Cool, thanks for the link Rob. I'll have a good look into that.

Also, for many years now I've been seriously into the idea of self-publishing, mainly for my graphic novels since the British view is that such things are, at best, mere marginalia in the artistic broadsheets. France and Japan of course are much more sophisticated culturally and do accept that 'picture stories' can be for persons with an IQ above double figures - but in the good old U of K I've fought prejudice and apathy every step of the way.

Agents unfortunately seem to be the 'must have' thing these days to get anywhere. I'm told it's even harder to get their attention than it is to get a publisher, sponsor or similar.

But it's always great to see encouragement and togetherness in these circles, at any level, and I'll always appreciate that.

I've worked in many magazines. Two blokes I shared pages with - D'Israeli and Kevin Cullen went on to work for 2000AD (the comic)... but obviously they were better than me! I tell everyone that the hardest form of artwork to be involved in - by a long way is comic book/graphic novel. The best artist on the planet (now dead) was Martin F Emond (White Trash, Satanika, Verotika etc).... It's strange how the public largely have a blind spot for this medium. Very few 'artists' have what it takes, both skill wise and stamina wise to produce graphic novels. These guys (and girls) are the hardest working artists on the planet. Also the most technically brilliant. The gulf of skill between producing a seascape/sunset/abstract/landscape and a full page of a graphic novel is almost inconceivable... If you've any stuff on the net Chaz put up a link...

Rob, thanks a lot for your comments.

Stamina...tell me about it! If I'd known at the outset that 'Black Flag' would have taken 5 years (to produce 80-odd pages, plus covers) I'd have never started it!!

Technically brilliant is an understatement, even...to pull this stuff off you need to be a scriptwriter, a cinematographer, a film director, a storyboard artist, a lighting expert, an editor, a casting agent, a set designer...etc etc. All things that I learned the hard way. But I love films, have made short films in the past and studied video production, so somehow it all seemed to come together in a big fat learning process which I'm still going through.

I know I've got a long way to go and most of my stuff has been done primarily for 'me' without much commercial consideration. I'd class this as belonging to the 'underground' or 'alternative' comics scene, really.

I have links to it all from my artistsweb links page, but here's the main stuff:

http://www.comicartists.org/Gallery.asp?GalleryID=100
This has the first of the four parts of the 'Black Flag' cycle. I'm working on getting the rest of it web-friendly. I'm still swithering whether to do a 'George Lucas' to it, and go back and fiddle-faddle with all those bits that aren't quite right, or look a bit naive, or just downright wrong but I don't have the next 10 years to spend on it, so here it is, as is.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/swordoflochglen/
This is my new effort, a Scottish historical comedy somewhere between the 'Singing Detective' and 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'. Nearly fifty pages are finished but I'm waiting for my collaborator Frang, who's drawing and colouring the fantasy segments, to complete his bits so the story makes sense.

After I finish this I don't think I'll be tackling any more full-length epics. I don't know how Bryan Talbot, J O' Barr etc. can do it...

Take care

It is disheartening being rejected by a gallery, especially when they try to give advice about what type of work you 'should' be making to appeal to their customers. There is a fine line between making the work that sells, for bread and butter money, and trying to stay true to your own vision and develop your own language as an artist. If you have the means and desire to do the latter, then stick at it, because one day a gallery will offer to show your work and you will find people out there who will feel your art has something to say to them. I've been rejected by galleries/ shows/ competitions over the years (and expect to be in the future, it's all a big game) but last year was very happy to be a finalist for the Brighton's Favourite Artist Competition, and the irony of this is that the gallery owner who told me to change my painting style three years ago has now closed down! An artist's career can have a way of turning it's head when you least expect it, so keep your pecker up and keep working!
J
X

@ Chaz.

Excellent. I've only skimmed it. I'll have a good look later. It's amazing how you have to master blackline first. On the face of it, it's easy... One pen (I like Uniball). Spoil one panel and the page is ruined... That can take years. I've had a break from 'Cartooning' for one year but I've got an ongoing project I'm going to pick up again in the summer. It's about a quarter done. It's called Status: F.UK.D It's about a bunch of Laboratory Rats in the new International Space Station. The lab module they are in has rats from France, UK and Germany - Hence the name... . If you remember the magazines Revolver, Crisis, Deadline and Blast, I was working on a big piece to tout to them and then they all seemed to disappear. I did about 12 pages and somehow it has been lost. I just got the bug again recently and I'm steeling myself for the insanity and isolation of it all... and the headaches and the double vision and the nightmares..... Gotta go... I'll have a good look at your stuff later today.

@ Jacqueline... Yeah it's frustrating as gallery owners seem to think that their bare wall is more important than your artwork. I find the artist/gallery owner relationship a tense one. Still, as you say (and I have), never give up and never ever wring your cap or change direction for a gallery owner or agent. Remember, in the main they are looking for average work to suit the average punter.

Jacqueline, your cityscapes are fantastic!
Julie

Re: Rob,

Uniball pens - I have a few of these. I seem to prefer the Pilot Hi-tecpoint series, though. It's fairly forgiving on the cheap-ass Daler-Rowney paper I tend to use.

I only feel that I'm getting the hang of blackline work now, after about 5 years. 'Flag' was all done in pencil because I didn't have the ability back in 2000 to ink properly, and i'm still learning. It's why 'Lochglen' is all ink now, so I have a reason to develop that side.

As to spoiling one panel and ruining a page...yes, I know that feeling. I think though that Photoshop (for me anyway) has pushed me the other way lately, encouraging sloppy habits because you know now you can 'always Photoshop that bit out' or whatever. In a way it's good because you never now have to rely on that one perfect finished piece of work; you can tweak and twiddle all day long to correct what in the past used to be errors of hair-tearing proportions. I remember the days of biro pens, tipp-ex, white acrylic and holes rubbed into the paper...

Your rats strip sounds great. I'd love to see some of it. I do remember Deadline, though I never read much of it. I do recall how a number of promising new comics magazines came out in the late 90s and early 00s, then went belly-up. It wasn't encouraging. Frang & I ended up self-publishing our own strips 'Arf & Mo' & 'Yokelore' and flogging them on smallzone.co.uk as a result, since no-one was either a) interested or b) around for very long to be able to take us on.

Keep up the good work!

I prefer Uniball as the ink is non soluble and the point flows. I'll be honest, I find the Pilot's a bit scratchy and the originals go drom black to dark grey. Not a problem once scanned though... Another thing people don't realise is that when you use ink you do every panel/picture three times. Once in pencil on a pad, then in pencil in the panel, then in ink over the pencil. I have a series called Dirtdog, which I then scan and colour on the PC. Lots of work. I'll check out that smallzine site.
FTI 'Revolver' only ran 7 editions but it was truly ground breaking. One of the strips was a revisit to Dan Dare written by Grant Morrison... I still have all seven but I think the world forgot about them.

Maybe an admin can move this thread section to Graphic Novels section as it started as a Gallery Rejection thread.

Rob,

You're right, Pilots are scratchy. And I never realised how much they bleed until I started scanning stuff at 720 dpi in line art format...I think that's more the paper though. It's probably a case of the 'devil you know', but I plan to pick up a Uniball next week to see if it makes a difference. Will let you know how I get on.

WOuld be interested to know your methods in colouring on the PC. I'm not very good with colour and I hate drawing with a mouse, which is why the colourised ink stuff I have done is very simplistic with big paintbucket fills. I know the basic theory but I don't seem to be getting any better at it.

I'll be honest, I only colour pretty basic blackline. Dirtdog deliberately has a Wacky Races style palette. No tonal subtlety. All the shading is done with a black pen and on the PC I use bucket fill. The colouring I've done on cartoons are similar too. There is some good info on PC colouring on D'Israeli's website. I started in the same magazine as Matt when he used to produce a single cartoon about a cat! I was Illustrating at the time. In the same magazine Kevin Cullen was also illustrating... Both went on to mega comic stardom... Check this out:

Rob, thanks for the great info - I've just checked out D'Israeli's website and I think there's probably enough info there to keep me going for a few years!!

I've sent off work to more than 100 agencies over a three month period and received three responses, three!!
I'm no slouch when it comes to illustration and I know that the stuff I can produce is better than what I saw on those agency sites so I created some samples to suit and some more original works.
The ones that responded had the gall to claim they didn't cater for those styles!!
Agencies are lyin' ****s.

It is incredibly disheartening to have work rejected, especially when you know that you are better than the dweebs on the books. The only way to do it is to keep plugging away and to advertise in other areas.
As far as comic work goes I'm acquainted with John Ridgway, who worked on Hellblazer, 2000AD and for Marvel UK and he says flat out that you shouldn't go to a comic book publisher, especially none of the major ones as they'll rip you off in an instant.
Has anyone seen the disclaimer on Marvel's website?
It basically says that you can send work in and they'll happily look at it but chances are you'll get it back and they'll do nothing with you; HOWEVER, (We) have our own in house team of creatives and should you see, in six months time, something that resembles your work, we haven't ripped it off, we thought of it ourselves.

The thievin' gits.
John advised setting up a website for your comic and just do it that way.

I tend to render most work on the PC. I'll do my inking and colouring in Illustrator as I have an utter inability to ink my own work the old fashioned way. Sketching and drawing I can do, inking I can't, so the PC does it for me.

100 agencies!! Wow, i didn't know there were that many! (Says me working out of the Writer's & Artist's Yearbook.)

In my experience, literary agents are a bit better at replying, but still rubbish when it comes to rejection. Especially when you KNOW they haven't even read the stuff. Art agencies have even less excuse, as a piece of art can be looked at instantly, and takes no time on the agent's part to judge whether or not it is what they're looking for.

I stopped caring about Marvel many years ago. I don't 'get' superheroes at all, and I never liked the 'Marvel style'. I like dirty, gritty, realistic-looking comics that look as if they've been scratched into a sheet of plate steel with an industrial engraving tool - cross hatching, intense line work, lots of shadows, and which depict characters that look like real people. I would never slag off Marvel artists, as they're obviously good at what they do; I just don't appreciate it!

I'm stunned that you know John Ridgway. He's been my favourite all-time comic artist since I was about 11 (see my other post, regarding 'Doctor Who' !) I guess his style is the pure epitome of what I'm talking about. Certainly had an enormous influence on my early comic work and drawing style. I can remember intently studying his panels, trying to analyse his hatching style, and the graphic stuff I do now is still influenced by the work he did in 'Voyager' and the other mid-1980s 'Who' strips. When Parkhouse & Ridgway stopped working for the 'Dr WHo' magazine (Marvel UK), I stopped buying it. Theirs was the only comic I cared about for many years.

On a final note, I should be so lucky as to get ripped off by a major publisher...or even a minor one

Well I got introduced to John through a friend of mine.
At the time my friend had his own shop as a photographer and John had gone in to ask about getting some of his work photographed or something.
My friends says 'it looks like the stuff my mate does, maybe you two should chat'.
John phoned me up the same day and we correspond via email a few times. If I need to bug him over anything I'll mail him.
He only lives a couple of towns over too!! Cool.
In our phone conversation he's telling me all these things he's worked on and it was geek heaven; Hulk, Hellblazer, Grant Morrison stories for 2000AD.
He mentions his mate Tim (who it turns out was editor of Marvel UK and the plans they have for a Dan Dare revival) There's a website for it too, but can't quite remember the address.

He was quite a decent chap, I liked the cut of his jib.

Hi fellas.
have either of you tried faber and castle artists pitt pens? theyre bloody brilliant. and take a fair amount of bashing too. only trouble is they dont do a super fine nib.