Ultraist Studios Blog Journal

Seneca quote:

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” *

Dave Sim quote:

“Self-publishing for a living is somewhere on a sliding scale between extremely unlikely and totally impossible” *

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Here’s another Dave Sim quote that should be a Mantra:
Dave Sim’s Note From The President, Cerebus 183, June 1994

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There was a fascinating discussion between Bryan Hitch and Erik Larsen via twitter yesterday.  Click below for a screen capture of the conversation.

And here’s a screen capture from Erik’s page to fully flesh out the conversation.

Erik Larsen quotes:

“The difference between fast and slow artists is that fast ones are willing to live with work they’re not 100% happy with.” *

“People ask how I get so much stuff done–and it’s because I don’t play video games, watch TV or waste time on a lot of other stuff.” *

“Neal Adams said, ‘your style is everything you do wrong.’” *

I’ll spare the details and let the following speak for itself:

Dave Sim at the drawing board in the Ultraist Studios Art Bunker reading SPY GUY #2 and then offering his invaluable critique.

As for the rest of the visit: The following account comes from a fax message from Dave Sim to fellow comic legend Steve Bissette via the Comicon.com Message Board

All that said; I’m looking forward to doing the fix suggestions on SPY GUY #2 and then laser focusing my efforts on the upclose character inks on SPY GUY #3 and knocking those out of the park.

Eminem lyrics:

“Cause I’m moving on, don’t worry about me
cause I’m gon be just fine without you, you’ll see.
There aint no-one on this Earth right now I’d much rather be
cause God-dammit I’m glad that I’m me.

I said if you could be where I’m at (bye bye)
you’d wanna be you too.
If you felt the way I feel
I bet you’d be in as good a mood as I am
but you don’t ’cause you just feel like you.” *

Tony Robbins quote:

“Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.” *

Hugh Macleod quote:

“Was it worth the cost? Not really. It never is. Van Gough once told his brother, ‘No painting ever sells for as much as it cost the artist to make it.’ I’ve yet to meet in the flesh any artist who could prove him wrong.” *

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Here’s my list, starting from the top left.

1. Dave Sim – Cerebus. My biggest influence.  Obviously.  When I first read Cerebus 166 back in January of 1993 I realized that this was how a black and white independent comic should be made.  I admired that it was creator owned, and self-published and didn’t pull any punches.  I liked that there was an editorial page, a letters column and extra stuff in the back.  And I was amazed at the results of cross-overs that happened with other artists who owned their creations (such as this one with Sergio Aragonés – Groo)
2. The Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars was a huge influence.  But Empire Strikes Back trumped it.  I think it was the AT-AT Walker sequence on Hoth that made me decide to do effects animation.  Pretty cool that I had a chance to work for the man who animated them when I was at Tippett Studio working on Hellboy.
3. Chuck Jones – Looney Tunes. These cartoons are most likely the reason why I’m still drawing cartoony characters in the comics I make today.  Probably explains the violence as well.  This is harebrained comedy at it’s finest.
4. Conspiracy Theories. It was Jello Biafra that first opened the door to this stuff, and it’s been down the rabbit hole ever since.  These are my favorite stories.
5. Silver Age comic books. It was a box of silver age comics that got me hooked on the standard comic book format.  Batman 244  by Neal Adams was my favorite of the bunch.
6. Katsuhiro Otomo – Akira. I had already decided to become an animator when I watched the animated Akira movie.  But it changed the way I looked at animation.  From there I read the manga series, and it changed the way I looked at comics.
7. Steve Ditko – Spider-Man. Everything I liked about comics in the 1980′s was a result of what Steve Ditko did in the 1960′s.
8. Bill Watterson – Calvin & Hobbes. It was newspaper comic strips that got me reading comics, but it was Calvin & Hobbes that made me see their true potential.  I always dreamed that Bill Watterson would do more full comic book format stories, like the painted ones he did in The Lazy Sunday Book…
9. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This was the movie that made me get into animation.  It also has a lot of the same ambience that I try to create in my comics.
10. Blade Runner. Cyberpunk done right.
11. Transformers. Seriously, how could you grow up in the 80′s and not be influenced by giant transforming robots.

What are the things that influence you?
Go grab the template from fox-orian at deviantart.com and fill one out yourself.
Be sure to share a link in the comments if you do.

Mark Millar quote:

“It can be soul-destroying writing stuff and not getting paid. That’s how I started. But necessity is a great thing. It forces you to be commercial. I think there’s a kind of literary Darwinism in evidence in all forms of media; it’s very much a case of the survival of the fittest. I hear people complaining about the system, but you have to totally embrace the system if you’re going to survive as a creative person; you have to love the idea of what you’re doing. If you stop loving it for a minute, it’s over.” *

This mantra goes well with this one and this one.
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