Paul Chadwick's Weblog

Cartoonists Northwest

I never gave a rundown of my speech at Cartoonists Northwest. 

It’s an informal professional group of cartoonists of all stripes, from retired Editorial cartoonists to young webcomic rising stars, so I did a review of my career, ups and downs, mistakes made, lessons learned. 

Some people made a point of approaching me and said it was inspiring.  I did try to be upbeat, against my inclinations! 

But the fact is, this a good time to be an ambitious cartoonist.  The biggest comics companies are solid, flush with Hollywood money and full of seasoned editors and stable infrastructure.  And you don’t need them, necessarily – numerous cartoonists have made a success of web comics, mainly through diligent effort and tapping into youth culture they know and understand.

What’s problematic is newspapers  -- their circulation withers each year.  The internet is a lamprey on their throats.  Editorial cartoonists, especially, are facing the loss of safe havens.  Strip people have it tough, too…competing for shrinking revenues not only with each other but with dead cartoonists who won’t leave. 

Things are changing, but there’s always room for somebody who’s witty or interesting and has the strength to persevere.

My Current Desktop

Click to enlarge.  One of my favorite features of The Matrix Online is its surreal urban vistas.  They cry loneliness, mystery, alienation.  What other game can give you forlorn Edward Hopper-like imagery such as this?

Rarebit has an eye for in-game picture-taking.  I stole this one from this forum thread: [7.2.5] "She makes a nice punching bag, dearie"

Humble Beginnings

Click to enlarge.  An Apa-5 cover I did as a senior in high school.  Probably all the perspective I was capable of at the time. 

That bending-over fellow has something not quite right about him, and his ammo-laden friend seems to have arms of different lengths.  But at least it tells a story.

Before and After

Because before and after is always fun.  Click to enlarge.  One of the challenges of doing a group book is accounting for all the characters on each page.  One doesn’t want somebody to fall out of the story, particularly when, as in this case, the dialogue is done last.

What if character A has to say something only she would know, but isn’t on the page?   

So there’s a compositional imperative: intense overlap.

David Mattingly

Check out the graphic intensity of the homepage of my art school roommate, David Mattingly .  Requires Flash.

David and I were an odd couple – he’s more gregarious, charismatic and well-adjusted than I.  Peculiarly, for an artist, he was actually student body president of his high school.  He helped me get out of my shell, guided my taste in music from all those late nights doing Art Center  assignments, and generally modeled an approach to life more optimistic and affirming than I had ever seen.

He’s also the hardest worker I’ve ever known.  His doggedness kept me at the drawing board far longer than I would have stayed alone…but I still gave up and went to bed first every night.

Since then, he’s had a rich dual career as a movie matte painter and paperback book cover artist.  About ten years ago he put away the paints and went wholly digital, but he still does digital imagery like a painter.  His ice-cream shop palette, for one, hasn’t changed. 

You’ve seen his cover work, perhaps  on the ubiquitous Animorphs series, or the military SF  published by Baen Books.  The illustration here is a portrait of the late Jim Baen for a collection.  Click to enlarge.

His  site is a pleasure to explore.

Men Without Tights

After gathering several reviews of Concrete, I’m going to inflict one on you every few days.

Here’s one from Slate.  Appended to a piece about the launch of the TV show Heroes, they had  writer Dan Kois (who has a blog here, incidentally) survey off-genre comics, (“Men WithoutTights”) ending with two pages about Concrete.

He ends with this:

Though it sounds simple-minded to praise the moral authority of a comic-book character, Chadwick has imbued Concrete with such depth that he seems more like a real person—a complex, conflicted man, with real-world opinions—than any caped crusader out there. Heroes may be the more purely entertaining piece of Pop art, but Concrete—like its massive boulder of a hero—will endure.

From your lips to the God of Pop Culture’s Ears, Dan Kois!

I gotta get a head of steam up on Stars over Sand, now.