The release of the 20th volume of Mome (which happily coincided with its fifth anniversary) seemed as good a time as any to talk with Reynolds about the series, where it’s been, how it’s changed and where he hopes to take it in the future. Plus, it provided an opportunity to talk with Reynolds, who has always been thoughtful, upfront, and insightful whenever I’ve had the luck to talk to him about comics. I hope I get the chance to do so again sometime soon.
R.C. Harvey concludes his two-part essay on the end of Brenda Starr by filling in some details about the strips’ creator and her successors.
The first of a two-part elegy by R.C. Harvey on the passing of the the Brenda Starr comic strip.
The house lights come up, and people stand up from their seats. Where did we park the car, again…?
The traditional definition of comics is the one conjured up by Coulton Waugh in his book Comics (1947). He says comics consist of three elements: (1) sequence of pictures that tell a story or joke, (2) words incorporated into the picture usually in the form of speech balloons, and (3) continuing characters.
The last item snatches at sophistry. It’s there under false pretenses. Its function is purely rhetorical — to eliminate anything that came along before the Yellow Kid, the most conspicuous of the combatants in New York’s newspaper circulation battles of the 1890s. The Yellow Kid was seen as the first comic strip character mostly because he was a highly visible and successful commercial enterprise — the commercial aspect establishing the value to newspapers of comic strips
In the conclusion of this two-part interview with Freddie E. Williams II, conducted by Nathan Wilson, the artist talks about working within DC’s editorial structure, his collaboration process and criticism.
Freddie E. Williams II’s broke into the “big two” came with Grant Morrison’s four-issue Seven Soldiers of Victory: Mister Miracle #2. In addition to his continued DC work with Robin, Freddie illustrated one-shots and shorter runs on titles such as 52, Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, The Outsiders, Blue Beetle, Countdown and The Flash. In 2009, Williams teamed with Matt Sturges on DC’s six-issue Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! and in early 2010 continued with Sturges on JSA All-Stars for 11 issues. Williams attributes his success and abilities to his 1999 conversion from traditional pencil-and-ink work to a completely digital art environment. Working digitally for more than years now, a transition and process that he describes in great detail with instructions and guidance in his The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics (2009), Williams took time away from his hectic schedule to speak with me about his digital canvas artwork and to record a video of his process. — Nathan Wilson
To view the accompanying video, click here.
English