Scalera and David Make an Impact

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on August 1, 2006 Sign up now!

by Peter Sanderson, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 8/1/2006

Back in the Depression-era days depicted in Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay, comics were considered to be the bottom rung of creative professions. But now with the comics field booming, more people than ever are interested in breaking into the field, a sometimes daunting prospect. Impact Books has a long line of "how-to" titles aimed at them.

Among Impact's books are the late Will Eisner's pioneering texts, Comics and Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. Impact's backlist also includes Draw Comics with Dick Giordano by the veteran artist.

Two recent Impact's releases are Buddy Scalera's People and Poses ($24.99 paper), aimed at beginning comics artists, and Writing for Comics with Peter David ($19.99 paper) by the popular scripter of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and numerous other series.

Scalera's book collects photographs of models striking various poses that he offers as reference for comics artists. A CD-ROM included with the book provides hundreds more photos. Artists Paul Chadwick (Concrete), Billy Tucci (Shi) and even Betty and Veronica's Fernando Ruiz, among others, contribute brief essays about how to use photo reference as a tool.

Although the book's back cover copy declares that "Every professional comic artist uses photo reference," that is far from true. Still, considering the extreme departures from realistic anatomy that were in vogue in so many of the hot comics of the 1990s, Scalera's showcase of photo reference is welcome.

This book is certainly useful for beginning artists, but its limitations are apparent even to someone who doesn't draw. For example, the shots of models feigning fright are consistently over the top. The montages of facial expressions hardly cover a full spectrum of emotions. There are plenty of photos of models sitting, but none of them sits as people normally do—in other words, using a chair.

Considering some of the subject headings for the models' poses— "Fighting," "Wounded," "Cape," "Swords," "Guns" and "More Guns"—it's clear this book is for action-adventure artists, though not necessarily just superhero artists. There are sections on "Flying" but also one on "Smoking," which might be of use for Wolverine but not Superman.

While this book aims to teach readers to draw the human figure realistically, comics artists are also known as cartoonists, and even in the adventure genre, cartooning can depart from realism. Jack Kirby's figures are not truly realistic, and though Bill Sienkiewicz uses photo reference of real people, his finished art often radically distorts the figures. Drawing the human body realistically can be merely a starting point for an artist.

Peter David writes, "I'm going to assume that most of you out there are interested in the realm of superheroes." His book, too, is aimed not so much at people who want to write comics but at those who want to write specific genres of comics. David discusses such topics as heroes and villains, dialogue during fight scenes, and dealing with decades worth of DC or Marvel continuity. Toward the end of his book, he brings in Marvel associate editor Andy Schmidt to advise readers on how to pitch a project to Marvel, and reprints much of Dark Horse's style guide for scripts. David even warns early on that an artist working exclusively for independents runs the risk of dropping "off the radar" of the major comics companies. So if your dream is to write for Fantagraphics, perhaps this isn't the best book for you.

Nevertheless, David also provides plenty of advice useful to writers of any sort of fiction, such as "believing" in one's characters enough to sympathize even with the antagonists. David explicates the standard three-act structure, pointing out that even a story arc in serial fiction that encompasses many issues or episodes can also divide into three acts, and that subplots follow this structure as well.

Even for comics readers with no aspirations to write, this book offers much of interest. David reprints selections from classic Marvel stories by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and skillfully analyzes the comics storytelling in each. He also delves lightly into the mythic underpinnings of superhero fiction.

David's fans will be interested in his examples from his own comics work. Readers may not agree as to whether David succeeded in what he attempted to accomplish in various instances.

Especially intriguing are David's thoughts on trends in early 21st-century comics. He explains why he, like many comics writers today, prefers working "full script" rather than the previously preferred "Marvel style," whereby the artist broke down the story visually. David also defends today's so-called "decompressed" comics storytelling as "cinematic." Since all too often such "decompression" takes the form of page after page of talking heads, one might wonder just how "cinematic" it truly is. But the fact that David provides the springboards for such debate is a point in his favor.

Of course, David writes the book with his characteristic dry wit, making it a pleasure to read.

Still, we are left wondering how to draw or write comics that don't deal with capes, swords or guns. Perhaps Scott McCloud's Making Comics, due out this fall, will provide the answer.