Flash: Time Flies page 31

It was the colorist (Chris Chuckry)'s idea to picture Steve Kriozere with blue outlines rather than black. Seth drew him the same as the other things in this picture. You can consider for yourself if it works better visually that way or not.

A couple of things jump out at me from this page. One is the structures, which I have talked about before. The physical setting is as much the star of this story as anything else, at least in Seth's rendering of it. The varied ornate awnings and solar panels that take up nearly the whole of the second frame all seem to be part of an overall plan for heating and cooling and maybe making the air usable, something an engineer could figure out if he could see the blueprints.

The other thing that interests me is-- though maybe a comic book art staple--something I don't have the guts to do in drawing. That is the realistic (but exaggerated-looking) perspective in the small square on the lower right, of Steve hurrying away, seen from below. It's an ant's-eye view, and if you were lying on the ground taking a photograph you would see it the same. Nevertheless, it's unnatural to draw it that way; Steve comes out looking a little like Gumby. The pointy sticks bouncing around between us and him make it clearer.

Flash: Time Flies page 22

What strikes me about this page is the structure of the building where all this action takes place. I am not sure that we are ever shown a long shot of this building, where we could see how all the parts fit together.

Though this image shows the entire city, it is not at all clear exactly in what part of the city the action takes place.

But in the first and third panels of the upper page--22--the front door(?) of the building, with its tiled overhang, is visible. Seeing it makes you feel that, whether we can see it or not, Seth knew exactly what the whole place looked like.

When they put together the settings for Myst 3: Exile, the designers needed precise specs for each of the "ages" where players go, so the journey from one place to another would make sense. Seth told me that some designers actually built models of their place, so they could picture how to get from one area to another. Seth liked to do that sort of thing in his mind. He may have made a map, but if he did I never saw it. I kind of doubt it. It pleased him to challenge his brain to visualize places in 3-D. When I was trying to play the game, and I was stuck on the first level (designed by Seth), he gave me a hint: "Make a map." I did, and that helped me more than anything to solve it.

In all his work Seth tried to make his scenes look as though they went beyond the edges of the picture frame, but his work on Myst 3 may have increased his prowess in picturing the entire stage set, whether the reader ever sees it or not.

Flash: Time flies page 20

I think this is quite an amusing page. First, in the top frame, the Flash encounters a tunnel that looks sort of like an Art Nouveau take on a phonograph megaphone.

(Probably no one younger than I am will know what I am talking about, but this is the image I am thinking about: Nipper the RCA mascot, listening to His Master's Voice.)

Anyway, inside the tunnel is that trail of machine parts, all suspended in mid-air because both he and Steve Kriozere, who left them there, are going so fast that the parts have not had time to begin to fall to the ground yet.


Then in the second frame, he enters into the tunnel gathering up all the parts at superspeed, worrying as he goes that he is walking into a trap. We see freeze-frames of him at several different nano-second intervals, with extra arms to show how fast his arms are flying in order to gather up all the parts while they are still at arm level.


In the lowest row of images, his face alternates with a holographic projection of the face of the person who is giving him information about what is happening.


This page is all about Time. Of course Time is the major mover and shaker in the story, but this page in particular shows its variety: speeded up in the higher panels where many things happen in the space of less than a second, more or less regular in the third panel, and slowed way down at the bottom, where we are shown several views of a conversation that has no real relevance to the story. Comic relief adds a slower pace for just a bit.

Flash: Time Flies page 19

On this page, the monstrous Anton Musenda (monstrous in both heart and body) explains the physics behind the story, why he is a giant spider, why Steve Kriozere can't stop running, and what he wants Steve to believe about his motivations.

A couple of things are notable about this page. In the first panel, Anton holds up with his spider's foot a limp warty and somewhat misshapen body with a kind of screw in the neck for his head to fit on. This is the best body that this scientifically advanced society could create for him, though it would seem to me to be preferable to the giant spider's body that he presently inhabits. Seth pictured the man's soul as so warped that he would rather live as a repulsive, but powerful, giant spider than as a human being with an imperfect body.

The second notable thing about this page is the very elegant structure in the cener panel, which reminds me a lot of the lower level of the tusk house in the J'Nanin level of Myst 3 Exile, which Seth designed a few years earlier.

See if you don't agree.

inspiration from Seth: Happydale page 46

After Happydale was published, DC Comics sent Seth back his original drawings. He was so excited to have his own first comic book out in print. He was living here in San Diego at the time, and asked me if there was a page from Happydale that I would like. I went all through the pages, searching for an interesting one with a sort of human scale, that I could relate to. I am not sure really, why I chose this one. I guess I liked the guys hanging out at the local diner, doing regular things in their loopy Happydalian sort of way.

This picture hangs above my drawing table, where I look at it every day as I sit down to draw. It inspires me in many ways. First there is the fact that each of the characters is entirely recognizable, not only from his oddnesses, but from his facial features. I'd know Stretch's face even if he didn't have all the loose skin hanging from it, and Dino's even without the costume.
Next there is the fully realized setting. The decorative brickwork and the things on the shelf are only seen in a few panels, and have nothing to do with the story, but they are part of the whole ambience, and so Seth drew them in. It is as though this was a real place that Seth had been to, even if only in his imagination, and he could see in his mind's eye all the little bits that decorate the walls and shelves.
The other thing that inspires me is the realness of the facial and body language of the participants. The busboy clears the next table and someone lugs a box outside while our guys are bickering at their table and Dino is returning from the men's room. Sherman the waiter comes by with his tray and a half smile while Stretch works on his drink and Dino on his joint.
Seth doesn't point in an exaggerated way at any of these elements; they are just everyday parts of the page. The care and precision that has gone into all of it shows me just how very much I still have to learn. But the fact that Seth did learn it means that it can be done.
I am inspired daily.

Flash: Time Flies page 18

Steve Kriozere meets Anton Musenda, who presents himself as another guy struggling with body issues, but who in reality has parasitical ulterior motives. His guise as a huge spider reveals his heart to the reader.

The claustrophobic setting is part of what makes this comic book less appealing to me than others of Seth's work, but it makes the reader feel--not just know intellectually--the tension in the story.

This page, like the last two we have looked at, is made up of four horizontal panels. Two of the panels show the same setting from the same point of view. Seth has used this device in a few places, to make the background still, in order to better show the movement of the characters through time. Since Time is a major player in this story, I am sure it seemed relevant to Seth to use as many ways as possible to show the movement of time: slowly, quickly, and inbetween.

Showing the movement of time was one of the first things Seth was interested in, in drawing comic books. Somehow making the reader experience time, rather than telling them about it, is one of the things that a comic book can do that a word book--even an illustrated one--cannot. This page from 1993 or -4 shows a very early example of this interest of his.

Seth was always interested in illustrating the mathematical factors of the world: how things work in extremes of time and space, obscure mathematical principles, what might happen at the far edge of the universe. A reader who shares his interest may pick up the math angle, but probably most will not.

Flash: Time Flies page 17

In this page, the Flash is searching for Steve Kriozere, the test pilot whose last flight gave him the ability--or the curse--of being able to go at superspeed and never slow down. What the Flash has found are some machines all taken apart and their pieces still hanging in the air.

Seth has drawn the intricate pieces of some unknown--but at least to me completely believable--machines floating in an orderly way in the air before he reassembles them again. (He is not only superfast, he also has a supermemory. At our house, when we take apart machines, most often we have a piece or two left over.)

This page, like the last one I showed, is made up of four even panels, the last one slightly larger than the others. The artist's job here is to slow down time, so that the readers can see action that we are told happens in the blink of an eye. To that end, we see the Flash the same size and in the same position in all three pictures, sort of like a flip book, or the cels from an animated story. The top two panels each show several of those cels one on top of the other. In the third one he has finished his activity.

Then at the bottom, when we step back from his action, we see to our amusement, that the machine he was fiddling with was part of some sort of hospital device, which is in use all the while.