IMAGE COMICS: EXCELLENCE IN STORYTELLING (Friday – 23ABC) – Another day, another panel, care of GodHatesGeeks. While all the cool kids were getting the latest sneak peeks and previews, I settled in to listen to some creators. The panel “Image Comics: Excellence in Storytelling” featured Greg Hinkle (Black Cloud, Airboy), Marc Bardim (Genius), Amy Reeder (Rocket Girl), the great Dustin Nguyen (Descender), Nick Dragotta, and Marjorie Liu (Monsters), discussing their craft and techniques, and previewing some of their latest great works. As creators, each discussed the freedom involved in developing their own titles and books, and shows how that freedom made them better artists.
As Nguyen said, “I like drawing Batman, but it felt like I was doing Batman fan art after a while.” Image Comics, they agreed at one point or another, was an ideal title for artists. “No one at Image tells me I’m consistent, which is awesome [as an artist]” Nguyen added later. They discussed such topics as establishing spatial relations between characters, and how to visualize motion and action on a page (which led into an amusing anecdote where Reeder discussed the difficulty in finding a pair of handcuffs…only to find them easily in the seedier stores of the Village). They then opened the floor to answer fan questions, and kept their discussion light, breezy, and very insightful.
Panels such as these, while quieter and low-key, are great for artists and creators to understand the process of creating, and are one of the draws for someone like me going to San Diego Comic-Con. 3.75/5 Bibles.