So Robert Goodin asked me to do something for the Covered art show going on this month in Los Angeles, at Secret Headquarters. Before I get into all the boring art talk, I should say that you should go; I wish I could afford to go, but Los Angeles is a long drive for me. Hopefully less long for you. You can also see all the pieces in the show on their Flickr page, along with prices and info on how you can buy them, regardless of your location.

If you don’t know, Covered is a blog Rob started around a year or two ago, which is basically artists re-interpreting classic or favorite or just weird comics covers. It’s cool. Rob gets a lot of big names, and a lot of small names, and the takes run from faithful to weird and back again. I love it.

But I had a really hard time thinking of something to do, I came down to either “The Ark” (one of the Jack Chick “Crusaders” line of comics); or the Frazetta cover to Weird Science-Fantasy, the famous one with the spaceman fighting the cavemen; or the one I did. Honestly I was about to pull out of the show; I just didn’t have any time, and I’m trying not to do non-paying work, especially since I have undone commissions for some very patient clients.

But I’m glad I did now–drawing Richie Rich was so pleasant, I can’t even tell you. Weirdly, it made me feel really grown-up–I still have most of my comics from when I was a kid, and most of them are Richie Rich comics. So the cover above is something I’ve been seeing–something that’s a part of my inner visual lexicon–for the last 25-30 years. Richie Rich might be one of the single biggest influences on my own approach to cartooning, but this was the first time in my entire life including childhood, that I ever tried to actually draw him. In effect I was using adult skills to really look deeply at something from my childhood. It felt strange and great and sad.

The thing about Richie Rich–leaving the weirdness of the comics themselves out–is his design: it’s nuts. His head is nearly as big as the entire rest of his body, he’s got these kooky cankle legs that actually seem to get larger the closer you get to his feet, and he wears an insane black suit/blue shorts/white boots combo, that’s set off jauntily by his massive red bow tie. But what really makes his design is the shape of his head, specifically the way the line of his forehead-to-cheek swoops in and out expressively. You could always tell a crummy Richie Rich artist by this line–if that line doesn’t work, the whole face falls apart. Oops I’m digressing.

Okay so anyway I started drawing Richie Rich #141. I’m pretty anal, and didn’t have a lot of time, so I did a lot of measuring and mathematizing to make sure I could fit everything in–instead of, say, having to cram in the last couple of letters in the title or squoosh the bike wheel a little to keep them in frame. Or getting most of the way done and then having to start over. I draw small, so I made it 5.75″ x 8.5″, which is around 30% smaller than the original. Then I just took measurements and divided them by 1.325 to transfer them to the smaller paper.

I basically mapped out where the different title elements would go, as well as the top and sides of the figure, assuming the bottom dimension would just naturally work fine, since there was so much negative space in the composition and I was leaving out the “detectives” subtitle. I actually ended up with too much negative space at the bottom, but by the time I realized this, I had a set of pencils I was pretty happy with, so I just decided to say eff it and go ahead.

I have a weird approach to drawing, and not at all a healthy one–when I draw things I draw their component pieces one at a time, in relation to each other, rather than sketching out the whole thing and then firming up proportions as I go. So a lot of times when I draw from some reference, whether it’s life or another sketch or something like this where I’m straight-up copying, everything looks perfect but there’s an unsettling element somewhere, like the person’s legs are double long or short or the roof of the house is pitched nearly vertical.

In this case it fortunately manifested itself as drawing Richie bigger in ratio to his bike–both the bike and Richie are more or less correct, just not in relation to one another. But that’s not the sort of thing people notice, and for some reason I liked it anyway–it fits the way I’ve skewed the point of the original cover. So, a narrow miss!

I was happy enough with the pencils, in fact, that I was terrified to ink them; I was pretty certain I’d screw them up. Especially since I’ve been using nibs for the last few months, and am way out of practice with my trusty Kuretake brush pen.

The big lines for me are the tricky ones; I always draw them first, and they always looks terrible until you start filling in the other lines around them.

Like so. This is something I wish someone who knows about it would just sit down and teach me, this thick-to-thin ration that makes certain cartoons work. For instance, the cartooning math that decrees that Richie’s head should have a big chunky “holding” line–but that nearly every other line should be of a single weight, and pretty fine at that. I drew all the non-weighted lines with a .005 black Micron pen, which is the smallest one; even as small as I draw the idea of using the Micron for the actual basic lines in a cartoon is crazy.

Anyway, I know there is some cartooning science to this, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I want to. I want to put my finger on that science! Because Warren Kremer, who was either the original or one of the original Richie Rich artists, and very likely the artist I’m ripping off paying homage to here, has definitely got it. In spades.

It’s like the fat lines are bringing forms out of the more mundane shapes in the background almost. But that’s not quite it either. Heck I don’t know. But it was awfully fun to ink, maybe one of the most fun things I’ve ever inked. If someone gets the license to Richie Rich and wants to pay me to ink them, I will take that money. You’ll have to get a good artist to draw them though.

Figure’s all done, next up: lettering! Surprisingly, most of my mistakes on this are in the lettering, which I got a little overconfident on. I like lettering and enjoy making it, and just sort of assumed that lettering the small stuff wouldn’t be nearly as hard as getting the big line around Richie’s head right.

Still, much as you reduce art for print to smooth out visible errors, by drawing pretty small it makes errors hard to see sometimes, because they are after all tiny.

I spent  a long time trying to puzzle out how best to approximate the original colors, but ended up ditching the blue background. I couldn’t get a Copic marker to match, and all my blending attempts were either too dull or too bright; the closest one would have meant I hatched the whole background with a blue Micron over a gray marker underlayer. I ended up just doing the underlayer and leaving it at that. Why screw it up just for the dropped background?

And there you go! I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed making this, it was the best. Seriously, someone get that Richie Rich license and pay me to do something with it. I don’t think I could compose new Richie’s in this smooth style, but I would love to be involved with something nevertheless with someone who could.

One $12 Target frame later, and it’s ready to be packed up and shipped off to Sunny California! The show starts this Friday, March 6, and will last throughout the month. Rob is putting up a new piece from the show each day on the Covered blog, so you can see them there, or if you’d like a sneak peek (and/or to purchase one OR EVEN MINE AHEM AHEM, you can check out the Secret Headquarters Flickr set devoted to the show! Okay time for bed it’s late!

Okay! This Saturday, March 6, I’ll be beginning a new 8-week class at Charlotte’s Central Piedmont Community College, and I want you or someone you know to take it. The class is titled “Constructing Visual Narratives;” if you know me you know I did not come up with that class title. I think if I were to call it something, it would be “MAKE COMICS.”

Which is what we will be doing. The Advertising and Graphic Design department, who oversee this particular Continuing Education series of courses, has generously granted me carte blanche to do whatever I like, so I’m excited about this particular class. Basically what I’m planning is to make comics every week, both in class and as homework. We’ll use the comics we make to discuss some of the basic precepts of comics theory and application; but more importantly we’ll just make a ton of comics. There is no better way to learn comics than to make them. Practice practice practice as they say.

So! There is a link to the class listing here–it will take place in Room 255 in the Central Campus’s Overcash building. The cost is $225, and I will do my best to make sure that you get your money’s worth. All you need to bring to the class is some regular ole paper and some sort of mark-making device, a pencil or pen or whatever. THAT’S IT.

Truly there is no more treasured person in all of Education Assembled than the teacher of Continuing Education courses in Comics. Ranking higher even than the American Sign Language (ASL) teacher, higher than Ukrainian As A Second Language (USL), even pulling even with the Creative Scrapbooking (CPb) teacher! Now, combine this celebrated position in civic culture with a person like myself; a person known far and wide for his sagacity, his perspicacity, yea even his sesquipedality. What you get is a position as revered as the most hallowed in the community: as revered as the “Security-Guard-In-Training”; as treasured as the “Cable Television Installer”; as feared and respected even as the mighty “Assistant Principal” himself.

But lo! I am informed by my prospective employer, Central Piedmont Community College, that if enrollment in the first class in this series doesn’t grow, then the class will be cancelled. SO! Get thee to admissions, my loyal and future students! That is, if you live within driving distance of CPCC, located here in the heart of educational Charlotte, North Carolina. You can see a rundown of the various classes in the series here on the CPCC site, and this handy link will begin the odyssey of signing up, or maybe paying money, or even both.

The first class is 8 weeks long, will meet on some day of the week, presumably Saturday, and will be involved mainly with Scott McCloud’s book “Understanding Comics” as a foundational text. Over that I will include my own patented brand of stuttering, clumsy, but ultimately and sublimely efficacious comments and humorous anecdotes. La Profesora is ready to educate you!

Hey, do you guys know about my Etsy shop? Well sure you do! Now available at said Etsy shop, is this delicious American Apparel shirt, hand-screened by the enormously competent folks at Contagious Graphics, and featuring my face, my poor distressed face. I originally printed these for this year’s SPX, but still have some left. Think of it like a time capsule–why, just LOOK how much longer my hair and wild my beard are! Truly, I need you to love him, now more than ever!

Also at said Etsy shop are my 26 Cartoonists print, plus DHARBIN! 1-2, Nutted!, and other stuff. Later in the week I’m going to try and get up some originals, but we’ll see how that works out. Busy week this week, in the good way not the bad way. Okay go send me your money!

Why hello there! It’s me again, Dusty–how are you? Don’t be intimidated by my friend up there; he may come off all standoffish and strong-silent-type, but really he’s just an elephant. He can’t speak English. Also, he could squash you, like no problem. So– yeah.

Anyway, me and my elephant wanted to let you know that one of us–me–will be “deejaying” at Snug Harbor this Monday evening. By “deejaying,” I really mean I will be bringing my computer and playing songs from my iTunes. My Pie Factory brother Elroy is bartending, and he’s been having some of us regular civilian cats deejaying on Mondays just to break things up a little bit. I don’t know the first thing about “deejaying”, but I bet I’ll be not that bad at it. If you have the time to come out and say hey, I’ll be “deejaying” between 10 and 2 that night, and my watchword will be “conversation.” Meaning that unless everyone is dying to get up and shake their groove elephants, I’ll be playing nice music at a volume that will still allow you to flirt with whomever is sitting next to you.

On the other hand, if a bunch of hot ladies are in the room, I’ll play some rumpshaking hits and me and Elroy will be passing out strings of beads Girls-Gone-Wild style. Either way.

Besides his regular duties hanging out on the Serengeti and squooshing lions, my buddy the elephant is also a freelance illustration for a new marketing concern “starting up” around the Charlotte area. The name of the company is Dream Elephant, and it looks like at least some of their branding materials will feature different versions of my guy on them. Kudos for them for their incredible good taste, and for you when you display the same. My buddy the elephant is not the only one of us available for hire.

Hey guys I tricked some people into having me as a guest on their podcast! Oh these dummies will long rue the day; but for now, and until they wise up and take this thing off the internet, you may listen to it here:

http://theinkpanthers.mikedawsoncomics.com/episode-25-featuring-dustin-harbin/

TOPICS INCLUDE:
McDonald’s
Jams
Pink Floyd
Dune
Funny Accents
VCR’s
Mike Gets Embarassed And His Face Flushes
Not Funny Accents
More Accents Of Indeterminate Humorous Qualities
More Dune
Possibly Too Much Dune
My Dog Barks A Lot
Alex Is Not Actually A Clown
Oh I Forgot Did I Mention Sex?
Dune Reprise: The Movies
Mike’s Circle Of Friends = One Person
AND MANY MORE!

The Ink Panthers podcast is hosted by Box Office Poison creator Alex Robinson and Freddy & Me creator Mike Dawson. They are super funny guys and tough cartoonists, BUT EVEN BETTER, the podcast has very little to do with comics actually. Which let’s face it, are not nearly as interesting when you’re talking about them, as opposed to reading them. As this blog is ample evidence of. I got a little nervous and talked WAY too much, but fortunately Mike and Alex are super funny despite this. They’re champs! Anyway, go check it out!

ABOVE: a recent illustration I did as a commission for a wedding gift. I have never been married before, but I imagine that a good one would look something like this. I like it.

ALSO: on Thursday I will be a guest on the Inkstuds radio program, a comics radio show/podcast broadcasting from the labyrinthine studios of CITR in Vancouver, British Columbia. I’ll be joining The Beguiling and TCAF’s Christopher Butcher and host Robin McConnell to discuss, um.. Hold on let me read this email again. OH! Okay I figured it out. We’ll be discussing the retailing aspect of comics, how small pressers can work with comics stores, et cetera. And I bet we’ll talk about conventions, too, since Chris and I are both higher-ups at basically the two best comics conventions in the whole darned world.

I BELIEVE you can listen to a live stream on the CITR site, beginning at 8pm PST on Thursday October 15, but if I remember right that site is terrible for that stuff; I had to sign up for some annoying media player in order to live-listen to Kate Beaton’s show a couple of months ago. Someone sounding a lot like me called up to talk about health care in the middle, which was of course the highlight.

LET’S SEE WHAT ELSE? Oh yes I’m going to start my DUNE BOOK CLUB on Monday, but I think I’ll do a separate post for that. I’ve been drawing a ton, but that also should be another post. Oh, and I think I might start up my own Etsy store to sell originals and books, but guess what–I’ll post that shizz if I do. For now I have a bunch of books to mail out today, and then I need to start on my next strip!

BUT I’D HATE to leave you without something more worthwhile in this humble post, so PLEASE ACCEPT, as a token of my great personal affection for you, this video of the two most beautiful hands in all of music; both of which belong to Mr. Art Tatum: