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House Styles
In my journals and lectures to students I’ll talk about “house styles” a lot and I just wanted to clear the air about my opinion on them. In a general sense I don’t have a house style, so often times I get notes from people championing me on being one of the more aggressive bloggers/writers/artists who advocates against house styles in favor of more distinctive styles of comic book art. And while I’m happy to advocate more original types of styles, in no way am I against house styles.
Here’s an analogy to better describe the relationship between independent and house styles:
House styles to comics are like Budweiser to beer. Without the consistent sales of Bud and Bud Light, the beer economy in the US would crumble. Most people like Bud--you can find it in almost any bar in the country. When you open a cooler at a cookout, most likely you’ll be looking at Bud. Some people drink nothing but Bud, Coors, Michelob, etc. Even if you don’t claim to be a fan of those mainstream beers, you can chug one down and satisfy your urge to drink. Even if you HATE mainstream beers, you have to admit that the mere presence of mainstream beer allows for the microbrews (the independent art styles of comics) to exist in an economical way.
Let’s say you’re a mainstream reader. So you go into our proverbial pub and order your Bud. This is what I imagine happening in your head: “Good old Budweiser! Always there for me when I need it and it never disappoints. Look at those microbrew assholes thinking they’re all cool with their indy beer. They’re over-thinking their beer way too much! What do they think this is, a wine tasting? Why don’t they just sip their beer from tea cups and stick out their pinkies while they’re at it?! I’m not in this pub to ‘sample beverages’ like they are—I’m here to get wasted because my job sucks and I need to escape. Getting drunk is supposed to be exciting, not a learning experience.”
Respectfully, mainstream readers have every right to feel that way. I’m more of a indy guy myself (microbrew most of the time) and while I don’t understand Budweiser, what I cannot say is “Budweiser sucks” because that’s a narrow minded, uneducated, thoughtless stance. What I must say instead is “Bud’s not for me.”
Now let’s say you’re an indy reader. Here’s what I imagine in your head: “This microbrew is great! Different from that other microbrews in subtle ways that only a serious beer taster could understand. As a dabbler in beer making at home, I have an appreciation for beer that those Bud Light assholes will never have. How are they even challenged by Bud? Doesn’t branching out help heighten their appreciation of all beers? How could they support the evil corporation known as Budweiser?! Don’t they know that Bud is killing the true art form of beer as a whole? Even the label is boring! Fuck house styles!”
But what do we mean by “house styles”? I can only speak for myself, and my broad definition would be that house styles are the styles most people associate with superhero comics. To me (and be nice if you wildly disagree please), house styles look like a mix of Silver Age styles but modernized with a lot of Jim Lee and Adam Hughes. The building blocks of a house style is the use of feathering, rulers for perspective, tick marks, and cross-hatching. Usually it’s meant to be colored, so you don’t see a lot of spotted blacks. It’s attempting to be closer to a photo than to a cartoon, although “comics” is considered to be a “cartooning medium” overall—so who knows.
While I can’t say that I’m challenged by purely house styles (yes I’m an art snob), I do appreciate them for two reasons:
First off, house styles and independent styles have a lot in common. In my snobbier moments I’ll claim to have an indy style, but that’s false because there are a lot of marks I make which can also be found in a house style. If you want to be a successful indy artist (meaning you want to make money), you need to have enough house style in you to act as a tether to the mainstream reader. In other words, you want to impress everyone at the bar with your beer. All beer is made from hops (just like all comics are made from lines), so embrace the things you have in common and try to ride the line between indy and mainstream.
And secondly, I appreciate the consistent dollar that house styles bring into the industry. Without mainstream DCU making money, there’s no way Vertigo would be able to give chances to guys like me who “ride the line” on styles. Luckily there are enough talented house style artists who fill those roles so that I don’t have to—because I’m no good at them.
So to all those house style guys reading this—thank you for doing what you do. We’re all in this together, and as much as I wax on about indy shit, I appreciate the work you do. And hopefully you appreciate indy guys as well because our weirdo microbrews are driving some readers away into the comforting embrace of your consistent mainstream beer.
This Bud’s for you.
Hey everyone.
I'm writing from Cancun right now while watching Futurama in spanish. And yes: it's still funny. Before that it was Mythbusters in spanish. And yes: science and the laws of physics is an international language.
To be honest, I didn't want to come to Mexico. But my girlfriend booked a wedding and got a free flight and hotel. So basically I got roped in.
But it worked out because the hype from Joe the Barbarian's release was really distracting. The please-love-my-stuff "ego genes" that all artists have started activating in my brain, and soon I was Googling "Sean Murphy + Joe Barbarian" more than I like to admit. I'm still not sure what to make of all this. But I know that it's good news. Once my thoughts have settled I'm sure I'll be posting new journals.
Right now it's good to be by the beach on a really dark night where I can finally see the stars that Sagan told us so much about. The only lights in the Brooklyn sky (where I live) are usually the ones lined up to land at La Guardia.
But back to Joe and to everyone here: thanks so much for the support! I read a lot of the "thanks so much" DA journals and I always roll my eyes. And now look where I'm at. What a hypocrite.
What I wanted to do tonight was share a few of the behind-the-scenes DVD extras that go with the first issue. If you're into the book and you're curious, then read on. If not, then read on and memorize these factoids to throw in your friend's faces when they try and school you on shit they think you don't know. BLAM.
CAR SCENE
1. My grandmother drove a Subaru Outback Sport. I loved those cars ESPECIALLY in white. And especially with an air-scoop (which is only decoration). I suggested to Dave that it should be white, but he went with light maroon. And to be honest, I love it.
2. I drew a dream catcher on the mirror because I wanted to hint at the "dreaming" we were about to do later on in the book.
3. Joe's mom is based off of the actress Holly Hunter. To be honest, I wish I'd used someone else. I can't seem to help it, but I draw masculine looking women. And Hunter is already masculine looking in real life. So I struggled a lot with Joe's mom's face.
CEMETERY SCENE
1. The script didn't call for any town in particular, so I chose Portland Maine for a few reasons.
A. There was an eeriness to parts of the script--like maybe something was a little off. So I thought of Stephen King and then I thought of how he always writes about New England. For some reason Portand started to feel right.
B. Portland looks like the town from two movies that I wanted to invoke from my childhood: The Neverending Story and The Goonies (even though it's not on the west coast, it's still a coastal town).
C. I'm from New England myself and know how boring/overcast life can be. Again, it seemed to be a fit for the script.
2. I based the main bully off the main character from Off Road. But the other two weren't. At least not consciously.
3. Autumn seemed appropriate to me. Autumn represents death when you consider the "symbolic circle" of the seasons.
HOUSE SCENES
1. Obviously the house is a major character in the book, so 3 levels of blueprints were drawn up for Grant to refer to. A lot of the stuff I tossed in ended up as part of the plot.
2. When Joe is entering the house on the splash, I purposefully drew the house to look smaller than it should. I wanted the interior to feel bigger than the exterior as a way to suggest that the house FEELS big to Joe even though it doesn't look it. But to be honest he's still way too big and I should have shrunk him down more on that splash page.
3. A lot of houses in New England are dressed up like an interior decorator's nightmare. From my experience, you see a lot of clutter from old shit that you would find at yard sales like painting of sailboats, chewed up coffee tables, mismatched furniture, and shag carpeting. For Joe's house I wanted to get all of that, including leftover 70s-style paneling on the walls. My color notes to Dave insisted that he go nuts with these reds, oranges, olives and ugly textures. I've never seen it in a comic and I know Dave has never been asked to color badly on purpose.
4. My favorite part of issue 1 is the aztec-style chair next to the front door. Dave colored it exactly as those ugly chairs look in real life. It's gloriously tacky and I love it.
5. Grant left those 5 pages silent before I'd started drawing it. When I saw that, I realized that the art had better be intricate so we don't lose people.
JOE'S ROOM
1. Grant had a few notes on his room. Joe lived in the attic and used a rope ladder to get there. And he had a ton of toys and a window. Grant left it open but he was very clear that this room was the defining visual of who Joe was. So to play up the tree house feel of the rope ladder, I played with height a lot. So the ceiling got taller and suddenly there was a bunk bed and skylights. All the other stuff fell into place around that.
2. Like Grant said in an interview recently, the toys were basic at first--soldiers and teddy bears. And I had just finished designing my perfect bedroom and thought, "soldiers and teddy bears? That ain't going in MY bedroom!" and then went to town on all the 70s/80s stuff. Much of it I didn't have but I figured a lot of readers would.
3. I wrote Nguyen on the license plate of the Transformer--a Bumble Bee type toy that I based off a Honda CRX that I used to drive. Dustin Nguyen and I BOTH apparently had one, so I threw him name on the plate. One day we'll both buy our cars back and race off into the sun together.
4. Two problems occurred when I turned the pages in with all the knock-off toys: DC legal freaked out. I ended up having a few phone calls with my editors based purely off DC concern that the toys were too similar. They even had a problem with the Iron Giant poster. I remember screaming at my editor, "but that's a Warner Brothers movie!" He said that I should prepare for a lot of fixes. And with all the phone calls I assumed that I might be redrawing the spread. And after all of that, what did they make me change? The Picard-rip should have one leg and the generic cowboy (the only one I thought was safe) looking too much like the Man with No Name. THAT WAS IT. Thanks for all the phone calls DC.
The second problem was that these toys had all just had their assess kicked. What is powerfully enough to defeat knock-offs of GI Joe, Transformers, DCU characters, the Master Chief and a bunch of dinosaurs? I didn't know what the bad guys were at that point, although I'd done some sketches of a Death Coat that got approved. So I told my editor that Grant might want to make the villains more intimidating and powerful if they were going to be able to beat all those toys.
So tune in next month to see what they're up against!
OPENINGS: Joe the Barbarian #1 is due to hit shelves on January 20th and it's only a dollar. As many of you know Vertigo has been sitting on a lot of my stuff for about a year and a half and I'm thrilled to finally be on the shelves again! There's a launch party at BERGEN STREET COMICS (between Flatbush & 5th Avenues) Brooklyn on Saturday, January 30th
7pm-close. I believe they'll have drinks. So feel free to stop on by if you're in the area and want to see some original Joe pages on the walls.
ART FOR SALE: Now that that Joe will be available, I'm allowed to post and sell everything from issue #1 at least. For the last year or so I haven't been selling art because I wanted to re-do everything with the release of the book. Paolo, my art dealer at Cadencecomicart.com will be taking care of everything, so come midnight on January 19th the "Sean Murphy" section will be open with art from Joe, Off Road, Outer Orbit, Batman/Scarecrow and a few other things.
And for those asking about the yet-unpublished Hellblazer stuff: a few of those will be available as well. I'm tired of waiting for DC to decide when to publish it, so I'm breaking the rules and letting a few go at a time.
CONS: I'll be at the Seattle show in March, Charlotte in June, San Diego and NYCC of course. I know I suck at getting to shows but this year will be different because I'm pushing Joe.
COMMISSIONS: I'll be taking quick commissions at the shows, but only stuff that I can pencil and ink in 15 minutes. There's no list ahead of time so don't ask--first come first serve. And before someone asks I never take any commissions other than quick ones at shows.
Thanks to everyone on here and DA for the support. You guys kept me in the buzz even without shit on the shelves, and without you DC's delays might have tanked me.
Hey all.
I was teaching in SCAD Atlanta as a guest speaker (along with Matt Bernier) a few weeks back. I didn't know it at the time but Tim O'Shea from Robot 6 was invited to the event. He took great notes and wrote a stunning article about everything. The best part was how he was able to make me sound way smarter than I actually am, thereby removing all the "uh"s, "um"s, "dude"s, and "man"s that I use on a constant basis.
Tim and I chatted for a bit after the class. He was an awesome guy with a wide appreciation for all kinds of art. Best of all, he struck me as an actual reporter and not someone looking to write another TMZ type of drama column. I wish more people had Tim's respect for our industry. :)
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/11/scad-atlanta-comics-arts-forum-report/#more-26870