MattBrady
08-11-2003, 06:54 AM
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/Epic2.jpg" width="200" height="304" border="0" hspace="2" align="right"><I>by Mike San Giacomo</I>
The Beatles had a heck of a problem with little George Harrison.
Their new guitarist was good, and the girls loved him, but as the boys learned when they played for months at the Star Club in Hamburg, George was only 17.
Despite their protests, he was deported back to England until he became legal.
I know how they felt.
Even before Mitch Breitweiser was given official approval to be the artist and inker for <b>Phantom Jack</b>, the five-part Epic/Marvel series that started out life as <b>Nowhere Man</b>, Mitch was already helping find a colorist.
As they had with artists and inkers, the candidates came to us.
Colorists sent query e-mails to Mitch and me, with samples of their craft. We sent out an inked page from <b>Phantom Jack</b> and asked them to give it a shot.
It was interesting to see how the different colorists chose to imbue the inks with different hues.
One guy’s work knocked us out.
“This guy <b>Jaime Jones</b> (http://www.artpad.org), look at what he did to Aziz’ cab,” said Mitch in a phone conversation. “He didn’t just color it yellow. He colored it and added those tiny rust marks under the window. You see ‘em?”
I sure did.
“And look at the road,” he said.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/001.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/001_t.jpg" width="175" height="270" border="0" align="left"></a>Jaime didn’t color in a black surface, it was a dirty gray, with bumps and ridges. It showed lighter in certain areas, there were potholes in others.
Damn, this guy is good.
Mitch had heard of Jaime Jones somehow, through a friend of a friend of a friend.
There were a few other candidates who did nice work.
As with the inker, there was one other that I thought was great that Stephanie and Mitch hated. We talked about it, they pointed out some of the things they thought did not work in his style, I pointed out mine. I printed the colorists samples out and compared them all. Damn it, they were right.
Even so, my guy’s work was forgotten when I saw Jaime’s. As far as I was concerned, it was a done deal. I e-mailed him and made him the offer of a percentage of the sales and he was thrilled. I forget exactly how the revelation came, but it was something like we asked him if he could hit any of the comic conventions around his home state of North Carolina and push the comic. He replied that he could only if his mom let him.
Huh?
Jaime was 17.
This seemed impossible. How could someone that young be so darn good?
Jaime, of Raleigh, will be a senior this year at Enloe High School and plans to go on to college to pursue a career in some kind of illustration.
He said he picked up his first comic about 18 months ago and now regularly reads <b>Daredevil</b>, Jim Lee’s <b>Batman, Agent X</b> and a few others including the recently completed mini-series <b>The Resistance</b>.
Jaime is non-plussed, he’s enjoying the work and the attention. He said he began fiddling with digital art on his computer about three years ago, inspired by the work of Kristen Perry. When we realized how young the kid was, I feared maybe Mitch and I made a mistake. Perhaps he lucked out on that one page. Then we looked at more of his samples, they were all as good.
This kid is the real thing.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/jack.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/jack_t.jpg" width="275" height="204" border="0" align="right"></a>Take a look at the difference between the inked and colorized page of a rematerializing Jack in the park after rescuing the homeless guy. He made the sky dark, but not too dark. He drew in some nice, moody fog, and accented the phantom form nicely. After the initial shock wore off, Jaime’s age was never an issue. He’s as professional as anyone and his work spoke volumes.
Later, after sending a particularly amazing page to some friends in the industry several remarked that this kid is going to make his way into the big time before you could say Lebron James.
Jamie’s age presented an unusual problem for Marvel Assistant Editor Stephanie Moore who said that they can’t make a contract with anyone under 18.
This caused a little bump in the road.
Marvel lawyers, being lawyers, said to just put everything on hold for a while or replace him.
What? We’ve already started working on the book and we were cooking. Moore had a better idea. Since Jaime turns 18 in September, he could just hold off signing the contract until then.
Whew.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/021.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/021_t.jpg" width="175" height="263" border="0" align="left" alt="Phantom Jack #1, page 21"></a>Talking about Jaime’s age has made me realize what a strange group we were: a 50-year-old comic critic (okay 51, happy?) from Cleveland; a 25-year-old aspiring artist from Hoboken, N.J.; a 21-year-old letterer named Ray Dillon from Salina, Kansas, who is scary knowledgeable about computers and graphics (more on him soon) and a 17-year-old high school kid from Raleigh.
And yet, everything clicks.
Now that the hard part is over (for me anyway) this whole comic thing is great fun.
Let the kids work their tails off for a while.
<I>Mike Sangiacomo, a freelance writer for Newsarama and other sources, was invited to share his experiences with pitching to Epic by Newsarama's editor, Matt Brady, in the interest of keeping readers well informed. Brady advises Newsarama readers that he is aware of the inherent conflict of interest presented by journalists working for a publisher they cover. Sangiacomo's regular column Journey Into Comics has and will continue to be found in the Opinion/Editorial section of Newsarama. Brady has not, nor does he plan to pitch to Epic himself. </I>
The Beatles had a heck of a problem with little George Harrison.
Their new guitarist was good, and the girls loved him, but as the boys learned when they played for months at the Star Club in Hamburg, George was only 17.
Despite their protests, he was deported back to England until he became legal.
I know how they felt.
Even before Mitch Breitweiser was given official approval to be the artist and inker for <b>Phantom Jack</b>, the five-part Epic/Marvel series that started out life as <b>Nowhere Man</b>, Mitch was already helping find a colorist.
As they had with artists and inkers, the candidates came to us.
Colorists sent query e-mails to Mitch and me, with samples of their craft. We sent out an inked page from <b>Phantom Jack</b> and asked them to give it a shot.
It was interesting to see how the different colorists chose to imbue the inks with different hues.
One guy’s work knocked us out.
“This guy <b>Jaime Jones</b> (http://www.artpad.org), look at what he did to Aziz’ cab,” said Mitch in a phone conversation. “He didn’t just color it yellow. He colored it and added those tiny rust marks under the window. You see ‘em?”
I sure did.
“And look at the road,” he said.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/001.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/001_t.jpg" width="175" height="270" border="0" align="left"></a>Jaime didn’t color in a black surface, it was a dirty gray, with bumps and ridges. It showed lighter in certain areas, there were potholes in others.
Damn, this guy is good.
Mitch had heard of Jaime Jones somehow, through a friend of a friend of a friend.
There were a few other candidates who did nice work.
As with the inker, there was one other that I thought was great that Stephanie and Mitch hated. We talked about it, they pointed out some of the things they thought did not work in his style, I pointed out mine. I printed the colorists samples out and compared them all. Damn it, they were right.
Even so, my guy’s work was forgotten when I saw Jaime’s. As far as I was concerned, it was a done deal. I e-mailed him and made him the offer of a percentage of the sales and he was thrilled. I forget exactly how the revelation came, but it was something like we asked him if he could hit any of the comic conventions around his home state of North Carolina and push the comic. He replied that he could only if his mom let him.
Huh?
Jaime was 17.
This seemed impossible. How could someone that young be so darn good?
Jaime, of Raleigh, will be a senior this year at Enloe High School and plans to go on to college to pursue a career in some kind of illustration.
He said he picked up his first comic about 18 months ago and now regularly reads <b>Daredevil</b>, Jim Lee’s <b>Batman, Agent X</b> and a few others including the recently completed mini-series <b>The Resistance</b>.
Jaime is non-plussed, he’s enjoying the work and the attention. He said he began fiddling with digital art on his computer about three years ago, inspired by the work of Kristen Perry. When we realized how young the kid was, I feared maybe Mitch and I made a mistake. Perhaps he lucked out on that one page. Then we looked at more of his samples, they were all as good.
This kid is the real thing.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/jack.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/jack_t.jpg" width="275" height="204" border="0" align="right"></a>Take a look at the difference between the inked and colorized page of a rematerializing Jack in the park after rescuing the homeless guy. He made the sky dark, but not too dark. He drew in some nice, moody fog, and accented the phantom form nicely. After the initial shock wore off, Jaime’s age was never an issue. He’s as professional as anyone and his work spoke volumes.
Later, after sending a particularly amazing page to some friends in the industry several remarked that this kid is going to make his way into the big time before you could say Lebron James.
Jamie’s age presented an unusual problem for Marvel Assistant Editor Stephanie Moore who said that they can’t make a contract with anyone under 18.
This caused a little bump in the road.
Marvel lawyers, being lawyers, said to just put everything on hold for a while or replace him.
What? We’ve already started working on the book and we were cooking. Moore had a better idea. Since Jaime turns 18 in September, he could just hold off signing the contract until then.
Whew.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/021.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/021_t.jpg" width="175" height="263" border="0" align="left" alt="Phantom Jack #1, page 21"></a>Talking about Jaime’s age has made me realize what a strange group we were: a 50-year-old comic critic (okay 51, happy?) from Cleveland; a 25-year-old aspiring artist from Hoboken, N.J.; a 21-year-old letterer named Ray Dillon from Salina, Kansas, who is scary knowledgeable about computers and graphics (more on him soon) and a 17-year-old high school kid from Raleigh.
And yet, everything clicks.
Now that the hard part is over (for me anyway) this whole comic thing is great fun.
Let the kids work their tails off for a while.
<I>Mike Sangiacomo, a freelance writer for Newsarama and other sources, was invited to share his experiences with pitching to Epic by Newsarama's editor, Matt Brady, in the interest of keeping readers well informed. Brady advises Newsarama readers that he is aware of the inherent conflict of interest presented by journalists working for a publisher they cover. Sangiacomo's regular column Journey Into Comics has and will continue to be found in the Opinion/Editorial section of Newsarama. Brady has not, nor does he plan to pitch to Epic himself. </I>