And of the Laughing Corpse?
Hey there sports fans, Al here with the latest;
Well, I am back at it again and talking about Comics and talking about scratchboard in the conjoining of the two. And of course, Every once in a while an artist actually has to take a break from the drawing table otherwise he becomes very tunnel-visioned and not paying attention to the things around him or people for that matter. It’s not the fault of the artist it’s just the way we're wired.
Some friends have a real problem with this but they (almost) always understand that it’s a drive that we cannot stop and again it’s the way we're wired.
Now onto the end of the Laughing Corpse?
It is true that Corpse Cop number four taking a much longer period to write and illustrate particularly the fact that I’m doing it in scratchboard but these new pages that I am posting in this post will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this work is moving forward.
When I started writing for this particular character back in 2012 I believe I’d have to double-check on that.
At the time, zombie stories were starting to really be the craze in pop culture and George R. Romero was hailed as the God of the Undead. And of course, I wanted to cash in on that. So with very little planning, I created a zombie (to stay focused on one character not an army of mindless earring machines) of self-aware being. I found this concept personally hilarious. The response was so much better than I could have asked for. But I at the time wanted my character to stand out from the crowd. So I did the very first full issue in scratchboard.
Of course, I had no idea why the hell I was getting into. All of my contemporaries thought that I should totally do books that way but always found it had to keep to a regular schedule.
I don’t know any illustrator that can unless they are getting a fatty paycheck upfront. But as I wrote down those first couple pages I found that I had already laid out a plan of following stories that would round out this character.
And if real life had dealt me this favor of support I would’ve been able to continue with those stories for Corpse Cop. But real Life you know always likes to throw you a curve balls or 10 or more likely. So staying focused on that particular character made it incredibly difficult to produce, write and, illustrate those stories outlined for that character.
But I keep coming back to him.
Johnny Vega was wrapping up with issue 4, Corrax the Seeker was starting with one issue and then there was Richard Parker. Art shows began and prints being made and commissions. All of this artistic stuff kept me from finishing off Corpse Cop.
I even had several other people want to use him in a part of their stories. Only once that happened in 2012 with "Weird Atomic Tales". It was the biggest single story I ever worked on and with another writer and creator.
Unfortunately, the Mother of All Crossovers never picked up traction it was a huge boost for ego to say to anyone "Hey, we did that!"
But it took years between books for Corpse Cop to get out. That's when the two issues of "Arctic Wolf" and "Inhuman Torch" came out with white markers on black paper. I thought that I could crank out the books faster than scratching away at the panels at the time. It was true that I had cut down the time in about half but the look wasn't as unique as one would have hoped for.
The Arctic Wolf story could be stretched out a bit more giving a little more into the background of Corspie, but I wasn't really thinking about that. I just wanted to get more new stuff out as quickly as possible. Learn on the fly, even if it is bad you are still getting books out.
But now over a decade later, an old topic came running back to me, the quote "Quality over Quantity and time". Old words even older than Corpse Cop himself by about almost 25 years came running back to me. The quality of the work is what holds a person's attention for the longest period of time that’s why people when they die especially hard, it is those great pieces are lauded as pieces of art rather than just something.
I know that people will say you know somebody like Jack Kirby is a cartoonist for example, he cranked out so many pieces of art that it’s not really quality per se but that is wrong because he overcame that with his latest pieces towards the end of his career, their dynamic to the nth degree is like nobody else’s business. No one even comes close to the massive impact that Kirby here that’s the reason why he’s considered the king.
Steranko understood this idea very well. That’s the reason why his work is so hard to find but any of his later pieces in his art career is lauded as masterful. Look at the paintings that he did for Lucas for production pieces for Indiana Jones or I should say Raiders of the Lost Ark. Fantastic work.
No, I’d rather pat myself on the back because I want to be known as a great illustrator not a fast one, and a nice guy on top of it.
If you do great work people will buy it that has been proven out more times over the years and I can count.
Well with that I am back at the drawing table.
Next.