Air Raid Robertson

Author notes

Rhapsody in Beige Page 6

Air Raid Robertson

on Aug. 5, 2011

This page is fairly compromised when it comes to my artistic intentions, but I'm still pretty happy with the way it turned out. Although I do love woodcuts, steel engravings, and the pen & ink art derived from these things, they are not without their setbacks. One obvious obstacle is that it becomes difficult to convey action or motion in an artistic style like the one I've been employing.

Franklin Booth, my personal favorite artist of the early 20th century pen & ink technique, is definitely not an "action" artist. Most of his celebrated pieces are of landscapes, buildings, and skylines. He drew portraits of people as well, but naturally they usually came off looking like portraits. His people usually sat in a pose and looked as refined as people posing for an artist usually look.

Of course, the folks who inhabit the world of Air Raid Robertson are a bit more mobile than that. So, I was forced to fall back on my old Silver Age Comics influences when it came time to do facial expressions and fight scenes. This type of animated interaction is not usually seen in this era of commercial drawings, but the point of comic book art is to serve the story that it's telling. So, with that in mind, I rejected faithfulness for function.