What are your plans for Inktober?

A drawing I made during a demo on inking basics on the first day of my Cartooning Basics course. I always cover ink right away, so the students will appreciate what their penciling decisions are for.

#Inktober is a hashtag that's been running for a couple of years now on social media. Artists interested in mastering ink technique use the occasion to push themselves to create and post one ink drawing per day for one month. In my case it means adding a hashtag to the ink drawings I post twice a day all year, but whatever.

It's striking that despite continuing advances in digital media, ink drawing thus far remains the primary medium for cartoonists. Even those making comics on tablets need to understand brush and ink, as it's the look their cursors are designed to mimic.

This year, there appears another hashtag challenge for October, #Drawlloween2016:

I think I'll give this a shot, using ink, of course. Please follow my Tumblr and see how I'm doing.

Continuing my roundup of recent student work, I'm quite sure these gentleman will fill their Octobers with exciting panels and pages:

Geoffrey Class sent his two page final from Inking Comics. Nice, eh?

Self taught neurosurgeon, Justin Peele sends the first three pages of a new story in color,  "JoJo and Lars Get Yeezys." Follow the link to see more of his timely, hilarious ink work

 

The biggest reason to learn cartooning is that it provides a way to get your funny (or otherwise) ideas  down on paper. Peter Yuschak routinely sends spontaneous gag cartoons to his network of friends.

Joe Wessely works constantly at making comics and filling his sketchbook. He also cohosts the Comics for Grownups podcast, with Josh Malbin and Alex Rothman.

I cover inking in all 3 of my cartooning courses at SVA. They start this week, making this the last chance to enroll for fall. Embrace the challenge.

Here are views of the final critique in the Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course last summer. A lot of nice inking, am I right?

Aline the Alien collection for SPX

I remade this page for the new collection. I think it works much better than the first version. 

I'll be at SPX this weekend, at the Cartozia Tales table, L1-2A, and I'm bringing a small number of copies of this new collection of Aline the Alien Miscadventures. Catch 'em before they're gone.

Continuing Continuing Ed Continued

Rik Sansone's tribute to Gene Wilder

I teach in a lot of settings: undergraduate programs, elementary schools, community centers, ... and my clear favorite is always the Continuing Education market. There you meet adults with interests, careers, & life experiences that give immeasurable richness to the work they do in class. They arrive with varying levels of artistic ability, but the skills they have and acquire are put to great use. Moreover, they're people you're simply glad to have met.

Last spring, I was treated to the best Father's Day ever when my kids and I saw Noah Diamond's astonishingly hilarious, copiously researched resurrection of the lost Marx Brothers play, "I'll Say She Is." I was overjoyed to see that they had a comic book there about the history of the play and that it was by a former student of mine, Rik Sansone.



Rik publishes Spaz Comics. The Marx Brothers comic is available there for free download.



Nicolas Douillet's day job is with the United Nations. He's currently in Istanbul, hard at work on a graphic memoir about his time fighting ebola in Africa.

(c) Nico Douillet 2016

Illustrator Charles Truett is also busy, creating marvelous digital images.

(c) Charles Truett 2016

(c) Charles Truett 2016

Paul Centrone has been moving from cartoons to portraits. In my classes Paul created lovely comics about his character, Detlef:

(c) Paul Centrone 2016

Here are some caricature inflected portrait sketches Paul made at a recent performance of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Since I last checked in on Jeremy Fuscaldo, he's been moving in the direction of Cartoon Modernism:

And Earl Barrett-Holloway is blazing away at The Squid #4. Here's a teaser and a recent promotional design.

(c) Earl Barrett-Holloway 2016

It's supremely satisfying watching artists I've helped continue to develop their craft and get their stories out into the world. 

Time's running out to register for fall classes at SVA. Figure Drawing for Cartoonists begins Wednesday 9/21, Cartooning Basics begins Thursday 9/22, and Inking Comics begins Friday 9/23.

Continuing Continuing Ed is...              ...to be continued!

Life Drawing in Cartooning Class

Inking from the model

SVA employs such outstanding models, I can I hope be forgiven for stealing a little time to sketch while my students are working. Trying the assignments myself helps me tune in and give better advice.

Gesture drawing in ink

We work from models on 4 evenings in the Inking Comics course and 6 evenings-- every other week-- in Figure Drawing for Cartoonists. Each course involves different challenges, though some activities are common to both. Near the end of each course we do "pose requests": students take turns showing the model difficult poses from their comic projects for her to approximate. While we do that, in the Figure class, we also practice penciling for ink-- moving from construction lines in blue to tight pencils in black.

Moving from pencil to ink and lettering.

And in the Inking class, we practice drawing in ink wash.






And, as I'm fond of sharing, we do a popular challenge on Figure Drawing week 8 of 12, improvising comics from a costumed model. Mine turned out a bit wiggy this time (and pardon my language), but don't miss this earlier post of the marvelous comic student Daniel Schaffer came up with that evening.

Classes start soon! Figure Drawing for Cartoonists begins Wednesday Sept 21. Cartooning Basics begins Thursday Sept 22. Inking Comics begins Friday Sept 23. Come join us!

Continuing Continuing Education

Projects students undertake in my SVA classes often extend well beyond the conclusion of a course. Some recent examples:

Peter Shevenell's exploration of cartooning styles from the Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course is appearing in SVA's ads running this month in The Comics Journal.

Also from the Figure class, Daniel Schaffer's final project, a 3 page comic called "Hitler's Nightmare," is online this month in The Brooklyn Rail.

Last June, 5 former students-- Van Hong, Katie Surrence, Kevin Cooney, Kyle Rose, and the incomparable Kenly Dillard-- displayed their artwork in the halls at SVA's main building.












(Sorry about the blurry cell phone photos. Follow the links to see more from these artists.)

We're planning to do that again soon, there are so many amazing students I hope to feature.


I'm always happy to stay in touch. I count many former students among my friends and colleagues. Though it's been years since he first took one of my courses, Earl Barrett-Holloway and I still meet for coffee on occasion and go over pages of his kickass action/sci-fi/horror comic, The Squid.

That's the tip of the iceberg. Look for more student updates soon.
Classes are enrolling right now. Figure Drawing for Cartoonists starts Sept. 21. Cartooning Basics starts Sept. 22. Inking Comics starts Sept. 23.