oscar celestini

Josh Dysart picks his 3 favorite pages from UNKNOWN SOLDIER Vol. 2

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 9:15am | DCE Editorial

THREE OF MY FAVORITE PAGES FROM THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER Vol. 2: EASY KILL (on sale March 17 in comic stores and everywhere books are sold March 23) by writer Josh Dysart

The title of this post isn't totally accurate. It was impossible for me to pick three pages that were my absolute favorites. Both Alberto Ponticelli and Pat Masioni produced so many wonderfully vibrant and dramatic images that it took me all day just to decide on the three I have here. In doing so I turned my back on some truly magical moments in this book. But here's my best shot at it anyway. I can only hope you see them for what they are. Three little pills... gateway drugs to a book that's out there on the shelves now, a book filled with 191 pages of beautiful comic book goodness.

Issue 7, Page 3/Volume 2 Page 9
I know this isn't the most visually stylish page you'll find in our trade, but I love it a lot. Why? Because I miss east Africa. I miss it with all my heart. And once and a while Alberto and I find some space in our racing narrative to take a deep breath and show it. Really show the truth of everyday life there. Here Alberto accurately paints a a picture of modern, urban Africa. The kind of image we rarely get to see in our media. A bustling town on a Friday night. Kids having a glorious time in a raging Kampala discotheque. The text on top explores the differences between the rural ethnic groups and the urban ones, and then that last panel brings it all home. This is not only one of my favorite pages, but Issue seven, titled BETWEEN HERE AND THERE, is one of my favorite single issue comic books I've ever written. This page is wonderfully colored by Oscar Celestini.

Issue 9, Page 17/Volume 2 Page 67
Here it is. This is a muted pallet "dream" panel, as Moses weighs the wight of killing a celebrity to bring attention to the war in Northern Uganda. This page sums up the idea of the entire story arc, but it was a last minute addition and the product of intense and pure collaboration. Pornsak Pichetshote, my fearless and amazing editor, kept saying we needed to sell the idea of the arc more. We weren't quite communicating how Moses could take this idea of killing a celebrity seriously enough. I think we were maybe about three drafts into the script for Issue 9 before we came up with this page. Often it's the simplest answers that elude you the most. Would you, Moses, rather kill an endless sea of children? Or one rich woman. What is a life worth, and who are these celebrities we value so much more than the nameless, faceless victims of tragedy around the world? Again, beautifully colored by Oscar Celestini.

Issue 13, Page 16/Volume 2 Page 160
Pat Masioni (the first African Cartoonist published by a North American Comic book company) did the art chores on the last two issues in the trade and brought something to this book that Alberto or I never could. A distinctive cultural style. When you couple that with Jose Villarrubia's magic colors, which seem to convey the light of equatorial Africa more truly than any attempt at realism ever could, and the reoccurring theme in our book of children using art therapy to overcome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you get the start of one of my favorite sequences in the whole book. The story of Paul's abduction by the LRA and subsequent march to the Sudan training camps. This sequence is the closest to reporting the absolute realities of the conflict, free of any artifice, that this series has ever gotten.

The art in this book is wonderful. It's all so visceral and genuine and stylish. I can honestly say that the second Unknown Soldier trade is the work I'm most proud of to date. It's meaty and rich and sprawling and novelistic and I can't help but feel that Alberto and Pat and Oscar and Jose and I have managed to really do something amazing. I hope you give it a shot.

Thanks for reading.

Tags:

alberto ponticelli, jose villarrubia, josh dysart, oscar celestini, pat masioni, unknown soldier

From the Editor's Desk: Pornsak Pichetshote talks Alberto Ponticelli art

Wed, 01/27/2010 - 8:00am | DCE Editorial

Comic book editors come from all kinds of interesting origins. Some are writers, some are artists, others use incriminating photos. Me, before getting into comics, I had a writing and film background, so maybe that’s why I’m so fascinated by the ins and outs of comic book artists and the voodoo that they do.

Take what Alberto Ponticelli does on UNKNOWN SOLDIER, for example. First of all, in a time when it’s getting harder and harder to find an artist to do just a single storyline uninterrupted, he did a full year of art on that book before needing a break. This page from UNKNOWN SOLDIER # 12 is one of my favorites:

I love this, by the way -- watching art go from its initial chicken scratching layout phase to the final finished colors, while noticing the details that change along the way.

But starting with last month’s issue of UNKNOWN SOLDIER, Alberto decided to completely blow everything out of the water, and it’s so cool to have a behind-the-scenes perspective on, I thought I’d share it. Whereas usually, Alberto goes through the usual process of drawing the pages in pencil before inking them, (leaving the coloring and modeling to colorist Oscar Celestini), check out what he’s doing now:

The colors are still Oscar, but the modeling and tonal work are all Alberto, and it’s amazing how much atmosphere it’s added to the pages – completely appropriate considering that in the current arc, Dry Season, Joshua Dysart is writing a film noir story that takes place inside an IDP camp. But the most amazing thing of all? Alberto’s doing all the art in the exact same amount of time as before.

Where does he gain the time? Well, for one, there’s no ink on these pages anymore. Alberto manipulates the contrast of the pencils in Photoshop, and whereas in most digital inking jobs, this causes the line to be fuzzy, the “dirt” works out perfectly for the dusty atmosphere of an IDP camp. From there, he adds layers of watercolor textures and applies them for shape and tone.

UNKNOWN SOLDIER has received critical acclaim from some of the top outlets covering comics right now, from legit news places like The New York Times to TV shows like Attack of the Show to websites like IGN, but every time I look at the work Alberto puts in, I wonder if people realize the work he’s putting in to give this stuff atmosphere but still be accurate to DVDs full of reference Josh has on Uganda. It’s kind of the challenge every contemporary comics artist faces when they work on ambitious material. Because inevitably the story ends up outweighing the artwork, which is as it should be, and I know Alberto wouldn’t have it any other way, but it got me thinking.

Where are the best places to find discussions about comics art, especially in books where the artist didn’t write the material themselves? For that matter, who do people see as the Pauline Kael of comics criticism? The Roger Ebert? I’d be genuinely curious to hear what people have to say.

Tags:

alberto ponticelli, josh dysart, oscar celestini, pornsak pichetshote, unknown soldier