justin owens A sketchblog

Catching up

Look, it’s an official blog post! I’m glad that I’ve been posting my daily images on here, as it keeps fresh content coming along, but I’ve otherwise been woefully silent. Well no more! From somewhere deep inside I feel a pressure building and I can’t stop it anymore! It’s time to use this keyboard to type out my thoughts.

Hello thoughts and welcome to this public viewing.

I never “got” comic books, which is to say, I was never engaged enough in them that I could read them. The text felt limited (I didn’t get the same immersion I get from books), the drawings either didn’t grab me, or I’d have the opposite effect and just stare at the pictures, ignoring the text. I slowly became more and more interested in producing a comic, even though I had yet to successfully read one, I’m very interested in them as a means of storytelling.

I’ve slowly begun to read a few, with some I’ve actually gotten into the stories a bit, with others I’m just analyzing the techniques used. I’m starting to feel more comfortable with the medium though and I wonder why that is. Have comic books changed? Have my tastes changed? Or perhaps I’m just finally just giving them a chance.

One of the biggest draws I’ve had recently has been from the inspiring work of Enrique Fernandez. I love his art style and when I flip through his comics, I see it as something I want to do. His books are in french though, time to do some studying!

I read Fall 1152 of the MouseGuard series. The art style is interesting. At times very simple, but I like the look and posing of the characters. The storytelling is a little simple, but fun nonetheless.

I like magneto. I haven’t had any interest in reading superhero type comics, but I saw the magneto origins book, “X-Men: Magneto Testament” and was interested to check it out. Interior art is decent, cover art is really good. It’s not light reading, they really made an effort to keep the story based around historically accurate events (and it takes place during the holocaust). When I was finished reading it I had a moment of, “Oh! That’s why he’s the way he is. That’s cool and makes so much sense!”. And then the next morning, “But that completely contradicts this part of his character!”. Frustrating. Of course my only exposure to magneto is from the x-men movies, I don’t really know how he acts in the comics (and I’m sure it varies widely from issue to issue).

As mentioned, I haven’t been much interested in reading superhero comics, and so I started reading some of the Forgotten Realms and Dungeons & Dragons comics (or the comic-ization of some novels). I’m into the fantasy genre, so those are a nice fit. Any recommendations out there? The comic world is a bit overwhelming to jump into and I haven’t had much success finding other comics to read.

I read the first comic of the Chronicles series ( you know, tanis-half-elven and crew). The art was ok, but man, they did a great job bringing the writing from the book into the comic. It’s shortened of course and you don’t get all the great description from the books, but overall I think they pulled it off. On the otherhand, I was reading the Legend of Drizzt series and man, the text is horrible. In this case I’ve never ready the books, so I can’t do a direct comparison, but I was unimpressed. I’m of course still reading it. I don’t have any other fantasy comics to read and I’m interested enough in the world that I want to see how they develop it in comic form.