This is not honourable

And so we begin as we end...

Continued next week

Who cares about the What Men?

Welcome to the World of Images Degrading Forever

The first thing to quite clearly establish is this is not reality.  There may well be a whole load of drawings here which look rather similar to something else and a lot of names which may sound familiar- but I can assure you this is just pure happenstance any resemblance to anything living or dead is unintentional or done as parody

If you have happened to have not read whatever it is that may look similar to this, I am not going to recommend that as a publication you can buy so you can understand what follows as what follows is not for you

If you want me to recommend anything to read It will be League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Secret Service or any comics / graphic novels that are creator owned by either Alan Moore or Dave Gibbons

None of the finished drawings that appear here will be original - they will be redrawn by hand by myself, degraded if you will

We start with the cover...

Join me next week as we enter inside and the story proper begins...

Corto Malteste

This week we feature probably the most famous creation by Hugo Pratt - Corto Malteste

Which has lots of graphic novels - yes even ones in english over at Amazon

There is even a web site devoted just to Corto Malteste with a lot more here 

The drawing I have chosen is from "Fable of Venice"

This landscape image to my eye displayed a talent that could probably draw pages like this in hours or less

The line all suggest life emotion, passion, wear tear and a palatial background all with the minimum amount of drawing

The background in particular exists only as a series of dots and lines which only make sense when looked at from a bit of a distance

By looming much larger than life in the foreground is Corto Malteste himself looking assured. He has seen some fights and action but still he stands tall untouched

In attempting to recreate this I tried to go as true to the original as I could, so i went straight to ink using a berol handwriting pen.  This pen had almost exactly the same width as the lines on the original and the finished product you see above took just under an hour roughly

Of course I couldn't pretend to be Hugo Pratt, but this was a joy to draw

Doug Noble , this is on its way to you - thanks for the great suggestion

Voting has closed

And we have a tally of one vote each for each suggestion. 

This means I have to make a casting vote as to what will be next.  As ever I try to be practical and not embark on a project that is too massive, given my rate of one page a week.  As regular readers have seen some pages from Watchmen have already been completed. So it makes sense to continue with those

But how?

Find out - Next Week

The Play of Lights

This week we feature the work of José Antonio Muñoz or simply Muñoz

According to "Wakipedia", Muñoz is "an Argentine artist"… "most notable for his influential black-and-white artwork. His hardboiled graphic novels series Alack Sinner (with writer Carlos Sampayo) is a noted source for Frank Miller's Sin City."

"His style is characterised by a sharp line, heavy chiaroscuro, and exaggerated, sometimes grotesque, faces and figures. His work has had a strong influence on Argentine Alberto Breccia, his teacher. Also British artists Dave McKean and Warren Pleece"

Something that "Wakipedia" does not mention is Muñoz actually did work for Fleetway publications here in the UK working on strips mostly credited to (Francisco Solano) López

Muñoz worked for Fleetway editors Jack Le Grand (1920-1986: Buster, Valiant, Hurricane, Giggle, Jet) and Sidney Bicknell (1922-1991: Valiant, Vulcan). Munoz worked on four strips for the Lion comic: Stitch in Time, Lost in Limbo Land, The Treasure-Hunt Twins and Sark the Sleeper

But Muñoz is probably much better known and defintely more celebrated in France

The Page of Muñoz I have chosen  to attempt to redraw by hand is from The Play of Lights or Jeu de lumières which is available via Amazon France in French for those who like the look of it

The page is of course Copyright Albin Michel, Muñoz José, Sampayo Carlos - 1988

We start on a dark highway - overhead the small street lights can be seen dotting the curve of the highway

As the headlights of a car play around the darkness depicting incredible speed flashing and bouncing off the dark until a destination is reached

These play as deliberately stylistic statements of cinema or the idea of moving pictures (this is the dance of light in question) the flicker of light onto a screen

"To get an image as pure as this is something else"

But the man in the last panel is asked in response to this statement to "tell me what you think really"

He (roughly) says he was born in italy but is french - while italy is in his soul

Whatever you take away from that you certainly can not deny the powerful fluidity of styles used and the totally free and unrestrained used of sheer abstract yet heartfelt poetry displayed within

Thanks to Ed Hilyer for suggesting I attempt a Muñoz - Ed this drawing is yours! Just get in touch

Next week - Hugo Pratt and the announcement of what is next for Images Degrading forever - Please cast a vote you have 7 days left! - For more details see the last few blog posts - Thank you

History is written by winners

Do I have no shame? - Do you even need to ask…

Just buy doubt land issue 4, already
Heck it's the last issue, so if you don't buy this maybe I will have to make another issue just to keep you entertained when reading this blog. I mean you all come here to read these crass attempts at profiteering adverts don't you?

Look it's just one english pound, that's barely tuppence halfpenny in old money - that just about covers the cost of printing - there is no profit made here

And while we are in the land of make believe, there is even a feint possibility you might even enjoy the contents. Note I said Might

You can get a copy here

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160793145856#ht_574wt_1156 

History is written by winners
I guess that would be me, I seem to be the only person around here, so I get to be the defacto winner!

I wonder if I could effectively argue that nothing is real as after all you are only relying on what you can see and how reliable is that?

Yes - I mean Phenomenology - How do you know you or anything else exists?

WHAT?! oh Milk and Cheese have just told me to shut up - and about time as well!

But I thought they was dead...

If that is them dead, I certainly would not want to meet them when they are alive!

---------------------------------------------

Normal service has now resumed

The Next Project
Just a reminder that voting is open for what the next project will be on this blog.

At the moment we have one vote for Watchmen, one for José Antonio Muñoz and one for Hugo Pratt.

Voting will remain open until Thursday 17th May. You can vote by posting a comment or sending me a email

Anyone who votes I will give a free sketch to as well, some come on already!

Join me next week as I consider the work of José Antonio Muñoz!

Its the Merry May Marching Society

No It's anything but that - fortunately

But yes -its another month and you know what that means...

May is Doubt Land 4 Month
The final issue of Doubtland is unleashed at just £1 per copy. This title continues to do well, this issue sold out at the comika comiket! As well as concluding the story there are 4 pages of back matter, including a epilogue by Alan Dean Foster and a rarely seen essay by Jim Steranko on the making of the comic book adaptation of outland

That alone must be worth £1?!

Copies as ever are on sale now via ebay and will be for the rest of this month

Just click the link below to get your copy

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160793145856#ht_574wt_1156 

Doubt land collected?
Already a few people have asked will Doubt land be collected - Well certainly not at the moment, but if enough of you email and ask then sure, why not?

Images Degrading Monthly
May also sees the third issue of Images Degrading Monthly - so far this has been doing very well indeed, with at least 150 copies of each issue given away for FREE!

This month we continue in print and in digital format with some great new content!

Including a great interview with Mike Medaglia the artist of "Wet Ashes" and "Wu Wei" and a feature on Emancipation Studios home of the hot new independent comic WIRED

If you would like a digital copy, just drop me a email - if you want to get this in print, just drop down to orbital comics, there will be a few copies on the front counter from Saturday 5th May

The next project?!
Having finally completed my attempt at adapting Jack Kirby's 2001- the question is what is next?

Already there is one suggestion I have put on the table and a vote from a blog reader - (Thanks Mauricio Yamashita for your vote) for Watchmen

You will note I have not said what I actually intend to do if that is my next project, I am hoping that the images I have drawn may give people a clue…

Since then, I have heard from two more people with two more suggestions

So let's hear it for Ed Hilyer who suggested I try something by José Antonio Muñoz

And a certain Doug Noble (Who long time readers will remember suggested I do 2001 in the first place) has gone for Hugo Pratt (interestingly enough José Antonio Muñoz studied under Hugo pratt)

Well what I am going to do as well as ask you all to vote on one of these three is of course to attempt at least one drawing by each - so over the next few weeks voting will be ongoing and next week I will put up something by José Antonio Muñoz and the week after that something by Hugo Pratt I have already attempted a drawing by Sir David Gibbons OBE but here's another one to tide you over...

For making the suggestions all three people Mauricio, Ed and Doug can have the original drawing sent to them in the post for free - just send me a email

Voting will close and I will make a choice the same day the Hugo pratt drawing goes up which will be Thursday 17th May

if there is not enough votes for a majority - I will make a vote myslef!

Anyone who votes I will give a free sketch to as well, some come on already!


Is that it for may?!
As far as i can remember , but then my memory is notoriously unreliable - I have probably forgot something rather important… I don't think I was getting married or anything ?!

Join me for the final page of Milk and Cheese in 2 days time , Thursday 3rd may

Creators are People as well

Just so you know the intended blog entry and drawing (the 2nd page of Milk and Cheese) for this week have been put to one side until next week – what I need to discuss I feel is more important at this moment

What I want to discuss this week are the issues of what are normally described as “creator’s rights”

But before you all start rolling your eyes – for clarification this is what I mean:-

The right for the creator to receive an on-going sum for his creation and to be treated by the company he did the creation for with a modicum of respect and dignity

 Which on the surface does not sound that unreasonable – Let’s look at the music industry as an example as the process should be similar to a comic book artist / writer in many respects

The recording artist makes recordings under contract to a music company

Now imagine that all that ever happened was the recording artist got paid for just making that recording

And never got paid any money for anything else

So for example they never got a % of any actual record sales, or T-shirts – books, calendar, posters, videos, movies (should any be made), replays of their material on radio etc.

And let’s take it a bit further and imagine their recording contract was just enough to make ends meet.

That unless they work very very hard or have alternate sources of income they are unlikely to be able to afford such things as healthcare or a proper pension, to send their children to university and so on

And why not put the cherry on top of the cake as well, on top of this the recording artist is completely unimportant, their name is seldom mentioned, if anyone records a song they do not mention the originating artists name or worse still are forbidden from doing so by the recording company, the originating artist also has no say or control about how their original material is used or abused and of course they don’t see a single cent from any of it either

That is more or less (obviously exaggerated a bit) the situation in the comics industry today in terms of work for hire for either Marvel or DC and possibly other publishers as well

Now I don’t think it’s unfair to say that this is wrong and it needs to change

But for the best of all possible reasons, as it’s actually in Marvel and Dc’s interests to do so

How so?

Simple – I don’t think anyone will deny that as a industry overall comics are in trouble, Dc acknowledge as much by going for their radical New 52 approach – although this was interesting its failing to tackle the actual problem

I have a strong and firm belief that the material and therefore the sales of it is only ever going to be as good as the treatment and conditions given to the people who make it, that Marvel and Dc not only have an ethical responsibility to treat creators differently, that actually if they did so the material itself would be become richer and more popular as a result

That cutting corners by treating creators the way they do is actually a false economy it is short sighted and it is fuelling the demise of the medium and as much as I hate to say it is just greedy

It narrows down the amount of people and the diversity in the comics creative field tremendously as anyone is better off in practically any other vocation - even more so if they have a family to support

To coin a phrase its like constantly abusing the goose that lays the golden eggs and then wondering why the eggs no longer arrive

For the record I don’t think much actually has to change – just some basic principles

But of course it is these principles that both Marvel and Dc seem to be all too happy to go to court to prevent a creator making any claim on

These principles are simple:-

That the creator should always get a % of any reuse of their creation regardless of how it used where and who by – I don’t think this has to be a large percentage by any means - it can be small 1% even– all it needs to be is large enough so a creator doesn’t have to keep working into their 80s with half their eyesight gone (yes I am referring to Gene Colon)

That the creator should always be credited, acknowledged positively and consulted with respect in regards to any reuse of their creation – at least to the level of basic human courtesy is all that is really required here – There is a rather obvious exmaple regarding a rather high selling Dc trade paperback which of course does not need to be named

Of course an alternate option is to make the page rate on offer higher so that the issue of constantly having to work to make ends meet is not such an issue and offer such things as healthcare and pensions etc. even to freelancers

(Note that creators usually have little choice about going freelance as they page rate is so low they normally need to work for several companies at once simultaneously)

But both Marvel and Dc make millions – it’s not unreasonable to say to them please share just a bit of that back to the people who actually made it possible, support and foster creativity as that way the creative act always comes with respect dignity and the security that you’re not toiling life away with little recompense and worse treatment

This should really be against human rights and it definitely sounds like a labour rights issue – both Marvel and Dc should be ashamed at themselves for treating anyone this way, regardless of what they do

But to treat a person who has made it possible for them to make so much money in the first place in such a way is completely unforgivable

This has to change if the medium is to survive

I doubt anything positive will happen as a result of this blog entry which is shameful

I doubt anything will change either - apparently Gordon Gecko must be right and greed must be "good"

And making money is more important than anything else

By all means feel free to tear me down or nit-pick with my statements – but I seriously do not know of many other vocations that treat their employees so badly

That alone is definitely something that does need to change for the sake of the future of the industry

It’s simple - fair pay and fair treatment – that’s the basic rights of any employee – right?

Wrong - perhaps we should call them Creators wrongs as there does not seem to be much that is right around...

Update

There is of course more a lot more about this elsewhere Just some recent examples :- http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/04/18/creator-rights-before-watchmen-avengers-moore-kirby/ 

Chris Robertson felt so strongly about these issues he decided to no longer work or either DC or Marvel

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/04/20/chris-roberson-fired-dc-comics/

Bergen Street Comics shop have decided to NOT order “before watchmen” and there’s a group to boycott it altogether

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Before-Watchmen/362528783775196

 

There is also a groundswell of people boycotting the opening weekend of Marvels multi billon dollar making  Avengers movie over Marvels treatment of Jack Kirby whose family of course won’t see one single dime

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/08/cartoonist-james-sturm-boycotts-the-avengers-movie-over-marvel/

 

What will you do?