January 7, 1934 The first Flash Gordon strip (with Jungle Jim topper). By Alex Raymond.
For more, check out IDW’s Flash Gordon books reprinting the early classic strips. HIGHLY recommended.
The following is a Sunday page I put together back 1n 1999 to spotlight some of the artists who’ve worked on the Flash Gordon comic strip over the years.
Flash Gordon Guest Artists Featuring Flash Gordon art by Al Williamson, George Evans, Michael Gilbert, Mark McMurray, Brian Bilter, Loston Wallace and Patrick McDonnell.
One of the highlights of doing Flash Gordon was the opportunity to work with Al Williamson (1931-2010).
Al worked on two Sunday pages during my tenure. This first page ran on November 7, 1999. The layout and partial pencils are by Al, the finished inks are by me.
Click on image to see larger.
This next page is dated July 8, 2001 and is all Al. It’s also the last Flash Gordon piece he did that saw print.
Backstory on the November 7th strip:
During the summer of 1998 I was working on staff as a colorist at King Features Syndicate. King was gearing up to move from the building it had occupied for decades and I got a tip that a number of old files were being thrown out. I was told by my editor that if I was up for it I could go through the dumpsters and keep whatever I wanted. The files that were being trashed mostly consisted of decades old paperwork and proof sheets from a myriad of projects/collections that spanned back for years and years.
Rooting through the dumpster I eventually came upon a a lost treasure – proof sheets of Al Williamson’s work on Flash Gordon from the old 1960’s King Comics. I could not believe my luck. Now this was around the time that Marvel was withholding artwork from Jack Kirby. That being the case I got Williamson’s contact info from our Comics Editor Tom Daning (who had worked with Al two years prior) and after making copies for myself I sent off the proof sheets.
About a week later, much to my surprise, I got a call from Al. He thanked me, then told me how all the artwork from that first issue of Flash Gordon he had drawn had been stolen years ago. He had sent it in to the publisher and after it saw print all the artwork went “missing” and was never returned to him. He greatly appreciated receiving the package of proof sheets from out of the blue – so much so in fact that he invited me out to his studio.
Al Williamson in his studio inking a Star Wars movie adaptation – October 1998.
I am still in awe of the original artwork I saw that day. His own and also of great pen and ink masters he admired from his personal collection; Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and much, much more…
Since I was the hired hand on Flash Gordon at the time, I inquired whether or not he would be interested in doing artwork for a Flash Sunday page. Granted, I knew he hadn’t had the best working conditions/relations with King in the past, so I was unsure if he’d be up for it. As he was under deadline inking a Star Wars movie adaptation at the time he politely declined and I left it at that.
Skip ahead a year…
Al would call me from time to time just to check in on how work was going and how the family was doing. By the fall of 1999 I decided to inquire again if he would be interested in doing a Flash page. At this time he said he’d be up for it, but he had two conditions.
1: That he’d have plenty of lead time. 2: Under no circumstance would he accept payment.
He wasn’t able to finish the page due to other deadline commitments, but he did provide a beautiful layout. What follows is the inking study he worked up on tracing paper.
Click on to see larger.
Williamson’s method of working up a page starts with an inked rough (to size). First laid out in pencil, Williamson then goes over it with ink to start tightening it up. He explained that comic pages he does the whole job on (pencils and inks) he literally ends up inking the page twice.
Click on to see larger.
I believe he later changed the figure of Dale because it was derivative of a drawing he had done shortly before this for another project.
Al blocked in partial pencils onto Bristol, then sent me the tracing paper so I could see what he intended. Due to time constraints he wasn’t able to pencil the inset characters.
And here’s my inks.
Click on to see larger.
I can’t say enough about how great a guy Al Williamson was, not just as an artist but as a mentor and friend.
For more on Al Williamson’s work on Flash (including these pages) I highly recommend Flesk publications’ Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon. The book includes an essay by Mark Schultz, and the art is beautifully shot from the originals whenever possible.
If Flash Gordon isn’t in your local paper, you can check it out online at…
A yearlong subscription to all of King Features’ comics (new and vintage) plus two years worth of archives for every single strip is a pittance at $19.99 a year.
Work For Hire: For copyright purposes, “work for hire” or similar expressions such as “done-for-hire” or “for-hire” signify that the commissioning party is the owner of the copyright of the artwork as if the commissioning party has, in fact, been the artist. Work for hire strips you not only of the rights but of authorship; the buyer is the author under the law.
The Graphic Artists Guild is unalterably opposed to work for hire contracts.
For most of my professional career I have worked under work for hire contracts. When you work on a character that a company owns all the rights to – like DC, Marvel, King Features – that’s the deal.
Having gone to the Kubert School, Joe Kubert’s advice was to go in with your eyes wide open – understand what you’re signing and use the recognition of working on an established character as a foot in the door for other work. Unfortunately, understanding what you’re signing does not take away from how one-sided these contracts are.
Illustration groups like the Graphic Artists Guild and the Society of Illustrators rightly disdain WFH agreements and widely suggest illustrators refuse to work under WFH agreements. That makes sense in a perfect world, but sometimes in the real world a WFH agreement is a necessary evil.
I think you have to realistically assess the amount of risk you are taking in doing a WFH job compared to not doing it.
For Steve Bissette (Swamp Thing, Tyrant, Taboo, and past instructor at The Center for Cartoon Studies) a picture is worth a thousand words.
Click on the cartoon to read more of Bissette’s thoughts on the subject.
With the current crop of movies being released, there’s been a steady stream of properties owned by DC (Time Warner) and Marvel (Disney) making record profits. The Avengers global box office alone has been over one billion dollars.
Under work for hire, the artists who created these characters don’t receive a penny.
Steve Bissette and James Sturm’s response to this unfair practice, in particular to how comics legend Jack Kirby was treated, is to stop rewarding the corporations that do this by boycotting their products.
The take away from all this as a freelancer? Know your rights and know your options. If you want to work in this profession you have to learn the business side of the industry so as not to be taken advantage of.
GET INFORMED and KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SIGNING.
For more info – including contracts, self-publishing and other resources – you can check out my previous post: The Business of Cartooning.
Quick Look back at the last time I saw Joe. It was the spring of 2012 at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.
For the Kubert School panel, Joe Kubert alum (and current President of the Kubert School) Anthony Marques moderated, as Joe sketched and answered questions. Here’s just a few highlights featuring Joe’s comments…
The following video is Joe sketching Nite Owl from the Before Watchmen series. The image was projected sideways on a large screen – my video is rotated to one side so the drawing can be seen right-side-up. While Joe sketched Anthony was fielding questions.
What amazed me during Joe’s drawing demo was that every time Joe was asked a question instead of Anthony (and this is not seen on the video) Joe was so focused on the drawing that Anthony had to repeat the question numerous times just to get Joe’s attention – repeatedly – EVERY time.
Joe finally apologized saying that when he’s drawing, that’s where he’s focused, so he’s not listening to the conversation going on around him.
THAT’S how focused Joe was while drawing – it was remarkable and inspiring to watch…
After the drawing demo Joe stayed for a short time to meet and greet fans. I went up to say hi and the guy standing in line in front of me told Joe he was a huge fan and then asked for Joe to sign his arm so he could then get the signature tattooed.
Joe immediately protested, “Why would you do that? I can’t…” The fan persisted and Joe kept protesting until the guy’s friend explained it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, that his friend really was that big a fan.
Joe finally acquiesced.
This last little clip is of Joe signing the fan’s arm.
My time with Joe was relatively brief. It had been years since I had seen him last, but he recognized who I was after I mentioned the Flash Gordon page we had worked on. A smile lit his face and his strong handshake followed. He asked me what I had been up to and I told him about my freelance and teaching.
I then told him, “I just wanted to thank you for my career.” That warm smile again and the handshake.
And that was the last time I saw Joe Kubert.
There’s more to say, much more, but I’m going to leave it at that. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends – he’ll be sorely missed.
Joe Kubert self-portrait from back in the day…
Joe Kubert Obits and Remembrances From Around the Web:
From 2004 -2010 I lettered a book for Viz Media called Whistle!
The story and art were by Daisuke Higuchi. I lettered pretty much the whole run and in doing so became a big fan of Higuchi as a storyteller. The following is a brief bio that ran in the series’ final issue.
Daisuke Higuchi’s manga career began in 1992 when the artist was honored with third prize in the 43rd Osamu Tezuka Award. In that same year, Higuchi deputed as creator of a romantic action story titled Itaru. In 1998, Weekly Shonen Jump began serializing Whistle! Higuchi’s realistic soccer manga became an instant hit with readers and eventually inspired an anime series, debuting on Japanese TV in May of 2002.
Daisuke Higuchi
In a nutshell, Whistle! is about a young middle school boy named Shō Kazamatsuri who’s one and only dream is to play soccer but because of his small stature he has to overcome adversity after adversity to do so – he also serves as an inspiration to to his friends and teammates, drawing them closer together – classic underdog story.
Whistle cast with Shō in the foreground.
Note: For the uninitiated, the accompanying pages are read right to left – not left to right..
Page that starts out each volume if you open it the wrong way.
The following pages show a great sense of design as Daisuke Higuchi freezes a moment and shows different aspects of a scene. In the scene on the left, the opposing team has just made the winning goal. In the scene on the right, Shō’s teammate Hiroyoshi has accidentally made a goal for the opposing team.
Click on image to enlarge.
More of the same, but in these two cases the focus is on characterization…
Click on image to enlarge.
The following is from a particularly strong sequence from Volume 12.
First a little back story from the previous issue; Shō has just made a near impossible shot tying the game – but the coaches see something else…
Click on image to enlarge.
The scene that follows opens with Shō and his friend Tatsuya showing up at Tatsuya’s father’s house (who he is estranged with). Tatsuya’s father is a soccer coach for a rival team and has some old soccer footage he wants Shō to see – at the same time some other coaches are meeting for lunch, and Akira (the female coach) echos Tatsuya’s father’s sentiments.
There’s so much to love in that scene.
• The way the dialogue bounces back and forth between the two characters speaking.
• The look of sheer joy on Akira’s face as a young girl followed by the more reflective aspects as an adult.
• The projector on the bottom of page 42 seen as just a glowing light.
• The end shot of Shō as he stares entranced at the footage of a father he never knew.
Beautiful stuff.
Stephen King in his book “On Writing” states, “I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.”
There are a million underdog stories out there, the ones that resonate come not from the story construct but from how deeply you’re invested in the characters. Higuchi’s strength as a storyteller is her engaging cast of characters.
You can check out Whistle! at your local library’s manga section.
To purchase, go to Viz.com or Amazon (to name a few).
