2\/15\/06<\/p>\n
Getting up my confidence, having set up a second commission for a pin-up from my favorite artist Mike Allred, and getting an amazing \u201ccheck back in a few months\u201d from my other favorite artist, Mike Mignola, I began trying to get in touch with Sam Kieth for more of the same. <\/span>He was tough to track down. <\/span>I called a few times at his office and left messages. <\/span>I called his home and left a message. <\/span>I had sent him a package with the Doris Danger book, in addition to some things he\u2019d picked up down in San Diego and asked me to send him, so that he wouldn\u2019t have to carry it around at the con.<\/p>\n He finally called me back and I missed the call. <\/span>I realized later that he\u2019s easiest to reach at his office at the exact same hours I can\u2019t be reached because I\u2019m teaching guitar lessons. <\/span>He left a very sweet message about enjoying the monster book I\u2019d sent him, and the format. <\/span>He said it wasn\u2019t just the Dick Ayers inks that he enjoyed, but felt I had a good thing going. <\/span>He didn\u2019t know if I had made an intentional reference, but it reminded him of the Marvel Treasury Editions of the 1970\u2019s. <\/span>He said all the great pin-ups reproduced better than he expected at such a huge size. <\/p>\n I called back immediately, as soon as I had a break, but my next student showed up and we were cut short. <\/span>I called him later that night, left a message, called the next day, didn\u2019t leave a message, and finally got hold of him the next next day.<\/p>\n Once again he was very complimentary about my monster book. <\/span>We talked about his new Batman book, and he wondered if tis sales wee hurt by his Scratch series. <\/span>According to him, Scratch was so unsuccessful critically and with sales, that when this new project was billed as a Batman book by Maxx \u201cand Scratch\u201d writer\/artist Sam Kieth, people didn\u2019t bother to order it. <\/span>He couldn’t believe that DC billed it this way, when Scratch didn’t do very well.<\/p>\n He mentioned Mad Magazine had contacted him about doing work for them.\u00a0 It took him aback, because he had thought Mad usually hired specifically comedy, cartoonist types of artists.\u00a0 Sam comically described it as if Mad didn\u2019t deign to waste their time on low-brow comics artists.\u00a0 So Sam<\/span> said so to them, and instead of telling him, No, Sam, we wouldn\u2019t do that, they said, Yeah, usually that\u2019s what we do, but if you want to send a sample\u2026<\/p>\n Sam told me about a sample he was asked to send to a music magazine, which they didn\u2019t like, so they asked him to redo it. <\/span>He redid it, and they still didn\u2019t like it, so they didn\u2019t accept it, and they didn\u2019t pay him, and he couldn’t believe that he\u2019d wasted all this time, a couple days worth of work, when he could have been working on all these other projects he always feels behind deadline with.<\/p>\n Sam seemed to be in one of his moods.\u00a0 <\/span>He asked, Don\u2019t you get sick of drawing? <\/span>I knew what he meant.\u00a0 Comics are a never ending chore, and you just have to plug through seemingly endlessly, drawing whatever images will tell the story.\u00a0 That means you’ll have to find a dozen ways to draw the same face, and try to keep it interesting.\u00a0 You’ll have to come up with a bunch of interior room designs.\u00a0 Things will come up, that you’ll just have to draw, that you’re maybe not interested in drawing, but you have to just keep plugging through, because until you draw it, you’ll just keep feeling irritated about having to draw it.\u00a0 And once you’re finally done, you know you’ll just have to go back the next day for more of the same.\u00a0 There’s no end to getting the drawing done.<\/p>\n So in answer to his question, Do you ever get sick of drawing?\u00a0 I told him, actually, I can\u2019t wait to do more drawing. <\/span>I\u2019m always excited about it, and itching to get my next story going.\u00a0 But I didn’t tell him, if it was my only job, and I was doing it forty or more hours a week, I would certainly get sickeningly tired of it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He said, Yeah, it\u2019s different if you\u2019re doing your own projects, instead of Batman books or whatever for someone else. <\/span>I said, Yeah, I did someone else\u2019s book once \u2013 meaning Sam\u2019s Ojo.\u00a0 And honestly, I didn’t enjoy drawing it as much as drawing my own projects.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I used that as a segueway to tell <\/span>him I was still serious about working with him any time he wanted. <\/span>Sam said, Okay, if we do a book, we have to not use the toothbrush spraying technique anywhere. <\/span>He\u2019s done it all this time, and he\u2019s tired of doing it now, and he thinks it doesn’t look as good anymore, now that it’s been done. <\/span>No toothbrush.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t get the impression he\u2019s considering doing another project with me.<\/p>\n We got to talking about working in different styles. I mentioned Romance and War. <\/span>Sam pointed out that both these genres are long-dead genres in comics, and that superheroes are pretty much all that exists now, except that Manga is beginning to push out the superheroes, thanks to an increase in female readers who couldn\u2019t give a shit about muscleiy men beating each other up. <\/span>I pointed out, Fantagraphics is doing romance comics. <\/span>Their Eros line. <\/span>Sam didn\u2019t catch the joke at first. <\/span>Namely, that the Eros line is pornography. <\/span>\u201cRomance.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span>I told Sam I\u2019d really like a new pin-up from him of a giant monster, and he just kind of casually said all right, like of course he would do another. <\/span>He joked, That\u2019s it! <\/span>I\u2019ll tell Mad Magazine, I\u2019m not going to do a sample for you! <\/span>I\u2019ve got better things to do! <\/span>I\u2019m going to draw a giant monster for Chris Wisnia\u2019s monster book!<\/p>\n I told him I was serious, and he said, okay, I\u2019ll draw you an Easter Island monster. <\/span>He shared that one of his earliest comics experiences was reading one of Kirby\u2019s Easter Island monster stories. <\/span>Until reading it, he never imagined those giant heads could have bodies buried beneath them, and could climb out of the earth. <\/span>He was taken by Kirby\u2019s blocky, powerful style. <\/span>He said comics art should either contain that strength, or the weirdness of Ditko. <\/span>He said I\u2019d have to write somewhere about his reasons for drawing an Easter Island monster, and I warned him I\u2019m planning to do a blog. <\/span>I fantasized about him doing a whole monster story for me, but was too chicken to ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2\/15\/06 Getting up my confidence, having set up a second commission for a pin-up from my favorite artist Mike Allred, and getting an amazing \u201ccheck back in a few months\u201d from my other favorite artist, Mike Mignola, I began trying to get in touch with Sam Kieth for more of the same. He was tough […]<\/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-93","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":210,"uagb_excerpt":"2\/15\/06 Getting up my confidence, having set up a second commission for a pin-up from my favorite artist Mike Allred, and getting an amazing \u201ccheck back in a few months\u201d from my other favorite artist, Mike Mignola, I began trying to get in touch with Sam Kieth for more of the same. He was tough…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}