Why Darwyn Cook Is Better Than Most Of Us.

I've recently been paying more attention to the stripped down aesthetics of more crisp styles demonstrated beautifully by Periscope members David Hahn and Jonathan Case. In addition to those two friends of mine I increasingly enjoy like-minded comics artists Alex Toth, Bruce Timm and Darwyn Cooke.


All of these people have the guts and know-how to take complex forms down to efficient abstract line work without losing the nuance. There is also an uncanny enhancement of narrative through the power of their abstraction. When I saw Darwyn Cooke's "new frontier" from DC I knew I had to redraw my Conan pages. I am certain that I can tell that story with more efficiency and power. I want to fuse the lithe line work of Adam Hughes, Olivier Coipel, Terry Dodson, Yanick Paquette and Eric Canete with the streamlined art deco forms chiseled onto the page by the artists I first mentioned.




I've been reinvigorated by the recent hard work, manifesting in success, of my fellow Ben: My friend Ben Bates. He was auditioning for a spot on Archie Comics' Sonic the hedgehog with persistence, patience and passion. He kept doing drawings for them in a manner that could not be ignored. He demonstrated that they would be foolish not to hire him and he got the job. I'm hoping to duplicate his efforts with My Conan work. I'd love to draw that book and I'm gong to keep making pages until I get a shot at it.




Here Are some of my new sketches for the revamped Conan pages. I'm trying to be less stiff and more Darwyn. Though I will say that these ended up being an exercise and I won't be drawing final versions. I talked my new approach over with artist Colleen Coover, who is one of my great teachers, she convinced me to keep making pages and 'never to remake pages.' She told me that you need to keep momentum and take what you've learned and apply it to the next page. One can get stuck in the quicksand of perfectionism really quickly.


The next few Conan Pages should have some of the Darwyn Cooke Spark in them if I can capture the spark of what I've been studying.