Inking Cool Jerk is a two-step process — black ink and white ink. It’s true, people. I make mistakes. Sometimes a line goes wrong, sometimes the brush is flawed, sometimes I need to edit out part of a drawing, sometimes I need to break through a panel border, and sometimes I need to overhaul a drawing from scratch. Also, white ink can be used for effects, especially when you want to add white lines to a black object. That’s when I turn to my correction ink of choice: Pelikan Graphic White.

When I first started using India ink (high school and early college), I made many, many mistakes. It was a learning process. And the first means of correction I had was Liquid Paper. Kids, let me tell you a secret. Liquid Paper is awesome for typewriters, but horrible for cartoonists. It’s a toxic, clumpy mess that junks up your original and makes it almost impossible to re-ink over the correction. My first year of Like, For Shore! strips are all battle-damaged with Liquid Paper corrections, and it’s regrettable. (The strips were regrettable, too… but that’s beside the point.)

Well, I knew the pros at Marvel and DC Comics — as well as syndicated cartoonists — had to use something else. Somewhere I heard about Pelikan Graphic White. I looked for it in Reno and couldn’t find it anywhere, so I ended up buying a jar from Taylor’s art supply store in Sacramento (long-since gone). That was 1988, and I’ve been brand-loyal ever since.

What makes Pelikan Graphic White so good? Well, let me start by saying MY experiences are unique to MY cartooning process, and Pelikan may not work for everyone. In fact, veteran comics inker Klaus Janson says it’s the worst correction ink on the market, and he swears by another brand.

The first thing you’ll notice is the price. It’s pretty expensive at about $11 a jar. But don’t worry about that, because one jar might be all you’ll ever need. The paint (it’s technically not an ink, but a gouache) is a heavy, goopy paste about as thick as peanut butter. But it’s water-soluble, so I need to do is dole out a pea-sized blob onto a palette and add a couple drops of water to thin it. Soon, you can easily load a watercolor brush with it and start correcting. Its opacity varies with the water content, and when it dries, it matches the texture of the paper. This means I can draw over it with a ink brush or Micron pen and the line won’t wick, spread or bleed. And more importantly, the India ink won’t smear or lift after a subsequent erasing. (That being said, you should erase all your pencil before doing any correcting. It’s just cleaner and safer that way.)

You’d think that being water-soluble, Pelikan Graphic White would mix with the black ink beneath it, making it a gray mess. Nope… so long as you let the ink dry first. And to keep your gouache pristine white, ALWAYS use a dedicated white-ink brush AND dedicated white-ink water jar. Cross-contamination is dangerous in cooking AND cartooning!

One of the best aspects of Pelikan Graphic White is that a jar will last forever. That pea-sized dollop on your palette will dry out in a few minutes, but all you need is a couple drops of water to reactivate it. For me, that dollop might last 6-8 months before I need to get another small scoop from the jar.

Pelikan Graphic White isn’t without a weakness, however: it has problems covering up laser printer toner (the toner tries to repel the gouache because of its water content, so it sometimes takes 3-4 coats). So if I know I’m going to break a panel with a word balloon, I try to take care of that on the Macintosh.

I’ve amassed something of a white-out museum over the years, collecting and trying many varieties of inks and gouaches. Some have many of the same properties as Pelikan, but fail the re-inking or eraser tests.

I just took a look in my Pelikan Graphic White jar and it’s all dried up. No worries— all I need to do is slice out a chunk, put it on the palette, add some water and I’ll be good til 2012.

I’m gobsmacked! Long-time Cool Jerk reader and comics journalist Sean Kleefeld wrote an article about yours truly on one of his comics blogs — Kleefeld on Webcomics — for MTV Geek. It took me 100% by surprise! Sean did a terrific job in his research and I couldn’t find a single inaccuracy anywhere (not a slight on Sean, but rather that there are oft-times inaccuracies on the Internet).

Sean and I kinda go way back. He used to curate the premier Fantastic Four online database and information repository, and may be the one person (not employed by Marvel) who knows more about the FF than me. He’s one of the architects behind the Marvel Chronology Project — a dizzying, online guide to Marvel characters and their myriad appearances in Marvel Comics. He’s also a frequent contributor to the Jack Kirby Collector (we worked together on a Big Barda piece in 2007) and has a book you should purchase. He was the first to order Hodabeast and in 2009 he even wrote about Darlene’s and my wedding!

Go check out the article— it talks a lot about webcomics and economics i.e. how cartoonists turn a buck while offering their content online for free.

Thanks again, Sean, and MTV!

The above strip above was going to be today’s Cool Jerk, but I had a change of heart. Here’s the backstory:

First, I saw a Garfield comic last year and thought “Holy crap — what the hell happened to his proportions? It doesn’t even look like a CAT anymore!” Over time, Garfield’s eyes had grown so ridiculously huge that I figured at some point they’d sag out of his head like the giant breasts of a 70-year-old stripper.

Then I thought, “Hey, that’s a Cool Jerk.” And I jotted the idea down in my phone. There it sat for months, until last week when I put pencil to paper.

I was pretty happy with it, all the way through the inks. Then it dawned on me, “this is kind of a one-note sight gag, at the expense of Puppy’s… um… physique.” In other words, plain ol’ boob joke. While there’s a time and a place for everything, I grew unhappy with it. I challenged myself to find a better solution that allowed for a sight gag comparing Puppy to that cat’s over-endowed eyeballs without having to recreate the whole strip from scratch.

Thank God I gave Puppy earrings back in 1987.

Darlene thinks it’d be cool to share with you readers some of my artistic influences. Wow. I could blog each day for a year and probably not get to all of them. But one artist comes to mind who’s perfect for me to start this occasional series: Charles Harper.

I remember the first time I saw Charley’s work — it was in the library of my next door neighbor, Oscar “Ozz” Warbach. (Also an artistic influence; see page 99 in Cool Jerk Vol. 2: Chickadoowa) Ozz had the book The Animal Kingdom, which Harper illustrated. I must’ve borrowed that book from Ozz a half-dozen times throughout second grade. In fact, we second graders had to create a marketplace in our classroom and each of us had to come up with a product to sell. I made laminated placemats with illustrations of animals on them. Yes, I “swiped” my style from Harper. But I didn’t trace or lightbox! Swear!

The Animal Kingdom has been out of print for decades, and Harper died in 2007. Luckily, he was still alive when AMMO Books started their Charley Harper — An Illustrated Life tome, which features hundreds of Harper’s best work and a long conversation with the man. That was the only thing I wanted for my birthday last year, and Darlene got it for me. I recommend it highly.

I regard Harper as the Godfather of Vector Art, which is a misnomer on its face because Charley never used the computer to generate his mathematically perfect geometric paintings. Yes, you can pick your jaw up off the keyboard/iPad — that’s all natural media, Holmes. I wonder if the creators of Adobe Illustrator, Aldus FreeHand and other vector drawing applications weren’t influenced by Harper’s work.

The past couple of Cool Jerk strips featured the debut of a character I’m naming Typhoid Larry. He’s the owner of Lung Fung Donuts in Spittle Beach. We may or may not see more of him in the future.

Some readers have implied that I’m doing a parody/homage/slam against a local donut shop here in San Diego. Which is true, but Typhoid Larry is based on a shuttlevan driver Darlene and I saw in San Francisco last year. Right down to the flop sweat. Oh, if only I had the balls to take a photo of him. I swear I thought he was going to collapse behind the wheel. He really did look like Jeff Goldblum in the third reel of “The Fly.”

The name “Lung Fung Donuts” comes from my youth — House of Lung Fung was a Chinese restaurant in Reno, Nev. in the 1980s and 1990s. I wish I’d taken a photo of the sign. Apparently “Lung Fung” isn’t overly uncommon, as a Flickr search will reveal.

I do have a photo of another character inspiration, tho. Here’s the guy I based Pokéyman on.

It’s all Vince Colletta’s fault.

Vince Colletta, if the name doesn’t ring a bell, was a prolific inker for Marvel and DC Comics from the 1950s through to his death in 1991. He was known for inking heavyweights like Jack Kirby (Fantastic Four, Thor, New Gods), inking ridiculously thick mascara on the ladies and inking a comic in a ridiculously short amount of time. Most industry professionals agree that Colletta wasn’t necessarily great… but he was fast. And in an industry where keeping deadlines were more important than quality work, Colletta was an MVP. Love him or hate him, everyone would agree he left an indelible mark on comics’ Silver Age.

Darlene and I are on opposite sides of the Vinnie Colletta coin: for as much as I don’t care for his work, Darlene loves it. She loves the pen work and the trademark mascara. And for Christmas she got me his biography, “The Thin Black Line.” On Christmas Day, we took to reading full chapters out loud to each other. Story time!

On to today’s Cool Jerk. I’d been suggesting to Darlene that she could ink one of my strips sometime, and the one I had planned for today was a stand-alone based on Darlene’s idea of “Die-Fi™,” the next generation of wireless communication. I learned that Colletta primarily used pens instead of brushes, so I penciled up the strip, gave Darlene a handful of Micron pens and told her to “have at it.” My only stipulation was that she couldn’t erase parts she didn’t want to ink (a controversial habit practiced by Colletta, much to the chagrin of the artists whose work went to Colletta).

As you can see from my pencils, (above), I added some notes to the margins a la Jack Kirby. I normally don’t do that, because I’m always my own inker. And in stark contrast to Vince Colletta, Darlene added elements (birds, cupcake logos on MacBook, butterfly onto Betty’s sweater, Jolly Roger logo on the iPad, feet to the chair legs). In fact, in a test panel, she had Archie listening to The Smiths (a no-no, since the first panel was supposed to represent 1950s).

Darlene declined to give me a proper interview about her inking process, but here are a couple of Tweets from yesterday:

Inking for @cooljerk today should be interesting. I’ll be the Vince Colletta to his Jack Kirby.

Problem #1 for inking for Sgt. Paul: he will *not* let me use my favorite purple Sharpie pen to ink his pencils. Can you say wet towel?

My downfall while inking seems to be hands. And arms. And faces. But I do really good mountains.

In addition, I’m having a problem with this panel with the exploding head. Thinking of drawing butterflies instead.

I’m actually pretty happy with the end result — not bad at all for a never-inked-before inker. I only slightly touched up spots here and there where Darlene’s lines “jumped” the panel or she misread my pencils (like the shorthand “X” in spots that tells the inker “solid black here, please”).

Let’s give her a nice round of applause, and we’ll see how she does with a Sunday-sized strip!

…here’s a vintage crowd-pleaser from 2008, the last year we did Christmas/Holiday cards before we gave up.

If you’ve received cards in the past, look for a triumphant return of the HornCard™ in early 2011!

(If you want to receive a limited edition 2010 first quarter 2011 holiday card, email me your mailing address before January)

The season is truly about giving. In that spirit, I’m going to suggest you check out some creative friends of mine, who — like me — are making a living doing what they love. Please consider buying some stuff from them!

 

Agreeable Comics

I’ve collaborated with never-not-busy comics scribe/personality/gadfly Kevin Church on various fun projects over the past few years. The bromance cannot be denied. In fact, at next year’s San Diego Comic-Con we’re going to be table neighbors, allowing for a small overlap of our respective cartooning worlds. Many of his Agreeable Comics have been collected into purchasable books.

 

JustJENN

Aw, Jenn. She wears many hats — roller coaster architect, Sanrio ambassador, master baker (she did the incredible cupcakes for Darlene’s and my wedding), überblogger, stationery wizard and comics creator. How she still has time to take the boys to Disneyland every week is beyond me.

 

Steamcrow

Daniel Davis is living the dream… if your dream is filled with steampunk, monsters and comics, that is. The Steamcrow/Monster Commute brand — nay, empire — is a wonder to behold. Daniel and Dawna have raised the bar for us creative types, in everything from website and product design to customer service and comic-con booth displays. It’s no secret that they’re my mentors. Go explore another world brimming with beasts, miscreants, machines and an adorable ectrodactyly Goth girl.

 

Crying Macho Man

I’ve seen Jose Cabrera and his Crying Macho Man brand at comic-cons for a couple years, but I lucked out in 2007 when he became my regular SDCC table neighbor to the north. He’s doing what I’m doing: creating comics that make him laugh, putting them online, then collecting them into books. His sense of humor is infectious. Check him out and see for yourself.

 

Chris Wisnia

The less that’s said about Chris, the better. Joke. Here are the quick hits: he’s also a SDCC table neighbor (to the south), he’s hilarious, he produces comics (both self-published and via Slave Labor Graphics), and his hair sometimes startles me.

 

Sarah Kuhn

She and her husband, Jeff, are Darlene’s and my favorite hostages (we’ve “kidnapped” them a few times on jaunts around L.A., Hollywood, Burbank and Santa Monica). Sarah’s a journalist with the best beat ever — nerd culture — but has decided to stop “working for the man” so she can focus on other writing projects. I have her first novel, One Con Glory, and you should, too. It’s full of win!™

 

Sandra Corey

There’s more to my art appreciation than comic-con regulars. There’s also my downstairs neighbor, Sandra. She’s also been living the dream (a few years longer than I have), working from home as an artist. Sandra’s work crosses back and forth between natural media and digital. That, plus her talent and friendship, makes me a fan.

Indeed! Free domestic shipping on purchases made at the Cool Jerk store until Jan. 1, 2011! So if you’ve been on the fence about adding some Cool Jerk books to your library or maybe have some holiday shopping to wrap up, NOW’S THE TIME!

(Sorry, my foreign friends — international shipping rates still apply!)

Folks. I wouldn’t mention Glenn Beck on my site unless there was a really good reason.

A few months ago I was hired to illustrate a short story in Machine of Death — a sci-fi anthology about a machine that can predict your exact cause of death — by my friend, colleague and secret mentor David Malki ! (of Wondermark fame). He and co-authors/editors Ryan North and Matthew Bennardo swore me to secrecy (regarding my involvement, artwork, etc.) until the book was officially released. And when it dropped a few weeks ago, they orchestrated a campaign to have as many people buy Machine of Death from amazon.com on Oct. 26.

And it worked. It not only became the Top Seller for the day and longer, but it also kept Glenn Beck’s book from doing the same. Chris Sims’ Invincible Super-Blog has a write-up on this event here.

I mentioned this on Facebook and Twitter when history was being made, but since I was just informed that the book is going international with foreign translations, I figured I’d post this to my site.

Needless to say, I recommend the book. Go find it at your local brick-and-mortar bookstore or favorite online bookseller.