Results tagged “superheroes”

When I was 10 years old, I spent a great deal of time with my friends drawing.

Three or four of us would lay out on the carpet with pages of white paper and sharpened pencils, bringing to life anything our imaginations could produce. We had DC and Marvel Comics spread out before us. It was great fun seeing who could create the best work, and ironically one of us went on to become a world-renowned artist.

My favorite character to draw had to have been Wolverine.

Chris Hart, the author and artist of Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today’s Comics, has spent the last decade helping people draw better. He has stopped by Suvudu to talk about his new book and drawing superheroes!

Suvudu: Hi Chris. Welcome to Suvudu! How are you?

Chris Hart: Very well, thanks.

S: Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today’s Comics, your new book, is published today. Tell us a bit about it?

CH: Superheroes are the thread that runs through all the great comic book adventures series. Superheroes. Even the word conjures up excitement and great visuals. So I decided to do a book that focused on creating original superheroes and their supporting cast members. These types of characters have inspired legions of aspiring artists. So, with Hollywood in full panic to transfer every superhero from the page to the screen, I felt the time was right to do a book that unlocked the secrets of the pros, and showed exactly how to draw those great comic book characters.

S: What is it about drawing superheroes that appeals to you?

Introduction by Jackie Kessler:

I used to watch The Electric Company when I was a kid, and there was a terrific segment on it called “Spidey.” Spider-Man would appear on the scene to help people — but he “spoke” only in dialogue balloons, so the other people had to pause and read the content of those balloons aloud to have a conversation with him. Cool idea, one that helped kids like me want to read. (But I wound up thinking for the longest time that Spider-Man was mute. Oops.) After “Spidey” came actual comic books, which I read with my dad every week, from the time I was 8 until I went to college. (Yes, swapping an issue of The New Teen Titans for, say, an Avengers West Coast was a family tradition.)

Even though I stopped reading comics religiously, my love for all things superhero never went away. When I met Caitlin Kittredge, I was psyched to discover that she and I were both fangirls at heart. And so we decided to write our own superhero novel, one that focused on two women: Jet, the superheroine who worked with shadow, and Iridium, the supervillainess who worked with light. To best use our voices, Caitlin wrote all the Iridium-POV chapters and I wrote all the Jet POV chapters. The result? BLACK AND WHITE, the first book of The Icarus Project.

There are a few other Icarus project stories that Caitlin and I wrote. And now, for the first time, you can find them here at Suvudu.com.

“Canary Code” after the jump!

Jackie Kessler, co-author of Black and White, and Diana Rowland, author of Mark of the Demon, set off across the San Diego Convention Center to talk to Superheros great and otherwise. Their question was simple, “Are supervillains evil or just misunderstood?”

Here is what they found:

These past few days I’ve been manning the “booth,” or the small space between the Del Rey and Crown booths to be more precise, and haven’t been able to get out and about very often. Today, that changed as my mission morphed from hand out bags to anyone who asks for one (meaning just about anyone with a pulse) to wander around and blog the Con. And while our bags are well made and wonderful, the latter mission is much more exciting.

So, I was able to break away for about 30 minutes this morning before running off to snap a few shots of Terry Brooks’ autograph session*. Here are a few things I saw during my all-too-brief running wild time:

The Life-sized Bumblebee

The Transformers are more than 20 years old now, but no less cool than when they first transformed and rolled out. This Bumblebee is more than 25 feet tall, towering over the convention floor. You can see he’s standing next to a mock-up of the TF:Animated Blitzwing. Sweet. If you’re a fan of the films, you might also want to know that Alan Dean Foster (author of the Pip & Flinx novels) has been writing the novels for Del Rey. He also wrote a pretty sweet between-the-films books, The Veiled Threat which fills in the time between the movies with additional goings-on in the Transformers universe.

I grew up reading comic books.

The New Teen Titans was probably my favorite (I got positively giddy when I was recently watching TT with my sons and saw a Wolfman-scripted episode), with X-Men a close second. (My bat mitzvah present? X-Men #94 - 100 in mint condition. Best. Present. Ever!) But I loved pretty much all superhero comics: the Avengers (remember the West Coast title?) and the Incredible Hulk (when he was green — no, gray. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!) and Batman and Wonder Woman… The list goes on. When I got older, I branched out into Vertigo titles, with some Image and Dark Horse thrown in there. (Best villain ever? Hunter Rose.) But in my heart of hearts, for me, superheroes are about sitting down with my dad every Saturday and swapping the latest comic book titles.

Yep, I grew up reading comic books. So it was probably inevitable that I’d write about superheroes one day. With BLACK AND WHITE (written by me and Caitlin Kittredge) now on the shelves, I thought I’d visit my local comic book shop and reminisce, and possibly buy something for my own children. They’re sort of young to get started on the family tradition—the Precious Little Tax Deductions are seven and five—but hey, it couldn’t hurt to do some reconnaissance. And maybe buy some things.

Imagine my shock and horror when I stood in the comic book store and felt totally lost.

Short Films, they’re pretty sweet right? I’ve always been a fan of short stories, so perhaps my love of short films is a natural extension of my admiration for concise storytelling*. After finding the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival, it got me thinking about some of my favorite shorts. I have far too many to list here and, like my reading habits, they flow across nearly ever genre you can imagine. But, I thought it might be fun to give you a glimpse at a few of them.

One of the best things about all the video sites out there is the ability for independent filmmakers to present their work in a venue where hundreds and possibly thousands of eyes can find it. The films you’ll find below are produced by independent filmmakers (which means that I resisted my urge to throw a few Pixar shorts at you).

If you’re hungry for more later, then I strongly suggest you head over to Indy Mogul. You can view their webshow, which provides previews of various short films grouped around a particular theme, and then head over to their blog page where you can view each featured short film in its entirety. If you enjoy short films, then prepare to lose a lot of time and productivity to that site.

Want to see a few of my favorite short films floating around the internet?

Some shorts I love

The Aviatrix

A story about a woman coping with a cancer diagnosis and escaping into a world of comic book super heroes of her own creation. Anne draws The Aviatrix and we’re treated to scenes of the character in action as she imagines them. The Aviatrix hero scenes are stylized-reminiscences of 50’s and 60’s hero movies and provide a brilliant counter-weight to the drama of Anne’s very real sickness and struggle. This is also an incredibly well shot short.

But wait, there’s more, including a few comedies and a zombie-infested love story. Follow me after the jump and bring your popcorn.

I saw this linked on Aaron Williams’ blog (if you don’t know, he’s a web- and traditional-comic book artist who does PS238 and Full Frontal Nerdity, which I really like). It’s a how-to cartoon by Ransom Riggs about taking over the world with nano-technology called “Be Amazing!”

Seems pretty straight-forward to me:

It reminded me of one of those old Disney instructional cartoons that starred Goofy (I remember there being a winter sports one and an exercise one; much later—I believe within the last few years, they had made a new one in collaboration with Best Buy about installing a big-screen TV), with a dash of Doctor Horrible mixed in.

I especially like the moment when the too-be villain demonstrates that he has a “soul full of evil.” I know, that probably makes me a bad person, too, but I think what separates me from the villain is that I don’t know if I could actually push the cat.

No, that’s not some sort of euphemism.

Things like this have gotten me thinking, though: Are super-heroes done? I know we still have traditional, tights-and-caps good-guys, but it seems, as a society, we’re always more drawn to the villains. For example, Heath Ledger wins the Best Supporting actor playing a psychopath, but when is the last hero to win an Oscar? Ian McKellen, for Gandalf?

I know this isn’t a new idea by any means, but even as new super-hero movies come out in recent times (Dark Knight, Iron Man, and especially Watchmen), the focus has been on the flawed nature of the heroes—none of these are exactly the do-gooder types of the George Reeves era of Superman. I wonder if that’s testament to the times we live in?

Either way, the “Be Amazing!” video is funny, so I guess the world isn’t all bad, eh?

Now laugh maniacally.

I said, “maniacally!”

It’s not exactly glorious, being a henchman.

For starters, you’re the bench player. You’re the understudy who clearly doesn’t have the chops to have a staring role. You are, in essence, the hanger-on, the Chester the Terrier to Spike the Bulldog. Take, for example, a Mr. Wormtongue, who for all his trouble gets beat up in Rohan, gets no respect from Saruman, and doesn’t even get a piece of Eowin. Not exactly great shakes, if you ask me.

As such, you’re usually the guy who gets his butt kicked first by the super hero. This is a high risk, generally low reward position, especially considering the indignity of the tasks often assigned to you. There’s not a lot of glory to be found in henching.

Too, you’re working for an evil person. This isn’t exactly the ideal situation when you’re often talking about life or death situations. Loyalty is rarely something you can expect from your employer, and the idea of “human shield” is probably never far from their mind. While some people may relish the chance to pretend they’re Kevlar (you have to think that a great deal of the people who find their way into becoming henchmen are probably imbalanced in some way or another), for the most part, they’d probably rather not die for their leader. When push comes to shove, though…well, the push becomes a shove.

Henching is not an adequate replacement for a deep, meaningful relationship. For that, you might try match.com.

(To be fair, while a sidekick isn’t much better, at least they’re on the side of good. If there was a big drawback to being a sidekick, it would be the persistent accusations of improper relations with the hero you work for — sorry Bruce and Dick, but Wayne Manor is just a bit too well decorated, if you ask me.)

And yet, there it’s not all being belittled and/or being sacrificed on the alter of self-preservation by your master. If you’re lucky—and high enough up on the food chain—often being a henchmen can mean that you are, in fact, protected from the death that befalls your comrades (although this almost always means that you are part of a large group of henchmen). Perhaps my two favorite examples come from one of the best television shows on…TV. (That last sentence did not go as well as planned).

I’m talking about Number 21 and Number 24 on the magnificent “Venture Bros.” (is “magnificent” too strong a word? Get over it). Besides being one of my favorite shows, these are my two favorite characters, playing up the henchman shtick to the hilt. The best part is at one point, with their leader, The Monarch (a super-villain based on, yes, the monarch butterfly) in prison, they are forced to resume their normal lives…which is exactly what you would expect: two guys who live with their parents and are big, fanboy losers.

Hey, I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em.

I think this might sum it up better than words:

Utterly brilliant.

What got me thinking about henchmen is this almost surreally (it could be a word) awesome site called Henchman’s Helper. I really feel like, if I were a henchman, it would be standard protocol to have to sit in front of a bank of video screens, surveying the world through my secret camera feeds. I’m keeping my eye on that Ross Hall pendulum cam.

On a completely unrelated note: As an editorial assistant, I sometimes fear that I’m not as far from henching as I would probably hope—I’m pretty much a costume away.

I just found my favorite new blog:

Superuseless Superpowers.

It really doesn’t require all that much explanation. Apparently, there are people out there whose radioactive spider only imparted mediocre abilities (and, I’m assuming, some sort of itchy bump on the skin). As of now, my favorite power is “13th Bullet Bulletproof.” As they describe it:

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Boink.

Eat your heart out, Superman.

To be fair, I originally saw this on Aaron Williams’ blog, which is an excellent source of all things geek (especially the lazy geek—he does all the work for you!). So props to him.

Yes, I use the word “props.”