A friend of mine, many years ago, showed me a cartoon that was fascinating, funny, and horrifying. In my memory, it was the first anime I'd ever seen. I'd forgotten most of it over the years, and would try to find it once every so often, without knowing ...

Nothing Under the Sun
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 22, 2018Taking Notes - Music in Comics
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 15, 2018Obviously, comics don't have sound.
But if you want to show music playing, or being performed, how do you indicate it on a comic page?
The first method that comes to mind is just writing the lyrics in a dialogue balloon, and maybe peppering the balloon with a few ...
Love Spells and Love Potions
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 8, 2018
Love spells have been a part of literature for a long, long time. A Midsummer Night's Dream comes to mind, by that William Shakespeare fella, where a love triangle/quadrangle is made more complex when the wrong target is affected. The correction has only one dude under the spell ...
Fandom
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 25, 2018
In a world of adapted comic book characters and stories, reborn old franchises, and endless brand-excavation of old TV shows, toys, and video games, our entertainment culture is something different than we've previously seen.
“I.P.'s” are dug up repurposed endlessly, in order to try and make a ...
Damaged Protagonists
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 18, 2018
A well written protagonist will generally have some flaws, starting out as an underdog of some kind, with lessons to learn and improvements to make over the course of the story.
Granted, some heroes are, well, just heroes, who are pretty much who they need to be from the beginning ...
Easy and Tough
Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 11, 2018An old movie called Sullivan's Travels is about Sullivan (natch), a film director who makes successful but shallow comedy movies. He wants to abandon these efforts and do a more serious project about the plight of the downtrodden.
After some wild adventures posing as a hobo, Sullivan experiences some ...
It's Cold Outside
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 28, 2017
It's downright freezing out there - colder than the norm for this time of year (in recent years at least). And it's going to stay cold, they tell us.
Eeks!
So, comics artists, how do you DRAW “cold”?
There are a few ways that come to mind:
Mostly, I ...
Snow Business
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 21, 2017
We had a big snowfall two weeks ago, and I was out driving the city in it (I have a part time delivery job).
My car and I held up pretty well in it, and that was satisfying. As the news warned people to stay off the roads, I was ...
Knowing what you Write
Banes at 12:00AM, Dec. 7, 2017Last week we talked about “writing what you know” … but how about ‘knowing what you write’? I knew I wanted to do this one as soon as I posted the previous article…just for the title.
In a TV show, series of books, movie, printed comic series, or newspaper strip ...