David-Wasting-Paper: Stephen DeStefano - Cartoonist Survey #144

I get asked a lot of questions.
Here are some of my answers!

David-Wasting-Paper: Stephen DeStefano - Cartoonist Survey #144

Thanks to David for asking.

IF I FIND OUT YOU WENT TO SAN DIEGO AND DIDN'T COME VISIT ME AT THE FANTAGRAPHICS BOOTH, I'LL SOCK YOU IN THE MUSH

That being said, I do hope you'll come out to Comic Con and celebrate the near release of the graphic novel I created (with my friend GEORGE CHIEFFET) at the Fantagraphics booth. Publisher Kim Thompson assures me that there will be copies of our book, LUCKY IN LOVE, BOOK ONE: A POOR MAN'S BIOGRAPHY available , and I'd love to get your initial reaction to it. I'll even do a teeny Post-it note sketch for you, if you ask me nicely.
Here's a link to the Fantagraphics Booth schedule:

http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Your-Fantagraphics-Guide-to-Comic-Con-2010.html&Itemid=113;

Looking forward to seeing you there. I'm including a little sneak peak image for you below, of a color study ace artist CARLY MONARDO did for my LUCKY promotional film (which I designed and the brilliant MIGUEL MARTINEZ-JOFFRE directed and animated). Carly and Miguel are two VENTURE BROTHER stalwarts, and the film is completed and quite brilliant. I hope to announce its appearance on the web sometime soon!

Fulle Circle Productions: A Clean Shaven Man: A Popeye Conversation with Stephen DeStefano

Fulle Circle Productions: A Clean Shaven Man: A Popeye Conversation with Stephen DeStefano

Two Popeyes Punching - Drawings by Stephen DeStefano - eBay (item 200483679854 end time Jun-24-10 19:20:30 PDT)

Two Popeyes Punching - Drawings by Stephen DeStefano - eBay (item 200483679854 end time Jun-24-10 19:20:30 PDT)

It's not often I have POPEYE THE SAILOR original art to sell, but I've many sketches lying around my office, and decided to put one to good use: my
dear friend, animator and activist TOM BAYNE is running several auctions on eBay with all proceeds going to clean up in the Gulf Coast. As Tom is the animatic supervisor and animation editor on Adult Swim's THE VENTURE BROTHERS, you know there's some really choice VB art that he's auctioning off, including ORIGINAL STORYBOARD DRAWINGS by Jackson Publick himself! I've donated some of my original VB art as well, including a sweet sequence of thumbnails from the last episode of season one, featuring Henchmen 21 and 24.
Anyway, give a look on it, won't you?

Buy some of The VENTURE BROS. & HELP CLEAN UP THE GULF COAST

Buy some of The VENTURE BROS. & HELP CLEAN UP THE GULF COAST

Posted by my very good friend, VENTURE BROTHERS animatic supervisor and animation editor, TOM BAYNE. I'm nearly as proud of Tom as I am disgusted with BP. Please buy some VB art, it's for a very, very worthy cause.

LOLA VS. THE LITTLE SH*T

A cat fight film by Siobhan.

LUCKY IN LOVE, THE CARTOON

I dunno if I should show you this, but I'm doing it anyway.

Just a little drawing from a very brief animated cartoon I'm working on to promote my book, which I somehow recruited the shockingly talented MIGUEL MARTINEZ-JOFFRE to direct for me. If you don't know Miguel's work, you should---give a look by going to his website, http://www.atomicshelter.com/, after you check out the boobies on this imaginary dame!

PLASTIC MAN IN WEDNESDAY COMICS

PLASTIC MAN will appear in DC's hardcover collection of their popular WEDNESDAY COMICS, in a strip written by Evan Dorkin and drawn by myself. Editor Mark Chiarello intended to use the strip if one of the regular artists on the project had trouble meeting the weekly deadline, but I'm guessing all of the folks he worked with were punctual, because it wasn't published. Thankfully, this strip is seeing the light of day now, which makes me happy because I think it's good. I got my complimentary copies of the book from DC yesterday, and it's a damned spiffy package.
Here's a little sneak peak of it, with colors by the editor himself, and lettering by Siobhan DeStefano herself----I mucked up the word balloons, I think, they're the only thing I don't like about the strip. Apparently, this should hit stores the first week in June!



**Actually, now that I think of it, I should give some credit to Andy Suriano as well---that's his design of Plas I'm using there. I vowed never again to try and draw like Jack Cole, cuz it's stupid to follow in the tracks of a genius, because your work will always end up looking second rate. I used to swear that one day I'd draw Plas in his 1960's/Jack Sparling/Gil Kane/Win Mortimer style, but I may have given up on that dream, I dunno.

so onto LUCKY IN LOVE, BOOK TWO

Book one of LUCKY IN LOVE is with Kim and his designers at Fantagraphics. They're good people. They're nice to me.
Looks like the book will be out in time for San Diego. If you're going to the convention, check in at the FB booth at some point. Likely I'll be there, either on Friday or Saturday. (Also, I may be on a Cartoon Network panel, for the show I'm currently working on, although I'm not sure I'm allowed to speak too much about that right now.)
I've started drawing book two, LUCKY IN LOVE: LUCKY FOR LIFE. I've done a dozen or so pages of layouts, but took a break from storytelling today to do a little character designing. Check it out, yo.



Book two may not have drawings as dynamic looking as the ones in book one, but that's because George and I will be telling a different kind of story in the second volume. But it'll be just as good, if not better.

LUCKY STARTS

LUCKY IN LOVE, my graphic novel with writer George Chieffet, is coming along quite nicely, thank you. I've only a few pages left to draw of the final chapter in volume 1 before I deliver to our publisher, Fantagraphics, at the beginning of next month. I got a fairly huge chunk of it done this past month, with much thanks to my employers at Cartoon Network for giving me the time off. A month makes a huge difference when inking 35 pages.
LUCKY is actually a book that's been years in the making, though.
And LUCKY wasn't always LUCKY. Originally he was named "Cholly Potatoes". A year or two after that, he was named "Lefty".
I thought it'd be fun to share some sketches and strips I'd done over the years developing the character---I've tons of this stuff, but here's a little of it to start with.



These drawings are cute, if I say so myself, but George wasn't comfortable with them. "How can you tell a serious story with characters that look like Smurfs", he said.





"A serious story"?
I dunno. Clearly, I hadn't thought about how you told a serious story with characters two heads tall. Thankfully, George's question had reminded me of an idea I'd pitched years ago to David Mazzucchelli and Richmond Lewis, which was: What if you told a Faulkner-esque story in comics, drawn in the style of DAGWOOD AND BLONDIE?
George was much more comfortable with BLONDIE than SMURFS, and our pint-size "Cholly" grew a couple of heads to become the still rather petite "Lefty Testatuda".
Which is kind of close to what he is now, but he still had some growing and changing to do.




More to come...

HOLIDAY ART: Background drawings for STIMPY'S FIRST FART

I began my career on the REN AND STIMPY SHOW as a background designer, and one of the earliest episodes I worked on in that position was STIMPY'S FIRST FART (was it actually aired on Nickelodeon as SON OF STIMPY? I forget.) John K. had requested I do a whole slew of drawings that had an old fashioned holiday feeling, based on the storyboard. My attempts are shown above. John wasn't happy with them, and years later, I can understand why. While they're moderately competent cartoon drawings, they have no real direction, or feeling. I recall John, in his inimitably annoyed fashion, telling me, "Look at that tree. It's like you just had a pile of crap in your hands and chucked it at a Christmas tree. There's no design, there's just a load of crap.Whatever stuck to it you let stay that way. Is that how you decorate a tree?"

I'm embarrassed to say that I can't recall who drew this for me, Jim Smith or John K. himself. Either way, it's clearly superior (intended as a BG tutorial) to what I'd been drawing. All elements direct the eye towards the characters in the composition. Shapes are bold, and work (for the most part) according to the rules of perspective. There's a lush, organic feeling to it, indicating a very homey and traditional holiday. And note the pail of water towards the bottom. I do recall Jim Smith telling me to always skew shapes slightly, so that they were not functional, but appearing to be functional. This keeps your drawing interesting, without calling too much attention to your shapes. Although both John and Jim attempted to teach me with this and similar drawings, it took me quite a while to internalize the lesson. For years afterwards, I mainly drew pointy, whacky shapes and tried to pass them off as REN AND STIMPY art.

LUCKY AT WAR: Reference

I'm still working on my novel, and I realize I haven't given much hint as to what it's about yet. It's pretty epic, I think, following a man's life from his teenage years in the early nineteen-forties, up through his old age in the present day. All of chapter 2 recounts Lucky's ( that's our hero, Lucky) time in the Pacific, during World War II, and drawing it was a daunting task. First off, writer GEORGE CHIEFFET is a huge WW 2 buff---George absolutely knows his beans about this era. If something looked phony to me he'd tell me it was the bunk, in no uncertain terms. I didn't want to get to that point anyhow. I knew if I was going to sell this chapter with the gravity and intensity that I'd wanted, I'd have to do some research.
Not HEAVY research. I'm not that industrious. But I did peruse Google's image search for several hours, looking for everything from B-29's to Hawaiian rugs.
Here are some images from my reference file, along with a few choice panels from Chapter two.

LUCKY DRAWING: Art that inspires me while drawing my graphic novel

I've been a professional cartoonist for a long time, about 25 years, and I've picked up a trick or two. When I began drawing LUCKY IN LOVE, I wanted to integrate all of my cartooning knowledge, but I also wanted to forget some of it. I wanted to pare down, and get to the very essence of cartooning. I wanted my work to be elegant, and simple, but very powerful. I wanted my storytelling to be as clear and precise as possible, and I didn't want to manipulate my audience in the least. I wanted to tell my story plainly and economically, to simply explain what was happening. I did not want to clutter up my pages or panels. I wanted breathing room, air---negative space, really, to help the reader along.
So much of what I see in modern comics is right in the readers face, as if characters were behind plate glass pushing their noses amid sweat and steam, trying to get their point across. Sometimes that can be effective, but I wanted to get away from that. I want my readers to feel, I don't want to tell them what to feel.
Towards that end, when drawing LUCKY, I'm most inspired by some of the early cartooning masters---folks who successfully and powerfully told their stories, before "in your face" became popular. Above are some of the strips from my reference files, which help keep me focused in reaching my cartooning goals!

Long Time No Post, OR, LUCKY IN LOVE Vol. 1

Hello, Blogosphere!

....
so, what's new?
Everybody good? You workin'?

I haven't been here in a long time, huh?
Sorry, I've been busy.

Actually, very busy. These days I'm designing on Genndy Tartakovsky's new Cartoon Network production, SYMBIONIC TITAN, which is a terrific job. And also, I've been drawing a graphic novel.
I'm pretty proud of the novel, really. I've been working on it for a while. My good friend, George Chieffet wrote the narrative, and I lettered and drew the whole thing. In fact, I'm still lettering and drawing the whole thing. But I need to get it done soon, as the good folks at FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS (h'lo, Kim!) have promised to publish it. It's due to hit bookstores in June of 2010, and in fact, can be pre-ordered right this minute on Amazon.com.
Please to look at my drawings. They're all from chapter one, the first of three in volume one (volume two will be published sometime around 2013).
Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Also, my apologies to folks that have written interested in commissions and artwork---unfortunately, my schedule has been quite dense, and I no longer find the time to draw side projects. Of course, there's probably always time during the day to properly and politely respond to your requests, and if you had written and did not hear back from me, I regret any inconveniences I may have caused you.
Thanks for your patience, everyone!
~SDe

THE ESSENTIAL KILLRAVEN

So, I just finished reading KILLRAVEN, all the KILLRAVENS from the 70's. 

And I enjoyed myself, but still don't kind of get it.

I think the basic concept of it is this: if H. G. Wells decided to write a sequel to his WAR OF THE WORLDS, he'd probably put CONAN in it, and have Conan go on these KAMANDI like adventures, all the time having Conan speak as if he were SPARTACUS. 

I think that's the basic premise to KILLRAVEN.

Personally, I think a real opportunity was lost here, that Marvel dropped the ball on an interesting concept---What if Earth were conquered by another planet, and how would mankind have survived and thrived after that? Killraven talks a lot about "freemen" and "freedom", but more often he kills rat-people, and fights lots of things with tentacles.

But I'm glad I read it.

It was one of those Marvel Comics from the 70's that always creeped me out a bit. It seemed a little TOO adult (actually, it's pretty darned juvenile). 

But the art's real pretty, through most of it. I've always liked Craig Russell's artwork, and it's fun to see him grow in the book's pages, from someone trying to draw like Steranko to an artist with pretty much his own style. 

What'll I read next? 

I don't know.

I want to read all of the OMEGA THE UNKNOWNS, but honestly can't get behind Jim Mooney's artwork. It's, I'm sorry, it's just too dull to me. 

Likely I'll take on THE ESSENTIAL POWERMAN next. Sweet Christmas! 

Does anyone have any other recommendations for good, weird 70's Marvel, other than that?

I'm all ears, dudes.

BILLY QUIZBOY AND PETE WHITE

Another commissioned piece I drew recently. 

I'm still available, if anyone's interested.....

THE OTHER HALF OF THE UNIVERSE

Similar to my recent post about meeting Jack Kirby, I also have a STEVE DITKO Story.

So I'm 16 years old, right, and I'm working for the second summer in a row at DC Comics. This time I'm in the export department, and I'm really fucking up at the job, but no one's bothering me about it, and in fact, I'm getting good, free, old comics left and right, because acting department chief JACK C. HARRIS says I can go through the export stash of comics, and if I find doubles they're mine to have. You can believe I found doubles. Anyway, Jack was a good guy to me, the first dude I ever saw who wore blue jeans together with a buttoned shirt and tie that wasn't Billy Joel, and he was also still doing a little comic book writing on the side in addition to running the export department.

One day it's lunchtime, and Jack's out. This little fellow comes looking for him. I remember him as little, maybe he wasn't. But he looked kind of like this:

A guy with a kind of working class build, sporting a short-sleeve shirt and simple trousers. He seemed quiet. I told him Jack was at lunch, and he said he'd wait in Jack's office, and I'm like "okay". He stays a while, I remember passing him by once or twice, and finally Jack returns from lunch and the two of them are talking. 

Then later the guy leaves, and Jack's all like "You do know who that was, right", and I'm all "no", and he says it was Steve Ditko.

I was young, but I knew that was pretty impressive. Not only did I know Steve Ditko was important, I was also a big fan. I mean, yeah, I liked Greg LaRoque back then, but I also knew the work of a true genius when I saw it. Afterwards, it hit me that even just SEEING Steve Ditko was a bit of a big deal, and I wished I'd taken a better look at him. He just seemed like a guy, a small working class guy.

Steve, to me, is the other half of the Marvel Universe. If Jack is all that's powerful and heroic, the true Wagnerian noise of Marvel, Steve is the dark undercurrent, the dissonant tone. The truly human tone. I should get that new Fantagraphics book about him. I should've gotten a better look at him back then.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK KING KIRBY

I met Jack once.

I was at the San Diego Con years ago, right? And I'm standing near a crowd that goes around the length of the room, they're all there to see Jim Lee. And I don't want to see Mr. Lee, but to each his own. Then over the hall loud speaker, a voice comes on and sez, "Jack Kirby will be signing at such and such a booth in five minutes", and I'm like, OH SHIT~! I wasn't too far from that booth, and so I booked over there. I'm gonna meet the King, or, at least I hope to meet the King, because I figure there'd be an even bigger crowd for him than for Jim Lee.

So, I get to this booth, and there's like five people in line. To meet the King. And there's Jack, this tiny little old man, cute as a button really. But five people? Jesus, this guy's responsible for....everything in this room! 

But really, I felt lucky, because I knew I'd get to meet and speak with him.

So, it's my turn.

And I tell him how much I love his work, and ask him if he really felt uncomfortable rubbing the hump on the kid's back (his only biographical work was about his days as a Lower East Side street tough, and all the kids on the block would go to this humpbacked kid to get a little luck off of him). And Jack sez, "yeah, I didn't want to do it. I guess I was sensitive, y'know?" Cute as a button, this little old dude.

So I said to him, "Look, I just want you to know how much your work has influenced mine", and he realizes I'm a pro, and he looks at my pro badge, glances at it, and says to me, "thanks. I like your work too."

Which struck me as hilarious.

Mr. and Mrs. THE MONARCH

Another VB commission I did recently.
And speaking of the Ventures, I wanted to clarify a bit about my last post. I described Siobhan's photo as showing "the people that make the show so good", when in reality, those are but SOME of the people that make that show so good. To suggest that only five people, as gifted as they may be, are completely responsible for a television show is kind of a nutty idea, really. In fact, the real-world Team Venture is staffed by some of the most talented folks in the New York animation community! I'll try and name all of them here for you, although I'm sure I'll muck up the spelling of their names, and I apologize for that.
On the design staff we have Martin Wittig, Matt Jenkins and Danny Hynes. Actually, on season 3 (remember, Jackson's in production on season 4 at the moment), the third designer was Douglas Lovelace, and then after Douglas was another Danny, "Kano" Kimanyen.
Danny Hynes was also on the crack storyboard revision team for season 3, along with Lauren Mondardo, Jon Roscetti and Rick Lacy, supervised by the always lovely Siobhan Mullen. The revision team was particularly heroic last season, at least in my eyes. Storyboards have only begun on season 4, so revisions won't begin for a month or two.
The color staff is lead by Liz Artinian, and working with her is Dayo, Chris and Lauren's twin sister, Carly Monardo.
Background design is managed by George Fort. George's team is Chris, Ray and Denny, super-talented all!
The timing staff is supervised by Nick Demayo, and features the talents of Jen, Kimson and Ian.
Rachel Simon is the producer, and Patrick "PeeDee" Shindell is the production manager. Adam and Alex were both on the production staff, and somehow managed to keep a straight face (and maneuver looming deadlines) while sitting next to the ever hilarious PeeDee. Originally, the production manager on season 3 was Cathy Kwan, but when she moved on to greener pastures, PeeDee stepped in and did an awesome job.
Lastly (as far as in-house staff is concerned) is show "editor" Tom Bayne, who I'm lucky enough to share an office with, along with Jackson himself. Tom is a great guy, just great, and killer talented (I do believe I referred to him as a "genius" previously on this blog).
If I've forgotten anyone, please give a shout. Really, you can see all of these names and more if you'll sit through the show's end credits. But then you'd have to squint really hard and read really really fast. And, seriously, all of these people deserve a big, big hand. If you're a Venture fan, give it up for these folks when feeling grateful for the show.
....
Other news:
MONDAY'S STRIP is kind of gone. Sorry. I've just got a bit too much on my plate at the moment. It was fun, and I'm glad everyone enjoyed it while I produced it. Thanks, really.
And about commissions, and the BLOGGIN' BASEMENT---those're not completely gone, but, again, I'm just a bit time-poor lately to pursue either. Still, I've found some pretty choice
stuff to entice you folks inclined to buy art right now. Pretty choice stuff....
later!

MY MOTHER THANKS YOU, MY FATHER THANKS YOU, MY SISTER THANKS YOU, BUT MOST OF ALL....

Entmann thanks you.

I appreciate all the kind compliments regarding my voice work.

Personally, I've yet to see the episode, as I find listening to my own voice icky.

I meant to post designer Chris George's original sketch of Entmann up, but I forgot it at the office.

Still, I want ya'll to remember, I am making myself available for commissions, and in fact am working on a pretty sweet Monarch/Dr. G sketch right now.