Transplant - to make a short story long

Transplant is posted at webcomicsnation so go read it here.

This page was meant to be the page before my story, in Amanda's proposed but never published Apologue book, you can find more links to her art, thoughts on the book and ways to contact her at her deviant art page here. About a year ago, aaprox. sept. 2007, She held a fan art competition I asked if i could do a fan comic, came up with this and then she asked me to make this page to explain it, just read it. Below is a paper I wrote for Bob's class explaining some of my thoughts further, but with the prospect of its publication looking gloomier every month I have decided to publish what I had previously and curiously kept under wraps.




Fan Comics: creating comics inspired by other comics.
By Zach Bassett
Knowing that my story would encompass multiple locations meant that I would need to detail backgrounds and base my story in a more solid reality and physical world that Mythchan’s surrealistic watercolor dreamscape. However I also knew I was going to need to fit seven to ten panels to a page in order to tell my story, in the five page limit set by the competition. Though I did change my style a bit to fit with that of her manga inspired characters, I had to follow, be inspired by and essentially transplant Sleepsong in tone, subject matter, and theme more than I would be able to visually.

At the time I was approached about the fan art contest I was reading A Foregone Tomorrow and The Counterfifth Detective from Virtigo’s 100 Bullets series, featuring art by Eduardo Risso. As I skimmed through it visually, I noticed the amazing number of panels he was fitting on the page and knew he would be a perfect artist to look at for my own similarly panel heavy story.

A few days earlier a friend had seen my pencils for Transplant and told me it reminded him of an artist named Stuart Immonen. So I went to his website and found one of his blogs particularly pertinent. After briefly discussing how comics rely on deadline he hit went to the figures, saying that the average comic page has anywhere from four to seven panels, and the average superhero comic book has something like 90 different drawings in a 22 page story. In 100 bullets there was an average of nine panels per page, and you wouldn’t even need all your fingers to count the number of pages containing six panels or less. Needless to say Risso did quit a bit more than 90 panels a book. Risso’s style is not necessarily simplified per say, but does rely heavily on lighting to and separate foreground and background.

I probably should have taken note of his figure shading though, I left my characters shadowless in almost every panel and relied more on line weight to separate them from their backgrounds. Speaking of backgrounds, the stylized noir-like backgrounds and lighting of Risso’s 100 bullets and Tim Sale’s Batman: The Long Halloween gave me great ideas for simplified environments.

All in all, Transplant, while heavily influenced by Mythchan’s Sleepsong, Transplant turned out to be quite a different animal than I thought it would be. But thanks to some inspiration from Tim Sale and Eisner Award winning artist Eduardo Risso I was able to make Transplant into an easily readable story, despite it’s dense number of panels. For a more intricate look into the inspiration for Transplant as well as Mythchan’s original story, Sleepsong, checkout her self published Applogue.


I did the story, pencils and inks over a weekend on top of other homework, these were my thumbnails, pencils, inks and rough dialog, i scanned them before trashing them.





inks

progress - almost done

these are my in progress inks for my 4 pgs, all brushpen so far. it gets sort of confusing in the jacket on the last page so i will fix it.
here's links 6-7, 8-9 to the finals.

this is a printout of my tight roughs that i tightened and mixed with the hand from teh skecth below it, the earlier can be found on my earlier post.

these are some sketches i did to help with the hand on teh covers i did on my deviantart page for maelstrom.


some awesome phantom pages i colored from nick derington on splashpageart.com.

heres a color of an awesome bryan hitch dps.

Anthology pencils

a quick color of a night crawler drawing by the great lp, for julie's class.

here's my pencils for my anthology that i need to ink and letter by friday.

Long time, no post -sorry

So we finished leon in class and talked about bleed pages, I mentioned I liked charest but lyle hates him – says he is just pinups. But he is the best, an awesome illustrator we all agreed but his storytelling and layout is confusing – says lyle.
We got done early and all the student met about the scripts, I waited till last and did my in class assignment that was going to be homework. I brought it to him, he also mentioned that we will have t oink a few pages, and he said “when did you do this, during the movie? I said id been sitting there for 20 mins, he said “holly crap you laid out 4 pages in 20 mins. Glanced over them and said, your storytelling has really improved, you are making some really quick really good decisions, he looked at my layout and pointed out a few minor things but said he liked the look of the pages and that they were very nice, he’s going to help me with some of the more difficult perspective shots, but that I should use more angles. And I know, it was like once the summer came and I started doing layouts for 3 issues of comics all I wanted to do was move the camera side to side and up or down but never tilt up or down. My brain wasn’t in it. All summer I had procrastinated doing work, guilty about it though. I did a lot of personal art which I liked allot, very introspective though usually sad but it cheered me up and it kept me drawing. So letting that go was hard, I do have a project in art history that could tie back into that though so – yay! but i cant post or show most of it because i don't want any one to think different of me, or how i view them - its personal but like i said it kept me drawing and it kept me from getting too depressed, it came out of my pencil instead of my mouth and that is good. Over the summer I was writing and doing a lot of james work for him but I am freakishly fast, for a student, less than average for a pro but im getting better. I had seen mike manely site and that he had done 2-3 pages a day for quasar and was inking alpha fight at the same time, now I don’t know if I could do that consecutively but I have done 5 pages in about 12 hours and did it multiple times in larrison’s class, including lettering. Now if I did that during the day I could probably go even faster not being so dragged out and tired.

Here’s a layout for a dps sketch I did of spiderman I really liked, kind of has the live action tv 60’s eyes, like cassiday did on giant size astonishing x-men, though seeing his black and whites he does leave a lot of backgrounds out or even insert photocopies for backgrounds sometimes of large city shots. But his characters look great and there is some awesome layout stuff in latter issues of that series, im only missing issue 24 now before I go and read it. Anyway, wanted it to be a kind of tour de force of inking techniques and I figured it would be big enough I could ease into brush stuff, there’s a cool video on using a razor to add texture on manely’s site → drawman.blogspot.com

Also here is my “tight” roughs for the 1st 4 pages (non bleed format) of issue 2 of me and james’ story.

Inspirtaion - What I want to and have been reading

Man I've been reading some good stuff, if only I had the money to buy it. Here's what is currently inspiring me.

Graphic novles:

DC - Superman: Doomsday – ok so obviously the new omnibus, awesome but expensive. After seeing the new WB animated movie I was intrigued much more by the special features detailing the creation of the comic book arc and have wanted to read them ever since. There are alot of classic anatomy things I can learn from Jurgens and Brendings too, their good most of the time.

MARVEL - Astonishing X-men: Unstoppable - grew to love the art and always loved Joss' writing. I’ve only read the 1st graphic, I need to read the middle 2 before this one but my girlfriend has read them and loved them. Just knowing that there is an end is nice, so often in comics things are left so randomly ambiguous and open-ended.

DC - Simon Dark vol. 1 - Awesome art and very cool jigsaw/slipknot looking character.

MARVEL - Moon Knight - Vol 1. the bottom – (I did want to get the original “essential moon knight’s” since I always did like him, and guiltily Dark Hawk, but Sinkevitch did some really cool stuff when he was kind of in his Neal Adams) broken, pill popping and alcoholic moon knight broods over his bloody encounter where he cut the face off one of his enemies killing him (or so he thought) right after he was tossed down from the rooftop of an alley breaking his legs and bones w/ every fire escape he hit. Amazing art by Finch and even better writing and commentary on what a super-hero is, how far he can go etc.

MARVEL - Spider-man - One more day - heard the plot synopsis from a friend, amazing artwork. Peter dodges a bullet that kills Aunt May and makes a pact to trade his love with Marry Jane for her life back, leaving him only one more day before he forgets her entirely. The idea being if they are soul mates they will meet again, kind of like Goto's comic.

DC - IDENTITY CRISIS - Awesome art, awesome story - One of the few thing's I’ve been interested in from Dc in a while. Plus it has a artist/writer interview in the end - all for 15 bucks.

Image - Wildstar – still trying to see if this is collected in a graphic yet or not, I read an article on it in an old “comics magazine” and was excited.

MARVEL - Essential Fantastic 4 Vol 7. - I heard and have been waiting for this one, issue 141: reed is forced to shoot his own son (turning him into a vegetable and "shutting down his brain") as his powers threaten to grow out of control and destroy the whole world, despite his decision the team breaks up, sue considers divorce. In the next few issues, on his own the thing gets into trouble w/ no one to help him and Reed goes out to dinner with Medusas (I always loved the Inhumans) only to find Doctor Doom (like Darth Vader on cloud city in Empire Strikes Back), then jealously fights Namor for Sue.
Medusa: You can't blame yourself like this, you did what you had to do.
Is that good enough, will that bring my son back, will it make my wife love me again?
-It's so dark and so good. He becomes so conflicted it's amazing, though the art isn't top notch in the issues following.

Both X-men and Fantastic 4 have come out in their entirety on cd for about $40 which is what I should probably buy, FF even comes with the entire silver surfer collection now. But if I got the X-men one I'd get to see Neal Adam's do X-men, old JRJR in what I consider his prime.

I wish I could cheaply get the Daredevil book Frank Millar wrote with JRJR's art, it now comes in an omnibus with Frank's work and Sinkevitch's Electra book. Awesome, but oh so expensive.

Series:

Comico comics - The Elementals - I bought issues 1-30 off of ebay but promised myself I wouldn't start reading them until I got done writing Terra Novus. I found a few issues in the quarter bins in NY and I had dying for some more ever since. It's superheroes from an indie standpoint, no rules - sex, gore, violence - does it cross the line?

Epic comic's - Powerline Saga - Al Williamson, who also worked on Elementals - amazing realistic art, more realistic superheroes.

Marvel – Ghost Rider: Spirits of Vengeance – it was dark and drawn by the Kubert kids in their prime so you know it’s good.

Marvel - Morbius the living vampire – had all but the 1st issue and I’ve been holding off on reading it till then. Eventually the artist changed but the 1st 10 issues or so I’ve loved since I was a boy.

Vertigo – Scarab – Have all but one issue so I have the same problem as Morbius. Amazing art, psychedelic, Gaiman-esk writing – awesome.

In other news:

Legion of Superheroes Tv show – so it’s not a comic and it’s cancelled now but I watched the 1st 4 episodes w/ my little brother and they were actually really good. I don’t like the art as much but I can stand it for the stories and the change in season 2 and the finale for season 1 look to set up some pretty interesting dynamics. I’m looking forward to watching some more.

I should be able to start writing the 1st issue of me and James’ 10 issue mini-series tomorrow, we’ve worked out the plot roughly and the 1st issue rather tightly. I get new ideas daily and if I have the time and we stick to it we could have a very cool story here, longer, serialized and very fun to work on, highlighting both of our styles.

Drown

Finally got "Drown" on youtube - there's something wrong with the format but you get the idea. i still need to get working on my star trek cover.
part 1

part 2

easter eggs, art and everything else -finally

heres a wallpaper i did for my bubbie, she's so beautiful.
heres the roughs for 24 pages of y the last man, done on 1 and a half 8 1/2 x 11's

and heres the tight roughs - done 2 to a 8 1/2x11.



heres my "tight" roughs, lol - for the just in time script which i peciled in one night and did tights and blew them up the day before.

heres the 10 mins sketches we had to do to come up with an original astronaut, mine won when the class voted ,and then a spaceship to match, mine lost - big time even though i liked the ship more than the astronaut. they were for goto for an inclass storyboard assignment.


and here is the original sketches for noah, the 1st is more of a Charlton Heston thing going on - he's fun, not necessarily animatable but fun. then goto said to push him farther and i did, loved it, blew it up on the artograph and inked it.
figured now that im posting some stuff id add a few easter eggs as well for those of you interested enough to visit this page. so heres how i originally drew and inked the parts of the drawing. because i was in colorado i didn't have the size paper nor did i know the dimensions of the art or if he was going to want me to change anything so i did it in pieces.
next i assembled the pieces in photoshop using the multiply layer option.

and then made blocks of color under the ink layer so i could color each effect seperatly and on their own layer without messing with or effecting the rest of the art. this was an alternate idea i had for coloring based more off some old marvel silver surfer stuff that i was inspired by for the line art as well. you can find the final image with title and everything by followingthe link in the previous post or checking my deviant art http://xaqbazit.deviantart.com/

this is my drawing of kate that i tried for my lost animated characters, and the 1st sketch of ben that actually looked like him. i also dicovered men were much easier to characterize and make extreme and exagerated, women just got ugly really quick - however i felt this version of kate was too close to generic female and wasnt as close or iconic of a look as the others i did, which i will post on deviant and link soon.

i also posted a few more videos on my youtube account, have to get back to ga to split up drown and scan storyboards for it. http://youtube.com/user/xaqbazit

colorado

finally got word back from the guy at pendant audio and found out i had 2 days to do a cover and no scanner, so i inked different parts photographed them as best i could, assembled them in photoshop and colored them sampling colors from cam kenedy's dark empire. which was kind of my inspiration, along with allot of kirby fun space reference. i had allot of fun, though looking back on it i think i could have pushed it farther and used less muted colors, but it was quick and i learned allot, and ill be doing a monthly cover so that's fun. check my cover out and all the others here. http://www.pendantaudio.com/defiant.php
http://www.pendantaudio.com/defiantimages/Defiant_25_cover.jpg
also ill be posting the progress and final on deviant with the rest of my art.

i also posted one of the videos i made, this one i shot all before hand and taught a class with robin's help at the Humboldt public library in iowa, so the kids edited it together, it's got some simple effects and some music but it was fun and now its on the web so check it out here.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UM0djc3onLQ
the only other video i currently have up is another i made with austin and his family, we did as an fx test for light sabers i did in flash. you can see that one here
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1QK9uBtWMP0
i am really anxious about loading Drown, my 15 min movie - the most serious of my film and editing experiments. which took me about a week straight to film storyboard and script and another 2 days editing. but im really proud of it. so hopefully that will be up soon maybe ill even post the storyboards too.

speaking of i still have yurushi to deal with, i did the comic, rewrote it as a 60 pg script, even had scores and sound fx picked out and about half of it storyboarded but its been so long i dont know what to do with it. i was thinking of reformating the comic as a fold out verticle comic but im not even that proud of it anymore, the art is old, the script is bad admitidly, i even turned down a chance to autograph a copy because i didnt really like it that much anymore. if youd like to see it though i have posted the origional comic here
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/xaqbazit/yurushi/series.php?view=archive&chapter=22387

im also panning on posting my 24hr comic i and have been selling called square one - its kind of a weak title, i had fun challenging myself with the layouts but unfortunately everything i didnt have figured out ened up falling into routine and so its kind of a clone of torn, and has allot of similarities. everyone was calling it the "crossword comic" but the cover is kind of fun, ill have to post it with the rest of the comic whenever i get around to it.

im also reading the next two graphic novels of astonishing x-men, the one whedon was witting and im loving, i got the 1st one at the swap meet and am reading the second 2 from teh library. as well as osama tezuka's adolf which is amazing me how deep the themes are with such cartoony stylized art. but it helps me think i dont have to change my style, just draw like i do and do it as good as i can. you kinda accept the style and then get lost in it just like a normal story. almost like watching a film with dubs or subs.

well i have allot of stuff to look through from the library, my cousins just left after a week, kinda stressfull but i had fun havinga supersoaker game with our neighbor emma, aidan, me and colten. whoever had the hose, would hide a tennisball in the grass and the others would have to try to enter the yard and hold off the monster with the supersoakers, while looking for and recovering the ball from the hosemonster. anyway it was fun.

cant wait for new york, but i also am really excited about seeing dan again, talking about stories for senior project and finishing the scripts and starting to record novus terra. were going to be recording the voices just ourselves - sinking the fx and music and then rerecording the dialog track with the voice actors. hopefully ill be able to air an episode a week on a new scad radio show im calling scadrd (scattered) for scad radio dramas. i have a facebook group if anyone would like to help here
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=16437995460

i have so many projects i want to work on and scripts, art stories etc. my mind is so creative and my attention span is so short im constantly jumping from project to project. it will be nice to finally have something nice to show for all my work, i just am really going to be relying on a few peopel that will make or break the show so i hope they dont let me down, specifically adam - who seems to be buisyer than me and jagoda who seems to have more time than me. i havenet got anyone to help with the scripts like i wanted, but its almost done so i hope it isnt too bad, dan can help story edit for the last few episodes and im sure we'll make some changes when it comes time to record. but i hope the show does well because i could see allot of people doing weekly shows or one shot bits if it does. but ill just be doing kind of an etertainment block with 1 episode from multipule different shows each week so someone can tune in just to see what happens on their show, or maybe even listen to them all. im also interested in hearing something i saw ona road trip, a new company adapting books, graphic novels etc into audio drama format and calling it "graphic audio" - obviously a piggy back on eisner's phrase "graphic novel" however io persoanlly find it funny considering there is nothing "graphic" or visual about radio dramas, if it had that it would be tv. lol.

anyways, hopefully next time i post i will have my junk up on deviant art, hope i get allot of feedback - ive done allot of work this last semester and was one of only 3 to pass larriosn's pen and ink 1. when i get back im moving downtown so ill be buisy. ill also be inking james ww2 pages so i have some stuff in the works, and im scared about losing my drawing skills if i dont draw enough. but my work speaks for what i can do so im anxious to put it up.

some stuff will take time though, like storybaords for simpsons, that id like to sink to the audio like my noah storyboards and my simpson storyboards, but i think it will be worth it i just cant forget it.

i also overdrafted like mad so im barley still alive financially and now indebted to a few people for keeping me afloat, but a big thak you goes out to those who helped. ive never been so scared.

ive been trying to find a movie called "robot wars," it goes along with or is somehow connected with "robot jox" which is on youtube. ive also been craving to watch the made for tv-movies Generation-x, and Intensity. as well as the series, Roswell.

i also read up on the death of superman movie's on wikipedia, that were trying to be made in the 90's which was very interesting, along with summaries for mmpr series arcs.

editor's day

mike o'sullivan from devil's due reviewed my portfolio, i showed him my pages from the 2000 ad script and the justin time projects from larrison. i had the pages on the right and then scans with word balloons on the left. it went really well, he said i had "phenomenal energy" and that they just needed to be tightened up, which i could agree with since i did each of the projects in a night. but he really like the composition of the 1st just in time page and said i also need to work on anatomy a bit, some more life drawing. especially my hands, which kind of hurt because i was in hudson's hands class but they have gotten kinda wonky. anyways gave my second appt to james, with someone from alternative comics. im sick now and had to cover for someone at work the same night of editor's day, after i asked for it off. sliced my arm at work and am just so out of it today - fever etc. not to much hw so ill probably rest. when i get the stuff up on deviantart ill post a link.