An Audience With Duncan Fegredo and Sean Phillips

On the 11th March 2021 our university held a talk with the comic book artists ​Duncan Fegredo and Sean Phillips.

Duncan Fegredo

• Best part of job - prefer the story telling side, drawing can sometimes be a grind, can be figuring out how to draw a scene/composition, draw stuff you want to draw so you will want to make it work/ compelling characters, can end up with stories that are not your own have to do stuff you might not want to.
• Favourite project - Hellboy read the comics, compared as second best within the ‘Geek’ industry/ use top 10s, doesn’t define your worth as artist, weird angles in comic cheat to extent, sitting down simple scenes easiest to draw.
• Worries working with known names - self doubt, get out of your own head space/ another view of yourself to see positives, social media nightmare/ brilliant at same time.
• Challenging aspects of work - turned down work didn’t feel like they could do it, saw the final product realised they maybe could have, elements of time an issue for accepting work, vague sketch can see finished piece in head/ close to finished piece only about 70% of what you pictured it to be. (Relate to this, I can picture exactly what I want to create and the reality is never fully what I wanted it to be)
• How to get into industries - has changed since Fegredo started, basics show what you can do/ variety in your work like composition/ storytelling, internet more useful in contacting companies/ easier to be seen online.
• Getting inspired - don’t be inspired from one source/ artist you will pick up their bad points, won’t be true to you, repeating what mistakes they have, do what is necessary for the job about the storytelling not style (think this applies to comics, but an aspect true for illustration), communicate and tell an engaging story.
• References ?? - mostly does it out of head, use mirror now and then, feels like he loses the life if using photographs, becomes too stiff, maybe has regretted it, need a balance between being made up, unreal/ using reference becomes lifeless.
• Storyboarding - Storyboarding rewarding in the end but learnt on the job/ winged it. You don’t have to be the best artist for it, googled to figure out what to do, need to know how to draw people/ 3D spaces/ lighting, Animation work on key frames, focus on two characters interacting no need for background information. Found out preferred working alone than in a studio.

Sean Phillips

• Best part of job - Getting paid for drawing, grew up reading comics wanted to do it as a job, own boss, at point in career can pick and choose jobs, a problem solving way of working.
• Favourite project - Drawing characters you read as a kid Spider-Man/Batman, ending up looking forward to next project while working on one.
• Worries working with known names - Have to think you can do it, not be down on yourself and worry about things, focus and just get on with the work, easier when he was younger, less comparisons (no internet maybe to do with it?)
• Challenging aspects of work - End up surprising yourself with what you can achieve with your work, better than what you thought
• How to get into industries - Before internet less competition, lucky to start out on comics aged 15 through people he met, had no artistic background with family to help. Put your work out there/ you can’t expect it to come to you if you have nothing, takes time to get better and get work, can’t be complacent have to put in the hours, start small/ have another job, have to love drawing, look at other stuff/ have a open, curious mind.
• Getting inspired - Big mistake to be hung up on style, don’t worry about it, the story is what is important to how to create the work. (I think it is just about being true to you or what certain colours/textures etc. you like using)
• References ?? - Uses references, photographs/ finds stuff to refer to, you need to know what something looks like to make the drawing work, end up falling back on bank of same poses/ compositions.

Take Away Points

I wasn’t sure what to get out of this talk but it was definitely interesting and I have learnt stuff from it. Comics have been something that I have never read but I think there are aspects of them that I can relate to. The general idea of compositions and storytelling within them are what I am inspired by from them, as well as the more illustrative comics that using interesting textures/ colours. My only interest with the superhero side of comics is probably watching the Batman animated series as a kid. I feel that comics have developed into the video game world where you can actually play out the action elements, like I remember playing the Halo, Fable, Elder Scrolls and Timesplitters franchises and you sort of take on the role of the characters by taking them through the story.