New Book Haul - Batman, Swamp Thing, and The Studio

It's funny, but I did not even realize all 3 of these books have Batman in them. Swamp Thing is another DC book, and often Bats will make an appearance in some of the lesser-known titles -- I suppose it boosts sales. And as for the 2 that have him on the cover, I approached the decision to buy them each for such different reasons that it didn't occur to me until after the books arrived that they both include the Caped Crusader. 

It started with the David Finch Unwrapped book - I had seen it featured on the Earl Grey youtube channel and was instantly struck by the amazing penciled artwork - and even just the idea that they are now publishing comic book pencil art! In Finch's case I fully understand why - his pencil work is a thing of beauty and deserves to be appreciated in all its glory, though it was very difficult for them to get dark enough images because he works in 4H pencil, which is very light, and it taxed the limits of the technology to bring up enough contrast.

I'm really glad I discovered Finch's work, because I'm at a point where I've got about as far as I can with digital painting, and in order to improve now I need to really push my drawing skills. This book has amped up my inspiration and excitement about it.

I've been watching a lot of comic book videos lately - especially the Comic Book Historians channel, which explores the roots of familiar comic book characters in pulp fiction, newspaper strips, and old movies. Also watching a lot about Jack Kirby, whose work I've come to appreciate more and more (originally I didn't like it). 

Here's one of Finch's knockout images from the book. One thing that makes it look so good is probably (largely anyway) an accident - it's because the edges of the shadows are dark and then they're filled in lighter, which creates a good core shadow/ bounce light effect. That's even accentuated by what he calls the Rendering -- which turns out to be the cross-hatching along the edges of the shadows. It works perfectly as half-tone, which is a soft shading along the edges of the core shadow blending it subtlely into the light areas.  Ok, I'm sure he's well aware of these principles of lighting and shading, so they're not really accidents, but they also happen to work quite well for their intended purpose of showing the inker exactly what he needs to do. 

I love that Finch cares enough to (often, not always) go ahead and fill in the shading, whereas most pencilers will leave the black areas empty and indicate them with little x's for the inker to fill in. The penciled art looks better in a way than the finished inks, because the areas that will be solid black are filled in lightly, resulting in that bounce light effect I mentioned. That won't be there in the final product, instead those areas will be flat black. 

What made me decide to order the Jim Aparo Batman book was nostalgia. Here's a comparison of the amazing printing, on good quality paper, compared to my old comic book below, printed on pulpy newsprint that soaked up the ink and made comics look washed-out  in the 70's. Wow, what a difference! 

(Note - after seeing these pages compared, I now think the new version looks a bit too bight and cartoonish - the original desaturated look better suited the gritty street-level tone of these stories.)

I should mention though - in case this makes anybody want to get the book - aside from this story and a couple more, I was largely disappointed in the rest of the book. I had come to think of Jim Aparo as my favorite Batman artist, largely on the strength of this one story, and somehow I assumed he did a bunch of other similar stories (the other ones I posted in my Batman in the 70's writeup a while back). 

But enough about Batman...

The Studio is a book I've always dreamed of owning but never bought until now. Somehow it slipped under my radar when it was published and I didn't know it existed until it was out of print and used copies were exceedingly hard to find and expensive. I recently tracked this one down for $50 (which would have been a fortune to me back then). 

It shows the work of 4 artists who had pooled their money and rented a massive studio space in New York - namely Jeffrey Jones,  Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith and Bernie Wrightson. Some of the best artists working in Heroic Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy at the time. I won't say any more, I'll just drop a couple of images rather randomly in here:

Jeff Jones ink & gouache sketch

Mike Kaluta illustration

To make up for not writing much about The Studio, here's a video by ETA Nick where he flips through the Jeff Jones section.

Here's his video on Barry Windsor Smith where he shows Smith's section of The Studio.

Bernie Wrightson...

Apparently he didn't do the Kaluta section, or I can't find it.