Chronicling the creative process for Pop Zeus, the forthcoming Guided By Voices/Bob Pollard tribute comic- including sketches, concepts, finished art and whatever else is in my brain at the moment.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Stylistic Influences For Pop Zeus

In the final 2 days of my long weekend, I took some time to draft the single page GBV MVP sections of Pop Zeus (as designated in the Adding It Up post below). And I realized that I need to do more internet research to get the music gear and individual band member stats and numbers accurate (there's a hint in there somewhere as to the MVP format- for now, you will have to be patient!). These sections should be fun- the format will appeal to the fans and the players themselves, hopefully.

Speaking of research, I have given a lot of thought and been doing extensive research to the artistic/thematic styles for the individual stories in the comic. I want to fit each type of story with a different suitable style. The idea is to make the ultimate rock comic by combining the best of GBV with the best (or at least my favorite) in the world of comics. And here are some examples of artists or genres that I was drawn to for Pop Zeus. I won't yet reveal which idea goes with which part of the comic. But this will give you a good sense of what I'm gravitating toward stylistically, and what I am a fan of in general (perhaps I overreaching with this concept of so many styles, we shall see!).


Paul Pope- HUGE fan of the Paul Pope, collected THB from day one, he is my comic book hero.



Peanuts by Charles Schultz- there's a particular story I want to do in the simple looking but very difficult comic strip style, and Sparky is the master.



Star Wars- big part of my childhood, big part of my future, maybe. Original recipe only, please.



Love and Rockets- by Los Bros Hernandez, great guys and a classic comic. Was able to chat with Gilberto at a con and he was funny and cool. Reminds me that I should include Archie Comics on this list as a big influence, as they influenced Los Bros. Particularly inspired by their portrayal of the 80's LA punk rock scene.



Japanese Samurai Films- will be a minor part of Pop Zeus, but the genre looms large in my subconscious.



Silver Age Comics (60's/70's American comics)- again not a huge part of Pop Zeus, but we shall see...



Manga (Japanese Comics)- a giant influence since the mid-eighties, when the worlds of manga and anime first became known to me. The essence of comics- Tezuka, Takahashi, Monkey Punch, Toriyama, Ikegami, Kojima.



French Comic Books- particularly the work of Herge, Tardi, Moebius, Mathieu and Baru make me weep openly...





Bob's collages- no question, Bob's artwork is amazing and has been the visual gateway to his equally brilliant music.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is very exciting. I really like the idea of you doing different story lines in different styles. I was just checking out The Escapist comics this past weekend where different people did different stories. But they were too similar sometimes. I like the idea of really mixing it up.

11:42 AM

 
Blogger Phil said...

Wasn't fond of what I saw in the Escapist comic. The stuff seemed pretty conventional and inconsistent. One of my favorite mash-up of artists and styles can be found in the Bizzarro Comic anthology- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1563897792/sr=8-3/qid=1141249780/ref=pd_bbs_3/104-6688775-0187138?%5Fencoding=UTF8.

The interesting thing will be whether I can pull it off. Getting a bunch of wildly different artists together is one thing, summoning many different styles out of one artist is quite another!

1:54 PM

 

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