Comics constipation

[avram]

I’ve been looking at and thinking about comics a lot today. I just read the third collected volume of Ultimate X-Men, which I liked a lot (though not so much the stand-alone Gambit story at the end). I was immediately struck by the quality of the coloring — remember back when comics coloring consisted mostly of flat areas of very simple color? Computers (and improved print tech) have done wonders for comics coloring. A decade or so back a friend offered to try and get me a job as a colorist for (I think) Elfquest, and I’m sorta wishing now that I’d taken him up on it. It’s only in the past few months that I think I’ve started to get a handle on using Photoshop to color, and I’ve still got a ways to go on it.

I’ve spent an hour or more looking at political Flash cartoons by Mark Fiore. Lots of excellent, funny stuff. I wonder how he handles the sound. Voice actors and professional musicians? Is there a source for those funny little sound effects?

I’m also pretty impressed by Chris Baldwin’s most recent attempt to work through his depression. The past couple days of Bruno have been a bit disappointing, but today’s strip was an impressive use of limited resources.

I’ve been feeling really blocked myself. Note the lack of artwork here in the past few days. I should probably get off the computer and sit down and sketch out some of the images I’ve had floating around in my head.