Monthly Archives: August 2020

25Aug/20

Silverline Creator Spotlight: Jeremy Kahn

Creator Spotlight, ,

Each month we’ll be shining the spotlight on a Silverline creator and sharing their secret origin story, learning what makes them tick, and giving you the scoop on how they came up in the comics world.  

Up this time is Jeremy Kahn, a comic book artist who has worked for such titles as The Pink Panther, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff…as well as his work for Silverline Comics, of course.

Now, without further ado, we present to you…

12 Questions with … Jeremy Kahn

SILVERLINE: So, who are you and where do you hail from? 

The name’s Jeremy Kahn.. I hail from Poughkeepsie, NY.

SILVERLINE: What would you say it is you do here at Silverline?

I mainly color comic pages for Silverline (at least that is what I’d say I do if asked)

SILVERLINE: Where might Silverline readers have seen your work previously?

Previously, I have done coloring work for American Mythology on a number of their kid titles such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Pink Panther, and The Ant and the Aardvark among other titles.

SILVERLINE: When you’re not making great Silverline comics, what do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?

I love reading, especially Japanese light novels. One of my favorite series I’m reading right now is Ascendance of a Bookworm. I’m always anticipating the next chapter release for that series. I even got a timer set on my phone for Monday when the new chapter goes live on J-Novel. Aside from reading, I also enjoy playing video games (mostly on my computer and Switch). I also collect style guides. I got a pretty large collection of them ranging from 60s Hanna-Barbera to late 2000’s Pokemon. Just recently I obtained a style guide for the manga Bleach and the animated series Tiny Toons.

SILVERLINE: Many creators at Silverline have been in the comics industry for years — what’s kept YOU plugging away at comics?

I’ve loved comics since I was very young and I love getting to contribute to a medium that has brought me such joy for such a long time. I was introduced to comics through my father and have had many interesting conversations with him through the years. I like being able to share that interest in as many ways as possible with as many people as possible.

SILVERLINE: What was the first comic you remember reading that made you think, “Hey, I could do this!”

My very first comic was Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog #33. It was both my first comic and the first thing to spark my interest in learning more about comics in general. It helped that my dad was a big comic collector as well. So, through him I got introduced to tons of other comics and learned of other genres and styles (he even was the one who introduced me to manga). My interest just kept growing till I decided I wanted to give it a go as well.

SILVERLINE: What’s on your playlist? Who/what music do you listen to, and do you listen to it while you work?

Anisong and Broadway soundtracks make up my playlists mostly. I also like artists from videogames like Crush 40. I also subscribe to an artist on Patreon, AmaLee, who sings English covers of anime openings and closings.

Aside from music I also listen to a few podcasts like Talking Simpsons and Retronauts.

SILVERLINE: Who were some of your earliest influences on your art ?

This first one I actually got to know personally, David Tanguay. He did a lot of coloring work on DC kid titles like Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo, PowerPuff Girls among others. These were comics released back when digital coloring was new and was first being tried out at major publications. So, you’d see some interesting color choices being made as colorist were getting the hang of this new technology.

I also have a lot of respect for Barry Grossman. He colored comics ranging from Archie and Hanna-Barbera to DC and Marvel titles. A very versatile colorist.

Later on Ben Huzenker was a big influence for me, too. I was actually lucky to get a one on one skype lesson with him at one point. He set up a Go Fund Me page to acquire funds for some new equipment and one of the tiers was a skype coloring lesson. That was hard to pass up.

SILVERLINE: What was the first comic you ever worked on professionally?

Well, the first one I rather not mention as the publisher owes me money for that (they actually owe a number of artists money, but that’s a whole other thing in itself). So, I’ll skip ahead to a comic I colored called The Undead. It was a one-shot comic done as a tie in to an indie horror film.

SILVERLINE: Can you still read that comic today without wincing?

Lol. I don’t think I made it a year. It is amazing how much you can improve in a short time when you dedicate yourself to practicing and honing your craft.

SILVERLINE: What are some non-Silverline independent comics you would recommend to readers?

That’s a toughie. My first thought is to say something like Lucky Luke or Asterix, but that is too obvious. I could mention a weird one like Keiichi Arawi’s City or a more job related one like Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun. But, I think I’ll throw caution to the wind and just recommend Yuri is My Job.

SILVERLINE: If you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice that would help them better navigate the comics industry, what would it be?

So, this question I really wanted to make a joke about telling myself to give up and go pursue that path in Paleontology instead. But, that kinda sidesteps the question a bit too much, I think. So, for some serious advice I’d say look at what interests you and try to incorporate that into your art when you practice. When you work with something you like you can get more motivated. Early on, the more motivated you can get, the more you can get a grasp on the basics and build off of there.

SILVERLINE: After you die, would you rather your memory be memorialized with an overpass or a parking lot?

I’d say overpass. When the world floods, the parking lots will be first to sink. The overpasses will at least hang around in view a bit longer.

Silverline: You can find Jeremy’s work in Silverline’s Bloodline and Krey.

18Aug/20

Craft: C. Michael Lanning – Shapes of Things to Come

Craft of comic creating

Hey Silverline Family! I was able to reach out to penclier C. Michael Lanning and ask him to tell us a little bit about how his brain works. He was gracious enough to oblige and decided to do me one better. In the following article, C. Michael explains why his brains works the way it does know. This is a great piece on not just how he crafts his art but why he crafts it that way! Please read on as C. Michael talks how he relearned how to draw and how that affects his character designs in comics.

Shapes of Things to Come

Constantly, Facebook groups are filled with people begging for advice on how to start drawing. Just as consistent as the question, is the answer, “learn anatomy.” I’m here to tell you that if you’re new to drawing, learning anatomy first is the worst thing you could do for yourself. Especially, if your medium is sequential art.

What?! How could I speak against such sage advice?

Simple, I made the same mistake. When I picked up the pencil again after so many years, I joined a class taught by David Finch on superhero anatomy. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It’s David Finch. So, I learned where the muscles go and what muscles to look for in the pectoral region and yada yada yada. So on and so forth. Here’s the thing, in comics, you have to know how to draw everything, and drawing a bicep isn’t going to help me draw a Buick. Really, I had taken this moderate class as a beginner instead of waiting to learn the foundations first. The foundation of shapes.

Before you blow out my eardrums yelling at me about having learned your shapes back in kindergarten, understand what I mean. How many times have you picked up a drawing book instructing you to draw a face using a circle and some lines? Is it wrong? No…and yes. In my opinion, they are teaching you to think two-dimensionally instead of three-dimensionally.

Have you done it? Have you followed those steps wholeheartedly only to find yourself staring at a flat drawing? Wallowing in confusion and minor hair loss, trying to figure out what you could’ve done wrong? You drew the circle. You added the lines. Why doesn’t it look like a masterpiece?!

It may be because you drew a circle when you should’ve drawn a sphere. What’s the difference? Perception…and three dimensions.

Look at Fig. 1, I used a simple circle and line construction. Now, in Fig.2 I thought of my circle as a sphere, and followed the form with my pencil, like tracing the roundness of a ball. If you don’t want flat drawings, don’t draw flat. Just imagine you are drawing on the three dimensional surface of your subject. This thought pattern is going to apply to everything you draw and, once you start seeing shapes in this 3D form, you’re going to recognize it in everyday life.

Warning, you’re going to stare…a lot, but you’re not a creep. At least, let’s hope not. Your staring is actually observations of the shapes and forms creating poses, folds in clothing, and numerous objects. Afterward, you’ll be able to visualize how that bicep you learned to draw fits into a greater dynamic form.

Dynamic form? What happened to learning shapes?

Dynamic forms are new shapes morphed from your understanding of 3D form. For instance (Fig. 3) your forearm could be considered a triangle. When you morph it into a cone it becomes 3 dimensional, but don’t stop there. Add the dips and the roundness you’ve noticed from being an observer and it morphs into the outline of a forearm, into a dynamic form. Now, the muscles you learn from studying anatomy fit into that form. Understanding forms and shapes first make learning anatomy easier than if you had studied anatomy first.

Morphing your squares into cubes, triangles into cones and circles into spheres is going to increase your understanding of form exponentially. So much so that if you’re presented with a challenge of having to draw something you’ve never drawn before you don’t have to run out and get a step by step book on how to draw it. Observe the subject then apply your knowledge of shapes and forms into figuring out how to draw it. It’s not the only key to drawing, there’s always more to learn, but this foundation will keep you from suffering more than you have to.

The great thing about this foundation is that it helps no matter what style you want to draw. If it’s cartoonish or realistic (Fig. 4.), you’ll be able to switch back and forth depending on what the project calls for.

So learn those shapes, study those forms, and become a creep…I mean an observer.

11Aug/20

Title Spotlight: Marauder

Title Spotlight, , , ,

Some say there’s honor among thieves and some say that when they put one of yours in the hospital, you put two of theirs in the morgue. Both phrases were probably said at some time by the Kirk Connell, the hero of Marauder.

Marauder marks a change in tone for Silverline veteran Sidney Williams. This title is a true high octane action-adventure book from the master of horror. Marauder comes complete with gunfights, knife-fights, judo-flips, a rocket launcher, and heavily armed spy boats. During this escapade, William takes the reader across the Atlantic from New York to Paris as one man’s quest for justice pits him against a shadowy band of mercenaries.

We start this quest in New York during your typical diamond heist. A stone precious beyond cost in a heavily guarded museum display case. Two men tasked by the Thieve’s Guild with the diamonds capture. Those two men are Kirk and his mentor Lumley. Of course, it can’t go all according to plan.

Their heist is quickly crashed by a band of heavily armed mercenaries gunning for the same diamond. Whereas the Thieve’s went in with stealth in mind, the mercs are more of the smash-and-grab type. A firefight breaks out and Lumley goes down. Kirk tries to fight back but the mercs brought a rocket launcher and send Kirk running for cover, leaving the diamond behind. The leader of the mercenaries hits Kirk with a marker round but leaves to recover his compatriot, assumed dead.

Kirk returns to the Thieve’s guild and seeks their blessing in hunting down the gunmen. He does not receive it but decides to pursue them anyway. He is forced to leave the guild and fend for himself in his new venture with Lumley disabled.

The leader of the assault team, a man named Elapse turns over the diamond to Judas Rathbone also known as the Vulture. Judas runs this mercenary outfit and has put together a new plan, they just needed the diamond to finance it. He tasks Elapse now with capturing Jasmine Stowe, one of the world’s leading financial experts. With her working for the Vulture, he can hold the world’s markets hostage.

Meanwhile, Kirk takes Lumley to a specialized medical facility in hopes of saving his life. The situation is dire, but Kirk is desperate. As it turns out, Kirk made the right call. Lumley pulls through but without the use of his legs.

Across the world in the French Riviera, Elapse and another merc known as Chasm find Jasmine Stowe on vacation with a friend and take them both. The countdown is set until Jasmine breaks under their torture and helps them manipulate the world’s markets. It’s up to Kirk to get there in time and dish out justice with the help of Lumley.

Marauder is a classic action-adventure story. With a globe-trotting hero, a conspiracy bent on world domination and a powerful 80’s-action-star-mullet, what’s not to love? This story will have something in it for any sort of action fan with elements pulling from shoot-em-up movies, to international intrigue, and high-tech gadgets.

What really makes Marauder it’s own is its ability to pull on classic tropes without falling into cliche or the pitfalls common in the genre. Perhaps the prevalent example of this is its avoidance of a romance sub-plot. Jasmine turns out to be just as much a hero as Kirk. Their stories happen in parallel but they don’t intersect until the very end. Each character operates in more than one dimension, caring about the bigger issue at hand but also trying to take care of their existing friendships but Williams takes care to not muddy the water with forced romance that could undermine the stakes each character faces.

You can also see that in how the story avoids another common pitfall of action stories. That issue being action-leading-to-action. This is what happens where the story just feels like one prolonged fight as the story is driven only by encounters with little room for character. Each issue has its fair share of fights and chases, but there is a lot of time spent on each character working to achieve their goals or even just existing outside of combat. This does a lot to add to the pacing of the story as well as make the characters all feel that much more real.

Marauder is a definite must-read for fans of action-adventure stories that want something that knows what works and what’s familiar but doesn’t let the formula dictate how the story is told.

Marauder was created and written by Sidney Williams. A Silverline vet who is known for his work on Mantus Files, Bloodline, Friar Rush, and many others. Williams is also an accomplished novelist with many titles under his belt.

The art was penciled by Jaxon Renick who is known by Silverline readers for his work on Silverstorm Volume 2 and the upcoming White Devil.

That same art was inked by Chuck Bordell who also inked Silverstorm Volume 2, Sirens, Switchblade, and the upcoming White Devil.

The lettering was done by Brad Thomte, Debbie Woods, and Larry Rains.

Marauder is currently being colored by Rebecca Winslow with plans to be re-released in the future in full color.