DragonCon Report #2

[laurie]

This continues a report on events at Dragon Con, held at the
Atlanta Hilton Towers in Atlanta, Georgia July 15 - 17, 1994 in
conjunction with a comic book and role-playing games retailers'
convention held Thursday, July 14 at the same locale. This
portion covers:

2. "Ethics of Illustration" artists' panel
(WARNING: They didn't talk much about ethics.)

Panelists (as gleaned from Program Book bios):

Jeff Jones - primarily a painter best known for skimpily-clad
females, his style and technique has grown to the point that his
work is now exhibited in museums, including the Smithsonian.

Dave McKean - best known for his cover illustration/collages for
the Sandman series and DC's Arkham Asylum. Currently working
with Sandman auteur Neil Gaiman on "Mr. Punch" about "a
narrator's disturbing memories of a childhood haunted by
nightmarish puppet shows and violent family secrets."

Jon J. Muth - graphic novels include "Moonshadow" (with J.M.
DeMatteis) and "Dracula -- A Symphony in Moonlight". Produced
the critically acclaimed world premiere recording of the music of
Erich Wolfgang Korngold; currently working on an illustrated
version Stanislaw Lem's "The Star Diaries", among other things.

George Pratt - teaches Senior Illustration at New York's Pratt
Institute. Currently working on "See You In Hell, Blind Boy; A
Tale of the Blues" for Tundra/Kitchen Sink. Did not speak much.

Allen Spiegel - no information given, and he didn't speak much.

Walt Simonson - has been "in the business for over 22 years" and
has written and drawn many Marvel and DC titles. Currently
working on a new Star Slammers limited series to be published by
Malibu Comics.

(What follows was culled from notes scribbled hastily and mostly
in the dark. Items in parentheses are not direct quotes but what
I recall was the general gist of the conversation. Again, if you
were there and heard different, please say so!)

Walt Simonson was the first to show up. He looked at the subject
title, "Ethics in Illustration", looked at the audience and said:
"There are none. Thank you for coming."

The audience hung around anyway. The rest of the panel members
gradually arrived and responded to the question of "What
standards have you set for yourself and have you ever betrayed
those standards?" All those who responded indicated that they'd
never violated any personal code of ethics. None had much to say
about the subject.

Jon Muth: "Maintain quality no matter what the deadline. Whether
or not you make a deadline isn't remembered; what's remembered is
what's on the page."

Walt Simonson: "If you do Fantastic Four, though, and cause
Marvel to miss a shipping deadline, they're penalized and you
won't be working very long. (If you have to spend time on
something, consider a limited series). There's more leeway (on
meeting a deadline) in limited series or one-shot jobs. Now the
comics industry is in a downturn. I'm told that one-third (of
the retail stores) have gone down (out of business) this past
year (so you can't afford to get a bad name in the business by
delaying deliveries)."

Allen Spiegel: "Some artists want a monthly paycheck; others want
to explore their work, though, and do the research before they
ever touch the paper. (It depends on what your priorities are.)"

Dave McKean: "(We're all victims of) the schedule demon."

Walt Simonson: "I recently did a scene for Star Slammers, a very
violent scene (that was necessary to the story) that I had great
difficulty with." (I would probably still do it again, though.)

(At this point conversation died and the room was darkened to
show slides of some of the artist's portfolios.)

Jeff Jones: "This has very little to do with the ethics of
illustration but we had slides and you (the audience) were
elected (to see them)."

(The first set of slides showed illustrations from the new
art/coffee-table book "The Age of Innocence" by Jeff Jones,
containing work done "in the last 10 - 12 years". It was all
very beautiful and to my untrained eye reminiscent of late 19th
century romantic impressionism -- lots of somber women set
against landscapes. Good use of light. If you see it, you may
find the following comments Jeff made on his work interesting:)

(Re: A painting of a hulking, lumpy thing in a twilight wood):"If
you're walking around in the woods you don't want to see one of
these. Jon calls it a sock monster."

(Re: A primitive-looking human looking at tyrannosaurus bones
bleaching on the ground, while behind and above him, a cliff face
resembles the creature's appearance when alive.) "He can't see it
(the dinosaur face) because paleontology hadn't been invented
yet."

(Re: On the right side of a large canvas, a figure of a woman
cloaked in black, her back to the viewer, holding a scythe. On
the whitish wall to the left a spattered red streak.) "At first
it was just the woman and the wall, but I thought the wall needed
something, so I took it (the painting) out in the back yard and
threw salsa on it. What remains is just paint, though."

(Re: A male angel with cupped hands) "He used to have a dead fish
in his hand, but it didn't work."

(Re: A bare, hunched female figure, very forlorn and desolate
with head bowed into chest, kneeling in shallow swamp water, a
thin sapling crossing the figure in the foreground.)"It became
more and more a private moment and I put that tree in there to
make you feel like you're intruding on a very private moment."

(Re: Painting titled "Blind Narcissus"; looks like a beautiful
woman alone in the woods) "This is the largest painting I've ever
done. The owner of the painting has it in a wall of a house he
designed around the painting."

Audience member: "Do you enjoy doing landscapes?"

Jeff Jones: "I do! I do! With figurative work the nose has to be
in the middle of the face but it's nice to go out and paint
something that can be how *you* want it."

(Next came works by Jon Muth. First were a series of simple
Taoist-style black ink drawings intended to illustrate a
retelling of the old Chinese folktale "The Stone Cutter" (for a
children's book). These were followed by some color drawings
illustrating a manga series titled "Afternoon", a series of
dialogues between a young boy and his father. The first episode
is called "Elephants Adrift", and tells how elephants got to be
so heavy. Lots of elephants floating in the sky. When the
series is complete, "there are plans to bind it into a book for
sale in Asia, and maybe try to market it in the U.S." Writing is
shared with John Kurumoto (sp?). Muth is also into drawing
circles and lighting them in different ways.)

(Dave McKean's work was shown next. He does collages using found
materials, painting and computer-manipulated images. I perceived
the works as alternately dark and sinister or nonsensical, as if
they'd been cobbled together by a mental patient. McKean himself
came across as low-key, amusing and perfectly sane.)

McKean: "I generally do illustration and don't do paintings (for
private individuals). I do commercial work. I like working with
other people but never take on jobs unless I can design it (have
complete creative control) all the way through."

(Re: A scientific display box of pinned flies): "This is a
picture of a fly collection -- and, and you know, fly
collections, they, they smell *horrible*. I wanted to buy it but
I couldn't justify it; so finally I wrote a story with flies in
it."

(Re: Sandman): "Every five or six issues we change everything
around, try a new look. I try to do four or five (covers) at
once....Neil can never tell me for sure how long a series really
will be. (He'll say "Oh, six issues." and by the eighth you
wonder if he can count.) I talk to Neil practically every day,
(though) so he keeps (me informed of what he's doing).

(Re: Cover for the upcoming "Mr. Punch", a figure composed of
wooden blocks and things balanced precariously on one another):
"I photographed and scanned everything into a computer and moved
things around to give it this sort of rickety off-balance-ness."

(Re: Cover for new Alice Cooper album "Last Temptation Book I")
This was illustrated by committee. (Everyone has their own idea
of how it should look.) I hate to do roughs (but they were
panicking and wanted to see something so) I sent in a rough by
fax. (The way to do something by committee is when the producer
and the agent and the musician and the publicity people each give
you their version of the picture,)"you have to say 'Yes! What a
great idea!' and then do what you want. The trick is to hand it
in an hour before deadline (so they don't change it). In the U.K.
there's a tradition of leaving you alone but in America it's much
more of a committee thing."

(Re: Other projects.) "I'm working on a Vertigo tarot deck. I
only have some of the Minor Arcana done though, the Pentacles and
Swords....(also working on something called) "Buckethead" (?) (a
comic about a guy) who wears a chicken bucket on his head (like
from Kentucky Fried Chicken). (It's a) 16-page digital comic to
be marketed with music. (No release date set. Publisher not
mentioned.)

Audience Member: "What kind of software do you use?"

McKean: "Photoshop, (Aldus) Freehand, mostly. I also have
Fontographer, Quark and Pagemaker, but mostly I use Photoshop and
Freehand."

(Re: Rough for "Angels Visitations" upcoming Sandman Gallery
cover. Looks like a close-up of a face with a peacock feather
emerging from the forehead, all set in a mushroom-shaped wood
frame against a fiery background.) "This is unfinished. It was
literally the last thing I (took a slide picture of) before
rushing to the airport. (It may change a lot before it's
finished.)"

Audience member: "How long does it take you to do a cover?"

McKean: "I work very fast. I try to do it in a day and if it
doesn't work I just tear it up and start over (fresh)."

(This is where the panel and DragonCon Report Part II ends.)
(Part III on the Humor Panel to follow later, as time allows.)