New Approach

Going back to my roots now. Finishing the List, I decided to try and stretch my other influences and techniques. I relied a lot on using a lot of black in the List. It was set at night most of the time, but I digress. I've grown more comfortable with not inking and while I did enjoy Tom Bonin's fine inking, I missed inking.

I'm sure this is true for a lot of artists; inking is one of the most enjoyable processes to creating artwork. I enjoy it. It got me thinking. I liked doing the List while I was doing it, but now just mucking around with my own stuff, I don't think I'd be able to use the same approach in any recent new work anytime soon.

When I began to analyse it further, I used to do a lot more with layouts. I used more white. Even in my 24hr comic challenges, I made it my agenda to do this. It made things more interesting. From a reader's standpoint it was different, and from my own perspective for process, it made it a lot more interesting.

I then made it my prerogative to challenge myself to do everything I didn't do in the List in my next works. You know, just to balance it out a little. It has been 5 years after all. It's ingrained into everyone's expectations/perceptions as well.

It made me realise that these contrasts to my work on the List, are really what I was doing before (after my manga phase). I suppose it's more that they were never used in the last 5 years, I'm doing this. Using negative space more effectively; designing layouts to be more interesting than just merely to convey storytelling; composing self-indulgent scenes; and just experimenting more without a defined structure. Particularly on the last point, I do miss a lack of structure. Planning a story, deconstructing it down to minimum, adding another story to interweave, scrapping a story, going bat-shit post-modern and ending up with something that doesn't even resemble what I first started with.

A lot of this stuff is influenced by (a lot of) josei manga, alternative Japanese and American comics, and European comics. In my next works, you'll probably be seeing a lot more of this. To probably only to a select few, you'd know what the fuck I'm talking about. My earlier work is a lot more harder to come by, and some of it not even published. Going back to my roots, so you may or may not know what to expect, but at least it will be a little different than what you're used to.