Sunday Mailbag: Why Not All Digital?

Q: Reading about your process I see that you still pencil and ink traditionally, but then color digitally. Why not do the entire thing digitally?

A: Let me preface my response by saying I have zero problem with people who do 100% digital work. I have seen mind-blowing work done all digital. More power to you. No judgement here.

That said I am simply not happy with the inking I do digitally. I have tried it, believe me. So far I have done two parodies for MAD doing digital inks. The first was the parody of the TV show “The Following” from MAD #525, which I produced digitally from rough sketch through inks to final color, just to see how I liked the process and the end result, and mostly to see if it was significantly faster. I liked neither, and it was at best a wash time-wise. The digital inking process for me consisted of my doing a line stroke, then undoing it, then doing it again, etc., until I got the line I wanted. There was a lack of tactile response with the pen and the glassy surface of the tablet/screen that threw me off. I need that resistance, the drag of the pen nib or brush point on the board, pull of the fibers, and the flow of the ink, to get the lines I need. Looking at “The Swallowing” afterward I thought it lacked the snap and crispness I want to see. The second one I tried was a parody of the TV show “Fixer Upper” from MAD #541, and while I inked the splash page traditionally I inked all the story pages digitally. I was really under the gun with that one and tried digital again to save time, which I did manage to do especially with the mechanicals of the word boxes and page set ups. I was still unhappy with the final results, though.

Another reason is I hate the slow decline of the world of original* comic art. A couple of years ago I was at comic art event, hanging out in the lobby of the hotel, when I overheard two cartoonists talking about digital work. One of them was sitting there drawing on what was then the just released iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. He was bragging about how he was now 100% digital, and he was producing a piece for a client during the weekend while sitting around hotel lobbies and between attending panels. No paper, no art supplies, just the iPad and Apple Pencil. Now I really like the work of this artist, but I could not help but think about how this guy was never going to produce another piece of original, physical art. His entire career was going to be a series of 1’s and 0’s on some chip or magnetic drive somewhere, unable to be seen without an electrical outlet or via a bunch of ink squirted onto photo paper by a sliding mechanical printer arm. No one was ever going to get to see or hold a piece of board that the artist physically handled and sweated over creating the artwork they see. Later that day I saw a gallery show of originals from a number of legendary cartoonists, and that really drove it home.

Something is lost there, IMHO. There is magic in seeing an original piece that was created under the artist’s hand, knowing he or she spend the time hunched over and working on that very piece of board or canvas, creating the art with all the physical limitations of the medium. It’s like a time machine, being able to see the process and the result rolled into one. Maybe that means nothing as far as the printed piece goes, but anyone who has been to see a collection of originals must be able to understand what a treasure that is. I certainly think the comics world is diminished somewhat when great works exist only virtually.

The final reason I stick to traditional ink work is the aftermarket value of the art. I do sell my original pages and work, and it’s a nice additional source of income from work I in most cases already did and got paid for producing. You can always produce prints, but an original is one of a kind. That’s a ways done the totem pole of reasons, though. Its still mostly about the end results for me.

*I’ve been told that some digital artists are offended by the term “original” art referring to physical media only, saying they create “original” art also. For the last 100 years or so in the comics biz “original” art has meant the physical board/canvas/ink/paint that was then used for mass reproduction/publication. The term “original” had and has nothing to do with the fact that it was a unique piece of art created from nothing but the mind and hand of the artist. That’s just “art”. When digitally created work has been around for over 100 years you might have something to complain about. Sheesh.

Thanks to Greg Halbert 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!