Defenders of Comics

There’ll be a 2-page Green Turtle comic by Gene Yang and myself in the upcoming Defend Comics collection for Free Comic Books Day!

“For over 25 years, the CBLDF has fought to protect your right to read, and that crusade continues with this light-hearted look at a serious topic. Defend Comics is a sampler of the great YA comics available, and explores the censorship of comics with some of today’s most talented creators! Writers on Defend Comics include Andi Watson, Gene Yang, George O’Connor, Dan Parent, Larry Marder and Jorge Aguirre, with art by Watson, Sonny Liew, O’Connor, Parent, Marder, and Rafael Rosado.”

Here’s a couple of panels from the comic 🙂

The Caption Box Mystery

I’ve always tended to center-align text in caption boxes in my own comics… but recently realised that most comics seem to left-align their text in boxes… for example, here’s Ben Katchor and something from the Fantastic Four (featuring Ben Grimm!)

(who also deal with the last line in different ways: Katchor centers the orphan “Alarms”, whilst the Marvel letterer cropped the box itself).

In the english translation of Manu Larcenet‘s Ordinary Victories however, the text is center-aligned.

… whilst samples from Daniel Clowes suggests that he follows the shape of the box/balloon.

So… are there are principled reasons for picking either choice within a rectangular caption box?

Some theories I’ve heard:

1. Left-alignment looks more like a journal or diary entry (via Gene Yang)

2. Left-alignment was technically easier to execute when hand-lettering (via Janice Chiang)

3. Eyeball tracking means readers process left-aligned text more quickly (via Jesse Hamm)

What do other comics creators and readers out there think? 🙂

Vertiginous

There’ll be a new story by Gene Yang and myself in the upcoming Vertigo Quarterly!

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/01/23/vertigo-quarterly-black-adds-gene-luen-yang-david-baillie-sonny-liew-nimit-malavia/

Do check it out! 🙂

Adventure Wars

A couple of sketches done at Atom Comics… It’s Han the Human and Chewie the Dog, plus Ice King Vader and Princess Marceleia,  I guess :p

Meanwhile, for an early word on the Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, here’s a podcast from Comics Alternative, at around minute 35 to 39 🙂

http://comicsalternative.com/on-location-jan2015/

Je Suis

Nothing’s really straightforward in life anymore