A Life with Comics, Chapter 3: Escape To New York

It's been a long time coming, but the third chapter of auto-bio comic strip, My Life with Comics is here! Since it's been a while, I've included the first two chapters here to get everyone back up to speed.

In this chapter I discover Marvel Comics, specifically The Amazing Spider-Man. I was getting these issues from a second-hand store, so there was a good mix of current (early 80's) and older issues (70's and 60s reprints like Marvel Tales), so I got to really experience some of the best Spidey comics created - from the classic Lee/Ditko material, to John Romita Sr. (who I'm channelling for this strip), Gerry Conway & Gil Kane, Ross Andru and more.

This strip is also dedicated to my grandmother, May Kinnaird, who passed away last year at the age of 93.

- AK!

COMIC STRIP: A Life With Comics #2: Into The Woods

Above: A Life With Comics #2: Into The Woods (CLICK ON THE ART TO ENLARGE).

Copyright Adrian Kinnaird 2011.

Welcome back for the latest chapter of my new comic strip, exploring my earliest experiences with comics!

This one is really my 'first contact' with the medium of comics and it's unique reading experience. It's interesting to note the similarities to Dylan Horrock's first comics experience as depicted in the introduction to the new edition of Hicksville. 

It was a very personal experience for me, so it's nice to know I'm not the only one who had that kind of reaction. Scottish comics writer Grant Morrison has often talked at length (most recently in his excellent superhero exploration/memoir Supergods) about his relationship with comics been likened to visiting another dimension or plane of existence, and while that might sound a little far fetched, I think there's some truth to that.

There really is something very hypnotic (and almost seductive) about the juxtaposition of panels in comics, that's far more immersing than other forms of entertainment. Perhaps it's that feeling that you're engaging in an exchange with the media: it provides the information through words and images, but it's up to you as the reader to add the extra dimension of time and space, bringing the reading experience to life.

But this was just my first taste, a gentle primer in the language of comics. My next comic-book would grab me by the collar and throw me head-first into a world of imagination beyond the laws of physics and science. Anything would be possible...and it was all taking place on the other side of those four-colour windows.

-AK!

COMIC STRIP: From Earth's End: A Life With Comics #1

Above: My Life With Comics #1: Origins (CLICK ON THE ART TO ENLARGE).

Copyright Adrian Kinnaird 2011.

Hi everyone, welcome to my new regular comic-strip feature! Some of you may not have been aware, but long before I was a blogger, I was first and foremost a cartoonist. I've continued to work on graphic novel projects alongside my blogging for the last few years, but due to the long-form nature of those projects and the ins-and-outs of publishing, I've shown very little of that work publicly. Now for a while I've had people needling me to put something new out there, and I've been keen to do that, but it was just a matter of finding the right project and format...

I've never done a full autobiographical comic before, so that idea was really appealing to me. Comics have always been a part of my life, both as an interest and a form of expression, informing my view of the world around me in quite unexpected but profound ways. The more I thought about it, framing my formative years growing up in New Zealand alongside my experiences relating to comics quickly gave way to an avalanche of story material. From the amusing stories of backyard superheroics to the teen years of DIY comics creation, it will all be covered here. After a week working on this project I've already uncovered surprising memories of the unexpected effects comics have had on my life and development as a person that I haven't seen covered elsewhere, so it should make for an interesting journey.

I chose the Sunday Comic Strip format as it seemed like a good fit for short chapters and allowed me to publish it in a regular fashion (and one day soon print it in a cool large newspaper format!).

Above: My script/Rough for A Life With Comics#1. Copyright Adrian Kinnaird 2011.

Now for some behind the scenes extras: above is my script/rough for chapter #1.

Usually if I'm writing for a comic or graphic novel I write a full script, but for comic strips I find the space is so limited it's best to start by sketching out the room you have to work with first (in this case, I went with an A4 page space of two tiers). This way you can sketch in the panels you know you'll need to tell the story, and figure out how best to use the remaining space to fill in the blanks. The same goes with the dialogue, the space is limited so if you can't fit it on the page in the sketch you've probably over-written.

Since this strip is charting my way through comics history, I had considered drawing it in different styles depending on the content eg. drawing this first 'origin story' in the style of Superman artist Joe Shuster etc. I ultimately decided against it, as I feel it will be more interesting to capture my likeness growing up over time, rather than adjusting to the style of different comic artists. But I will try to capture the feel of those comics in pacing and style; in this one I looked to early issues of Action and Detective Comics for the description boxes, flat colours and balloon tails, so keep your eyes peeled for subtle references!

Above: Some reference photos of me from the early 80s (yes kids, that's what telephones used to look like!).

And of course reference photos from the time period were also helpful to recapture the memories as close as possible to the way I remember them (and having them on the drawing board generally helps put me in the right head-space).

Ok, well I hope you enjoy this first one, and come back for more soon!

-AK!