A process video with commentary of the Ghost Rider Sketch Friday that posted last week! Not much new information than what was in the post, but it’s always kind of fun to see drawings happen in real time.
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It’s been over a year since D. Bethel sat down with Taurus Comics’ Kyrun Silva to talk about reading, making, and selling comics. Since both hosts recently released new books, they spend some time to focus on what is probably (for some) the least fun part of the comics creation process: marketing.
RELEVANT INFORMATION:
- Find Kyrun’s work through Taurus Comics at:
- D. Bethel’s webcomic, Long John.
OTHER EPISODES:
- Con Artists #01 – StocktonCon, pt. 1 : The drive home from the first day of the show. Kyrun and D. discuss making sales, confidence, and the comics they grew up reading and enjoying.
- Con Artists #02 – StocktonCon, pt. 2 : The drive to StocktonCon to start Day 2 of the show. They discuss the importance of continuity, the level of fan engagement and ownership over continuity, and Dan’s strange reading habits growing up.
- Con Artists #03 – StocktonCon, pt. 3 : Where Kyrun and D. talk about the breadth of indie comics, writing comics, and dive headfirst into personal nostalgia.
- Con Artists #04 – StocktonCon Winter 2019: Where D. Bethel and Kyrun try out StocktonCon’s inaugural Winter show…with mixed results.
- Con Artists #05 – No Con 2020: Where Kyrun and D. Bethel address being an independent comic creator in a world without conventions.
- Con Artists #06 – Tickets & Tables: Where D. Bethel & Kyrun continue to ponder life without incomes and how the industry has tried to fill that void.
- Con Artists #07 – Return of the Con: Where D. Bethel & Kyrun hit the con circuit after over a year away from it.
Ghost Rider has always been an intriguing design despite never having really read any of his books. Until recently, the only Ghost Rider I had read was in the two issues of X-Men he guest-starred in (issues 8 & 9 of the then-new adjectiveless series). More recently, I read the opening arc of All-New Ghost Rider which brought in Robbie Reyes as the new Ghost Rider and found it fun (this version appeared on the ABC show, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and he was incredible).
While I was not inspired to pick up a Ghost Rider book during my prime comic book reading teenage years (and, in hindsight, the stories don’t seem particularly intriguing), his look has always been so damned cool.
What actually inspired me to sit down and draw this was an amazing and somber portrait of the character drawn by my friend and local comicking colleague, John Cottrell. So, with some time in the evenings after grading, I sat down with my iPad and sketched out an approach to the character I had in my head for awhile.
Seeing as how he’s a character whose head is on fire, and tends to do his crime-fighting in the evening, I like the high-contrast potential of the character’s design: a bright flaming head against a dark background (and dark clothing). So, with that in mind, I tried to think of the work of artists who play in that high contrast space regularly. Lately, I think of Chris Samnee, more than anybody, whose work is deceptively simple and always striking. While I didn’t directly reference any of Samnee’s work, his constant presence on my various social media timelines always keeps his work at the top of the mind.
That being said, I like how it turned out. I should probably read a proper Ghost Rider run at some point.