Where They Draw

Box Brown

This a wide view of my computer and working area. I slide my chair between drawing and computer area.

This is boxing and shipping area of Retrofit Comics

This is my inspiration wall. It’s filled with prints and various pieces of mail I’ve gotten from cartoonists. Also, that’s a Chris Ware print from ACME 18.5 (signed)

Retrofit warehousing, A book of Mormon, a Peter Bagge book, X-Force #1

My inking supplies: a g-pen (nib holder given to me by Tom Hart), #8 Micron, #1 and #2 Micron Graphic pen, two Pentel Pocket Brush Pens (one is just for fills).  I use colored tape to indicate which of these pens are the newest ones. 

Drawing table close up.  Pages from the current story I am working on go on the cork board.  That weirdly colored bag in the foreground is what I use to clean the ink off of nibs.  There are some pictures of me and my wife on the corkboard too and a patch from Quimbys. 

Three rulers: 1 for straightedges, 1 to measure stuff and one little guy. 

Michael WM Kaluta

Illustrator Michael Kaluta’s Manhattan studio in 1992. Taken for the Tundra Sketchbook series (eventually published by Kitchen Sink Press in 1993)

Photos Courtesy and Copyright of Marc Arsenault

Eamon Espey

This is the room where I draw. It’s a small room, but it serves its
purpose and I feel comfortable inside. The shades are kept drawn
tight. No one needs to know what’s going on in here.

Here’s my computer, busted desk and a ripped chair. To the left are
insect charts from 1938 and a photograph of an atomic bomb test on the
Bikini Islands.

After dipping the Hunt 107 nib in the ink jar, I tap it on a piece of
cardboard taped to the desk. The drips next to it build up over time.
After awhile it becomes a miniature landscape.

Rufus the cat hangs out the radiator on top of a fish rug my
grandmother made. She left behind many woven treasures. Although I’ve
only read the first 10 pages of the Savage Sword of Conan Volume 1, I
felt compelled to buy the first four volumes when Atomic Books put
them on sale.

I don’t know who this 3-eyed cat is, but I have a special fondness for him, especially in the ribcage of a skeleton.

The box of drawings got full. Then the binders got full. Now I just
stack them on top of one another. The afghan came from 70’s and
belonged to my hippie parents. I like looking at the map of the world.
It reminds me of the all the places and all the people.

Life Science and Nature Library: I got most of these in a free
bookstore in Baltimore called the Book Thing. Usually there are scraps
of tracing paper on the floor. I rip a piece off a giant scroll and
then work out the drawings. Then I transfer them onto Bristol with a
light box making adjustments as needed.

Action photo from last year.

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Tom Neely

I love my studio. I’m really lucky. It’s a converted garage in my backyard. My back yard is my favorite place in all of LA. That’s the light of God shining down his blessings on all that I create. That’s my clown, Ralphie. Stay away from him.  He’s full of spiders.

Entrance (you hear the sound of a loud gong!) That red chair is where I like to read and sketch in the morning.

My drawing desk. Where all the magic happens.

The wall of progress… it’s been moving pretty fast lately.

Those are some Edgar Allan Poe illustrations on the wall. All those boxes are full of Wolves. They need homes. Adopt one.

Where I dabble with music. In the windowsill are all the empty bottles that used to hold the ink that became my first book The Blot. Also, my brother gives me a fake trophy every year for my birthday. It’s an inside joke full of pain and misery. Don’t ask me about it.

A few years ago I had this big solo art show and I thought I had a shot at getting some good write-ups and some big gallery interest… So, I made a life-size sculpture of one of my characters - that skinny naked dude on the left. Obviously, it did not become a part of the MOCA’s collection.

That’s a Jim Rugg print hanging on the bathroom door!

Those eyes are always watching. Beware.

I’m from Texas. I like the devil. NOW LEAVE!!!

BEWARE THE EYES!

Jim Woodring

(Wide view)
My drawing studio is on the 3rd floor of our classic money pit of an old house in Seattle’s University district. I resisted the temptation to gussy the place up and put in attractive accoutrements …. this is it in its ragged glory. That white light out the windows is a wall of backlit fog. The cliche is that the Pacific Northwest is a good place for cartoonists because the weather encourages indoor activity.

(Close on board)
The drawing board is a slab of birch plywood on an old hand-hewn pub table. The tilt and position are adjustable by virtue of a block of wood supporting the high end. After years of not quite having a drawing surface that suited me I hit upon this approach and it’s perfect.

(Bookcase and giant pen)
The bookcase holds pocket-sized Moleskine sketchbooks, filled at the rate of at least one per month since 2004. These are my idea batteries. When I need a character or a gag or a springboard I browse through these. The big pen is fully functional and was made by Seattle craftsmen to my specifications with funds provided by an arts organization. God bless America.

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Roman Muradov

Here’s my pathetic drawing space. Rotting ikea table, half-dead macbook that I chiefly use for coloring & tweeting about how much I hate my life, some lamp, standard wacom, rulers, lettering guido, Yasutomo ink, white-out that I’ve used once in my entire life for a Jerry Moriarty tribute strip (I fix lettering mistakes & stuff like that in Photoshop), a sad bear cup, pens & brushes that I never use (see next slide). I have a ton of New Yorker illustrations & covers on the walls, mostly Seth, Chris Ware & Dan Clowes. I rip them off a lot.

I draw almost all my stuff original size except for Psychic Detective strips, those were split in half and drawn on two 9x12 sheets, mainly because my desk & scanner are too small to handle big originals. I have a bunch of brushes & pens but 99% of the time I use the same old Winsor & Newton S7 brush (size 2). I actually almost like it more now that it’s all messed up, I somehow like little mistakes and flaws that trashed brushes make. I also draw fast & often violently, so it’s all good. For pen drawings I use the tiniest Japanese nibs (Deleter), they’re not flexible at all & lettering with them is a world of pain, but again, I sort of like the ugly scratchy marks they make when they run out of ink. If I’m doing a traditional drawing, I want it to look as flawed and ugly (within reason) as possible.

Thanks for attention! Hope it wasn’t too boring. You can look at my drawings & funnies here.

Samantha Kallis

1.     Laptop computer (Macbook Pro 17”).

2.     Electric drafting table (doubles as a second computer desk when I’m not drawing or painting something traditionally).

3.     Printer (Epson R2400).

4.     Scanner (Microtek ScanMaker i900).

5.     Wacom Cintiq tablet (12WX).

6.     Computer desk.

7.     Inspiration corkboard / where business cards and bills go to die.

8.     Supply cubbies.

9.     Alternative view of the electric drafting table (upright instead of as a “desk”), complete with top-secret-work-stuff blurred out so I don’t get sued. In this shot you can also see more of the printer by the lower left corner of the drafting table.

www.samkallis.com

www.samsketch.tumblr.com

Will Dinski

A few weeks ago, I was walking up to my third floor apartment when I noticed a printer in the hallway outside my door. I was angry at it. Who just leaves their shit in the hallway like that? And why does it look remarkably like my printer? It was. The Canon i9900 was the one piece of electronics from my work space that wasn’t stolen from my apartment. It was just dropped in the hallway.

This is my work desk. I get a lot of sunlight from the open windows and enjoy watching the people walk and drive down Lyndale Avenue. It’s snowing in Minneapolis right now so it’s particularly beautiful. On this table, I used to have an Apple 32” Cinema Display, external keyboard and Wacom Tablet.

These are the pens I draw with. They were not burgled. And I mean, “burgled” not “robbed” because I read somewhere that people are “robbed” and places are “burgled.” I’m learning all kinds of things lately.

I have two boxes that I keep small paper/ephemera that I find inspiring. These boxes represent years of memories. They were rummaged through, but nothing of value was found.

This was were I kept my Macbook Pro. It rested on a green pillowcase to keep it from overheating.

I had to borrow a camera to take this photo of where my Canon Rebel XT digital camera used to rest. On the camera was (is?) a EF50mm f/1.8 lens with a white-balance cap.

When I finish a page of a story that I’m working on, I like to clip it them to this wall for a while. It’s a trick I picked up years ago from the backcover photo of an old issue of Cerebus. Apparently, Dave Sim did it all the time. There are three different books represented on this wall right now.

And here, also on the wall, is my Renter’s Insurance Policy. If all goes as planned, everything taken will soon be replace. It’s a good rule that, if you’re a poor artist, who invests all their expendable income towards tools and supplies that will assist in making art, it’s just common sense to insure that investment.

Oh boy, I’m glad that I did.

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John Martz

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