A comiXologist Recommends A Comic That Brings Them Joy: Jonah Chuang recommends Starlight
If you like comic book heroes and Pixar’s Up, this book is for you. Starlight made me tear up more than any book has in a long time. It’s the heartwarming story of Duke McQueen, the Flash Gordon/AdamStrange/John Carter-ish man from Earth who traveled to a distant planet and saved the universe, but has since come home, gotten married, had kids, and then aged forty years. Now his kids are grown, his wife has passed, and everyone thinks Duke is a crazy old man who imagined his ‘adventures’. Even his kids avoid him. All this changes, though, when a young visitor from the world Duke saved comes to ask for his help once again.
This is such an interesting and spin on the classic space adventurer story. These iconic heroes are the quintessential alpha males— cocky, strong, fast, proud, full of life, and steeped in glory and adoration— so you’d never think of them as old, sad, and lonely men, but that’s what happens to Duke in this story.
Goran Parlov’s artwork is so great for this book. It’s really grand and gorgeous, while being minimalistic enough to be reminiscent of the style of those old space stories. If you’ve read Fury MAX, you know what I’m talking about. Parlov really knows how to cast the stillness in the lonely moments, and bring out the pomp in the great fight scenes. There’s so much life to each image, you can almost hear the soundtrack playing over it.
Starlight’s a pretty great book for the holiday season. Assuming your holidays are anything like mine, there’s also very little snow, lots of family tension, and some really great emotional victories that make you tear up and feel like there are still great things in the world.
I really miss Ikuko Itoh. I’m so disappointed she’s not on the staff of Crystal. She really tightened up the senshi designs and made them lovely, all of her promo stuff is knockout, and let’s not even start talking about Princess Tutu or I’ll start crying again over the whole thing
Cindy Moon exploded out of her bunker and into theMarvel Universe in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man and she never looked back. Bit by the same radioactive spider that gave Peter Parker his powers on that fateful day, she’s spent her years locked away in a bunker, safe from the threat of Morlun and the Inheritors. Since then, she’s saved Peter Parker’s life (more than once), fought alongside Spider-Woman, braved the Spider-Verse and more!
Now, Cindy is back in New York City, patrolling its rooftops as SILK! And she’s going to make up for lost time. Searching for her past, defining her own future, and webbing wrong-doers along the way. Now is your chance to hop on board one of the slickest new launches of 2015 as SILK #1 swings in to comic shops this February!
I just wanted to reblog this because it’s so true.
I’m so happy that I just started drawing my comic one day, it has taught me so much more than just prepping for the comic would have.
I think that people forget that stuff like reference images, turnarounds, maps… that’s often stuff done by a team of people FOR a team. Production art is very attractive, and it’s fun to do, but ultimately, if you’re alone in your team, the preparation material is only needed if you feel it’s needed.
The purpose of most stuff like turnarounds is to insure stuff stays on model. Chances are, if you’re the only person doing it, you’ll be on model. And trust me that I say your model will evolve over time anyways because you’re not making a movie – you’re making a story that will span over a large amount of time. As demonstrated :
The “just start your comic rule” doesn’t mean “start without preparation”, but rather “start with the preparation level you feel comfortable with”. If you’re spending a lot of time on preparation rather then pages and story because people make you believe it’s a requirement, then you are definitely not in your comfort zone. There is not obligatory quota of preparation to meet to make a good comic. Find your zone. Then just start.
Izzie’s tumblr archive 