Ignore my iPad Post
Posted By dbennett ~ 21st January 2012
You can ignore this. Pretty sad that my first post of the year is just an experiment from my iPad. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Happy Birthday, Jim Henson
Posted By dbennett ~ 24th September 2011
I can’t think of anyone that I know who isn’t a fan of Jim Henson’s work. And I’m not only referring to my adult peers, but the new generation of children as well. Okay, okay maybe I’m overstating things a bit here – obviously we can’t include newborns – but the fact remains, Jim Henson’s legacy lives on and he still touches lives today.
Who hasn’t enjoyed the puppets of Sesame Street? Adults and kids alike have will have fond memories of the magic that makes that show happen for years to come. The Muppet Show, once thought to only appeal to a child audience, introduced us to characters like that have been making us smile for years. Jim had a hand in some of the most beloved franchises in the world, including Star Wars where he persuaded George Lucas to use the talented Frank Oz to perform as Yoda.
I remember growing up with shows like Fraggle Rock and Muppet Babies. I recall being captivated by the movie Labyrinth, which I had no idea at the time was created by the same man who brought me Kermit the Frog and my favorite Muppet movies. I even got hooked on watching Dinosaurs later on, spouting “Not the Mama” along with the rest my friends who watched.
Jim Henson and The Henson Company continue to touch lives today. Not only through the shows that have endured, but new programming as well. Sid the Science Kid and Dinosaur Train are two of the many shows that my preschooler and I have enjoyed watching together.
So the magic lives on. And today, I’m proud to be part of some more of that Jim Henson magic. I was already blessed to have worked on The Muppet Show Comic Book and Fraggle Rock. But I was recently commissioned to create a font based off of Jim Henson’s handwriting to letter Tale of Sand – a beautiful adaptation of an unproduced screenplay written by Jim. So today I present not one, but two special gifts in honor of Jim Henson: a preview of Tale of Sand and Dark Crystal:Creation Myths from Archaia Comics. I am so thrilled to be part of both. Please Enjoy.
*As an added bonus…if you go to google.com today you can interact with the Google logo in puppet form! If you click on the link (hover over it for a while) it will take you to the Tale of Sand preview.
My Thoughts on the New Ultimate Spider-Man
Posted By dbennett ~ 3rd August 2011
I wrote a paper in college about blacks in comics. I’ll have to dig around and find it on a floppy disk somewhere, but the main point of it was to bring up the fact that comics lacked a decent portrayal of black superheroes. I suggested that from the earliest examples of comics, people of color were either non-existent or depicted as stereotypes or caricatures. Even in the modern era of comics, I felt that the mainstream black heroes possessed no qualities to identify them as black beyond the color of their skin or physical features.
Fast forward a bit and today (actually yesterday) it has been revealed that Ultimate Spider-Man will feature a half-black, half-hispanic incarnation of the web-slinger. KUDOS to Marvel. It is a bold move and one that is shaking things up quite a bit on the interwebs (pun sort of intended). I’m certainly glad that we are seeing a bi-racial hero, but I still have my reservations. Most notably, I wonder if famed writer, Brian Michael Bendis will do the character justice. Let it be known, I have the utmost faith in his ability to write a FANTASTIC story, my concern is mostly – will the character actually be black/hispanic in more than just name.
The thing people love about a Peter Parker Spider-Man is that his character and personality make him so unique. A different set of challenges are presented to him because of who he is. His ongoing conflict to resolve his personal life with his alter-ego’s make his stories more pronounced. So will the same be said of the latest Spider-Man, Miles Morales? Will we see some conflict that revolves around his race? And if so, can it be authentic? Will he face issues that deal with his mixed heritage? These are all important questions that should be attached to the character. If not, then why make him black/hispanic in the first place?
Because then it becomes a question of “was he created just for diversity’s sake?” I’m all for creating diverse characters, but there has to be a compelling reason to do so. I felt that the Milestone Universe had it right. There were heroes from all walks of life with compelling, character-developed stories that were true to life. Static was one of the superheroes that came out of that and has since become a popular lead in his own right. Later this year, he will again be given his own comic as DC relaunches its catalog of titles. I’m looking forward to that title as well, helmed by a new writer, to retain some of the distinguishing cultural features that made his character so appealing in the first place.
The idea of creating diverse superheroes is something we should all be embracing. I’m not sure what the naysayers are saying (I refuse to check the boards in an effort to maintain my temper), but I know that increasing the diversity of characters only serves to reflect the reality of the world. It’s already a win for Ultimate Spider-Man to feature a bi-racial superhero. I’m just hoping that the ethnicity of characters like Miles and Virgil will be portrayed in a way that can give me and my kids (who are bi-racial, by the way) someone to root for.
What do you guys think? What will make Miles Morales a great bi-racial superhero?
SDCC ’11 Wrap Up: Day 2
Posted By dbennett ~ 26th July 2011
Day 2 was the day I actually began to make the rounds – panels, networking, swag-grabbing, etc.
I kicked everything off by hitting the DC Comics panel, The New 52. Because this has spawned so much attention, the guys over at DC had one of these planned each day of the Con to distribute as much information as possible. I felt they did a pretty good job of addressing some concerns long-time readers may have had. I went in with a friend, who was very skeptical of what they had in store and he walked away with a lot more confidence in the direction they were going.
I did my best to live-tweet the whole thing. I don’t have a smart phone, ipad, or laptop (at least not on me) so I’m not entirely sure it was successful, but I did what I could. It was my first time, but I think I did at least a half decent job of disseminating information.
In general, the panel was about discussing how the idea had spawned. Essentially, during a war room meeting, DiDio, Lee, and company were trying to figure out ways to make the stories fresh. I think it’s a common perception that everything has already been done with the stories of our treasured superheroes, DC or otherwise, so it’s certainly a worthy notion to address. DiDio had talked about how the mythology of Superman had changed and the overall excitement for the characters wasn’t the same.
Of course sales also factored in and just making comics more accessible in general were the topics that were all on the table. The solution that Dan wanted was to do all number ones with the exception of Action and Detective Comics.
This was a key piece of information for me. A lot of people question why they were re-doing the entire line. Suffice to say that if they didn’t go all out, the perception would be that they are not taking this seriously and were not behind the idea 100 percent. To have any credibility they had to go all out.
Looking at the artwork and hearing what they had to say was certainly reassuring. Subtle things like re-imagining the costumes to convey more of a team concept or the change in the way powers would visually manifest themselves were all welcome ideas to me.
And they aren’t trying to rehash origin stories or do year ones. They are taking the basic core mythology of the character and presenting them as if they had never been shown to an audience before. I admire that.
After that, I ended up at Mattel’s MattyPalooza panel. They showed off their plans for DCU, MOTU, Voltron, and Ghostbusters. I was particularly excited about the MOTU stuff as you probably have guessed. Coming next year are some pretty sweet new characters and there is even a contest for the fans to come up with one of their own to be released at the end of 2012. I’m really looking forward to the Sorceress, ThunderPunch He-Man, and BattleGround Evil Lynn.
We walked away from the panel with a mini-comic that will be a package insert, just like the old days. I love that idea. I didn’t really feel the story represented the MOTU world, but hey, nostalgia always wins.
My big plan that Friday was to check out the ThunderCats screening. The line was outrageously long, so I missed out. But I was able to better gauge how long before I needed to get in line for the viewing of Avatar: The Legend of Korrah, which was necessary for Day 2.
All was not lost though. I got to the Nintendo booth/play area and got my first hands on with Skyward Sword. The game is pretty sweet. You got to choose between a few different demo types: A boss battle, a dungeon playthrough, and a flight challenge. All were pretty darn good. The motion control didn’t impress me, but the game plays well nonetheless and feels true to the Zelda spirit. It’s a top quality franchise and it delivers.
After that, I met up with a few friends and had dinner. Topics were all over the place from the future of manga, to digital delivery, to the DC relaunch, and even a long discussion on the CM Punk episode that occurred at the WWE panel. That’s how we roll at the Con. Anything sub-culture related – we got it covered.
Ended it by hitting the Hyatt, where we bumped into a few friends and a few famous faces (at least to a comic book nerd such a myself). I actually was within arms-length of Richard Starkings, one of the many letterers whom I admire. I chickened out and never spoke to him. I like to blame it on the fact that he was already engaged in conversation.
Before heading back to the hotel, my night was brightened by a bit of good news. My buddy and editor, Paul Morrissey had an Eisner Award in hand for his work on Mouse Guard. Though I’ve congratulated him many times, let me just say it again, “Congrats, Paul! You deserve it.”
SDCC Wrap Up
Posted By dbennett ~ 25th July 2011
Comic Con is always such a blur that I never really remember everything that happened. I’m hoping that putting it all down in writing will give me time to collect my thoughts and keep track of everything I did and saw for future reference. As a side bonus, maybe it’ll give you guys (if you missed out) some insight as to what went down in general and provide some topics of discussion. On the other hand, it may just all be BS of no interest to you, who knows.
Day 1
My first day at the convention center was marred a little bit due to the fact that I started the day off searching for a phone charger. So I missed out on quite a few panels that I was looking forward to and was forced to use most of my time to kind of lay out a new plan and get a scope of what I wanted to do. Ended up mostly talking to friends and associates, making plans for later in the evening.
One of the panels I was particularly looking forward to was the Digital Comics panel. There’s been a lot of conversation about the death of print, the reluctance of fans to accept the digital format, and other such craziness. A friend of mine made the analogy that print was the horse-drawn carriage of comics and digital is the car. Sure, you can still enjoy the antiquated carriage, but the car is the better vehicle.
I see room for both. And I’m for whatever gets comics into reader’s hands, so I wanted to sit in on the conversation and see how everyone else was reacting. If you were in attendance, please comment and let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear what went down.
I did stop by a couple of booths and meet some of the creators whom I worked with on a number of titles, but never actually met. Introduced myself to Warren Spector, Tad Stones, Eric Seaton, the teams at Archaia, Ape, BOOM!, and loads more.
Also did a little bit of shopping at the Mattel booth and The AFX booth. I’m old school, so I gots me a Mumm-Ra and Voltron. The Mumm-Ra came with an exclusive Ma-Mutt, so that was pretty cool. Should look good on my shelf.
I got in line to see the Voltron Resurgence panel, but it was waaaaaay too long with the overcrowd from the Batman Preview. So sadly, I missed that as well.
Ended up hanging with some good friends at the Gaslamp that evening. It was my buddy’s birthday, so we went out in celebration. It was a fun night altogether. No real Con news or events for me, but I did get to enjoy the day and get my bearings on day 1.
Any Size Will Do, Right?
Posted By dbennett ~ 8th July 2011
Absolutely not! And don’t let anyone tell you different. Size matters. Especially when it comes to comic book page sizes.
When setting up your pages, it’s important to check and double check the specs of the company you will be producing artwork for. If not, you’ll be creating a good deal more problems than necessary. You can wind up with oversized or undersized pages, printing errors, spacing issues, and other messes that can be avoided by figuring out the final output size in advance.
Specs
Typically a US comic book is sized at 6.875″ x 10.438″ including bleed. Bleed is the added margin outside of the final page size used to make sure that the artwork extends to the edge of the page after the book is trimmed. The trim size – the actual size of the book is – 6.625″ x 10.25″. There is also a safe area – usually about a quarter of an inch of space within the trim – used to keep all important artwork well away from being cropped off. It can also be useful in setting up page layouts, creating panel borders that fit within the boundaries of the safe zone.
Proportions
Such a small size is not a very reasonable size for an artist to work at. Usually, you will be working at a larger format and scaling it down to fit. Now pay attention – Squares don’t scale into rectangles. If you draw something that’s not proportional to the specs given to you, it will not scale properly.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of assuming that because we work digitally, computers can scale artwork to fit any size. Not so. The art has to be proportional to make it fit. Most professionals work at a size 1.5 x spec size. So if you are working on a typical US page, you should multiply the dimensions by 1.5 and you should be okay. It’ll end up something around 10″ x 15″ (that’s an estimate folks, not exact).
Resolution
Another aspect of working digitally is resolution. Here are the basics: Anything viewed on a screen – web, mobile, etc. – you can leave at 72dpi. Anything intended for print needs to be at least 300dpi. Check with your publisher for the resolution that they prefer. If you don’t understand resolution, it’s absolutely necessary that you look into getting a better understanding of it. And why shouldn’t you? You’re work is going to be manipulated digitally, so you should understand the process that it goes through to ensure that you create something of the utmost quality.
And that really is the key. I wrote this so that you can create the highest quality work. If you understand these little things it will help improve the overall look of the book. You’ll be creating artwork that uses the entire space of the page and not leaving a good deal of unused canvas area. In turn you’ll also be creating enough room for your art and the leaving plenty of space for the words that go on top of it (helping guys like me a whole bunch). You can also be confident that none of that beautiful art gets cut off by mistake.
It’s simple enough, but I see errors all the time. Double check the specs of your publisher. Not all comics were created equal and that includes page sizes.
My Wife Amazes Me
Posted By dbennett ~ 28th June 2011
Yes. You heard it here first folks. My wife is amazing. For a lot of reasons, but I say it now, in particular, because of all of the things she is capable of doing. She’s always telling me that my talents impress her, but in truth, she impresses me a lot more.
Tomorrow is our 5 year anniversary. Every year we try to get a traditional gift – you know, first year paper, second year cotton, etc. This year is wood. I’ve been on her about how much I want a bookshelf in my room – and you know what she did? She built me a frickin’ bookshelf. That’s right. She built the darn thing. How many of your wives have done that?
She’s so talented at many things, but she just thinks it’s typical. It’s not. She dives in headfirst into everything and usually comes out on top. This year, she’s been heavily involved trying to get the beaches in our town cleaned, doing all she can to raise funds, contact workers, get approvals, and just get the project rolling in general. At the same time running a successful business. Even that was a gamble, but with her I just had that confidence in her that I knew she would be successful. She’s just an achiever and I couldn’t be any prouder of her accomplishments.
My Mrs. can change a flat, fix the electric, hang a door, and still throw on a dress and look absolutely beautiful (probably doing all of the above in the same day). She runs her own business, but still finds time to be a seasonal tax professional. She’s a fantastic mother and a darn good wife. Many people tell me what I already know, “she’s a keeper.” And after 16 years together and 5 years of marriage, I’m pretty certain I’ll be holding on to this one forever.
I love you, Christine. Happy Anniversary.
Currently Working On…
Posted By dbennett ~ 24th June 2011
Been fairly busy as of late. And that’s a mighty good thing. Some of this stuff is older, but I’m still doing new issues, so there.
A couple of months back, BOOM Studios announced that they were rebranding their line of BOOM Kids comics and bringing out new titles under the KABOOM flagship. I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of a few of those comics that were announced and I couldn’t be more excited.
Ducktales was one of my favorite cartoons growing up, so when editor Christopher Burns asked me to handle letters on the comic, I jumped right on without so much as a question. When I found out that Warren Spector was writing the series–I was doubly excited.
I didn’t want the lettering to feel the same as the Darkwing books, so I switched it up a bit. I wanted it to match the rounded feel of the art and to be a little more loose. I feel like it’s working for the most part, but with each progressive issue I’m retooling the designs a little more so that it marries with the pages better.
I’ve also been a part of Space Warped- a Star Wars parody initially run overseas. In the localized version, I decided to stick with the style used in the original. I guess it’s just the manga letterer in me trying to keep things authentic. You can check out the preview here for the first issue:
Also from Kaboom, I’ve had the privilege of lettering one of my daughter’s favorite ‘toons – WordGirl. It’s just like the tv show -fun, witty, and educational at the same time. Kids should really dig this.
Most of my busy days were spent architecting the design of Archaia’s Mr. Murder is Dead. I not only got to handle letters, but was the graphic designer on the book as well. And this book LOOKS AMAZING if I do say so myself. No no. It doesn’t just look amazing, it is AMAZING. There’s so much to talk about with this book, that I think I’ll feature it in a separate blog post. It features art by Brent Schoonover and he did some outstanding stuff in here. You’re gonna love it.
On the manga front, I just wrapped up the last volume of Cirque Du Freak. The series was my first project coming out of Yen Press, so it’s sort of a downer to see it finished. On the other hand, the conclusion is very action-packed and the art, as usual, is phenomenal.
While it seems like only months since I started working with Yen, it actually has been a few months since I started working with Ape Entertainment. These guys have been very good handling their licensed properties and the final product shows their commitment to excellence. And they’ve got me on a bunch of their titles. Be sure to check out Richie Rich, MegaMind, Strawberry Shortcake, Penguins of Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda - all featuring lettering from AndWorld Design.
Yep, AndWorld Design has been growing. In order to handle the ever growing lettering demands of publishers, I’ve picked up a brand new letterer in Adrian Martinez. You can check out some of his work here:
http://adriansportfolio.tumblr.com/
You can look forward to seeing more work come out of him and other artists under the AndWorld Design team.
That does it for me. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I’ll keep you posted. ‘Til next time.
Jaggi Sketch
Posted By dbennett ~ 12th June 2011
Drew a Jaggi from the Monster Hunter series. Intended to draw a Great Jaggi, but scaled it back a bit to create a younger version. I plan on making this one battle a Great Jaggi for supremacy.