{"id":102,"date":"2007-06-25T09:23:24","date_gmt":"2007-06-25T15:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/?p=102"},"modified":"2010-04-26T11:52:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T17:52:19","slug":"96-apecons-isotope-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/102","title":{"rendered":"96. APE-CON’S ISOTOPE PARTY"},"content":{"rendered":"

APE-Con April 8, 2006<\/o:p><\/span><\/h1>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Saturday night of APE-Con. The store, Isotope, was having a party to announce the winner of its mini-comic award, and JH Williams III had said he was planning to show up there. <\/span>He came in around ten pm, and came right over with us, and he hung out and we visited for an hour or so.<\/p>\n

We got talking about music. <\/span>It sounds like he listens to a lot of music, all the time. <\/span>A wide variety too. <\/span>He said his genre of choice is gothic, and he recommended the band, HIM (“His Infernal Majesty”). <\/span>He said everyone he\u2019s made listen to the band at first thinks they\u2019re okay, but then it grows on them, and next thing, they think they\u2019re the greatest band ever. <\/span>I think, these tend to be the best bands. <\/span>When they do something that rubs you funny, but you realize you can\u2019t get them out of your head, and you\u2019re thinking about them all the time, and you have to keep listening to them and try to figure them out, and before you know it you\u2019re starting to understand what they are and what they\u2019re doing, and then you realize they\u2019re quite good, actually. <\/span>This was my experience with my favorite band ever, the Pixies.<\/p>\n

I told Jim that even though it had been over a year since he\u2019d done a monster pin-up for me, I was planning to not include it when I release my next new issue, and then put him in the NEXT one. <\/span>I explained that the next book was going to be \u201cGreatest Army Battles,\u201d and so naturally I\u2019d have to wait until \u201cOuter Space Adventures\u201d to include his pin-up. <\/span>He laughed that clearly I was just waiting for his career to hit its pinnacle, so that I could cash in the most with publishing his piece.<\/p>\n

Someone at the party asked what his next project is, and he said it\u2019s still unofficial, but it better become official soon, because he\u2019s already done nine pages. <\/span>He was offered Detective Comics, DC\u2019s shining star of comics. <\/span>He said that Dan Didio, who\u2019s in charge of DC Comics, came to him during a DC dinner party during Wondercon, and took him aside and said, You know I love your art, right? <\/span>If you want Batman, he\u2019s yours. <\/span>Quite high praise. <\/span>Batman is the character that sustains DC. <\/span>He\u2019s their biggest draw and money-maker, so offering it to Jim was a very big deal, in his oppinion.<\/p>\n

He brought up that he hadn\u2019t originally planned to go to Wondercon a couple months ago, but then last minute, ended up showing up. <\/span>Now, he told me why. <\/span>Grant Morrison had made a special guest appearance at Wondercon, and Grant asked Jim if he could come out so that they could discuss his ideas for the second installment of Seven Soldiers. <\/span>Also, Grant had a creator-owned project that he wanted to do with Jim. <\/span>So that\u2019s why Jim came to Wondercon.<\/p>\n

Jim said he knew Grant would be at Wondercon, but he didn\u2019t know where, except at the Isotope party. <\/span>At the time, he was having difficulties with Desolation Jones, and was feeling frustrated. <\/span>Then he went to the Isotope party, and people were coming up to him, saying how excited they were that he was doing a creator-owned project with Grant. <\/span>And he and Grant hadn\u2019t even worked this out yet. <\/span>Then Grant announced the same thing at the following day\u2019s panel discussions.<\/p>\n

So between this, and being offered Batman, Jim\u2019s mood turned right around. <\/span>He said it\u2019s proof that metaphysics is real. <\/span>He was having a rough time, and the universe answered.<\/p>\n

Jim talked about working on the Batman pages. <\/span>He said that the monthly Batman books have a look and style for the art, and he wasn\u2019t interested in contributing to more of this formula. <\/span>If he\u2019s going on a Batman book, he\u2019s going to push boundaries. <\/span>He said he submitted pages to his editor, and he tried a technique for an action scene. <\/span>His editor told him he had been staring at the page for an hour, and at first he didn\u2019t think he liked what Jim had done, but after an hour he changed his mind and decided it was REALLY cool. <\/span>And that\u2019s exactly how Jim wants it. <\/span>Like what he considers to be the best music. <\/span>For people to feel a little uncomfortable with what he\u2019s doing, or not understand it, but for it to affect you, and you need to keep looking at it and thinking about it and studying it, and when you\u2019re through you realize it\u2019s pretty fuckin\u2019 awesome.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s made a list of writers he would like to work with, and he\u2019s been able to slowly go through and cross these great names off his list, one at a time.<\/p>\n

He said he began inking his own work after Promethea. <\/span>He said Mick Gray is a machine with linework. <\/span>His lines are really amazingly accurate and geometrical and precise. <\/span>Also, he\u2019s really fast. <\/span>Jim admitted he isn\u2019t as precise as Mick, but he\u2019s shown his own inkings to a number of people whose judgements he respects, and they\u2019ve given positive feedback that encouraged him he\u2019s doing well. <\/span>When he showed Arthur Adams, Arthur just said, It looks good, and you should ink all your stuff from now on. Now that Jim has begun inking himself, he says he can’t see letting an inker do the work anymore.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We talked about how a sloppy line can have an energy, even with its inaccuracies. <\/span>I told him about a carpenter I knew, who carves furniture by hand. <\/span>His skills are such that he could cut a perfect circle, but when he does furniture, he purposely makes them imperfect, because otherwise people don\u2019t realize he actually did them by hand. <\/span>People assume, if it\u2019s too perfect, that it must be machine-cut, and people pay for imperfections when they buy \u201chand-made.\u201d <\/span>Art is similar, where sometimes you bare all the imperfections and mistakes, and it looks better than the perfect lines. <\/span>The trick is to be able to do both, and make an artistic decision when it\u2019s appropriate to use which.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I asked Jim\u2019s technique, and he said he begins by inking with a pen. <\/span>Then he fills in his blacks with a brush. <\/span>From there, he studies the weights of the lines, and if something needs a bit more of a push, then he re-inks the pen lines with the brush, to thicken them accordingly.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What surprised me is that he said he\u2019s stopped penciling. <\/span>He begins his work with the pen, and works his way out. <\/span>That\u2019s gotta take some mental visualization to pull that off. <\/span>I\u2019m sure others have done it, but the only one I can think of is Sean Phillips for his Hellblazers. <\/span>Jim said he has to be careful with panned out shots, because the tendency is to make heads too big in relation to their bodies. <\/span>He said he has to ink inside where he thinks the lines should be, and that usually insures the proportions will turn out okay.<\/p>\n

Hearing about all the successes Jim\u2019s been having lately, I asked how long he\u2019s been in comics. <\/span>He said fourteen years. <\/span>Yet again, here\u2019s a very talented artist, who doesn\u2019t just appear in comics, and everyone sees his talent and gives him jobs. <\/span>He\u2019s the same as everyone, where he\u2019s had to work and work, and struggle, and finally after maybe ten or twelve years he started landing the good books. <\/span>He said, the days of an overnight sensation, someone who puts out one book and becomes a superstar, ended after Arthur Adams.<\/p>\n

I felt like Jim and I really connected at this party, and I look forward to spending more time with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

APE-Con April 8, 2006 Saturday night of APE-Con. The store, Isotope, was having a party to announce the winner of its mini-comic award, and JH Williams III had said he was planning to show up there. He came in around ten pm, and came right over with us, and he hung out and we visited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary-of-a-struggling-comics-artist"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"cwisnia","author_link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/author\/cwisnia"},"uagb_comment_info":2042,"uagb_excerpt":"APE-Con April 8, 2006 Saturday night of APE-Con. The store, Isotope, was having a party to announce the winner of its mini-comic award, and JH Williams III had said he was planning to show up there. 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