Alright, ya know...I'm freaking sick right now (fever, stomach issues) and I just got the most irritating link from a good friend of mine (thanks Kris! ).

I'm annoyed, I'm a little offended, and so I've pulled myself out of bed, crawled to my computer, to share my little nuggets of awareness.

This may come off really negative because...it's suppose to. I have always made the observation that if you haven't sat on the other side of the art table (as in...the artists' side) it's really hard to make a judgment on an industry that you, clearly, know nothing about. It took me 2 full nights of talking to my parents (who are both incredibly intelligent) for them to even grasp the minor ins and outs of the business that I chose for my career.

It's not that 'civilians' are stupid, it's just that comics is like a bizarre twist on the "closest relative" of itself...i.e. the entertainment industry. It's got its own rules, its own standards, and its own set of problems.

When I became interested in comics, I didn't know anything. I mean that, quite literally, I knew about as much as I could learn from listening to a bunch of conversations over the years about superheroes, watching Batman and Superman movies, and loving some cartoons as a kid. That's it. When I started to play COH, that's all I knew...in fact, my first character creation on that game was a COMPLETE and utter rip off of Jean Grey for fuck sake. I changed her around later, once I understood the system, but you get my point.

When I met Bob Layton, I didn't know ANYTHING. And I had been taking commissions for a few months off of people on games...I felt I was a more aware artist than others...and yet...I came to realize, I knew NOTHING. I didn't really understand what a convention was, I didn't know how the business itself worked, the artwork was something I drooled at, but could barely imitate.

And the FIRST thing that Bob Layton told me, and EVERY living legend SUBSEQUENT to him saying it has agreed, that first and foremost, for comics, the most important element is STORY TELLING.

As for "cover" work that some people are going on and on about..generally speaking within the industry, it was traditional for people to "EARN" the right to be a cover artist. Why? Because it's basic business. It's ONE page of work and it pays a ridiculously higher rate. PERIOD. END OF STORY.

Yes, there are people who break those rules, but I'm talking general business practices. So how you earn it, is subjective. You could be a legend, you could be the next hot artist, whatever.

But you don't get to BE a legend, or the next hot artist, without showing your chops. That means storytelling.

There are plenty of people, trust me, who paint beautiful covers for Marvel and DC who do not have strong story telling skills. And that's fine. It doesn't mean they SUCK, they are just better at different aspects of making a comic.

As for the individual who insinuated that interior work is EASIER? Reading that made me want to gouge my eyes out...mayhaps followed by gouging your eyes out. No offense, of course.

It's kind of like...a civilian telling someone in the military what it's like BEING in the military...you don't know....you couldn't know...so who the hell are you trying to tell this trained, immersed individual what is what?

I know others have come to argue my same point in that link, but seriously, as a working artist in the industry...WTF.

I can't be really angry at you though...I mean...in all honesty, if someone doesn't know, they just don't know.

Now...should they then be sharing their ignorance as a matter-of-fact? No. They should RECOGNIZE that they don't know and keep their mouth shut. I have NO shame in admitting to when I don't know the answer to something...it's called being real with yourself and humility and not suffering from miles of low self esteem to where you need to "APPEAR" to have all the answers.

I don't know the circumference of the moon. I mix of the % of water the world is made up of and the human body ALL the time. I can't do simple math quickly because I became too dependent on a calculator in Pre-Calc and then Calculus in high school (thank god for my iPhone). And even though I'm VAGUELY familiar with NASA and have a space-bent, I couldn't tell you the step by step process, the thinking process, or the specific actions taken to launch a mission...and I wouldn't even ATTEMPT to tell you without serious caveats going, "I really don't know much about this and I'm in NO WAY an authority, but if I were going to take a GUESS? ------fill in blank------."

/end rant.

Thank you to "Geek_Boy" for making some rational fucking arguments on the behalf of people who seem to know something beyond "Ahyuck, comics have capes in them! Ahyuck." -_- (Which was basically argued...that "comic book work" can generalize to anything with a fantasy bent...illustration work with a fantasy bent was considered comic book art....ugh).

I don't have an active account there...and I'm KIND of glad I don't...cause I would have gotten banned probably.

/end rant again.



EDIT: Ya know...upon further reading of the discussion in that other forum...

There is more of people who don't know what they are talking about...talking about stuff like they know.

1) Digital art...and doing it WELL just in PIN UP or COVER form([link]) is hard and time consuming (trust me, I've seen it in action). So the whole argument that "it's quicker" is bullshit. Doing anything really WELL (and let's talk rendering and high detail) in any form, is always time consuming...even in traditional work ([link])

2) Also, RARE is it that an individual who "starts out" in digital gets proper training, ANYWAY. It's like Picasso...sure he was all revolutionary and shit, but he actually knew how to fucking draw. One of the wisest phrases ever told to me during my training: "You have to KNOW the rules before you can break them." Even little Sunday Comic Strips in your local newspaper...those cartoonists, know the rules before they break them down. Why do you think Anime/Manga works out? I may not be a fan of it, but they can make glyphs (simplified impressions of forms, shapes, and figures...gestures, as it were) because the artists themselves understand how to draw it outside of that style in a more realistic fashion they understand the natural STRUCTURE.

3) To all those people who are talking about how they are artists, and whatever...before you go tooting your own goddamn horn here's a note for you - if you can't draw a hand, you are a hack. That's one of the easiest ways to tell if someone has reached a certain level of ability in this particular genre of art. I struggle with hands STILL but I'm getting better. I may be a professional, but I'm on the lower end of that totem pole and I fucking know it.

4) Here is an example of beautiful work and "okay" storytelling [link] . Composing a page is hard, you have to think of flow, ease of reading, color pallettes for your COLORIST (who you don't always get to fucking pick), line values for your INKER (who you don't always get to fucking pick), etc. The art here is freaking gorgeous, but because of the constraints of the artists' artistic medium, we got boxy set up

5) Having separate people on different stages of a piece is a GOOD thing. You almost NEVER want to ink yourself, you almost NEVER want to color yourself. We do it in commissions, sure, but that's a force of convenience and if you're a good collector (i.e. I'm going to invoke ) you would be wise to get pencils from one artist, inks from another, and colors from someone else. Why? Because you are allowing each subsequent individual to catch "mistakes" that the preceding individual didn't catch. No penciller is perfect. No inker is perfect. And even if you have a "PERFECT" team working together...there are STILL fuck ups.

6) I've always wanted to be a penciller...and yet pencilling is the last thing I get to in my training...why? Because when I was first picked up as an apprentice, my lines were sketchy, my thinking was unrefined. I didn't know what I was doing. And even though Bob Layton has trained MANY a pencillers, he decided to start me out inking because with ink, I HAVE to make a DEFINITIVE statement with my line. I had to be CONFIDENT in what I was doing. And the shit worked. BASICS, people, BASICS. And a good teacher knows what parts to work on and where to start from.

7) Comic book artwork is always lending itself towards different styles. It is always growing and changing. I mean, you look at comic book artwork from 1970 to stuff being done NOW? It's completely different. HOWEVER, the BASICS of comic book art is still...what is the basics, class? STORYTELLING! Good! That is WHAT Comic Books are. We artists are FIRST AND FOREMOST slaves to the story. We are depicting the writer's vision. It's a VISUAL medium of telling a story. Yes, a single static piece of DA VINCI is BEAUTIFUL and gorgeous and can make you think and wonder and ponder life....but it's not going to tell you a story the way a fucking movie would. It can't. Plain. Simple. Comic book art = STORYTELLING. So no matter WHAT the fuck it looks like...if it's storytelling with pictures...it can be considered comic book art. SINGLE ILLUSTRATIONS are not comic book art. Those are pin ups. Those are illustrations. BIG dif.

8) I don't know what the hell tools you people are buying to do your shit, but I do this crap for a living and my supplies are NOT that expensive. Not to mention they are fucking tax right offs anyway. But I'm digressing! Paper isn't that expensive...proper comic book paper...Blueline stock, just buy the fuckers in bulk and it's cheap (not to mention...when working for a company...they can and often do supply paper). Pencils, brushes, etc? You don't need fancy tools. Bob told me an interesting story 2 years ago when we first started working together..."When I first started my training with Woody (Wally Woods), I went out and bought these really nice, expensive, inking kits. I brought them to the studio and carefully started to use them, I treated them like they were made out of gold. When Woody came by my table and saw these, he grabbed the kit and tossed them in the trash." Yeah. He tossed them. Because if you have proper training, proper thinking, whatever, you don't need the "high end" tools and half the time the "high end" tools SUCK anyway, they are just there to sucker in noobies. I'm not the richest person in the world and I can fucking afford to eat, pay expensive ass fucking rent, drive a car all over California, get my nails done once a month, my toenails painted, AND get a wax...oh and go out for drinks with friends, take trips to movies, zoo, museums, have fabulous $26 salads...and STILL waste time on the internet! And I can still afford my supplies.

9) Inking is an art unto itself. Every good penciller knows this. Just like coloring. You can have someone who is a "computer colorist" but who just "knows how to push a button." Doesn't mean they know how to fucking tell a story in color. Look at most of the comics put out these days...most of those colorists don't know WTF they are doing in color. However, you look at someone like Moose Baumann, Mike Cavallaro, these guys know how to tell a story, they know how to push an envelope with what people think of as a natural pallette for any given panel, or page, or entire book. It is the ART of storytelling. It doesn't matter what style it is! I'm totally repeating myself...

10) Having the ability erase your mistakes SO easily, as others have pointed out, is a crutch. And yes, again, Bayani was fucking right, because if your STRUCTURE is wrong, you can't fix it, no matter how many times you fucking erase. It IS better to leave a piece completely fucked up...OR TO START OVER. Because it's a MENTAL thing. The great Dick Giordano said the most profound thing to me once, "Nobody knows the image you see in your head. They only see what's on the page." For one, that is fucking true. It's kind of like bodydysmorphia. People see what they see, and if it's any good, they like it. Even the most discerning of 'fanboys/grls' don't have the proper vocabularity to even describe why they LIKE a piece, they just say, "It's beautiful because of this part!" There comes a time, because this is a BUSINESS, that you just have to "let go" and move on. Now, if you are doing artwork for sheer fun and joy...then by all means, you can nitpick on a single piece for 90 years for all I care.

11) I'm not what you call a traditional artist in that I've been so immersed in it I'm not into new mediums. But I understand the learning/teaching process. You can't just GO to the Olympics, guys and gals, you gotta learn how to fucking run first. And ask ANY working artist out there today and they will tell you that a good colorist, a good inker, or a good penciller, is good because they know the basics of drawing (at least). Jesus this is the fourth time I've ended on that point I think. I think someone touched on this in the thread though, they said they don't think it's the medium of traditional art itself, that's important, but the theories behind it. YES.

Again...I think I'm just really pissy over the fact that there are people talking about a goddamn medium and industry they know NOTHING the fuck about.

BLAH.