Kaare Andrews Spider Manga page 20

Here's page 20 from Spider-Manga. What's sweet about this piece in person is that Kaare inked the characters so they stand-out more from the pencil-only background pieces such as the falling bricks and the crumbling building. The contrast makes for some art that almost appears 3-dimensional, as the gray-toned pencil shading really appears as if it is behind the action. The super-tight inks on the characters are clearly from the hands of a skilled artist. If I were trying to trace the pencil lines, I already know my ink strokes would be shaky, not consistent, not clean and mostly crooked. Terrible.

I'm going to go off on a tangent for a sec. Let's talk about inkers. It takes some serious talent to ink artwork. Inkers aren't tracers. You need to really know how to draw and finish the artwork, and it requires some serious consistent pen strokes. The inker is the last line of defense and is in charge of making the original pencil art stand-out, injecting life into the characters faces, to setting the mood and telling the story in really only 2 colors. Many top artists started as inkers and it really seems to be an old-school talent to ink penciled artwork.

Finally, last but not least, I really like the layout. Simple but different. The diagonal long panes make for the feeling that Spidey is literally flying off the build, then falling, and on his way to a climatic [crunch] on the next page. Or is it waiting for him? Stay tuned...

Blog has a new look today

Hi Folks... If our site looks different than yesterday, it's because I changed our blog template because I felt the "whites" in the previous visual style were lacking character, too bland, and uber-subtle, if that's a word. The blog looked like it was a vast wasteland, when in fact we've got a lot of original art already posted, with a lot more coming. I'm just warming up the scanner. :) Well, the other reason for the change is that we now look more consistent with our "sister" original comic book art blog @ http://11by17.blogspot.com, which is focused on non-anime/non-manga original comic book artwork, instead much more Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Neal Adams, John Byrne, Todd McFarlane, Romita, Buscema, Kirby, etc etc, you know 70s, 80s, 90s art. So don't navigate away yet, instead pull up a chair, get comfy and stay a while. :)

Email me or leave a comment with your impression of the blog so far and I'll respond ASAP. Do you want to see more new and original artwork? Any Ben Dunn Marvel Mangaverse fans out there? Any Adam Warren fans out there? Any Kaare Andrews fans out there? How about anime or manga fans? I hope to be in Japan later this year, so if anyone from Japan is reading, I'd love to know of any stores in Tokyo area that sell manga original art.

Marvel Mangaverse Spider-Man 1 Original Cover Art

Here's the original cover artwork to Marvel Mangaverse Spider-Man #1. This piece was all hand-drawn by Kaare Andrews. The backgrounds were done digitally and then all of it was combined and colored at time of printing.

I like the way Spidey's mitts are bigger. Really stands out, and gotta love those webs. Not sure if this was something added by Kaare, or if it was in the original Marvel Mangaverse design by Ben Dunn.

I hope someday they will bring back the entire Marvel Mangaverse, and then take them up against the DC Mangaverse. hahaha

Marvel Mangaverse Manga Spider-Man 1 Cover

The end of Summer is nearing. That means it is time for me to clean out my computer contents and especially those temporary folders I've decided to create on my desktop and appropriately named "stuff" and "stuff2". You get the idea. Well, cleaning up piles of artwork folders overflowing with jpgs, gifs, scans, movies and other art files always has a few surprises and gems. The gem I found tonight is a nice image of the cover of Mangaverse Spider-Man #1. Thought I'd post it here to stir some memories of 2001/2002.

This Kaare Andrews cover really made an impression on me. So much so, I got a hold of Kaare's original art rep at the time, Leonard, through email. Nice guy and he had a huge list of Kaare's early original comic book art for sale on his website. So I bought some, including this very cover he did here. Give me some time to dig up the scan. The original art for this cover is pretty cool in person as it is much more simple as compared to this final color printed cover image, with the painted backgrounds and sky. Would you believe those buildings were done on computer? Yup. Kaare works on paper AND with his computer, digitally coloring and finishing as he goes along towards being final and printing. Not many artists embrace technology and still rely on traditional methods of hand drawing, inking and coloring, but I'll save that topic for another post. Pretty soon there won't be anymore original comic book art. It will be a pile of jpgs, gifs and we'll end up at youtube.com looking for comic book art. ;)

Back to my story... Years later, I had a chance to meet Kaare and Leonard at Comic-Con San Diego 2004. I ended up picking up more of his original art then and there, and of course, I even got a nice Manga Spider-Man sketch from him. I'll post more of his stuff in the coming months, and as I find images/scans of art while I clean up my computer. I've even got some other Kaare Andrews artwork for sale. Follow the link on the right margin to my art for sale page, to see a scan.

Can you believe this book came out 5 years ago?