Grey Legacy find in Amazing Heroes

In an earlier post (http://www.wayne-wise.com/2011/07/writing-part-5-comics-part-2.html) I talked about my experiences as part of the comics small press, black and white publishing explosion of 1986.


Recently, thanks to digging through the warehouse at Phantom of the Attic Comics where I work I've had the pleasure of looking through a lot of issues of Amazing Heroes. This was one of the premiere magazine about comics at the time, one of the place where you could read articles, creator interviews, and see previews of new series in the pre-internet age. It was bi-monthly publication. This has been an amazing bit of nostalgia for me, and seeing several years of comics fandom and my own experiences condensed into about a weeks worth of browsing issue after issue is a little mind-blowing. It's a great sense of perspective and gives a more concrete timeline than my mere memory allowed for.


So, while browsing I stumbled across the following in issue #116,  May 1, 1987, in the "Coming Comics" section. I had never seen this before.

This is fascinating to me. As I said before, we finished the entirety of Shadowlock #1 and mailed it in, but Showcase Publications went under before the book was ever printed. I couldn't find am announcement for it in Amazing Heroes, so either I don't have the issue or Showcase never submitted one. This announcement indicates the good faith from our publisher that there would indeed be a second issue. What I find funny is that we never discussed issue #2 with our editor at all, other than the contract we had for an ongoing series. While we certainly had plans, we never wrote or drew a single panel for a Shadowlock #2.

A month later, in Amazing Heroes #118, June 1, 1987, there is the following announcement. It pretty much tells the whole tale.

Small Press Interview: Scott Hedlund

Scott Hedlund is a Pittsburgh-based small press comics artist. I first met Scott as a customer at Phantom of the Attic Comics and in the course of the last fourteen years we have become friends and artistic collaborators. Several years ago our mutual friend, writer Brian Babyok, asked if I would ink Scott's pencils on a comic called Chaos Punks. This was a project that was not only a lot of fun, but very seminal for me as well. After many years of not working on comics, this project got me back to the drawing table.


We worked at a rate of a page a week. Each Wednesday on new book day at the store Scott would bring me a new, completed page of pencils. I would return them, fully inked, a week later. This weekly deadline and expectation was a key for both of us in terms of production. Over the course of forty-eight weeks we both grew as artists and learned from each other.




Scott continues to grow as an artist and to work on a number of projects.

1) Tell us a bit about your comics and where they are available.

I like to draw a lot of different genres mainly because I'm interested in story-telling. I typically work with a writer on stories. I think it adds something to comic books to have more than one creative person's input on the project. I like to let the story influence me as far as page layouts and finishing techniques play out. This keeps me entertained and challenged to improve my work. Check out Weirdlings Press (www.weirdlings.com) for most of my comics. Some of the more notable projects that I have contributed to includes: Weirdlings, Chaos Punks, World of Orenda, and Fairhaven.

2) Why comics?

I love the art of telling a story. And drawing comics is one of the easiest forms of expression. I put pencil to paper and I am doing just that. It's very satisfying to me personally and I enjoy the community that goes on with other comic creators and comic fans in general.

3) Who have been your biggest influences, both in writing and in art?

Ron Frenz was my first favorite comic book artist with his run on Marvel's Star Wars comic. Later I got into John Romita Jr's Daredevil run. Nowadays I'm inspired by people like Terry Moore, Adam Hughes, Yanick Paquette, Edward Risso and Guy Davis. As far as writers go, I like Peter David on X-Factor, Jonathan Hickman on Fantastic Four, Mark Waid on the new Daredevil, Brian Azzarello on 100 Bullets and Wonder Woman, and Scott Snyder on SwampThing.

4) What are your favorite comics (whether you consider them influential on your style or not)?

Currently, my favorites include: Swamp Thing, X-Factor, The Walking Dead, Wonder Woman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Ultimate Spider-Man, I, Vampire, Justice League Dark, Rachel Rising, Voodoo, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, FF. I don't even want to get in to past comics. There are too many!

5) Have you studied art or writing in college, or are you self-taught?

I went to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and received a degree in Visual Communications. Drawing comics though pretty much comes from "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" and then I went from there.

6) What’s your normal process for creating your comic?

I guess I answered some of this in question 1 as far as how stories come together. The actual drawing part starts with a script, finished or loose and I break down the script into thumbnail drawings. This part defines story-flow/pace, overall page layout, character positions and space for word balloons. I then move right up to the full-sized 11x17 page and draw in the details. I use reference when possible. A little bit of accuracy doesn't hurt but I am also conscious of keeping the lines loose and I try to avoid stiff poses. In the last year I have been inking and coloring using the Wacom: Cintiq 12 using Adobe Photoshop. Then I do the lettering in Illustrator and place it into the Photoshop file.

7) How do you promote your work?

I promote through social media and person to person. I cohost a Comic Book Podcast called the Comic Book Pitt (www.comicbookpitt.com) and I make sure to mention any comic projects that I am working on. I use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google+, and of course Weirdlings.com is where most of my work is on display. In person, I go to a handful of comic book shows every year. Whether it's as an exhibitor or fan; I always bring something to give away that mentions my next/current project and what website to go to for more information.

8) What do you enjoy most about being a comics creator?

I enjoy the story-telling and the community of comic shows. The friendships that I have developed through this common love of the medium are what give me purpose and satisfaction in life.

9) What do you find most difficult about being a comic’s creator?

Probably the long hours it takes to draw a story and the low return financially. I see so many artists that make an easy buck on pinups of established characters. 22 pages of sequential art carries a lower value than one slick image.

10) What's more important to you: Telling a story or pushing the bounds of comic book art?

Ha! Probably telling the story, since I keep blabbing on about it! I think the art should serve the story, but there is an infinite amount of ways to push what works artistically and still tell the story.

11) Why self-publish instead of submitting your work to the majors?

Honestly I don't see myself succeeding in the professional market. There is a consistency of quality while maintaining a grueling schedule that I don't think I can live up to. Maybe I'm just a realist.

12) What are your long-term goals with comics?

I don't have any long term goals beyond next summer's comicon season. I have a few books that need printed. I will be working on a new story in the New Year and I'm excited about drawing it!

13) I've personally seen your work improve dramatically in the past few years. It seems like there was suddenly a point where you made a quantum leap in ability. What do you think happened to make this take place?

Thanks Wayne! That means a lot to me. I could name a few things that happened. I think our team-up on Chaos Punks helped me to improve my line work. Drawing for an inker is a whole other mindset than drawing something that I would ink myself. I also started using some photo references to get the character's looks and personalities down, as well as settings. It could also just be the volume of pages that I have drawn over the years and I finally drew enough bad ones. Ha!

14) Where can you be found you on the web if anyone wants more info?

Most of what I have drawn can be found at Weirdlings Press (www.weirdlings.com). Also the Comic Book Pitt podcast (www.comicbookpitt.com) airs pretty regularly. Thanks Wayne!

This is a page from Chaos Punks, written by Brian Babyok,
pencils by Scott and inks by me.

Pencilled panel from Weirdlings

Finished inks and colors by Scott

Pencilled page from Weirdlings

Finished page

Finished page from Weirdlings

Small Press Interview - Nick Marino

Nick Marino is a Pittsburgh-based creator involved in a wide variety of comics related endeavors. He is a writer, an artist, and a podcaster, among many other things. Nick stays very active in the small press scene in Pittsburgh, working with an assortment of other artists. He's up for this installment of my small press interviews. You can see samples of Nick's work at the end of the interview.

1) Tell us a bit about your comics and where they are available.

Super Haters is an irreverent superhero satire webcomic that runs Monday-Friday. http://comics.superhaters.com/

Time Log is an (almost completed) weekly webcomic about time travel and music history that runs (somewhat) weekly on Thursdays. http://timelog.audioshocker.com/

Stick Cats is webcomic about stick figure cats that's just been bumped up to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. http://stickcats.nickmarino.net/

And those are just my current webcomics... you can check out more about my past, future, and side projects (as well as my print comics) at NickMarino.net. http://www.nickmarino.net/

2) Why comics?

Time and space.

3) Who have been your biggest influences, both in writing and in art?

I have two types of influences -- professionals whose work I find inspirational and friends whose work I find compelling.

Friends go first because they're the most important! They include Shawn Atkins, Ross Campbell, Dan Greenwald, Justique Woolridge, Nate McDonough, and lots of other local Pittsburgh comics creators.

The professionals I'm inspired by are a mix of superhero comic book storytellers, cartoonists, and comedians. They include Matt Groening, Max Cannon, Jim Starlin, Grant Morrison, Chris Bachalo, Chris Giarrusso, Zucker Abrahams Zucker, Bob Layton, Chris Claremont, Paul Fusco, Dave Chappelle, Tim Meadows, and the Farrelly Brothers.

4) What are your favorite comics (whether you consider them influential on your style or not)?

I love all comics!

Okay, not really. But I do appreciate all kinds of comics, even if I don't love every single story. My favorite works inspire deep thought, push my imagination to new limits, and tug at my heartstrings.

So, basically, Garfield.

Just kidding! Although I do appreciate the more ambitious Garfield strips, here are a few of my favorite comics: We3, The Thanos Quest, R. Crumb's "Joe Blow," and Ral Grad.

5) Have you studied art or writing in college, or are you self-taught?

I never studied creative writing in a classroom, though I've done extensive independent research on character and story structure. However, I did take screenwriting classes in college. I enjoyed those because they were technical -- they focused on formatting and pacing.

As for art, I studied drawing off and on for years. I learned enough to know the basic elements of anatomy and composition, despite the fact that I like to ignore most of that when I sit down to draw.

In general, I've had a hard time learning creative skills in the classroom. I've studied graphic design, animation, filmmaking, cartooning, and illustration throughout the years, and I've found the school setting to be very discouraging.

But I love learning through trial and error! (Mostly error...)

6) What’s your normal process for creating your comic?

"Normal" process? HAHAHA!

I have no one process for creating comics. Each one of my comics has a different creation process, and even those evolve over time.

I tend to be very collaborative, so I'm often consulting other writers and artists from the beginning. I also do most of my writing and art digitally, especially for Super Haters. In particular, I like to write in Google Docs because it affords me the ability to work from anywhere with an Internet connection.

I tend to draw on paper and scan it in. Then I tweak the lines on the computer. I normally draw in ink and skip the penciling stage. I've never liked pencils. They're too smudgy and gray. Yuck! Most of the time, I letter and color digitally. I've never enjoyed doing either of those on paper.

But I'm generalizing. There's no single process that I use over and over again. For example, Stick Cats was created as a reaction to my reliance on digital methods. So I write that one as I draw it and I do everything by hand on paper.

As for comics that I only write and don't draw, my story proicess goes something like this: I identify my beginning and end first. Sometimes I'll outline, sometime I won't. I do A LOT of research when I write. I enjoy that part.

I typically write the first draft of my story in loose prose. Then I edit things and tighten up the pacing as I convert the story into script format. From there, I'll edit another couple of times before I give an artist my finished script.

7) How do you promote your work?

Relentlessly! Mostly through the Internet. I link to my comics from every social media imaginable. I also podcast about my comics work, and interact on message boards and blogs about other comics.

In person, I do conventions. I drop my books off in stores when I have a new title, or if I'm in a new city. In Pittsburgh, I stay extremely active in the local comics scene, working to promote my comics by simply being everywhere that I possibly can!

8) What do you enjoy most about being a comics creator?

I love telling stories, and I love the way that comics carry my stories. More than anything else, I delight in the finished product. I enjoy promotion, although it's daunting. And I love creating!!! It's so hard to pick just a few things that I enjoy because I enjoy so much about creating comics.

9) What do you find most difficult about being a comics creator?

The printing process. It's frustrating, time consuming, and expensive.

Also, I sort of hate drawing. But not nearly as much as I hate printing!!!

10) What's more important to you: Telling a story or pushing the bounds of comic book art?

Storytelling. If I push the boundaries in the process, then that's an added bonus.

11) Why self publish instead of submitting your work to the majors?

Most of my work is "not ready for prime time" either in its themes, content, or quality. However, I'm still pretty new at self-publishing -- I just printed my first minicomic in 2008.

I have plenty of plans for submitting my work to publishing houses. I'm not sure that I'll be going to the "majors" (at least, not off the bat), but I'll definitely be approaching smaller publishing companies within the next few months.

12) What are your long-term goals with comics?

Creatively, my goal is to tell stories that resonate with readers and excite them to pick up more of my work. Professionally, my goal is to forge a sustainable, lucrative career by publishing a large body of work that meets my creative goal.

13) You are pretty heavily involved in the world of podcasting, about comics as well as other topics. What can you tell me about that? What got you interested in that in the first place?

I love working with audio, and I have long history of recording and editing. In the early 00s, my friend and I tried to start an "audio magazine," but it never really got off the ground.

Years later, I discovered comic book podcasts. Inspired by what I heard and aching to put my stamp on the medium, I contacted my friend and we revived our "audio magazine" idea as a general pop culture podcast in 2007. We've been going weekly at AudioShocker.com ever since. http://www.audioshocker.com/

However, I struggled for years to find the right podcast forum to discuss comics on a regular basis. After tons of trial and error, I settled on two shows that focus on comics creation -- Sequential Underground and A Podcast with Ross and Nick.

14) Where can you be found you on the web if anyone wants more info?

NickMarino.net is the best place to find links to all of my work, as well as links to my social media profiles. http://www.nickmarino.net/

Also make sure to stop by the AudioShocker and give us a listen! In particular, make sure to check out Wayne's recent guest appearance on Sequential Underground #25. You dropped some serious self-publishing knowledge on that episode, Wayne!!! http://www.audioshocker.com/2011/09/21/sequential-underground-25-self-publishing-with-wayne-wise

Time Log

Taste of the Sea

Super Haters

Stick Cats

I went to SPACE this weekend. For those who don't know, SPACE is the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo held in Columbus, Ohio. In its 12^th year, SPACE is a showcase for self-published comics that fall way out of the mainstream world of comic book production and distribution. The number of small press comics conventions have grown over the years, among them SPX in Bethesda, APE in San Francisco, and Pittsburgh's own PIX which just began last fall.

As a celebration of the Do-It-Yourself mentality these are great events. This is a roomful of creators, writers and artists, who make comics purely for the love of the medium, knowing that very few, if any of them, will ever move on into the realm of professional comics creator. My guess is that this isn't even the goal of the majority of people there. They put out money to print their work, travel to the show, pay for food and lodging, pay for the table space at the con, and hope to sell enough comics to break even. Few of them do. This is in many ways the heart of true comics fandom and creativity. Each book is the product of a personal vision with little thought for commercial concerns.

This follows a long tradition in comics. The underground comix of the 1960's spawned an explosion of creativity and gave creators like Robert Crumb a home he would never have found in the mainstream. The independent publishers that grew as a result of the direct market in the early 80's were doing much the same thing. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a self-published book and spawned the ill-fated black and white comics explosion of 1986 (which led in turn to the black and white comics implosion of 1987).

I was reminded mainly of the mini-comics scene of the late 80's and early 90's. My collaborator Fred Wheaton and I were in the thick of that. There was a huge underground of self-published mini-comics that was, by today's internet standards, hard to learn about or track down. We started doing comic strips for a music/humor 'zine called The Plain Brown Wrapper. This was sold in some local music stores and comic shops, but mostly through mail order. Through this we learned of the existence of a mag call Factsheet Five. FF was a review magazine for 'zines and mini-comics. Anyone could send their book in and get a listing and a review, and hopefully, as a result, some mail order business. We sent copies of the original Grey Legacy, as well as some of our other mini-comics like Buggly the Inbred Bear, Dumpy Geeks at the Mall, and Boo Boo Chute and sold a few copies and traded many more (trades were a big part of this scene... everyone had something they wanted to get out there). More importantly we found this great, really supportive underground network of other people who were self-publishing.

I ran into a couple of people I had corresponded with back in the early 90's at SPACE this weekend and I was glad to see they're still out there doing something they obviously love. I met Pam Bliss at a number of shows back then and traded a number of comics with her. I met, for the first time, Michael Neno who I knew only by name. He used to publish a mini-comic review 'zine called Comics FX and in addition to giving positive reviews to our work he once cover-featured Grey Legacy and published a pretty in-depth interview with Fred and me.

Like any scene like this, back then the quality of the work varied. I like to think our stuff was on a much more professional level than many of the books we saw (and based on reviews and the fan letters we received I don't think I'm exaggerating too much). There was a lot of... how do I put this gently? There was a lot of amateurish crap.

And that's still true, I hate to say. I always feel a little schizophrenic when I walk through the Artist's Alley of a Con, especially one that focuses on Indy books. I want to be supportive of the scene. I am fully in favor of anyone who wants to make comics to do so, regardless of skill level. The artistic desire and drive should be rewarded. But at the same time, there's a lot of stuff that just simply doesn't interest me at all, sometimes because it's a subject matter I don't care about (it's not like I'm interested in every professional comic from major publishers either), but truthfully, sometimes I'm not interested because it's amateurish crap. So I've had to develop the skill of walking the aisles, glancing at tables, and trying not to make eye contact with the creators until I've ascertained my level of interest. I admire your enthusiasm, but I'm simply not interested in hearing your spiel.

And trust me, I am sympathetic. I've been on the other side of the table trying to promote my work often enough to know what it feels like when people walk by with barely a glance.

The Pittsburgh Small Press scene was well-represented. A lot of my friends had tables there, and I know I'm a little prejudiced because they are my friends, I do think the overall quality of the work in our corner was among the best books at the show. We put on a great showing and I'm proud of all of them.

I guess I'll end this by reiterating how much I support the DIY comics self-publishing effort. No matter what the quality of the product it takes a lot of time, work and dedication to do it with very little reasonable expectation of any kind of financial reward. Unlike big industry comics cons this entire scene is about the love of comics; reading them, making them, talking about them and sharing them. The big cons could learn a lot from this.