And Even More Comics

Jim Unger, creator of Herman, and Jerry Van Amerongen, creator of Ballard Street, are two of my favorite comic artists because of their deadpan humor.

Jim Unger often includes patterns in his work, applying them flatly without regard to traditional approaches to representing visual depth and volume. His iconic character types are exquisite.

Jerry Van Amerongen likes creating dramatic black and white contrasts in his compositional elements. He, too, draws great iconic character types. Here, with a few simple lines supported with bold black shadows, he achieves a striking, moody atmosphere.

This is a comic I've often reprinted on color mixing handouts for my screenprinting class.

Yes, haha. Artists need to consider the bottom line, too.

More Comics

Over the years, I've collected comics with an art theme and here are a few, for your amusement:

Thinking Outside the Box

Recently, I was given the opportunity to create cover art for an upcoming issue of Mathematics Magazine, which is published by the Mathematical Association of America. My brother, Walter Stromquist, is the current editor of the Magazine, which might explain why I got the project (pure nepotism).

My job was to create an illustration related to one of articles featured inside. Working from summaries Walt sent me, I had to come up with an idea and then bring it to life in visual form. All this meant working in a way I don't normally and with unfamiliar subject matter. Quite a challenge!

Here's my illustration that will appear on the April cover. It refers to an article discussing how to draw an hyperbola using a pencil, a straw, and a string. The pattern on the male's sweater refers to another article about spacing checkers on checkerboards. 

Because I'd never worked in a comics frame style, I needed to research that particular kind of drawing. I studied a variety of comic strips to see how heads attach to bodies, how people are portrayed in profile, how depth is shown in such a simplified format, how mouths look open and closed, and facial characteristics. I realized that the special challenge of the comics style is to reduce complex visuals to basic lines, patterns and compositions without losing information, clarity of message and expressiveness.

It was a really fun project and I learned a lot!