Title page for first issue of comic (Design by Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics-© 2011 Michael Hill)
Here is an impression of the block shown in Production Report No.1. I have experimented with moving the block during the printmaking moment as a reaction to the traditional practice of careful registration. I am enjoying the freedom of being able to do this and as this is a creator owned comic I can make my own arrangements about that. I am very interested in experimental image-making. Below the main title is my first attempt at visualising the subtitle. Again the registration is askew and some of the fonts are mixed but that’s all right. It’s more important to me what it says.
The comic is based on memories I have of a career in education that involved teaching, research, course design and consultation. First I worked at an art college and then at a design school across the disciplines of film, video, animation and visual communication. Comics came up quite a lot, first as a method of teaching storyboarding and then as a medium in its own right. There was also a bit of printmaking that I got involved in and that has stayed with me in my artistic practice over the years. It appears in the comic on the title page and in many panels on several other pages.
A bit too much blur. (Design by Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics-© 2011 Michael Hill)
Another experiment. (Design by Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics-© 2011 Michael Hill)
So the ‘graphical impressions’ are both memories, or recollections, of graphic incidents and drawings or prints of these. Some of the prints are generated from rubber, some from wood and some from lino blocks. On the title page both the title and subtitle were obtained from rubber whilst my name was cut in lino. This page looks a bit too typographic at this stage so I think I shall be adding an illustration somewhere in there. In addition to printmaking as a method of image-making in the comic there is also a lot of drawing with various tools from traditional dip-pens and pencils to felt-tipped pens and brushes and a range of inks. Watch this space.
Getting closer. (Design by Michael Hill a.k.a. Doctor Comics-© 2011 Michael Hill)
See previous production report: No.1.
sweeet. this totally reminds me of stretching out text on the viscom photocopiers. good times!
Good call! Some of the stuff I’m putting in this goes way back, whether images or techniques. I love playing around with photocopiers and what you guys used to do in viscom was most inspiring. So thanks for that. On a kitchen note though that may interest you, my name title was drawn on lino with a graphite pencil and popped into the microwave for a few seconds as I heard that this was a fast way to heat the lino and thus make it easy to carve. Unfortunately the graphite caught fire and burnt. It was quite dramatic with black smoke streaming out of the oven. So the letters you see there in my name were burnt rather than carved. It destroyed the microwave by the way so now I just sit on the lino for 10 minutes till it warms up that way-safer and so old school.
oh dear. yes, the microwave has a way of cooking things much faster and more intensely than you expect! i used to pop my lino on top of my column heater — gentler than microwave, more efficient than bum.
That sounds a lot more sensible. I was always pushed for time and so went for the fast fix, this time with dangerous and dirty results. I had to clean black soot off the kitchen wall and ceiling. But I did end up with a creative nameplate. I should do a scan of that actual lino-cut sometime. How about you, do you do any lino-cutting or text stretching on the photocopier these days?
alas, since kinko’s closed down, access to well-maintained public photocopiers is scarce! there’s always a such a queue at officeworks
so no photocopy experimentation, and no lino cutting, and no comics. still working though: http://www.ragingyoghurt.org
Wow you have been busy! I love the Sugar Shanty animation. You get good expression from the piece of toast in that. Yes, post Kinkos, the photocopy offerings are rather lean. The copy corner in the Officeworks near me is poorly maintained. There are six machines but usually only one is working and so there is the queue. Whatever happened to all those comics creators whose mothers worked in offices or departments where they could run off a few copies after hours? Anyway, I’m in the process of setting up a wet studio, for printmaking, and some of the image-making and having some success with it. I’m going backwards in time in terms of the technology, somewhere in the 17th Century I think, with work done by hand and using my body weight as a press. It’s pretty good fun though. Thanks for your comments-so good. Love your blog: http://www.ragingyoghurt.org/blog/ and hope you might consider doing a guest spot here sometime?