Very early in my career as a pencil jockey, I tried to sell a newspaper strip to King Features.
EV was the only strip to get as far as submission, although I developed a couple of others. As you can see, my work on this project was very crude (and obviously I didn't sell this or any other strip). I didn't yet have a handle on the human form, it was my first attempt at inking (on the wrong kind of paper, which is why the images are weirdly textured in spots), and I was never meant to be a letterer. But for the sake of entertainment, I thought you might like to see this early work of mine (actually, I think it was only about five or six years ago. I really haven't been at this very long, but even I can see quite a bit of improvement over these few years).
I've thought about resurrecting the EV character, possibly for a regular comic book. Or maybe I should get a real inker and redraw the whole thing and make another try at landing a newspaper strip, since it looks like the newspaper industry might recover before the comic book industry does.
I checked out my morning comics section in the paper today. I got very few laughs and for the most part the art was substandard to this. Your modern work would pop right off newsprint! I don't see where the daily paper is rebounding. My local paper is very thin these days and is only printed six days a week.
ReplyDeleteThe way I figure it, there will always be newspaper being printed because you have to wrap fish in something.
ReplyDeleteNo, seriously, there will always be people who rely on the paper for their news and information. Rural citizens for instance, and the paper isn't subject to vanish in electrical storms. Also, think of the many uses newspaper has after the news has been read, such as insulation material. Pop uses old newspaper to mask off areas for painting. I burnt a lot of it last year to keep warm. It's actually kind of frightning to think of a world where all information is electronic in nature, and how it would actually stymie much of our everyday living!
On the other hand, comic books aren't nearly as useful in the long run. In basic terms of consumption, I see the newsprint industry surviving a bit better than the comic book industry (which has an audience that more naturally gravitates to electronic media).
On the TV show Babylon 5 they were still reading newspapers in the future. You turned in your old paper to be recycled and your new one was instantly printed customized to what you wanted to read. After hurricane Irene power was out in my area for three days. All my downloaded comics were unavailable to read. I pulled out my comic collection mostly printed in the 70s and 80s and read as long as the sun was out. That storm showed me how fragile modern society is from an electronic stand point.
ReplyDeleteYes, it has me concerned at times that we rely so heavily on electronic storage. I've always believed in having physical photos, books, magazines, records, etc. whenever possible. As a film nut, it worries me to think of some rare movie which only exists as an electronic file somewhere instead of having some new prints struck. That file seems a lot more fragile than a film print.
ReplyDelete