Another page with no backgrounds!
I absolutely cannot remember where I got the idea to call the accountant “Catfish” but I still like that name.
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Archive for February, 2011
8 items.
The great thing about being influenced by Frank Miller’s Sin City is that you never have to worry about drawing backgrounds. Just go black! So simple! The truth is that I did get a little bored with this and by Chapter 2, I was playing with some unique black and white backgrounds with varying degrees of success.
For some reason, I find that Tabasco looks like Jack Palance in panel #3.
Parker, part 3
Richard Stark (pseudonym for Donald E. Westlake) rarely wastes any time getting to the action. The first sentence of many chapters (and a few books) show the reader that action comes first and we ain’t wasting any time on introductions. The only question you have is whether Parker is on the giving or receiving end of whatever violence is occurring.
“When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed.” (first sentence of The Outfit) “When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.” (from The Mourner) “When he didn’t get any answer the second time he knocked, Parker kicked the door in.” (from The Seventh)And if books/chapters begin with such a harsh, unforgiving dose of violence, they don’t end any differently:
“They tied him and left him in a closet. They never did remember to go back.” (from The Mourner)“He buried him in the cellar in the hole the kid had dug himself.” (from The Jugger) “Another two hundred fifty dollars bye-bye,” Weiss said, and Uhl shot him in the head. (from The Sour Lemon Score) “A bullet cut Parker’s right earlobe.” (from The Seventh) ““It’s Parker,” he said and hit her twice in the stomach. She fell retching to the floor, and he stepped on her back on the way out.” (from The Hunter)
Hmmm. When you read all these sentences back-to-back, it doesn’t make for a very happy world Parker lives in. And it’s not.
Parker, part 2
I love talking about the Parker novels and it’s a love for the gritty crime drama that no doubt drew me to creating a character like Tabasco Lang. If it wasn’t for the comedic element of this comic, I’d no doubt have made the character more like Parker.
There are two things you realize about Parker pretty darned quickly: (1) he can be violent when necessary; and (2) he’s a man of few words. (We’ll talk about the former next time around.) In this, he greatly differs from Tabasco Lang. He will never speak unless words are absolutely necessary and he absolutely despises those who talk more than they should: “All this talk was a waste of time” (from The Mourner).
Over the course of the novels, it’s easy to compare women Parker appreciates (“Her style was very much like Parker’s own, silent and self-contained. They spent hours in the same room without either saying a word.” from The Seventh) to those he didn’t care for as much: “The only thing wrong with her was that she talked too much” (from The Outfit).
Even if Parker doesn’t say much, he will still reserve one of his few outbursts for a witty repartee, always uttered in as few syllables as possible:
“I’ve forgotten your name. Resnick told me but I’m sorry, it slipped my mind.” “Parker. It won’t again.” (from The Hunter) “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You don’t have to,” Parker said. (from The Hunter)“What is this? You a jealous husband or something?” “Something.” (from The Sour Lemon Score)
Even the very first sentence of the very first book says something of Parker’s less than loquacious nature: “When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell.” (from The Hunter)
Next time: Parker gets violent.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently discovered the world of Parker. Of all possible inspirations for Tabasco Lang, be it from books, movies or comics, there is no single character who resembles him more than Parker.
Parker, hero (or rather, anti-hero) of the series of short novels by Richard Stark, is a “heister by profession, an institutional robber who stole from banks or jewelry stores or armored cars” rather than a hired gun, but in all other respects, he is the character that Tabasco was born to spoof. Let’s see how Stark himself describes Parker, and tell me these descriptions wouldn’t suit Tabasco equally well:
“His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a pour toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless.” (from The Hunter, first of the Parker novels) “He looked like a businessman, in a tough business. (…) He could have been a hard, lean businessman coming home from a late night at the office.” (from The Mourner) (To Parker) “They tell me you’re the best. They tell me you can keep an operation together better than anybody, and you can get the best men to work with you.” (from The Score)Next time: The biggest difference between Parker and Tabasco is that Tabasco actually talks. He probably says more in chapter 1 than Parker does in all 23 novels he appears in.
I think many of us at this point in time of cinematic history are no likely familiar with many of the landmark gangster films of the last 25-30 years : The Godfather series, Scarface, Goodfellas, many of the Tarantino films (notably Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction).
Back in issue #15 of Bubonix, I suggested a list of older gangster/film noir/crime films that I felt were “must-see”:
- The Killers (1946) – Absolutely amazing flick, featuring young Burt Lancaster and young Ava Gardner. Loosely inspired from the equally amazing short story by Ernest Hemingway by the same name. Be sure to also check out “The Killers” (1964) starring Lee Marvin. This one is also based on the short story but goes in an entirely different direction. The 1946 version is probably the movie which most directly inspired many of the elements in Tabasco Lang.
- Point Blank (1967) starring Lee Marvin again. (In addition to Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin and Robert Mitchum were the main inspiration for the look of Tabasco Lang. Clearly, he’s an exaggerated, cartoony version of these tough leading men, but you get the idea.) Point Blank is based on the first book of the amazing Parker series by Richard Stark called “The Hunter“. More to come on those books in a future post, but if you’re at all interested in gritty crime fiction, do yourself a favour and start reading that series like today.
- “The Big Heat” (1953) stars often overlooked Glenn Ford and also co-stars Lee Marvin. All around great gumshoe flick directed by Fritz Lang.
- “Touch of Evil” (1958) is the only Orson Welles flick on this list but I could also have included “The Third Man” and “Lady from Shanghai” even though they don’t quite fit the theme I’m going for here. Very gritty movie starring Charlton Heston and Welles himself in a repulsive role.
- “M” (1931). While not a gangster movie, it is about crime and the cinematography of this film certainly affected the look of the comic. I had only ever seen Peter Lorre in Humphrey Bogart vehicles so it’s great to see him in an early role where he gets to demonstrate a lot more range. Another one by director Fritz Lang.
- “In Cold Blood” (1967) is on this list purely because of the gorgeous cinematography.
- “The Last Seduction” (1994) reinvented (in my mind at least) the whole concept of the femme fatale, mesmerizingly played by Linda Fiorentino.
And I have to add one movie since then. “City of God” is a Brazilian film from 2002 documenting the evolution and rise of gangs and drugs in Rio de Janeiro from the 1950s to 1970s. It’s one of my favourite films and certainly the best movie I’ve seen in the past ten years. Brutally violent, beatifully shot, it’s an exciting, thrilling and sometimes horrifying ride which is all based on fact.
A few words on process:
There’s no question that the Tabasco Lang story came about as something of a Frank Miller Sin City spoof. The problem was that at the time, I hadn’t read much of Sin City, and to be honest, I was never that interested in drawing outright sex or violence given my far more cartoony drawing style. So I figured I had to ratchet up my drawing style in the general direction of realism: I might have to draw hands with four fingers and a thumb; I might have to draw cars, buildings… you know, things with straight lines.
So when planning out the look and feel of the story, I purposely set out to be heavily influenced by old gangster movies. Every Sunday, I would walk down to the local video store and rent three tapes (yes, VHS tapes) of different gangster movies, most from the 1940s. While watching them, if any shot intrigued me, I would pause the tape and sketch the image in my notebook. This gave me a lot of ideas about using shadows and drawing the most “realistic” comic I’ve ever drawn.
Some of the character designs were directly influenced by characters in specific films, including Tabasco Lang (Burt Lancaster in “The Killers”) and the Cuckoo (Peter Lorre in “M”) and of course Pinky (the more recent Quentin Tarantino from “Reservoir Dogs”).
Here’s what appeared on the inside front cover of the first print of Tabasco Lang back in 1998. It gives you a good sense of what’s to come:
Recipe for a Gangster Story1 cup Reservoir Dogs 1/2 lb. Louis Riel charisma 1 cup Law & Order 1/2 cup James Cagney A dash of Humphrey Bogart 2 tbsp Dashiell Hammett 1 tsp of urban myths several bottles of ink Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix everything into a big bowl and stir until you have a thick, black paste. Spread out onto drawing paper with spatula. Bake until burnt to a crisp. Serve while hot.
And here’s the text from the back cover, loosely inspired by A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:
“Hey, are you Tabasco?” Thus begins this powerful human drama set against the backdrop of revolutionary France. Struggling against the tyranny of the corrupt monarchy, while attempting to resist the Reign of Terror which would overpower the revolutionary movement, Tabasco Lang must fight to change both society and himself. Intense, beautifully written, and universal in its scope, this work shall truly change the lives of all who come within ten feet of it.