Some of you may know that a quarter of a century ago I used to be a freelance comics artist and had my work published regularly in the national bi-weekly humour magazine for a couple of years or so. I showed some of my work in an old post HERE. I also said I might show more in the future, and the time has come! It is a 13-page tale that I drew to a story of a Lithuanian writer whose work we transformed into scripts for my comics.
The scans are from original art that I managed to get
back from the magazine when they were done with it. Note that original pages
are only A4 in size – roughly the same size as you can see them on your screen after
you click to enlarge. The introductory colour page is in water colours and Indian
ink, the rest are in Indian ink. I lettered them all myself but you can’t see original
lettering because this time I made an extra effort and translated the text for
my English-speaking readers.
There are a few things I would like to point out: the
story that the tale is based on was written in Soviet times; the author was a
humorist and satirist, and drinking was one of the vices of the society at the
time, hence the numerous situations involving alcohol in the story. Deficit was
another common thing at the time – it means that normal goods, like building materials
for example, weren’t easy to find. I altered the English version of the text a little bit
to make it more up-to-date, so to speak. If you can spot traces of the
influence of Terry Bave or Reg Parlett, that’s because I tried imitating them a
little bit; by the way, I found them a lot easier to copy than Robert Nixon’s
and Mike Lacey’s style.
Here is part one of the three-part series. Let me know
what you think :)
Come back soon for part two!
Style-wise, it looks like the sort of strip you'd find in Mad Magazine. I thought I even detected a hint of Don Martin in a few panels. Well done, Irmy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kid! I'm not sure how much I was influenced by Don Martin, but at that point I was familiar with his work - I owned a copy of 'MAD's Don Martin Steps Out' paperback, and though he was a great humour artist! I still do, in fact :)
DeleteWell this is an eye-opener - in that it means you're a lot older than I assumed! Fantastic looking stuff, I've downloaded them to read in a more comfortable manner. On a similar note to what Kid said, I see traces of Jack Davis in there too, and even a bit of Brian Walker...
ReplyDeleteI don't think I knew of Jack Davis' work when I drew these but I can see what you mean re. Walker. I'll mention that at that time my exposure to British comics was limited to just one issue of Whoopee! that my penpal from Leeds had once sent me.
DeleteOh, and I'll be 49 this Spring :)
That's excellent work, Irmantas. Looking forward to seeing part 2. Is it a tradition in Lithuanian comics to number all the panels?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bill! Home-made comics were and still are so scarce in Lithuania that there are no traditions to speak of, I'm afraid. I can't recall what prompted me the idea to number the panels but the idea was mine.
DeleteIf I remember correctly, Irmy, some early U.S. comicbooks had numbered panels. Also, some strips in The Beano have had numbered panels on occasion.
DeleteI'm not saying it was an original idea - I must have got it from somewhere. But the idea to number panels of this story was mine - I mean it wasn't an editor or someone who told me to do it :)
DeleteIt's all right, Irmy, I knew what you meant and that you weren't claiming to have started the practice. I was just pointing out for others that other comics did it also sometimes.
DeleteI'm so glad of that penpal...what a change he brought...
ReplyDelete