Blogging the MSU Comics Forum, 2010 (part 2)
This post is a continuation of my coverage of the MSU Comics Forum 2010, which began in my previous post.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 7:10 PM
This year’s keynote address is in the Residential College of Arts & Humanities Theater, which is located in the basement of Snyder Hall. It was as hard to find as the previous sentence is hard to say in one breath.
The speech hasn’t begun yet, which is fine with me. After getting out of work and heading straight here, I appreciate the time to settle in. Various organizers are milling around. I recognize Ryan Claytor and Jay Jacot, both of whom I’ve spoken to recently. It’s all very thrilling.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 7:21 PM
The introductory speaker has divulged the specifics of tomorrow’s schedule, to take place at the LookOut! Gallery where the comics exhibit was set up.
11:30 AM: Artist’s alley and academic panel
3:00 PM: Creators panel
Guy Davis is on now, coming down the stairs from the back. “I feel like I’m on the Price is Right,” he says.” Davis was a big drawer as a kid, and a fan of monster movies, but not much of a comics reader. His first foray into comics was a sci-fi strip called Quonto (beginning, in George Lucasian fashion, with “Episode 58, Part 3″). This was in junior high, and, at the behest of a teacher, he pursued it as a hobby. He found that a full 24 page comic was the true test of a prospective comics artist–how long it takes, the amount of work involved, and so on.
He continued Quonto in a local fanzine upon graduation, and kept it going in the early 80s black and white boom. (”Everybody wanted the next Ninja Turtles.”) He also worked on a fantasy strip by another creator, called Realm–his first professional job. Davis reiterates that he was not formally schooled; he is a self-taught artist.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 7:31 PM
His next thing was a detective story called Baker Street. Realm did not increase his demand as an artist–”Nobody wanted to hire me to do anything”–so he kept to his own ideas. During this time, he received a big box of international graphic novels from Scott McCloud (yes… THE Scott McCloud), which expanded his influences and exposure to other styles of art and storytelling. “Things got grittier; things got messier… used a lot more zip-a-tone.”
He moved into the mainstream, doing Sandman Mystery Theater with Matt Wagner. The gas mask Sandman, not the Neil Gaiman Sandman, which was happening concurrently. Davis treated it like Baker Street, on the strength of which he was hired to do this project. The editors did not try to force the typical superhero convention on the book, giving Davis freedom to do what he wanted.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 7:40 PM
An unfortunate effect of the strength of Sandman Mystery Theater was that Davis was typecast. “1930s.” “The guy who draws hats.” When the book was canceled, the big houses didn’t have anything for him, but the fledgling Dark Horse Comics brought him in for Nevermen. Davis treated it as a Dick Tracy style story, with hard-boiled stories and freak show villains. Nevermen expanded his reputation from “the guy who draws hats” to “the guy who draws bizarre shit and monsters.”
After some dead time following Nevermen, Davis went back to his own stuff, developing a book called The Marquis. After doing the strong female lead/detective story with Baker Street, he wanted to do a strong older man lead/18th cenutry devils ‘n’ violence story. The series “The Marquis and the Midwife” is forthcoming from Dark Horse.
He credits the design for one of his monsters to his cat–specifically, his cat’s puke.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 7:53 PM
After doing “devils and perverse stuff” with The Marquis, Marvel (somewhat inexplicably?) brought him in to do Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules, a down-to-earth telling of the backstory of the characters. The job consisted of redrawing from the author’s sketched layouts–not necessarily radical, but cushy, and a departure from his recent stuff at the time.
That’s when he got the call from Mike Mignola to do B.P.R.D., a Hellboy spin-off. Monsters, creepy settings, retro-futuristic stuff–right up his alley. It’s his current gig, and he’s doing another spin-off featuring one of the B.P.R.D. characters next year.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 8:02 PM
One of his recent oddities is a French comic called Les Zombies Qui Ont Mange Le Monde (the Zombies Who Ate the World). Drawn for and published in France, of course, but from scripts in English. Fortunate for the non-French-speaking Davis, who gets an assist from an audience member in pronouncing the title. It began in 2004, which was a seminal year for the comedic zombie apocalypse genre.
Another recent oddity: Davis was tapped by Guillermo del Toro to do some comic artwork for the Pan’s Labyrinth DVD, which was animated in a Monty Python/Flash sprite sort of way. The same technique was later applied for the Hellboy DVD. The “motion comic” style, which I personally think subtracts from one of comics’ central traits–time dealt with in space–but that’s just me. It works better as an avant garde movie than it does as comics.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 8:19 PM
Davis shows scans of some of his pages, first at the penciling stage, then at the inking stage. He reveals that much of his vaunted speed and intricate detail is because his pencil work is quite loose; much of the detail and finished appearance doesn’t find its way in until the ink is applied. It takes me back to the book Eisner/Miller, in which the two masters discussed skipping over the “tight pencil” stage entirely and doing much of the drawing at the inking stage.
In doing pin-up type artwork where he’s doing one non-sequential piece of art on a page (say, for role playing games), he discusses “faking.” In other words, making it seem as though the picture is a panel from a larger story, throwing in details that hint at a larger unseen continuity. It allows the audience to fill in the blanks. I’m reminded of Travis Bickle, who is given no backstory in Taxi Driver. The movie gives us bits of his past (and future) through the details of his present.
Friday, March 26, 2010, 8:37 PM
Davis opens the floor for Q&A.
In response to the question of whether or not the writers ever disagree with his designs, Davis describes it more as a back-and-forth process of hashing out the details, combining thoughts on design, and so on. The next question was: should all comics be creator-owned, or should there be room for work-for-hire franchise stuff? Davis answers, why not have both?
My only objection to that, which is a part of the debate that hasn’t been addressed tonight, is that many franchises exist with “a line of cheated old men standing behind them,” as Alan Moore would say. This is not so much a concern with much younger franchises, but many of the Golden Age characters–including, perhaps, Sandman–were acquired by companies through less than admirable means. It is an understatement to say that the big publishing houses were not kind to the writers and artists who gave them their flagship characters.
After another question or two, the speech comes to a close.