| Posted: 11 September 2024 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | 4
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When I was in my teens, my pen of choice was a Radiograph .30mm - super-thin fixed weight was my jam because I was heavily into Gerhard and David Macaulay, for two. Of course, I didn't know anything about their actual tools and assumed that they used mechanical pens. Consequently, all my pages from ages 14-18 had absurdly gossamer linework.
It was a meeting with Walt Simonson (appropriately enough, in Macaulay's office) that got me straight on materials and to this day remains the most useful advice I ever got. Firstly, he recommended his own pen of choice (the Hunt 102), some thoughts on brushwork, gave some advice on how to use both to vary line weights, etc.
And his criticism of my work WASN'T that it just didn't have any presence or body or what have you - all of which would have been more than justified. In fact, he didn't critique it at all, which was both a mercy and smart on his part, because I'm one of those tedious people who's deaf to good advice if there's also criticism involved. His commentary was entirely around the technical limitations of printing; apparently, Marvel/DC printers used plastic plates on their presses, which would heat up and distort the thinner lines. Of course, there's any number of technical reasons why thin, undifferentiated lines would be a bad choice for comics, but that one really stuck with me.
Obviously that wouldn't be an issue with modern digital reproduction, but SO many other realizations came from that one little bit of advice that it completely changed my approach from then on.
Edited by Dave Kopperman on 11 September 2024 at 3:20pm
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