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drums & synthesizer play
(Doug Mahnke)
with a comic book
five years old.
We rented out a room, my family
did, to a man named Mike
and he brought comics home,
read them, and gave them to me.
The first thing I thought after
reading my first comic book
was this is what I want
to do for a living--age five.
a penciller for DC Comics.
What would my five-year-old self
Yeah, he would say yeah, you did
it buddy, I knew you would.
nearly every major title at DC.
I worked on Superman, Batman,
and the Flash and Wonder Woman.
by the summer
it would have been four years
on Green Lantern.
around for probably
as long as I've been around.
It's based around the idea
that these characters called
the Oans had forged rings
that they would give to people
worthy of the ring.
They have to fearless;
they have to be brave.
You wear the ring,
and then your mind is able
that you can think of.
by your imagination.
These big pages,
single heroes on them,
or large shots of heroes,
splash pages.
the fun ones to draw,
and the ones that just about
every comic book wannabe artist
they're not really
is about.
when I get to break out
in a big fight scene and roar
and show two characters
with cosmic powers
destroying planets.
But at the same time,
if I'm on street level,
then I get to draw an old man,
his grandkid for a walk.
I like to do stuff like that
because that adds personality;
it adds humanity to it.
My job is really, to me,
defined by
the script come to life.
When I finally get it into
my hands, it's broken down
and all the words are there.
and I pore over the script
and I make notes and I try
that I'll need image-wise.
Then I just sit down,
and I start laying out pages.
I'm not always thinking
about a finished figure,
but I'm thinking about how
a page is weighed.
I try not to be redundant,
so for example, if something
is in the foreground
and pushed to the edges,
unless there's a specific reason
to repeat that,
slightly tilt something
on it,
perfectly down the middle.
Working through and creating
a good composition on a page,
in other words, one that is
visually fun to look at,
not distracting,
but the eye naturally follows
a frame of motion through
down to the last one,
trying to get that down right
as soon as possible before I
start truly fleshing characters.
look like amorphous shapes
as I put weight on the page.
I start in on details.
From my hands then, it's sent
directly to an inker
and the colorist sits and does
whatever magic that they do,
and then it goes to the printer
the world from there.
to trick people, you know,
trying to pull emotion out
by staggering the image
that you see in front of you
and make people feel like
they're seeing something moving.
Hal Jordan, both guns blazing
as the villain has destroyed
their construct,
as he's overpowered
and leering and frightful,
with grim determination.
nice and tight,
of his ring coming forward,
looking over his knuckles,
giving this illusion or
this feeling of something
at you hard and fast.
There are all kinds of little
tricks that I use personally,
a large menacing character.
It's not bad enough
looking up, but if you
then it's intimidating.
You'll find me grabbing
my mirror a lot as I draw,
looking for errors
in symmetry and composition.
I see something here
I'd like to change,
and I nip and I tuck
off his head on one side,
add a little bit to the other,
like a sculptor, you know.
of my job,
and that is to tell
a good story,
the people I'm really thinking
about most are the fans.
Comic book fans are
a very dedicated bunch,
and they take their collecting,
they take their interest
in the medium very seriously.
I want to give them
something worthwhile,
so at the very least I know
that I'm giving it my best.
It's a fun business,
this comics.
I get up in the morning,
and I wear the same slippers
comfortably down to my studio
and draw for a living.
that time of the month
should be pulling up
the latest comic--
I can't wait to see it in print!
You know, that's exciting.
Yeah, absolutely lucky.
I'm actually doing
what I at five years old
wanted to do.
piano plays softly