Comics News
Stewart Kenneth Moore Talks To Tripwire Part One
Drawing Conclusions
Earlier this year, Tripwire’s contributing writer Paul N Neal spoke to the artist Stewart Kenneth Moore about what makes an eye-catching comic book cover. A link to that article is available here:
Since that article, Neal and the artist have begun to discuss a few other subjects. Here are the results…
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TRIPWIRE: How did your relationship with comics actually begin? Were there any titles, or indeed creators, that made you think at a young age, “yeah this is what I would like to do for a living?”
Stewart Kenneth Moore: I was 13 or so, when I first wondered about drawing comics. I was looking at a Carlos Ezquerra panel when I first wondered about it as a job. I still remember that it was a revelation that people drew comics, my dad was asking me what I would do after school. I was reading 2000AD and he asked what about that, that comic you’re reading, people draw that, what about ‘commercial art?’.
That Christmas I had Masters of Comic book Art in my stocking and that book, more than any comic, influenced my work, it opened up the world of comics to me. It featured American underground art like Robert Crumb. I learned there were many ways to tell stories. So, I saw Richard Corben, Frank Hampson, Jean Giraud and more for the very first time.
SKM: I learned about Will Eisner and the Mad Magazine and EC titles, not a superhero story anywhere. The versatility in storytelling methods and styles probably influenced my work on Project MKUltra (Clover Press) because in that book I leaned into stylings like American underground comics, when I drew San Francisco in the 1970s. I drew something more like EC and Will Eisner when I drew the 1950s and late 30s scenes.
Instead of painting the past in sepia tones, I drew the past in the style of comics of that era of the past. I was lucky that my family always had a healthy respect for art, illustration and literature. I remember a bookshelf that held both the Iliad and the Odyssey and one or two of Dave Berg’s MAD paperbacks.
Much earlier, when we lived in LA, I was maybe six years old, I was given a set of wax crayons and a paperback of early Batman comics from an abandoned box at a warehouse at LAX. So, comics had always been there for me, it just took a while for me to realise it was a job.
TW: How do you personally define yourself? Are you a comic artist or an illustrator? I understand from my research, you have many talents.
SKM: I tend to say ‘comic book artist’ today, even though I do other visual artwork. I’ve noticed most people seem to respond positively to it. I think that’s because they understand immediately what ‘comics’ means. ‘Artist’ is too broad or vague a term now. If you say comic book artist, it’s pretty specific and people know one thing right away – you must be able to draw pretty well.
TW: As an artist, would you describe yourself as self-taught or did you receive a formal artistic education with qualifications and certificates to prove it?
SKM: I feel self-taught. A lot of what I wanted to know wasn’t found in ‘how to’ art books and I had to work it out for myself. Although you have to be self-motivated to make pictures and there are people all along the road that influence you.
I worked at a design agency at 16, later at a college graphics department. I worked in a print shop at 15. I had a school placement and learned about lithography and printing techniques at Peacock Printmakers in Aberdeen at 14 or so, you pick up some techniques and skills. I remember my dad showing me how to draw ships on horizon lines when I was a child.
I remember my mother encouraging me and my teacher at school encouraged my drawing. I remember my old boss helped me with a folio to get on a graphic design course at Aberdeen College.
Graphics skill, typography etc, are vital to comics. I’d rather have been studying ‘comics’ graphic design skills.
I remember the illustrator Brian Taylor actually demonstrating how to create a ‘chrome’ effect with markers (in my gofer days). While studying graphic design I managed to spend my ‘industry placement’ weeks working in Jim Baikie’s studio in Orkney. I learned a lot from Jim. I got on with him like a house on fire. He even tried to get me my first comic art credit on Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. He was illustrating it when I was there, I had done very little, yet he very generously tried to get DC to credit me.
TW: Is all your art created exclusively using digital tools as an artist, or do you go old-school for certain projects? Are pencils, inks, paint brushes always close to hand at your workstation for example?
SKM: For the last few years, I’ve been working hard to go fully traditional media. I’ve recently completed three new Judge Dredd covers and a cover for a comic book story about a yeti detective (Bleakheaven Comics).
All the art had to be done fairly quickly. So, I went mostly back to digital, I’m very fast digitally. But only one of the Dredd covers was drawn and inked on paper.
As I write this I have a story in the current Judge Dredd Megazine {494} that was entirely drawn in pastels, ‘Bad Idea’ written by James Peaty.
Last year I drew Judge Death ‘Endgame’ written by Kek W for the Judge Death Special and that was entirely real media. It was drawn in pastels, paint and pencils. But I had to have my son help me scan everything. It was very time consuming to organise.
So as much as I’d like to be entirely real media it’s just not realistic at the moment. But I’m trying. I’m working on Jason and the Argonauts (PSYComics) and my plan with it is to be at least 50 % real media. I’m actually looking for models for the characters. I’m planning to populate it with real faces.
So, if anyone fancies being a Greek warrior – drop me a line!
With the digital process all tools are where I left them, in perfect condition. I have unlimited ink, paper, paint etc and material costs are minimal. I can also quickly ready the work for posting to my editor – and requested changes can be very quickly adapted. But there is no tactile media, no original item. I want tactile art, real art on paper.
TW: What is your policy on AI tools in the creation of your art? Have you ever used AI at all? Certainly, among the artist community, it is an exceptionally controversial subject, so it felt only right and proper to ask your opinion. What are your feelings?
SKM: I was among the first to call it out for what it is. This is just my opinion, but I think it is fundamentally evil.
It’s not a tool, it is the agent, it is the artist come replicant. I think it’s a tool for fascists – it’s anti-truth. You cannot trust any photo or video today, what’s real anymore? I think it’s also based on piracy – its entire system depends on theft of originals without credit or compensation. I think it’s environmentally catastrophic. Plagiarism is the backbone of AI.
AI is kitsch without the charm in my opinion.
The law is coming down on the side of humans. The US Supreme Court has just ruled items created solely with AI cannot be copyrighted. The big companies who use AI to create images are finding out the hard way that AI images cannot be owned. Machines have no rights. AI ‘art’ is not created by a human; therefore, it becomes public domain. So, goodbye to all the revenue that comes from merchandise, copies of films, goodbye film rights, etc, because anyone can publish that AI movie you made, it cannot be protected.
As Noam Chomsky said, ‘AI is plagiarism software’.
TW: Well said indeed.
SKM: AI is just too close to digital art too. I encourage all artists to go to real media now. We are one EMP blast from losing the art of a generation. When your computer loses power, the art is over and AI has been trained on digital art. So, sadly, as much as I love the ease of digital and I understand why so many people love it, my view is that we must distinguish ourselves from the machines by making actual original items.
I did use an AI search function once, to confirm the date of the Aberdeen Grammar School fire that I saw with my own eyes when I was 16. I watched it rage from my desk at Stop Design, the agency I gophered at.
The AI said there was no such fire. The next day I tried again and it had updated its circuits. This time there was a photo to prove there was no fire, in the picture the school was ablaze, it was hilarious.
TW: To your mind, what would you say are the pros and cons with creating art digitally as opposed to physical art? For example, I would guess a con would be having no actual art to sell?
SKM: I’ve been wondering about this. I recently inked a Judge Dredd piece that I coloured in Photoshop. So, when I sell those original inks I also give the collector a signed 1/1. So, this way they get the original black and white ink and the one-and-only colour proof of the finished page.
Digital is incredibly fast and cheap to make. But there is no tactile art and nothing to sell. Real media is slow and expensive, generally. But you can sell the art to a collector.
TW: For the record, what was your very first paid work as a professional artist?
SKM: That’s hard to say, you transition to being a professional only once you have enough work is under your belt. I have often felt my life was starting and starting and starting but somehow never quite starting, but my first published strip cartoon was in The Prague Post in the mid 90’s.
It was called Morris Mule: TAXIDERMIST, which I felt no one saw or read, except for those who took time to send in hate mail, sent with real stamps!
Yet about a decade after that strip ended I saw the Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds and was surprised to see the film’s most famous scene followed my comic strip point for point. You know the scene with the Jewish girls under the floorboards? Yeah, that’s my scene, so I guess somebody was reading it.
SKM: My first published ‘gag’ cartoons were published in Esquire in 2002. Oddly enough I got paid exactly the same sum as Hemingway did for his first published work in Esquire, mine a cartoon about a Segway, his was a story about a fish.
Perhaps my first significant sale was in Glasgow in maybe 1992. I was ‘boracic lint’ and in desperation I took some pictures around the pubs looking to sell them. One pub owner I spoke to, Jinty (of Jinty McGuinty’s) needed art for the new restaurant upstairs and so they commissioned me to do a series on Irish literary figures.
After that I was commissioned by the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to create a Celtic themed canvas to commemorate the very first Celtic Connections Festival. I’d been working on a Prince’s Trust business plan at the time, another false start, the accessors shot down my business plan asking me about the budget ‘Why would an artist need a computer?’.
The very first time I was paid to draw anything I was maybe 14 and my school chum paid me to draw Mickey Mouse assassinated in four gruesome ways. Later a friend’s mum bought some horror-themed drawings from me for her Goth or Metal-loving nephews in Germany. To my delight she served me a beer when I delivered the pictures. I walked home, half-cut, with money in my pocket and thought ‘This is what I want, the life of an artist!’ I was 15 or 16 then.
This Concludes Part One of What will be a Two-Part interview. Please do rejoin Tripwire for the conclusion of what promises to be a fascinating discussion.
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