Sarah Burgess
Sarah Burgess is a freelance comic artist. She has created a number of web comics called, Far out mantic and The summer of Blake Sinclair, both of them have been self-published. Far out Mantic is about a simple minded girl with simple dreams looking for love. The summer of Blake Sinclair is also similar to Far out Mantic only it features a reckless young male student. I admire her work because it is very realistic and honest, very much like how I want my work to be in the future. She focuses a lot on the character's emotions and communication with the other characters in her comics rather than on the action. Most of the characters in her story have unique and realistic personalities. I also admire how she uses traditional techniques in her comic, such as water-colours and fine-liners etc. She has inspired me to start using traditional techniques such as water-colours and I enjoy using it more than digitally colouring illustrations on photo shop. She also sells her comic at conventions like mcm expo for example. Her art style is somewhat cartoonish but she told me she is huge influenced by Japanese manga and other European comics. She also graduated from Swindon University; she studied Sequential illustration while she was there.
Bryan Lee O' Malley
Bryan Lee O' Malley is a Canadian comic artist well known
for his comic Scott pilgrim. This has been adapted into a film! I think he is
pretty amazing as you don't hear about many comic artists getting their work
made into films while they are still alive! Unless its marvel. He is also a fan
of Japanese girl's comics, manga such as Sailor Moon have really inspired his
work. His art style is very interesting it’s simple but very effective. He uses
a very thick, loose brush stroke that really brings the movement in his
characters alive. His comic Scott pilgrim is quite funny too, it isn't too generic
and isn't all about superheroes! It's theme is also quite similar to Burgess's
its mostly about relationships with a small touch of fantasy. In some ways I
feel as if I can relate very much to his art style. It’s very loose, rough and
sketchy, a style I have never been able to shake. While reading Scott Pilgrim
you can also tell that a lot of Malley's life experiences went into it,
somewhat subconsciously. That is why it’s so realistic and relatable, maybe
also why Scott seems so immature in the series. I'm very impressed at the
success he has had with his comic, it gives hope to future Comickers out there
including me.
Keiko Suenobu
Keiko Suenobu is a Japanese comic artist, she works for
Betsufure magazine Kondansha Japan. Betsufure is a girls comic that releases
chapters of different manga's every week. Suenobu is well known in Japan for
her series Life after 20 volumes it is now complete. I have been reading the
English translated version of Life by Tokyopop for years now and I find myself
continuously looking back at her artwork for help and inspiration with my own
comic. Most of all I adore her art style, I particularly like the way she
portrays her character's emotions or expressions. The panel layout and angles
her in her work is amazing as well as her story-lines. Her stories are usually
about psychological issues such as school bullying, suicide, rape etc. Life manga featured a suicidal main character
named Ayumu Shiiba, who is brutally bullied in class due to a misunderstanding throughout
the comic. Most Japanese girl comics are usually focused on romance, but
Suenobu's work is very different from the average Japanese girl comic. There is
little romance involved but there is a lot of friendship and rivalry between
the characters. She has influenced me to create my own stories on psychological
issues so that people can relate to it. Her newest series, “Limit,” has an
underlying theme about conformity in society.
Mori Kouji
Kouji is a Japanese comic artist of the popular manga
series, Holyland. Which is now a complete series of 18 volumes, it first
started running in year 2000. He works for a Japanese publishing manga magazine
called, "Young animal". This magazine's target audience is mostly for
males 18+ so features quite mature stories. Kouji's work theme is very similar
to that of the above artists, the main character Yuu Kamishiro in Holyland was
a victim of school bullying. He failed to commit suicide, dropped out of school
and fell into a blanket of despair, later on he discovered boxing and devoted
all his time to learning it whilst he was at home. He became very good at it
but because he was so weak and small he was frequently victimized on the street
by thugs. He then started to use his newly learned boxing skills to defend
himself on the streets and became known as the "thug" hunter.
Holyland has always been my main source of inspiration for my comic Stampede.
The anger and hurt Kamishiro experiences is something I can relate to and the
author portrayed these emotions in his work so well. This is something I'm
still learning to do in my work and hoping to become successful at. His latest work is called, Jisatsutou (Suicide island.)Jaime Hernandez
http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/jaime-hernandez-4.html
Hernandez is a popular comic artist and creator of the series Love and Rockets. His comic is one of the first western comics I was exposed to and it also changed my view on western comics. I have not come across many western comics while growing up and I've never really been a fan of Marvel or DC. In fact Hernandez work has always been underground in the comics circle and that is something I can relate to as an artist. What attracts me most to his comics is the way he uses his black inks and the way he draws women. I really like how simple his line-work is and how he brings it alive with the black ink. He uses it very sparingly and what I find most interesting is how he barely uses any tone in comparison to other comics. His work is strictly black and white and it compliments his style. The reason why I like how he draws women is because he does not discriminate, he draws women of all ages, shapes and different sizes. Even with different hairstyles and fashion sense so you easily tell all the characters apart. All the women in his comics have unique aspirations and goals; they aren't just there for show.
