So, as he’s told me such, I’m assuming Sam and I will do some as-yet-undetermined book at some as-yet-undetermined point in the future. And every time it gets brought up, it gets set back farther in time, because Sam is running so far behind schedule for Ojo, and that’s setting back his schedule for the filming of the Ojo movie. And so naturally any future projects are getting pushed so far back, he can’t even think about them for maybe a year or so, realistically. And every time he talks to me on the phone, he’s stressed out about all this, and telling me how our project is just getting set back farther and farther.
Imagine my surprise when my wife called me at work one day and said, “Chris, there’s a message on the machine from Sam, and he said he really needs a big favor from you.” At that point I realized he’d left a message on my cell phone as well. I somewhat anxiously called him, and he told me that Alex Pardee, his artist for Ojo, had just been asked to do the artwork for the Used’s new album. They were just signed to a major label, and were going on a major tour, and would be on MTV; the whole works. So they also wanted Alex to do the video, touring set designs, t-shirts – everything. This allowed Alex a nice hefty payment and a lot of work, but no time or monetary incentive to finish Ojo. And Sam had always been impressed with me and how dedicated I was to plugging away and getting through a job, and he knew I had assumed we’d work on one of the other projects some time in the future, but what did I think?
I wasn’t sure I understood exactly what he was asking me. But that’s how I ended up doing the art with Sam for Ojo.
We discussed what tactic we should take with the art. Sam had had conflicts with the art with Alex, who at first was trying to draw like Sam, but eventually decided to draw in his own style. Sam had been going over many of the pages afterwards anyways, adding his own artwork, to help add a consistency to the pages he had drawn in the book. We finally decided it’s difficult enough for a reader to get through a story when the artist changes, let alone with three completely different artists with completely different styles and sensibilities. So I would draw as best I could in the style the book had already established. I had one and a half issues of Ojo to use as my reference material.
The key with the project was speed, as the first issue was already at the printer, and the filming dates for the Ojo film were being set, and none of the actors had a script. At first, Sam sent me layouts of pages, but his layouts were so detailed, he felt it would have taken him just as long to draw completed pages. Add to this I was basically just copying his layouts, and since they were layouts, Sam felt much of it was sloppy, and got frustrated to see much of the same sloppiness he had presented in my final pages. He tended to redraw these, over my “finished” inks.
Eventually he stopped sending me page layouts, and I just drew all the pages from his plot descriptions. I never knew what was going on or being said in the pictures except what he described, because he never sent me dialogue. He would just write that this character talks to that character, and then walks over there. So I never knew for sure what expressions characters should have. I was trying to draw in a Sam Kieth style, but I felt concerned most of the pages were pretty evident who did what.
When I finished my pages, Sam went into them and added his textures, speckles, and chicken-scratches. Also, if he was unhappy enough with a panel, or just envisioned a different angle, for example, he would redraw it on my page. When I saw the finished pages, I was surprised, comparing them to scans of my originals, the things I thought I had done that he redrew, or vice versa.
Sam told me that it was a tough job for me, because I am a no-name and he is Sam Kieth. I’ll have some books on my resume, but no one will realize my contribution to the project. Everyone will assume all the bad drawings are by me and all the good ones are by him. Ah well…
I learned a lot from this project. When I drew from his layouts, I realized how easily he captures details with so little. He just draws a squiggle, and it’s so obvious it’s a shoe and a pant leg. And when I tried to redraw it, I thought, “Well I guess it’s kind of a shoe, but how did he get it to look so much like a pant leg? It’s just a scribble.” Amazing. And his line quality. I learned even more when I looked at how he chose to alter my pages. When I look at my artwork in Ojo, I can’t help but wince, and all the more so when it’s facing a page of Sam’s.
I finished all my portion of the art on August 14th, 2004, only just over three months after Sam first sent me the script, and with a fair amount of waiting throughout. A few fans and reviewers said the art didn’t flow, or that they could tell when one page was mine, and one was Sam’s. I suspect they assume that a “bad” page was by me and a “cool” page was by Sam, and that in reality it would surprise them to learn who did everything. Sam’s art is so inconsistent from panel to panel, with one photo-realistic and detailed, and the next practically a stick-figure, or a cartoon. Whenever I spoke with Oni about the book afterwards, they always seemed happy with the end-result. They said most everyone thought things blended together nicely. They said they weren’t sure exactly who drew what. That’s the nicest compliments they could give, since that’s all I hoped to accomplish.
But as humbling and humiliating as it all feels, I’m very proud to have been a part of this book, and to have been able to help Sam when he was in a serious crunch.