Comic Book Resources

Idol Thoughts 10/22

Over the next two days, I’ll be featuring a Q & A I did with the two finalists who were eliminated in the first round, Warren Leonhardt and Daniel Lafrance. First up is Warren!

Enjoy!

1. How disappointed are you that you’ve been voted off?

Well, it’s better than a kick in the teeth. That’d be really disappointing. It was just cool to be in the Top 10! That’s a great group of artists up there, and finding myself among them was totally surprising. My first email response to J. Torres’ email was literally “HOLY !!”. Everything was gravy after that. I didn’t expect to last long, honestly.

You go into it knowing that sooner or later you’re number will come up - and who would pass on an opportunity like this just because of the threat of a little public humiliation? Wait…um. Never mind.

2. Why do you think you didn’t click with the audience this week?

Someone saw the playoff beard I was growing. Yikes. Either that, or I sucked. Um…Must have been the beard? ;P

3. You’ve read the judges comments as well as the public comment thread — what comments do you think were unfair? What were right on the mark?

The judges were all fair and balanced. That’s why they’re professional editors. Some were based more in personal preference than others, but each had valid points to make.

4. What was the hardest part about the assignment for you?

Shoe-horning it into my day job as an animation storyboard artist. I never imagined qualifying for the Top 10 at all, so I never thought I would have to alter my work schedule to accommodate devoting 3 days of the week towards the contest. Once I found out I qualified, I tried to rejigg my schedule, but it was too late. Round 1 was launched shortly after. Had I been more self-confident when I put in my contest submission, I would have renegotiated my schedule with the animation studio weeks ahead of time and I would have been able to focus better. I found it tough to do the average 500 - 800 storyboard panels a month AND hit the contest as hard as I could.

The result was definitely not my best work.

5. How much does the world of sequential art differ from your animation work?

There are some similarities in the sense that when I do storyboards, I’m telling a story with pictures by having the audience view them in sequence, and they’re putting the pieces together for themselves via persistence of vision. So it’s sequential art as well, just in a different format. The ideal is the same - you should be able to tell what’s happening without words.

The differences are the parameters in each format. In animation boards, there is a drive to get the point across as quickly as possible, broadly as possible, then move on. Y’know, use a diagram if you have to. Some images are held on screen as little as 1 second to 1/4 of a second. They have to make their point quickly because you’ll never see them again. So my natural tendency has become to avoid paying attention to certain details, which is bad for comic book work because the viewer can look at any image for as long as they want to. Also, animation has a set viewing frame in the TV or movie screen - the shape never changes. I got lost in the wide open page. I got all fruity with the layouts, and some pages suffered as a result. But It’s a mixed bag - some judges were okay with the layouts. I never felt sure about it, myself.

Had I slowed down and thought it through, some basic errors would have been caught early.

A lot of television animation tends to be very flatly staged these days, which had some bearing in my results too. Since I haven’t been studying up off-hours (like Daniel LaFrance has, for instance), it clearly showed. I have work to do. I knew it too, as soon as I saw the Round 1 script. But that’s my own laziness biting me in the ass, it has nothing to do with animation work per se. Needless to say, this is the last time this is gonna happen.

The correspondence course I’ll be taking, plus these great crits, will knock my work back into line. I look at it this way: as far as I know, at least 2 out of 10 artists in the top 10 all took at least one course with Joe Kubert’s school. I didn’t, and in fact I’ve hardly drawn comics at all, but I was chosen to join the Top 10 anyway. Once I’m done a course or two with the same school and coached on what top shelf comics require, I’ll be that much better and a few steps closer to being a comics pro at speed. I’m confident in my ability to tell a visual story - I make a living at making accessible stories for general audiences. But I need to sharpen up the technical qualities I’ve neglected and slow down on the breakdown/layout stage so I can play to the comic medium’s strengths and stop using habits that don’t suit it.

6. Of the remaining contestants, who do you think has the best shot at going all the way?

It’s an Idol show! Anyone can take it because the voting system is wide open and relies on sheer volume. I have my favourites though, and you can most likely guess who they are.

7. You mentioned you would be stopping by and perhaps participating in the play-at-home thread, right?

Absolutely, day job deadlines permitting. I’ll have to sit Round 2 out. But I’ll be voting!

8. Has this encouraged or discouraged you from continuing to pursue your dream as full-time comic artist?

This whole experience has been pretty encouraging. It showed me that I am more capable at this than I at first thought, and that I can expect honest, unbiased and practical appraisals from major editors and peers, and that the comics industry can be supportive and have healthy debates about the work without getting personal. Now that’s an industry I’d want to be a part of! Hard work has never scared me, so I’ll do what I need to do become a larger part of it. But I have no illusions of how tough it can be to ‘break in’. I guess I should visit a Con somewhere. That’d be a start.

9. Finally, take this space to promote the heck out of whatever you would like to promote!

Well, I’ve only done a handful of comics pages for fun (including Round 1) and never published anything small press or otherwise, so I’ll stick to what I’ve potentially got coming in animation, I guess.

The kind folks at Cartoon Network’s series development have approached me about submitting show proposals to them, so I’ll be following through on that in the New Year. After that, I’ll have some leftover pitch packs ready to show, so maybe I’ll repackage some slightly for comic book companies and show them around to see what comes out of that. It’s all a gamble, but it’ll be interesting. I’ll be learning as I go, like always.

Also, I’ve approached Jay Stephens (fantastic cartoonist nominated for an Eisner, Harvey, Annie, and he also has won an Emmy) about boarding on his new show ‘Secret Saturdays’ . Both Jay and his producer Fred Schaefer indicated they’d be happy to have me on Season 2 if things work out schedule-wise on my end. I’ve also approached the crew at ‘The Venture Bros’ about boarding on Season 4, and they said they’d be willing to give me a shot at trying out for it. Both crews have extremely talented cartoonists who have strong comic book and animation backgrounds, so I could learn tons of stuff at either gig as well as actively contribute. If either of those don’t pan out, it’s been made clear by Elliott Animation (who I’m working with now) that I can always help them out on some DisneyTV, Universal and Teletoon contracts. So that’s great.

The whole time this is going on I’ll be asking for feedback on my comics attempts from those crews, plus people I’ve met elsewhere, plus people I’ve met online via this contest as I get into the cycle of progressing my abilities and submitting comics-specific work. Oni Press will be having another talent search next year so I might pop in there too. No matter what happens, 2008 will be a busy, busy year.

By the by, I now have a snazzy new Comicspace page HERE for posting new comic pages as they arrive. (I’ve been told it’s the place to be).

And if you’d like to follow along with my future screwups, drop by my blog at warrenleonhardt.com and say ‘Hi!’

See you in the funny books…and good luck to the remaining 8!!

Thanks a lot, Warren!