciled pages would have to be overnighted to the editor who okayed them or sent them back for corrections. Then the editor sent them to the inker who sent them back to the editor who... well, you see the pattern. A lot of time and money was involved in all that shipping.

Today some publishers are looking for anyone who can do pencils, inks and color all by themselves. Then team system is losing favor. Instead of large envelopes full of finished art being shipped editors are receiving CDs with an entire issue on them or in some cases the finished art is sent electronically to the publishers computers.

As a consequence there is less and less work for inkers to go around. Many I have corresponded with are learning the new way with the computer. Others, sadly to say, are in denial and scoff at the new technology as not being real -- how it can't compete with the look and feel and the style of the traditional inker. I've researched a lot of digital inkers who are so good at their craft that you couldn't tell which was traditional and which was digital if you didn't know.

The hard line traditionalists are always picking apart the digital inks and how "unreal" they are; how they can't have the style and flare of pen and brush. I disagree. In the proper hands a digital inker can do the same things as any top traditional inker and likely do it quicker. To the trained eye the flaws and inconsistencies will stand out like a sore thumb but the casual reader is not going to give a rats rear or even notice and publishers know this. And the digital inker has other advantages: when he's finished for the day all he or she has to do is save their work to a file and close the program. Traditional inkers must clean up their pens and brushes, make sure they cap their ink bottle, erase excess pencil lines and/or graphite on the page, correct ink drops or spillages with white out and put up with substandard art boards that are scratchy and catch on their nibs or cause the ink to bleed all over their finely rendered lines.

Some lament the loss of extra revenue from reselling the finished art at conventions or on the web. Another has suggested that the future of these electronic files may be as signed and numbered reprints much as old masters did with lithography so that more people could own a copy of their grand works.

The answer to my original question is that while some traditional inkers will be phased out the best will occupy some niche that the public still wants. They're not going to go away completely. The next generation of artists are going to be expected to do it all and do it quickly. There's no escaping this fact.

IMHO

Have a great day.

The Father of the Graphic Novel

I recently finished reading Will Eisner's New York - Life in the big city. Along with being a superb artist Mr. Eisner was a unique story teller. His view of the world seemed straight forward at first glance but as you get into his work you see the ironic, the sardonic, the often funny and sometimes cruel workings of fate. Little vignettes of no more than a page or two tied together by things like a storm sewer grate or a window or a wall; sometimes just by the passage of time. One man's struggle to be invisible all his life works so well that when he is mistakenly listed among the newly deceased in the obituaries he can't make anyone believe he is still among the living. He loses his apartment, his job, all his money and possessions and eventually in an odd twist of misunderstanding his own life. The ironic part of the whole story; the woman who mistakenly listed him among the dead wins an award from the paper for her dedication and accuracy in her reporting.

The birth, life and death of a building and the ghosts of seemingly inconsequential pedestrians are the backdrop for the story, "The Building". Other stories chronicle the choices, good or bad, made by people we likely would not notice if we tripped over them.

The stories are not filled with explosions and super-fisticuffs and do not often take place on other worlds. So what makes them so fascinating is the way they are told. It's like watching a soap opera. The stories are only important to the people involved but you can't stop watching them anyway.

The hardcore reader of todays comics may not find Mr. Eisner's work worth his hard earned dollar because it doesn't contain enough action but the people who want to create comics would do themselves a disservice by not learning from the master of storytelling. Mr. Eisner's book "Comics and Sequential Art" is a must read for comic creators. You may not like his style of art and that doesn't matter. What you must heed is his pacing and layout of pages and the panels within them. Telling a story without dialog or captions as Mr. Eisner did so well is truly masterful.

Other books to read:

A Contract with God

Will Eisner Reader

Dropsie Avenue

Life on Another Planet

Fagin the Jew

Last Day in Vietnam

The Spirit Archives.

There are others but these are must reads as far as I'm concerned.

Have a great day.

Ban violent video games

Video gamers will likely think I'm way off base here but I think it's in the best interest of the mental health of our youths to ban violent video games.

I personally don't play the games. I'm into creating art not watching it try to maim, maul or slay everything. A co-worker related to me that he was trying out a demo in a local video store. In the demo a number of Arab types were shooting and killing American soldiers. In the demo he was able to capture one of the enemy and was offered the option to tie up the prisoner or shoot him. He chose to shoot the prisoner in the head then instantly felt guilty for his selection. He had no idea why he did it.

As far as I'm concerned it was nothing but brainwashing brought on by current events and the creators of the video. Philadelphia, PA is experiencing an average of more than one murder a day. The weekends are especially littered with fatalities. When these young people see how little worth is placed on life in these videos they translate it to the real world and experience no hesitation in shooting real people. These are not organized crime in action where those who cross the Mob get payed back. These are innocent men, women and children trying to enjoy life who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We all covet our freedom and the pursuit of happiness... but what happens if the City Fathers get just fed up enough to declare Marshall Law, bring in the National Guard and detain anyone who steps outside after curfew without good reason or, God forbid, someone who looks like he might have a gun gets shot. Think it can't happen, don't bet on it? The public will demand that the Mayor do something about it sooner or later. Worse would be if people started behaving like Charles Bronson in the "Death Wish" movies.

Think about this. What if someone created a video game call "Ku Klux Klan"? In this game a group of murderers in white sheets and cone shaped hats took it upon themselves to enter any metropolitan city to: stalk black men and women, shoot black men and women, hang from lamp posts black men and women and rape black women and/or castrate black men before they executed them. Points would be scored for how many kills you made and the level of violence in doing so. The Government would pull such a game from production before the NAACP could get to their phones.

So why isn't the Government curtailing these other violent games? Oh yeah. There's that 1st Amendment thing. I was unaware it stated you had the right to act like an asshole. It's up to parents to not allow such games in their homes and stop letting that one eyed electronic cyclops be the babysitter of their children. Know who your children's friends are and their habits.

I'm all for freedom but it stops when it causes other people irreparable harm.

This is of course IMHO.

Have a great day.

Credit Cards

A credit card company who shall remain nameless here (I don't want no stinking lawsuits) keeps sending me applications for another card. They are quite willing to give me the new card no matter what my balance or credit score is. They want us all to go more heavily into debt and owe them even more money.

I pay my statement in full each month. I never buy what I don't need and never leave a balance. I'm a detriment to them because they're not getting any interest from me on my account. They'd likely want to drop me but they have no just cause to and in the meantime I'm helping my credit rating.

I guess I'm un-American by not wanting to mortgage to the hilt what is left of my insignificant life but I've been heavily in debt before and screwed up my credit and was evicted. This I vow will never happen again.

Why doesn't the credit card company just increase my credit limit you ask? They can't charge me an extra annual fee if they do that. Only by suckering me in with another card can they reach deeper into my wallet.

And they keep sending me blank checks that say, "Look how convenient we are. Use us just like money to pay off your other debts." Yeah, right! Then you can also charge me extra interest on top of what you already charge on outstanding debts because I'm taking a cash advance when I do and not making a purchase. If you've done this check your statement and it will have purchases and cash advances and the interest charged separately. And when you make a payment on your statement look to see which listing is paid first. I guarantee your purchases will be paid down first so that the cash advances you made can gain a lot more interest.

This country runs on credit and if you qualify just barely there will be some company willing to help you bury yourself in debt.

Remember what you've read here and when you're dragging yourself through your second job at K-Mart or McDonald's or 7/11 ask yourself if that Nintendo game and the plasma TV and the hot tub in the back yard; all of which you never get to use because you're at work or sleeping through your days off was worth running up all that debt.

Have a good day.

T. G. I. F.

It should mean Thank God I'm Free. Let's face it; there isn't one high and mighty schmuck born in this country that has an iota of what it's like to live in a repressed country. And it may not be much longer that anyone can say that.

The recent sting that captured the six men who were going to storm Fort Dix in New Jersey and kill as many of our fighting men as possible makes me wonder. The weeks after 9/11 brought on a paranoia that threatened the lives or at best, the health of anyone who looked like an Arab. Forget the fact that they were born in this country and so were their parents.

Everyone here should thank God we have organizations like the ACLU. They'll never allow the wholesale roundup of possible insurgents like happened to the Japanese/Americans during the second World War.

I agree in part with the tenets of the NRA. Every man or woman should be allowed to own a pistol or a shotgun if they wish but no one in their right mind should be allowed to own an assault weapon; collector or not. This is where the NRA needs to bend. Assault weapons should be banned 100%.

George Orwell's book, 1984, reflected a world where everyone was watched and had no privacy. A world where wrongdoers were severely punished. Judge Dredd came from a world where wrongdoers were judged and condemned instantly by judges on motorcycles. No lawyers allowed.

Are we headed this way? Seems unlikely to me. But there is always the threat of Star Chamber justice by law enforcers who are just fed up with the criminal element perverting the law to give them an unjust advantage.

Think about it!

T.G.I.F. and thank God I live in a free country.

Rules Men Wish Women Knew...

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.

2. Learn to work the toilet seat: if it's up put it down.

3. Don't cut your hair. Ever.

4. Birthdays, Valentines, and Anniversaries are not quests to see if he can find the perfect present, again!

5. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

6. Sometimes, he's not thinking about you. Live with it.

7. Don't ask him what he's thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as navel lint, the shotgun formation and monster trucks.

8. Get rid of your cat. And no, it's not different, it's just like every other cat.

9. Dogs are better than ANY cats. Period.

10. Sunday = Sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

11. Shopping is not sport.

12. Anything you wear is fine. Really.

13. You have enough clothes.

14. You have too many shoes.

15. Crying is blackmail. Use it if you must, but don't expect us to like it.

16. Your brother is an idiot, your ex-boyfriend is an idiot and your Dad probably is too.

17. Ask for what you want. Subtle hints don't work.

18. No, he doesn't know what day it is. He never will. Mark anniversaries on a calendar.

19. Yes, pissing standing up is more difficult than peeing from point blank range. We're bound to miss sometimes.

20. Most guys own two to three pairs of shoes-what makes you think we'd be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?

21. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers.

22. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

Web Comics in 3D

Web comics have been around for some time now. I myself am working on one that will be up soon. The quality of these comics runs from okay to why hasn't this person been offered a job in the industry. The artwork and story are excellent in most.

What is becoming even more popular are comics rendered in 3D. Software is becoming rapidly less expensive and much more powerful and intuitive to the renders needs. While the rendering software is great you still need other software such as Photoshop or Illustrator to do color changes, special effects and touchups and to add lettering.

Web sites like Drunk Duck and Comic Space and many others are filling up with a wide variety of 3D comics. These run from Comedy to Science Fiction to Drama series that are long running and are building a following.

It's doubtful that these 3D comics will rival and/or replace the current crop of print comics in the near future but I do see them showing up on CD with enough popularity to urge the distributors to list them in their sales catalogues or available through the likes of Amazon, Ebay or through PayPal.

Will there be a day when a young student props his Ipod up behind his textbook in study hall and tunes in to his favorite 3D comic? One can only surmise.

Happy reading.

Inexhaustible fuel source

With the rising price of crude oil comes a rising cost in everything downstream from it: gasoline, heating oil and electricity. There's a way to exploit an inexhaustible source that will be here long after all the oil deposits are depleted.

Ask yourself this: what powers the space shuttle? Hydrogen and Oxygen. And what is water made of? The same thing. So what's the problem? It takes a lot of energy to separate Hydrogen from Oxygen but if industry would put their shoulder to the wheel they could come up with less costly ways to separate the two.

Think of it. A power station on the banks of a river drawing water from the source, separating it into it's two components then feeding it into a furnace that creates super-heated steam that runs turbines that create electricity. And what do we get from the combustion? Distilled water and no pollutants. The combustion chamber would have to be a closed system. Drawing in outside air with it's various gases would create another pollution we don't need.

As the system evolved and was made more efficient I can see the power company selling off excess distilled water instead of separating it again to be re-fed into the furnaces. And there's no way we could ever run out of fuel.

Also, consider this. Power companies keep standby generators ready to help out when the demand for power is high in the summer when air conditioners and fans are sucking up a lot of energy. These standby generators are driven by electric motors. A percentage of the energy from the turbine driven generators is drawn off to power these motors that are connected by a shaft to the generators that produce the extra energy when needed.

Consider this; why can't the generator be plugged into the motor that is running it? It's illogical to think that 100% of the energy produced would be needed to run the drive motor. In theory we would have nothing but free energy. I'm no expert but I'm sure the experts could figure out the whys and wherefores in making it work.

Why aren't the Government and industry pursuing the research that would bring all this about?

The simple answer is we aren't desperate enough. We're not in danger of running out of oil in the near future and even when that runs out there are thousands of cubic miles of coal underground that could be turned into fuel. The Germans were doing it over 60 years ago. Only when they've fouled the air so badly and we're dying of various lung failures will someone think there must have been a better way.

But then, this is just IMHO.

Take a deep breath for me, won't you?

Huh!

Not too long ago I was standing before a vending machine trying to make up my mind which row of useless calories I wanted to waste my hard earned buck on. I was curious as to the raised bumps on each of the numbers on the keypad. Then it hit me... braille. Braille? Of what earthly use could this be to a customer who couldn't see the product in the first place? I was pleased that the machines manufacturer was making the products as handicap accessible as possible but this leaned toward overkill. Not a well thought out idea. It was amusing in an ironic sort of way.

Have a good day.

You're No Longer Cool When...

I got this from a friend some months ago who got it from somewhere on the web who got it from somewhere and so on and so on and so on... Anyway I doubt there's any copyright infringement here. Enjoy.

You find yourself listening to talk radio.

You daughter says she got pierced and you look at her ears.

The pattern on your shorts and couch match.

You fondly remember your powder blue leisure suit.

You think Tragically Hip is when a middle-aged man gets a new sports car, hair piece and a 20 year old girlfriend.

You criticize the kids of today for their satanic suicide-inducing music, forgetting that you rocked to Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath.

You call the police on a noisy party next door instead of grabbing beer and joining it.

You turn down free tickets to a rock concert because you have to work the next day.

When grass is something that you cut, not cultivate.

When jogging is something you do to your memory.

Getting a little action means your prune juice is working.

All the cars behind you flash their headlights.

You remember the "Rolling Stones" as a rock group not a corporation.

You bought your first car for the same price you paid for your son's new running shoes.

You actually ASK for your father's advice.

You don't know how to operate a fax machine.

When someone mentions SURFING you picture waves and a surf board.

Why?

Why do people ask questions they don't want answers too?

I've been to all kinds of forums where members can post their writing or artwork or pictures, even music. They ask the membership for critiques and when they roll in and if they aren't favorable they become defensive and reply, "How dare you..." or words to that effect.

I discount the sadistic types who just like to bash everyone's work. They're evil incarnate. But why jump all over the honest person who feels you need a serious edit of your stuff? That's why you asked for the critique in the first place; to make your stuff better than it was. And why belittle the person who just wants to help with the an asinine "doh!" Homer's become a part of our everyday language. How droll; how sad for all of us.

Why do women who complain about men staring at their breasts wear a T-shirt with several lines of type emblazoned on it?

This always confounds me. They place a novel on their chest and you have to walk by them several times to get to the punch line or in desperation, stop them and hold them still till you can finish the prose. And they have the nerve to complain. God help us when they start producing those shirts in braille.

Why do women who say they only want a nice guy run off with bad boys?

I'm a firm believer that women only want bad boys no matter what they say to the contrary. They must equate nice guy with dull. Bad boys are unpredictable: they lie, cheat, bend the law, make women feel like property and ultimately break their hearts. Do they think they can tame him? Get real. Ain't gonna happen. If it's just the thrill they get out of it it'd be safer psychologically if they stood up while riding a roller coaster. And if they did tame the guy then they wouldn't want him. Go figure.

Why do men who dump women get jealous when they find new boyfriends?

Let it go Ace! You cut her loose so you could explore new territory; let her do the same. If you want more than one woman in reserve all I can say to you is move to Utah.

Why: if soft chewy cookies turn hard when you leave them out to go stale and hard cookies turn soft don't they revert to their original state if you leave them out longer?

Points to ponder IMHO.

Have a great day.