Broken Frontier

In the second part of this round table discussion series Indie creators David Moran, Alex Sheikman and mpMann analyse Moran and Sheikman's Robotika and take the opportunity to look in depth at the role of the colorist in the creative process. Part One can be read here.

Robotika: For A Few Rubles More

mpMann: There is a nice sense of movement and observed gesture in your work, Alex. Are you a close observer of people? Have you ever been busted making covert sketches of people in public places?

Alex Sheikman: I do like to sketch. I picked that up from watching Ryan Sook work out anatomical questions for his compositions. That guy is amazing. He will just sit down and start sketching away and he will work on things until he knows exactly how the body would bend, twist, and fold in his illustration. I kind of cheat because if I need to loosen up I either watch a movie and try to sketch as the actors move across the screen or I look through magazines and try to learn from the photos that I find interesting. When it comes to my own composition, if I work on it and it does not work the way I see it in my head, I try to take some reference photos and use those to get me to the spot that I feel comfortable in.

mpMann: Wow! Look at the rendering of that grass on Page 2 (right) of the first issue of Robotika. Shouldn't colorists be getting more credit these days? Alex still does a fair amount of rendering, and knows how to use open space as well... his art would read just fine in black and white. But increasingly, colorists are being asked to render forms and turn shapes, supply detail. Think of how open the art is on All-Star Superman. Colorists deserve more accolades these days.

David Moran: OK, just to give colorists their due here, Jamie Grant colors All-Star Superman, and Joel Chua provides the vivid colors for the world of Robotika; Joel colored the first series, and he really seems to have raised his palette to the next level for this new series. It is pretty amazing.

So then let’s talk color, guys: Marv, you now color all your own work. How has that changed your approach to your work? Because now you almost seem to have
three stages in which to refine and craft everything: the penciling stage, the inking process, and then applying all the colors.

mpMann: It’s probably made me looser, if anything. I didn't expect The Lone and Level Sands to have color, so I made sure the drawings carried without it. But seeing how much the marvelous color work Jennifer Rodgers did added to the emotional tone, well, I could see the value of using color. By now I have colored several hundred pages of my own art, and I find myself looking at a drawing and recognizing how color will tie it together. My coloring is loose, but fairly simple, with soft edges. Sometimes I use it to add depth to a drawing. Sometimes I use it to hold shapes together. Often I use it to separate scenes from each other and provide unity within a scene.

David Moran: Alex, Joel Chua colors Robotika…but he follows a template that you, in part, dictate to him. But, even still, you can’t know "exactly" what the art is going to look like colored until you’ve finally see it. Does this influence your work any? Like maybe it affects how much ink or "black" you chose to put on a page? Have you ever thought about giving coloring a try yourself?

Alex Sheikman: Telling stories through the medium of comics is a pretty complex process (as I’m finding out). There are lots of things that have to be considered for every issue: storytelling, lettering, design...I am still focused on the basics like actual drawing and page design, I have not evolved to the point where I think too much about color. Mostly my color notes to Joel consist of description of the panels so that he knows when it's evening and when it's daytime and maybe a few special places when color is an important storytelling element.

I did notice that with some of my friends, as they got more experience drawing, they started taking over more and more aspects of their projects. For example, both JH Williams III and Ryan Sook started coloring and painting their work as their confidence gained momentum.

I think it would be wonderful to be able to do a piece of artwork from start to finish, but at the moment I am very happy having someone else worry about the color schemes.

Robotika: For A Few Rubles More Pages 7, 9 and 18

mpMann: Pages 7 & 9 (above) of the first issue of Robotika both really stood out to me for their interesting, and unusual, visual and design elements. In the first panel on Page 7, Alex breaks from the conventions of realism by putting an image in the thought balloon. This is a very nice touch, especially coming in a silent sequence. The AAAAARRRRHHHH sound effect is effectively portrayed as a graphic element. But Alex goes even further on Page 9. Here we see that the controversial vertical lettering of CG's speech from the first series gets abandoned. Alex and Dave have concocted a plausible excuse for this. But I like what occurs in the next panel even better. Here, in a silent "beat" panel, CG's companions register their surprise at her ability to adjust her speech. Most artists would stop at the "beat." But Alex goes further, creating an unusual panel box above. The upper edge is a collection of shapes, suggesting exclamation points, and graphically emphasizing their surprise. He goes back to the well with a similar use of this device on Page 18 (above), where the panel shape itself is used to suggest a woman's surprise at a revelation.

Alex Sheikman: One of the things that I believe has not been explored enough in comics are the panel shapes. I am talking about drawing panels in shapes of puzzle pieces when the story calls for mysteries to be put together or panels in shapes of cars when characters are driving around. As more and more cinematographic influences worked themselves into comics, devices like descriptive panel shapes (or looks that send daggers flying during arguments) fell out of fashion, but I find them to be uniquely "comic book" and don't see them as a distraction from the story.

Join the team again on Monday when they analyze the panel-to-panel storytelling of Robotika: For A Few Rubles More...