I received an email recently from a fellow sequential artist asking for advice on how to tighten up his work, yet still retain his sense of expressionistic line and brush work. Not sure how insightful my remarks to him were, but they might be of interest to others:

J...,
Thanks for the email. I'm glad that you find enjoyment in my work. Thanks.

I just checked out your site. Nice work. Beautiful line quality and brushwork. Very abstract at times (very nice), but still mostly readable. The opening image is very effective. If possible I'd like to see some of your continuity to see how the work truly flows. That would tell me more about how the looseness fits.

I hate to give you any advice, really, because I would hate to have you lose the suggestive quality of what you're doing. However, there are things that I was taught by Barron Storey years ago that might be helpful.

One thing he stressed was, as you mention, readability. If you lead a viewer's eye somewhere then there should be a payoff for them having gone there. Everything is directed toward taking the viewer on what Barron calls and "eye trip", rather than an "eye trap."

There are qualities in your work that I would love to incorporate into my own work, namely the abstract nature of some of it. It's something I've been playing with, but I'm taking tentative first steps, really. I worked hard in my early days to learn how to draw things as they really are. I wanted to nail things, and I learned how to do it. It was an empty victory as I was burdened for quite awhile with having my default go to drawing things "correctly." I've been struggling to move away from reality for awhile. It's a slow boat. I keep wanting to tickle the stuff rather than just letting it sit.

My looseness comes from my infatuation with the work of Jeff Jones, whom I was lucky enough to meet and become friends with when I was in my first or second year of art school, years ago. I learned a lot watching Jeff do what he does. I emulated his work like crazy, as well as a host of other artists I admired: Joseph Clement Coll, Daniel Vierge, Leonard Baskin, Rico Lebrun, N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, etc. Eventually I was able to move into something of my own, though I think we all wear our heroes on our sleeves.

Initially I was too tight, then under the influence of Jeff, too loose. Slowly I brought the two together. But most of my looseness is from my not having a long attention span. I have no patience. I want to get it done and move on. Though with my paintings I have learned to sit back and let them grow. With pen and ink and the watercolor I can just sort of cut loose and let the stuff fall as it may. I do very little pencilling, if any, and dive straight in with the pen and brush. Another thing that Barron pushed, rolling with the punches and turning accidents and foul ups into bonuses.

One thing I would suggest, is shooting some reference for some of the work. Not that you have to look at the reference and draw from it verbatim. Use it as a diving board. A little more information can go a long way. That alone might help to tighten the work up, just don't approach the inking of it any differently and it will retain your energy.

The key is, what's important in that piece or panel? Is it merely a storytelling panel, meant to get us to the next panel, or is it one which is supposed to impart some important emotional information by way of the character's expression of body language. If it's the latter, then that needs to be the most important aspect of that piece. Direct our eye to that face and let everything else be gestural, second fiddle to the face. Obliterate anything that gets in the way of the point of the piece, all should motivate/propel the story forward.

This applies to both the information and the energy of your lines. If everything is energetic, then nothing is calling any particular attention to itself. Like someone constantly screaming. The scream has no punch at that point, it's just noise. But throw in a whisper amidst all the screaming and the whisper becomes important.

Like a value scale. Never have an equal amount of white, black or grey. Even numbers are boring, odd numbers are interesting. Have more white, more black or more grey. Pick one. Just don't have equal amounts of each, otherwise they all become grey to the eye. Have more energy and a little calm in the storm. The calm will be where the eye goes. Choose your moment. Put the energy where it will do the most work, call the most attention to itself. Take the reader on a trip. Grab them by the nape of the neck and force their eyes to go where you want them to go, and don't give up the control. Keep them in the palm of your hand.

I hope I'm making some kind of sense. I can show this stuff better than write about it, but I think you get the idea.

The Henry Moore shelter drawings are great, aren't they? Just beautiful stuff. I'm a huge fan of Bonnard, both his paintings and his graphic work. The German Expressionists, of course, Klimt and Schiele, but also the great German printmakers.

More directly about comics, have you ever check out the work of Dino Battaglia? Or Alberto Breccia, José Munoz, Lorenzo Mattotti and Attilio Michelluzzi? These guys were/are all masters at controlled chaos. The work is brilliant, and, more importantly, everything they do is in service to the story they are telling. There are many, many more unbelievably great European comic artists whose work you would love, but who are next to impossible to find over here. You can find them online, though, and order their books there as well.

I don't know if any of this has been of any help. I wouldn't tighten up too much, unless you want to do mainstream work, though I think you'd do better in the independent world. Everyone would do better in the independent world, I think. But how to survive? I'm doing quite a bit of teaching these days and that has taken the heat off of making money so I can do the things I'd like to do. If I was starting over I'd go independent in a heartbeat and do the projects that fire me up. You're young and can live on next to nothing. Go for it! It's fun doing Batman and all that, but in the end, there's no future, I believe. You're just making money for someone else. Of course you do get to develop a following, but you're constantly asked to make some major compromises.

To that end, I've been writing on a project I'd like to do on my own that will sink or swim based on my own decisions and not some editor who has to please the corporation. We'll see. But I do believe it's the way to go.

One thing that has made doing comics more enjoyable for me is making my panels all separate pieces of art, based on my page and panel layouts. I then scan the work and construct my pages in Photoshop. It's been very liberating, letting me have fun drawing again, then playing editor/storyteller later and focusing entirely on that (which of course also happens in the layout stage, as you know. That to me is the real work in doing comics.). For what it's worth.

I have a website that I put up for my students and you might find some of the information useful and interesting:

http://homepage.mac.com/georgpratt/iblog/B44581127/index.html

I'm also putting together a little blog for just writing about art. It's not really up for real and I've not actually written anything of any import on there yet, but here's that site. I intend to have some fun just throwing out observations I stumble on while working and whatnot. Whether anyone will find these things of any help or even interesting, who knows. Hell, maybe I'll post some of this up there, if you don't mind:

http://homepage.mac.com/georgepartt/artnotes/

Good luck, J... I hope you might be able to send me some scans of continuity as that would help me better help you. I look forward to hearing from you and possibly seeing more of your work.

Best,
George