Depending on which comics I'm reading I do sometimes spend weeks and months dreaming of being a particular artist or writer. This week, I'm reading the 4th instalment of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's "Locke and Key" and I'm torn between wishing I could write like Joe Hill or wishing I could draw like Gabriel Rodriguez.
Up until book 2, I was definitely dreaming of being Joe Hill, despite Rodriguez's art being so amazing, but now on the 4th instalment "Keys to the Kingdom" Rodriguez has slightly pipped into the lead. In the opening story of the book, "Sparrows" he adopts a drawing style similar to Charles M. Schulz (of Peanuts/Snoopy), but plays with panel layouts so fluently I can't help but drip with jealousy. His foreground artwork in the childlike style of Peanuts makes you think for just one brief moment that you may be able to draw like that, until you realise that in the background he's drawing like Gabriel Rodriguez and it's just out of your reach again!
So I picked up a foreground panel of sparrows in attack formation and put my pens to work. If I start with a little Rodriguez, and work my way from there, who knows, maybe one day...
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