Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Growth Spurt

After reading Sin City again, I went back and read Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again. The style change is dramatic as Miller’s Batman and Superman are over-the-top figures, compositionally all over the page. However, it subtly lends to the nature of the story and supports the overall theme. A stark contrast to Marv and the Sin City citizens, portrayed in stark black and white, perfect for a crime story. All through his career, however, you know when a page is a Miller page. There are always elements that are undeniably his.

My comic art style and philosophy up until right after college was basically pretty simple: as long as it looked like something recognizable, I was fine with it. I was more than happy to just get what was in my brain somewhat onto the page. When you do something successfully once though (at least how you initially envisioned it), you are ready to challenge yourself some more.

With Golden Boy, I decided to take an aesthetic idea from old boxing posters and incorporate it into my art. It made it a lot less boring to produce, and it is certainly unique looking, not to mention adding another layer of dimension to the piece.

I’ve been filling my sketchbooks and notepads with ideas for three new projects I’ll soon be working on (four in January). Each project has a different style to it, some idea that I always wanted to explore visually. I’ve been giving them names, like kung-fu. They are: Woodcut, Soft Core Oil Porn, and Simple Black. Simple Black is the scariest, but also the most intriguing for me, because it may end up where I won’t even use a pen, just a mouse for it. I’ve always experimented with vector illustration programs before (see my identity mark), but I haven’t ever allowed myself for some reason to incorporate it into my comic art. I’m not sure if it was because of my traditionalist attitude at the time or what, but I just thought it was a bad idea. Now, I’m looking forward to experimenting with it. My old painting instructor always told us if we didn’t have the money, paint a watercolor with coffee. He was teaching us to use what we had at hand. I have some experience and talent at mouse/vector illustration, why the hell shouldn’t I try it out when appropriate? Hopefully, I’ll learn something new in the process.

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