An aspect of my approach to comics is “comics as a transmission of personality” (I think this is an idea seeded by Evan Dorkin, either in conversation, or gleaned from his awesome Dork #7…can’t remember). In animation (but not so much in comics) artists are consciously focused on the acting-quality of their character; HERE, in these comics, the artists focused on the INTER-acting (see how that works?) qualities of their characters–kind of like improv-theater. Summer 2007.

These first two examples were commissioned by Pearl Paint. Or, at least, they were done by me and my manager, Joe Vega, while on the job.

This first one features my character ‘Clint’ from ‘Clint and Rosebud, those  freewheeling tramps’…

In this second example, Joe leads. This one is pretty nerdy and includes a quotation from “Star Wars”…

This five-page comic was done by Dov and myself the day before I got the worst sunburn of my life. I drew ‘Feldstein’ and Dov drew the other character…

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OOOhhh!! Dov is really kicking my ass here! First he calls me out on my lousey spelling and THEN his final panel makes great use of a wide-shot, the negative space adds a great comedic tension! Time for Feldstein to get down to business…

The goal with all these comics was for the artists to communicate only on paper (”paporily”?). However, when I study the first five panels of the page above it’s pretty obvious that we MUST have done a little verbal-coordinating once Dov drew panel two (note how he hid my horizon line with his character’s mustache and then, later how the third horizon line breaks to accommodate the nail-biting panel.)

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It ends a little (ahem!) abruptly, but we had alot of fun trying to get our theoretical point across: That despite the content of the strip, some of my sillier comments above and even the name of our own website, art done in tandem isn’t a competition. It’s about teamwork, not one-upmanship.

-Ben