Thursday, August 27, 2009

Monsters in the Closet: page one


The pencils were really tight on this page. I was nervous and didn't want to leave anything to chance.

It's a favorite page of mine, even though it's almost all buildings and we don't see much of Batman. It created the effect I was aiming for; a slow pan shot of Gotham City, zooming in on one window, then following the muck down to the street.

You're not supposed to notice Batman when you first look at the next-to-last panel. You see him in the last panel and then go back and see him standing in the shadow in the previous shot. Sneaky...

In spite of my efforts to create a cinematic effect here, this is comics, not film... so I think going backwards like that is allowed.

8 comments:

  1. This page blew my tiny little teenaged brain when I saw it. Had a huge effect on me.

    (I didn't see that Batman at first and did go back and notice him afterwards, so you definitely achieved what you were going for)

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  2. Ughh...you stole my line. This has to rank up there as one of my top three pages you've ever done because of said building drawings. Yes, it has everything I love looking at in your pages, architecture, gargoyles, those great textures on crumbling concrete/rocks, hand lettering, shading, ugh...I could go on and on. For the longest time I looked for this page to pop up for sale to no avail. Thanks for sharing this treasure again.

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  3. What I always love about your work is that I sense that kind of dark humor that Alfred Hitchcock or those Twilight zone chapters about the way you introduce characters.
    Maybe is just me!!

    that is also one of my favorite pages from you!!!

    JESUS ANTONIO

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  4. pretty much a perfect page, I love the way the last panel is open with a bit of hatching to define the white areas on Batman.

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  5. i love this particular story (was it with Jan strnad?)I saw it in an old bookshop, but i don´t had the money then. Excellent.

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  6. Incredible page indeed. I read back not only to find batman, but to see again each panel.

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  7. Gosh!! I loved this page when I saw it. Funny thing was, it did seem cinematic at the time I saw it, a very well paced introduction.

    And even though I love your work most in black and white, I had to try my hand at watercolors with it:
    http://tinyurl.com/knowlan-batman-colors

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