1. In the Legion Companion interview, you stated "By the time I began realizing that I had an audience for my work, I began to question what it was that I was saying with my art." Could you expound on that? Were you thinking that comics, in general, were not the medium for what you wanted to express - or was it the particular art on which you were working at the time?
2. Again, from the Companion: "The computer is a far more versatile and powerful drawing tool than pencil, ink and paper." Do you still work with pencil, ink and paper - or have you transferred your artwork to digital? I wouldn't disagree with you that such a move would be natural progress, but confess I'm a bit of a Luddite (and no artist) and wonder if there's consequences to abandoning pencil and paper. Are there techniques which the computer can't capture?
Posted by Sanity or Madness? on :
Wait a minute - I thought the MN who registered here was someone taking the smeg?
Posted by Michael Netzer on :
1. No. I knew comics were the medium. Never a doubt about that. The problem was actually my having launched a career before I basically "grew up", at least grew up enough to know if or what I had to say with my work to the world. Some other artists were very sure about things like this and seemed to know what they wanted to do for the next five years, at least. Unlike the more seasoned artists, I wasn't yet actually navigating a career in comics, just rolling along with whatever came up. Can't complain, it took me to nice places but it wasn't like I knew what kind of stories I wanted to write and draw or actually chose a book or a character to sink my teeth into. I really had little such inclination during these first two years.
When this started becoming clear to me, perhaps the beginning of the coming into my own as an artist and person, and wanting to forge an intended path for my life and career, that's when it was time to step out for a while.
2. There is something I still struggle with on the computer and it has to do with having a fixed physical area that you become familiar with and you always see your work in it at first glance. With a computer, this feeling is more elusive. Opening a high rez file means that you're only looking at a part of it until you reduce it, or always having to adjust visual setting so as to see all aspects of the work, detail, color harmony, etc. This is perhaps the biggest drawback to working digitally today. Still, the advantages, even at the sketching and pencilling stages far outweigh working on paper and the finishing of the work is a big relief as it allows me to explore many more possibilities in the inking and coloring or painting which I could never hope do with conventional media. I was always quite clumsy with inking and painting tools but feel very much at home with their digital counterparts.
Posted by Michael Netzer on :
quote:Originally posted by Sanity or Madness?: Wait a minute - I thought the MN who registered here was someone taking the smeg?
My mother always taught me not to take anybody's anything without permission, especially their smeg. Maybe it just got up and left on its own.
Posted by Nightcrawler on :
quote:Originally posted by Sanity or Madness?: Wait a minute - I thought the MN who registered here was someone taking the smeg?
I would not have let anyone impersonate a real person here, especially someone who had worked on the Legion. Like Scott, I was a bit concerned at first. Had it turned out NOT to be Mr. Netzer the account would have been deleted.
[ February 02, 2004, 06:45 AM: Message edited by: Nightcrawler ]
Posted by Fat Cramer on :
Thanks for your responses. Tom Wolfe wrote an essay in which he described some American cartoonists "of the old school" going to a workshop in Japan and demonstrating their techniques - the young Japanese students were amazed that they were using pen and paper, not computers. (This would have been early 90s, as I recall.) I've often wondered since reading that if computers would entirely displace paper drawings as the older generation retired. Probably not "if" but "how soon", from what you describe.
Posted by Portfolio Boy on :
quote:Originally posted by Nightcrawler:
quote:Originally posted by Sanity or Madness?: Wait a minute - I thought the MN who registered here was someone taking the smeg?
I would not have let anyone impersonate a real person here, especially someone who had worked on the Legion. Like Scott, I was a bit concerned at first. Had it turned out NOT to be Mr. Netzer the account would have been deleted.
Will we be opening up a corner of the Creator's Cosmos for Michael?
Posted by Michael Netzer on :
quote:Originally posted by Fat Cramer: Thanks for your responses. Tom Wolfe wrote an essay in which he described some American cartoonists "of the old school" going to a workshop in Japan and demonstrating their techniques - the young Japanese students were amazed that they were using pen and paper, not computers. (This would have been early 90s, as I recall.) I've often wondered since reading that if computers would entirely displace paper drawings as the older generation retired. Probably not "if" but "how soon", from what you describe.
Won't replace - They'll have to live side by side. Perhaps the computer will be very dominant in most productions but the paper will never dissappear. It'll stay there on a low flame for awhile. Even today, with webcomics. It's not the same as holding a book in your hands. I can imagine a scenario where one day the power goes out and somebody asks if anyone knows how to draw on paper and there'll not be many that do. In the meantime, we work with what we have. I've accepted the fact that I have less originals. But I still go back to conventional from time to time.