Illuminating Illustrators: J.H. Williams III

This week Illuminating Illustrators takes a look at an artist who has gained a lot of recognition by the comic book industry, but his use of colors, line, and space are so unique and inventive it is a shame that the recognition has not extended out into public appreciation. J.H. Williams III has been an illustrator for over fifteen years in the comics industry and has already worked with as the main artist for some of the top creators in their field; including Warren Ellis, Howard Chaykin, Grant Morrison, Chuck Dixon, Greg Rucka, and Alan Moore. Not just a spectacular penciller, Williams ofter does his own inks, paints, and occasionally lettering as well, blending all of the mediums in such a visually appealing way that also tells the story in the most effective manner.

The majority of Williams' career has been working for DC comic, his beginning work as a comic book artist was the 1995 miniseries "Deathwish" and the short lived series "Chase." Recognised more for his developing art art than for the stories, Williams worked on small but unique projects like Howard Chaykin's "Son of Superman" miniseries until his biggest opportunity arrive from one of the most renowned comic book writers of modern history: Alan Moore.


Creator of successful and intellectually stimulating stories such as "V for Vendetta" and "Watchmen", Moore approached J. H. Williams III to be the illustrator for his upcoming comic series in 1999: "Promethea", Alan Moore's 32 issue religious superhero saga in which he used mysticism and deep psychological storytelling to state his opinions on the concepts of religion and the unknown element of life in the adventures of a archaic superherione (a Wonder Woman with more emphasis on the mythology and feminism rather than the issue of sex, if you will.)


Alan's complex storylines and worded imagery were matched above and beyond with Williams choices of inks, digital and watercolors, and mixing mediums for the entire 32 issue run as he served as both interior artist and cover designer from 1999 to 2005. Williams was able to develop and hone his artistic style thanks to the demanding but satisfying writing of Moore.

After "Promethea", Williams collaborated with equally cerebral writer Warren Ellis on surreal science fiction spy series "Desolation Jones"; using his ability to adapt his art stlyle to the requirements of his writer once again. Williams would first get to experience mainstream comic work when he began to work with psychedelic writer Grant Morrison. Infamous for for his graphic and mindbending storytelling on his mental "Arham Asylum" and "The Invisibles" comic series, Morrison asked for Williams to work on the three issues on his second story arch of his current Batman series in 2007.


Using dark tones and sharply designed panels, Williams work brought a new class of visual storytelling to a popular series. Despite the current absence of Batman in the series, Williams continues to work on the current Detective Comic series, which stars the new Batwoman, since 2009 with writer Greg Rucka, this time experimenting with watercolor and harsh digital colors to contrast the lifestyle of the superherione from her regular identidy.

William work continues to impress with his ability to use painted an digital media in such and effectively merged manner, and will hopefully continue to do so in the future. His website can be located here and his flickr account here for more images and contents on his work process.

Seventh Lecture: Digitized Designs

On this following Wednesday it came the time for us to turn in our logo designs on our illustration board.I had two designs prepared; a fruit basket/sailboat and a coffee cup hand with stream for fingers. As I tried to touch up the coffee hand an accidentally split ink over the project and I had to scrap the look. I used a more organic look with the basket when I was experimenting with the ink, and the cup hand was a bit more straight. We compared our logos in class and Babcock appeared satisfied.

With the observations finished we proceeded to follow him into the computer room to learn about scanning and Adobe Illustrator. He used a kind of online chatroom/instruction tablet that let him show us how to scan images onto the computer and how to take the images and give them a cleaner, more professional look using applications on Illustrator such as pens, transparencies, arrows, lines, and magnifying images to get even the smallest details right.

Due to some malfunctions with the scanner, we had to postpone our own work with our logos on the computer until next time. Hopefully, We'll also be able to upload our designs from our storytelling logo project, which I hope to show on our next text. Should prove interesting!

Illuminating Illustrators: Paul Pope

Round two of Illuminating Illustrators brings to the ring a newer artist that has been garnering a bit more attention for his loose but brilliant visuals that he uses for comic books as well as his own clothing line.



Paul Pope has worked for as a freelance artist for both Marvel and DC comics; but made his start as an artist in Japan telling a story of a girl and her robotic guardian in space, called THB, an ongoing series from 1995. Paul eventually worked on DC's mature comic line Vertigo to make two cyberpunk stories, "100%' and "Heavy Liquid",in 1999 and 2003 respectively. Both stories attacked mainstream attention for their youthful pacing and retro futuristic designs reminiscent of "Blade Runner"'s ghetto future cityscape and the tales of the people/technology occupying it.



Pope's style can only be described as kinetic; a pageful of ink strokes that give and energy to his characters in just one panel that some artists cannot pull off in their entire careers. His costume designs are very innovative and are recognized for bringing a more realistic aspect to characters that often would seem ridiculous in real life (Batman, Robin, etc.), particularly when Pope returned to his retro future world with "Batman: Year 100" in 2007.
Set as a detective mystery, the design of his Batman has the look of an intense luchador, turning what is commonly mocked as spandex into a Kevlar/leather mix. One of the more stand out designs in the story is actually the motor-cycle ridden Batman, a intimidating look that would heavily inspire the bat-pod for the blockbuster hit "The Dark Knight."




His story telling is much like his art; fast paced and eclectic, and has won him some of the top award in the comics industry, such as the Eisner Award for his work on "Batman: Year 100", a very prestigious illustration award.



Currently, Paul Pope has finished clothing designs for Italian clothing company Diesel and DKNY, and has moved on to a new comic format idea called Wednesday Comics, where individual stories about certain DC characters are printed each week, with one artist contributing one part of their character's story on one page in a twelve week process. Pope is working on the character Adam Strange. His larger project is a giant graphic novel epic called "Battling Boy" which will be released sometime in in 2010.
Paul Pope's blog is called PULPHOPE his art can be located at under his alias ernest borg9 at flickr.com.

Fifth and Sixth Lectures: Simplifying Symbols and Stylizing Signs

After a leave of absence on Monday to extraordinary circumstances due to illness and medical difficulties, I returned on Wednesday to class to find that not much had progressed from the last class. We still were looking at ways to simplify and improve our logos. The majority of ideas mixed some kind of fruit or food with a human or mechanical device; such as a fruit basket sailboat or a hand in the shape of a coffee cup; a island the shape of a fish and a woman as shapely as a wave.

The idea was to find images that could relate to each other with a small logical connection, no matte how obscure. The thought behind the basket boat came from an old cartoon image of a tug boat, but made me think of all the foreign exchange with South America and the Caribbeans that takes place. I had a woman in the shape of a wave because of the natural curves of a woman but also the idea that several women use swimming as a good form of exercise. Some were just silly concepts; like the zombie pizza, with the droopy pepperoni eyes and melted dead cheese face.

Some ideas Professor Babcock liked; other he didn't believe convey their information well. The one I was having the most difficulty with was the idea of a nuclear bowling alley where the bowling ball had a bio hazard sign on it and would explode against the pins. The ball looked to much like a beach ball, and Professor Babcock concurred with the thought.

Logo designs balance a line between having to portray complex ideas using regular symbols in weird combinations and making sure the images are appealing to the audience/consumers. The professor expects to have a logo made next class on a illustration board, but our next class won't be till a full week later due to First Friday and Labor Day on Monday. I'm excited to try out multiple techniques with my brush, pen and ink.