Sunday Mailbag- Learning to Ink?

Q: I usually hate having to ink anything because it never looks as good as my pencils. How did you learn to ink, and why did you choose the tools you use?

A: I’d like to preface this answer by saying I do not consider myself a very good inker. I’d categorize myself as “competent”. I don’t ink enough (i.e. daily) to gain the kind of natural ease with inks you need to be an exceptional inker. My inking is often still an exercise in controlled frustration.

I had not done much inking prior to my starting with MAD. With the exception of a couple of covers, all the work I did in comics for NOW Comics and Marvel I just did pencils, and someone else did all the inking. However once I got serious about getting into MAD, I started experimenting with different tools and inks to try and figure out how to do it. My early worked for Cracked I did with with various nibs and some brush work.

That was really all experimentation and searching for both a “look” and tools that worked for me. I used so many different nibs I can’t even remember them all nor will attempt to list them.

Once I started at MAD I has settled in with mostly various pen nibs and using brush for certain kinds of lines and large black areas. I still did not feel like I had a handle on how to really ink effectively, since I had no go-to tools or technique. I remember right around the time I did the “Tomb Raider” parody for MAD I decided I needed someone to teach me how to ink.

The trouble was this was 2001. There was little or none of the endless tutorials and instruction videos that are everywhere online these days. What’s a guy who want to learn how to ink to do? I called MAD art director Sam Viviano and offered to pay him to spend a weekend doing a private workshop with me on inking. I’d fly to New York and meet him wherever he wanted. Sam very graciously accepted and I spent a very instructive weekend working with him at his studio in Greenwich Village. Sam showed me how he inks with pen nibs (his nib of choice is a Gillott 303), brushes, and lettering nibs as well as doing inks and color washes. I brought a duplicate penciled page from this Tomb Raider parody along with me that he and I worked on together. He also did a color piece as a demo, which I still have…

I learned a lot about the process with Sam, but the thing I really took away with me after that weekend was that there is no secret method, no special tools or hidden tricks, that makes for good inking. Good inking is simply good drawing, only with different tools. The only trick to it is to find inking tools that you get comfortable with so you stop thinking about the tools you are using and only think about what you are drawing. Good, descriptive lines created with pencil are no different than good, descriptive lines created with ink. Just a different tool.

The problem most people have with inking is that they don’t have the control of the inking tools like they do with a pencil, which we have all been drawing with since we were children and which is a lot more forgiving thanks to the ability to erase. Ink is permanent and powerful and scary to lay down. Much of good inking is about confidence and plain old practice with the tools. It’s much like beginning to learn to do live caricatures. There is a “cosmetic” nature to live caricature, where bold, confident, clean, and fluid lines create a polished and aesthetically pleasing drawing. The lines are just the lines, however. The drawing is what the lines are creating, and that’s a separate thing. As a beginning live caricaturist you struggle with doing those bold, confident lines at first. You are thinking about the cosmetics and not about the drawing itself. After practice and a lot of faces the cosmetics of the lines become second nature to you. You stop thinking about how you are drawing the subject and think only about what you are drawing.

It’s the same with good inking. You need to find tools you are comfortable with and work with them until you stop thinking about the pen and think only about the drawing, like you do with a pencil. What tools you use is mostly about what works for you… what kind of “look” you want, and your style of drawing.

These days I ink 80% of anything I do with a Hunt 102 crow quill pen. I settled on this pen because I am heavy handed (thanks to 25 years of drawing live caricature with a 4B pencil and pressing so hard I left grooves in the paper) and the 102 is very stiff so you need less of a light touch. I also use a #2 or #4 red sable watercolor brush for certain big lines, effects such as feathering and laying down larger areas of black. Here’s the inks from my “A Christmas Story” splash page using those very tools:

It is a bit disingenuous to say inking is “nothing but drawing”. There are techniques to learn like different types of crosshatching, feathering, ways to render things like shrubs or water, etc. These are still cosmetic things, however. The drawing the inks describe is the most important element. Mediocre inking techniques over a really good drawing is still a really good drawing. The best inking in the world won’t transform a bad drawing into a good one.

So, my advice on learning to ink? Pick up some of the good books on the subject like The Art of Comic Book Inking by Gary Martin and The DC Guide to Inking Comics by Klaus Janson. Experiment with different pen nibs and brushes, and pick a few tools to concentrate on. Then ink like a fiend for a month or so until you stop thinking so much about the mechanics and start thinking about the drawing itself. Also have some fun.

Thanks to Steve M. for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!