Topics

Well done to Robin Henley for winning the competition

Here are all the pages for my entry. I thought it might be interesting to see the story in it's entirety not just the first two pages.


Page 1


Page 2


Page 3


Page 4


Page 5


Page 6

I went on the Saturday. Did anyone else go?

I think to call this a comic convention is a bit of a stretch - I think the comic alley covered about a quarter of the available space at most, the rest is for toys, movies and games. The comic panelist enclosure, ironically, was the only one without a schedule outside so it was hard know what was on which was a shame or I would have watched all of Dylan Teague's demonstration not just the end 15 mins when I was looking for somewhere desperate to sit down for a bit. No real presence by any of the large comic publishers although Marvel had a non comic stand in the movie section.
Wandered around artist alley, Jim Cheung asked me to take a picture of him and his parents while I was leafing through his originals at his table. At the time I was just curious to see if some one would commission a full body blank cover sketch at £1000! Cool bloke though - had a chat to him and he was nice enough listen to my story about the 2000AD art comp at Thought Bubble and take a look at the two pages I had access to. I must remember to take my portfolios along to these things as Zenescope were accepting submissions.
Finally, as part of my sitting down strategy attended a panel with an art agent from Ireland, a lady from Zenescope and someone else important who never turned up about the state of comics today. The discussion centered around comicsgates and not mentioning names in order to avoid giving them any more publicity (I have no idea I don't use Twitter), the fact that most comic readers seem to be in their forties  , are we in a comic bubble that will pop at any second and do we just enjoy the ride until it pops? and price. Let's be honest ... I think it's all about paying £3.50 for an issue of Batman and is this sustainable and does it encourage new readership.
Didn't really pick up anything comic related apart from a free Van Helsing comic from Zenescope which was actually pretty good

So there you go.

[Tharg]

Now that the winner has been decided and the dust has cleared a little I thought I'd post my entire magnum opus (4 pages  ) with some of the critique that I received from both Tharg and the panel. I can't say that it wasn't a bit deflating when your name isn't read out - no one enters this type of contest without a real desire to win - but on the whole I found it to be a very positive experience. Ridiculous as it is, despite drawing sequential art on and off for a few years (more off than on) and being a big comics consumer I have never had the courage to take my work to a portfolio review session at a convention.
Anyway - enough chit chat

Page 1 :


Page 2 :


Page 3 :


Page 4 :


Critiques :
Tharg - Panels a bit tight for space in regard to lettering, the inking on page three doesn't make enough distinction between foreground and background making the panels look a bit too busy, anatomy tends towards squat figures. Good story telling and variety of angles.
Laurence Campbell - Inconsistency between the inking on the first page and the second, good use of lighting on the first page which seems to have been discarded on the second page. Liked the backgrounds and said it felt like characters were occupying a believable real world. Perspective in pg2. panel 3 a bit wonky.
Tom Foster - Pointed out some anatomy problems on pg.1 panel 4 and pg.2 panel 4, mainly around the arms just not looking anatomically correct with the lighting (ugh so right and annoying when you know it doesn't work at the time but you hope you can get away with it.
Dani Strips - really liked panel 3 had plenty of drama but concurred with Laurence on page 2
Molch-R chipped in and said that he'd only ever seen black ceilings in small press  and that the use of this ruined pg.2 panel 1 because he only just noticed the head at the bottom of the panel.

Not to take anything away from Dani and Tom but I think because of his maturity Laurence was the most willing to offer the most direct critiques on the day.
I would agree with the comments. Page two I did shoot myself in the foot. I work traditionally but I had to fix panel 2 and panel 4 because I simply had not left enough room for word balloons. This, I knew could potentially be a terrible amateur mistake and get me eliminated early doors. So, I downloaded a trial version of PS, tried to resize the panel, printed it out (rubblish paper). Redrew some of it, re scanned couldn't quite get the contrast balance right in PS and ended up with a sort of muddy blurry mess. This is not an excuse but a note to maybe get the computer side sorted out earlier.

The middle panel on page 3 still haunts me - I redrew it but still couldn't get the anatomy right. Luckily it never came up. I'm so glad gave myself enough time to redraw the panels that I did. Having travelled up from Sussex I have to say i really wanted through to the finals.

Every single entry I would say had me thinking "Gruddamn it! Why didn't I think of doing that?". I don't think you could sit there and dismiss anyone as not being in with a good shot and I am mighty jealous of the clearness and clarity of some other artists inks.

I think this is everything. If any other entrants are around please feel free to post on this thread.

If someone could clarify something for me that would be really great.

I'm going to submit my entry for the art competition. I have contacted the organisers and they have said that I can just drop my pages off on the Saturday at the 2000AD table.

Does anyone know if this is all day Saturday? Sorry, I know it sounds as if I don't trust the answer but I just need to double check since I will be travelling up to Leeds on the Saturday and I would hate to get there to find out I missed a designated time slot for submissions and not be able to submit the pages.

Thanks

I think that was my first prog. Used to read the Dandy before that 

On and off in the last 20 years (My Dok - where does the time go?). I tend to buy in spurts when the art or story particularly intrigues me.