Artists I Like: Mike Parobeck

Michael J. Parobeck was born in Ohio in 1965, and educated at the Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati. He began his comics career in 1987, debuting in a charity comic called Quest For Dreams Lost. In 1989, he started picking up work for DC Comics, for example short stories in Secret Origins. His first ongoing assignment was El Diablo, followed by The Fly, Justice Society of America and Elongated Man. However, his most popular work would be a three-year run on Batman Adventures, a Batman title based on the animated TV series. Midway during his Batman run, he was diagnosed as having Type 1 diabetes, while also dealing with severe childhood trauma. As a result, he had a hard time with his new medical disorder, instead burying himself deeper into his work and neglecting his insulin injections. He died from complications resulting from his diabetes in July 1996, only 30 years old.
Parobeck’s style was quite unlike a lot of the comic book art of the early 1990s, when the order of the day was beefy exaggerated anatomy and heavy cross-hatching. His fluid animation-inspired drawing style was always coupled with clear, clean layouts, great senses of design and drama, and accessible, attractive characters. You would often see characters with a wide smile on their faces and imagine they were drawn by someone who genuinely loved what he was doing. Among his influences are John Byrne (Parobeck referred to him as being “the reason that I got into this field at all.”), Jaime Hernandez and Alex Toth. And thanks to his distinctive style, Parobeck himself became an inspiration to others. Mike took the time to help other young artists (including David Mack) who he would correspond with letters of advice and encouragement.
Unfortunately, not much of his work remains in print today, which is truly a shame. Batman: The Dark Knight Adventures collects the first six issues of his Batman Adventures run (and it’s a steal at $7.95), but that’s about it. For the rest of his body of work, you’ll have to hit the back issue bins and the online mail order companies. It’s well worth the effort, though.

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Drew this a couple of months ago. Originally, I wasn't even going to post this, for two reasons.
One, well, it's just not very good, is it? Kinda sloppy, 10-minute sketch. Meh.
Two, super-heroes are already over-represented in this blog. In the last few months, I've read and enjoyed stuff like The Walking Dead (zombie horror), Scott Pilgrim (romance/alternative), Persepolis (autobiography), The Rocketeer (pulp adventure) and From the Ashes (post-apocalyptic comedy), just to name a few. It's just that super-heroes lend themselves better to this kind of sketchblog. Sure, I could draw Scott Pilgrim, but unless it's drawn in Bryan Lee O'Malley's idiosyncratic style, it probably wouldn't even be recognizable as Scott Pilgrim. Likewise, it doesn't make sense for me to draw Marjane Satrapi (from Persepolis) since I'm not Marjane Satrapi. Hence: super-heroes. Recognizable entities that I can give my own interpretation to.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is, I read a lot of other things too.
Sometimes books without pictures, even.

Review: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

I just finished re-reading Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. It's the first part of a six-volume series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. I'm really psyched for Edgar Wright's upcoming movie adaptation, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, so I thought I'd better read the books first. I've only read the first one before, but now I've managed to get the entire set and am really eager to get into the rest of it.
The premise is basically this: Scott Pilgrim is a 23-year-old slacker who plays bass guitar in the band "Sex Bob-Omb." He meets and falls in love with delivery girl Ramona Flowers, but must defeat her seven "evil exes" in order to date her. Only the first one shows up in this book, though. Actually, here's the movie trailer, that explains the plot well enough. Go ahead, watch. I'll wait.

Sex Bob-Omb's music is described as "fast, hard, sloppy" and in a way, that also describes Bryan Lee O'Malley's art. It's rough and energetic and looks spontaneous, like he had fun drawing this. Unlike Sex Bob-Omb's music, however, O'Malley's art is not terrible. He manages to convey subtle emotions remarkably well in such seemingly simple artwork. The character of Scott Pilgrim is sort of a clueless dork, but a very endearing one (in other words, perfect casting for Michael Cera). The other characters are also very likable, and the dialogue is both funny and believable. The genius part is the mash-up of romance/comedy graphic novel and 1980s-style video game duel. While the genre change comes quite sudden, you can't help but feel it's awesome when (SPOILER!*) Scott whups the first evil ex and he implodes, dropping $2.10 in coins ("not even enough for the subway back home!" Scott complains). It's a really cool book, and I look forward to seeing what director Edgar Wright does with the movie version. You may remember him as the director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so this could be a cult comedy hat trick.

And hey, you can even read the first 50 (!) pages for free at the official Scott Pilgrim website! How about that?
Yeah, I thought so.

* Oh come on, this is not a spoiler. Of course he defeats the first evil ex; there wouldn't be six volumes if he lost, would it?

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A friend of mine who is a photographer told me that a sub-par color photo will almost always look better in black & white. Presumably it looks more thought out and maybe even a little artsy. Interestingly enough, I find that for artwork, the opposite seems to hold true. Even a quick, silly sketch like this looks much more professional and finished with even the most basic of colors applied.

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A few months ago, I had this idea for a comic strip about Bipolar Bear. The basic premise was that it was about a polar bear who had these insane mood swings, hence "bi-polar" bear (I love stupid puns). Anyway, I drew a couple of tryout sketches (like the one you see above). I should have posted this then, because it would have been more topical at the onset of summer, rather than early August. But I felt like I wanted to keep the character to myself for a while, to explore the possibilities of the concept. I even wrote about five pages of script for a Bipolar Bear story...

...but that's a story for another time.