Dissed In Crayon - AF.net John Calimee Interview

[DelBubs]

Hiya John, glad to see you finally managed to get on board. I'm not going to pass an opinion on 'Serenity', not having seen it. I have it on disk, but haven't felt the urge to actually watch through it yet.

So following on from our convo the other night, how far did you get in figuring you Renaissance conundrum?

[John Calimee]

Hi Del,

So far, things are going well. Time will tell. Nothing was done straight away during the renaissance era. To achieve realistic effects, they relied upon the interaction of 3 or 4 layers of translucent paint. Only with the 4th layer can one know for sure. The newer pieces are entering stage 2.

Next month I'm off to Ghent. -The comparison will surely humble me.

I'm in for a restless, but hopefully happy and fruitful summer. When I paint I long for the drawing board. When I'm at the drawing board I feel I should paint. By the end of summer, I should know where I stand between the two. My heart of hearts is in comic book narratives. I love telling stories with pictures. But I'm no writer and I resist commiting to projects. I'm not looking for a publisher or project. I'm looking to meet my long lost Joe Simon. Someone who spurs creative interaction. Someone who is posing questions rather than spitting out answers. I don't care for a creative process where everything is known and the only work left is to flesh it out.

The industry is in such a weird state. I watch crop after crop of young hopefuls lined up at conventions with portfolios in hand. Fresh faces chomping at the bit to work in an industry with no job security, no benefits, no health plan and no guarantee of work or salary. From middle class, 1950's standards, it's down right shameful. Wal-Mart does better by it's workers and Wal-Mart is routinely chided for setting a poor example. -I can't imagine things from the Editorial side of things. Middlemen who swing from the noose of coporate executives who no nothing about the art form and everything about the difference between a one percent profit and two.-Still, Comics are part of the mercurial Entertainment industry. There's money in them thar hills. At least, that's what investors invest in, while consumers consume.

The art of the story keeps the engines burning. Drawing issues fade away more and more by the day. I spend my free time analyzing the narrative structure of good stories. Even a good commercial catches my eye. -What did they lead with? How did they finish? What turns in the in-between?

I marvel at how well BattleStar Galactica is being told. -Paper movies bore the hell out of me. What one gets in a single issue, Kirby would resolve in 3 pages.

[DelBubs]

You keep doing this to me John. You chuck a name into a convo that has me googling like a good un trying to find out more. To show how ignorant I am, I'd never heard of Joe Simon until you mentioned him in your previous message, but did manage to find my way to the following. Now I'm off to see if I can find any examples of his scripting methods.

If I'm reading you correctly, you'd prefer a writer who was less definitive in his description of a panel, allowing the artist to be more ambiguous in his renditon of it?

[Le Messor]

A final salvo on the subject of Serenity.

You wish.
You and I seem to agree on many things, and disagree on many things. Fantastic Four is on the edge of 'good movies' for me; the very bottom rung of a comic book movie I'd actually own (and do) on purpose.

I love Galaxy Quest.
I've tried to watch Dr Strangelove twice. I fell asleep both times.

I, Borg? That episode, along with 'Best of Both Worlds 2', 'Unity', 'Unimatrix Zero', 'Survival Instinct', 'Collective' and 'The Scorpion 2' gives me the same problem with the Trek crew you have with Mal. Every time they meet the Borg, they go on about how they're free to kill the Borg since they're no longer individuals but 'dead' assimilatees, and it's impossible to ever free them.
Yet, in each of these episodes, one or more people are freed, if only in their dreams. In one case, an entire cube was freed at once.

But; Serenity. The debate is caused by this: I hated your run on AF. I think you know that. You seem to have even less respect for it than I do (I've always thought you could do some things well, better than I've ever been able to), but I hated it.
I love Joss's stuff.

So, a creator I'm not that fond of (caveat: I think your recent stuff looks good) dissing one of my favourites? Who'm I gonna side with?
Viewed another, more personal way: I've never had an letter published in AF. But Serenity? I'm on the freakin' DVD!
Which do you think gets more of my loyalty?

Well, Alpha actually...

I mentioned it in the interview in its relation to comic books. Whedon is writing comics now, part of the "if you can't beat the movies, be a movie" syndrome running through comics now. Paper movies. Ugggh.

Agreed. Movies, prose books, and comic books, each can do things the others can't, and can't do things the others can. Trying to make one into the other is just wrong.

Wheither or not one wants to tag Mal the 'hero', he is the central character with whom the writer wants us to have an empathy.

I do see Mal as the hero. Flawed, yes. As for kicking that guy off the ship--when he was stupid enough to leave the safety of the safe in the first place--horrible. But he's still the hero to me. Far more heroic than Seagle's Alpha Flight, or Millar's... anything. I can sympathise with him on many levels (though this is not one of them).

The only thing he did that really put me off was shooting the horse! Agh!
(And, as to explaining things to Mrs Reynolds, well, he'd have to survive a meeting with her long enough to explain anything. But since the last time she saw him he was wearing, well, nothing, I don't think he'd have to explain his clothing choices.)

A character moving towards perfection is well and fine but it cannot be to a moral standard lower than one is willing to go.

In today's 'moral' climate, is there a lower than we're willing to go?
<-- said with despair.

If you haven't seen The Misfit, Galaxy Quest or Long Days Journey into Night, do yourself a favor. Run to a rental store. You'll be very glad you did. Quality. Quality. Quality.

I enjoyed one of those; the other two are contemporary realism, aren't they? Serious dramas? I don't do reality. It's not my field.
And, our tastes are very, very different. Though we both like Trek (I'm including Galaxy Quest here).
Steve Rude? Didn't he do the Madman? That explains your AF art...

Yeah, I went there.
Sorry, I have a mean side.

- Le Messor
"Each of us bears his own Hell."

[John Calimee]

Messor,

In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell, the greatest singer-songwriter in the second half of the 20th century:

"Where some have found their paradise,
Others just come to harm."

Words of wisdom worth pondering.

Del,

Simon's 'The ComicBook Makers' is a great read. Another high recommendation for that one. It layed the foundation for the brilliant novel, Cavalier and Klay. -another good read.

My problem is I am a romantic at heart. As a kid, there was something about Stan Lee's "Bullpen" b.s. that just melted my heart. He had a way of making every reader believe there was this wonderful place in Manhattan, where artists and writers sat shoulder to shoulder bouncing ideas about, working AS A TEAM, creating an art form that was more collaboration than assignment. A bit of this was true, but most of it was a fiction. The production team worked in office. I'm sure they had a grand time. But the core creative talent were never part of the illusion Stan Lee scripted in his monthly soapbox advertisements. Lee and Ditko had a very confrontational relationship. Jack worked in his own mind -away from Marvel central- in a universe of his own making.

In the early days of comics, Simon and Kirby had that 'bullpen' like relationship. They did share an office, shared ideas, shared in everything from plots to spotting blacks. It's the way I imagine Pixar being run. Crazies in the office, being pros while dreaming like kids. -That's what I'm looking for. Not that I expect smooth sailing. Ditko reached a point where I think he could stab Lee in the back with a cleaver. Ditto, Kirby. Conflict is to be expected. No one thinks alike. Look at me and Messor. Strangelove a snoozer... and the F.F., ok????????????????? Still, the idea of product being a collaboration from ground zero to the page heading off to the printer. That sounds cool to me.

I envy Steve Rude finding Mike Baron. To paraphrase Mike, he's often said to me that when I find the right situation, I'm going to shine in it because there IS something there. I simply haven't found that place.

The closest I got was the last issue of the Badger. That was a very nice one shot story. Everyone shined. I did Mike's plot as written, save a few little touches that added to the story. -For instance, there is a page where the Badger and Santa are flying over Africa and the Badger pulls out a gun and shoots a bunch of Poachers. As every character in the book up to that page was white, I didn't want to illustrate the Badger suddenly killing a group of black men. (I didn't care for him doing it at all. But I digress...)

So I made a point of drawing the men in sillouette, and the only fully illustrated bad guy as white. Then to soften the page, I added a montage at the bottom of the page with Badger facing off with a Baboon. Santa setting presents down for black children in their huts. Things like that.

Mike picked up on the extras touches I added and re-wrote the dialogue, making brilliant additions. The icing on the cake: Bill Rheinhold saved my ass and made me look better by spicing up a few of the characters and teaching me a thing or two about the necessity of exaggeration. In the end, it was MORE than originally planed for because everyone was willing to keep it fluid. No part of it was 'done' until it was done.

Changing the subject... looking back at Simon and Kirby era Kirby art, it is so obvious Jim Steranko's style is a dramatic lifting of Kirby art from that era. -Quite expanded upon, yes. But an homage all the same. No one speaks of this.

[Le Messor]

Messor,
In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell, the greatest singer-songwriter in the second half of the 20th century:
"Where some have found their paradise,
Others just come to harm."
Words of wisdom worth pondering.

John,
I'm sorry if I came across as really nasty in my last post. I'm not gonna make excuses, but I am sorry if I did.

Then again, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot."

FF was just okay, no more. Though I think the Roger Corman version could've made a better movie.

My problem is I am a romantic at heart. Stan Lee's "Bullpen" b.s. just melted my heart. He had a way of making every reader believe there was this wonderful place in Manhattan, where artists and writers sat shoulder to shoulder bouncing ideas about, working AS A TEAM. No one thinks alike. Look at me and Messor.

Strange thing is, I think you and I think alike in many ways. I'm a romantic at heart, and lament the lack of heroism in a lot of current 'heroes'; (apparently lamenting is something I do. I read it in the paper once.) I've said that about v2 Alpha many times; one of the things I couldn't stand about the series was that they almost never did anything heroic. They never helped anybody. I wanted HEROES!
And Ultimate characters are so sleazy, I wouldn't want to know them in real life, much less read about them in fiction.

You drew heroes for us, Mr. Calimee.

I like it when I can tell the difference between them and the villains. I've walked out of movies (on DVD) where I couldn't, and won't watch one which threatens to end up that way. (I won't give specific examples, 'coz I'll probably insult somebody's favourite movie doing it. Which makes you a lot more courageous than me right about now.)
I might not always see heroes in the same places as you, but I do want to see them.

- Le Messor
"It takes a big man to admit he's wrong. But it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man."
- Jack Handey

[syvalois]

Good storytelling is exactly demonstrating the struggle a character goes through making moral choices towards a good. Where writers have moved into the blurred lines of anti-heroes and the like, it works best when EVERYTHING about the story is as equally complex and nuanced.

Oh, you said it so much better than me. It's what I wanted to say.

If you haven't seen The Misfit, Galaxy Quest or Long Days Journey into Night, do yourself a favor. Run to a rental store. You'll be very glad you did. Quality. Quality. Quality.

Just checked what those movies was an dI just found out that I did saw Galaxy Quest. It's about the only movie where I found Tim Allan funny.

As for The misfits, I did not expect this summary :Roslyn divorces Ray in Reno then meets widower Guido. He likes her but introduces her to cowboy Gay and those two fall in love...

Mostly because I did not read it correctly and thought there was gay cowboys in it. For a 1961 movie, I thought it was pretty much daring.:P

As for all the Star trek reference, I watched it a little but the technobabble just lost me. To much of it when the story could have been a lot better and complexe without as much. I found many episode where more about explaining a technology that did not exist than human interactions and choc of values.

[White Knight]

It's a funny world.

The Dream Queen sequence within Alpha Flight was always one of my favorites. I didn't even realized John Calimee was reviled for his art in that run.

Anyways, that series hold a special place in my nostalgic youth, and even though John Calimee destroyed alot of his originals, I was able to pick up a page from his inker! The original art in all it's glory can be seen here:

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryP...577&GSub=22461

or http://cafurl.com?i=1634http://<br /> <br /> Enjoy!<br /> ...\\/hite Knight

[Le Messor]

Somebody pointed out to me that Mark Bagley had done an issue of AF.

When I checked it out, I could see his nascent art style being formed. But I could also see why I'd maybe never noticed it wasn't John Calimee.

So now I have to wonder how much of what I hated about that run was Calimee's fault, and how much the inker's? Certainly, I'm giving Calimee a lot more benefit of doubt than I used to.

- Le Messor
"Ah! I see you have the machine that goes 'PING!'."
- Monty Python

[syvalois]

So now I have to wonder how much of what I hated about that run was Calimee's fault, and how much the inker's?

Shade of Mignola/Talaoc story... Even if Mignola was not at the top of his art, it's obvious by the covers that the inker destroyed his pencil.

For Calimee, I never notice.