Anthony Summey's Artist Statement

What is my work about? Seems like a simple enough question, but it is hard and somewhat limiting for me to define myself and my work. I know what I want my work to be, but often times finding it lacking. I know the artist who I would like to be like, but when comparing my work to theirs I tend to see my shortcomings in the light of their brilliance. Upon countless heart wrenching hours of self analysis I know what my strengths are and where my weaknesses lie.





I want my work to be part of the illustrative tradition in sequential art ( I'll explain the the two categories, the cartooning and the illustrative tradition, as I see them in a future post). I would like my work to be more realistic than abstract in terms of how I represent my characters and the world they live in. Simply put I would like my work to look more like Prince Valiant than Peanuts or Garfield. The preference is not merely aesthetic, but I believe that this more illustrative style lends itself better to the stories I wish to tell. That is not to say that an artist like Bruce Timm could not tell the same story in his style, and it be a good story. The difference in art styles would effect how the story is perceived by the reader and make it a different type of story. I want to tell adventure stories interwoven with elements from the horror and fantasy genres (i.e. zombies, vampires, mythical beast, monsters, etc.). I feel that the more illustrative tradition in comics offers a better platform for me to build these stories.





I would like my work to be like Mark Schultz, Al Williamson, and Alex Raymond. I find a grace and confidence in their work that I'd love to see in my own. I instead find a rough dark quality to my work which I am sure can be attributed to my study of horror comics. I see elements of Bernie Wrightson, Gene Colan, Graham Ingels and Tom Mandrake competing with the Schultz, Williamson, and Raymond aspirations. I have even had someone at a portfolio review compare my work to Wally Wood (which is one of the highest praises I have ever received). I find when I am able to reconcile these two aspects that my work becomes something of its own. It is no longer trying to be like someone else's work, but becomes its own unique thing.





I find that my strengths as a storyteller are in blending the genres of fantasy adventure and horror. My work is at its best when there are dominate shadows and my lines have enough character and weight to them. I find my work does not hold together as well with thin dainty lines with little contrast in them. I believe my work is more effective when I keep a high level of contrast between the black and white areas. It becomes weaker when I try and to do too much hatching to denote values. My feathering and brush stokes create a dark dreamy world where it is possible for pirates and musketeers to meet dinosaurs and zombies.





My work is about merging fantasy adventures with horror. I achieve this by combining the illustrative influences of Schultz, Williamson, and Raymond with the masters of the macabre (Wrightson, Colan, Ingels, and Mandrake) that have shaped my way of rendering shadow and light. My goal is to have my work be an effective partner to the stories they depict, and hopefully to be enjoyed by others.





-Anthony Summey

What is "Oldschool Adventure"?

Artist are often asked to write an "Artist Statement" to define their work and the recurring themes that permeate them. I know I was asked to go thorough this process more than once during my course of study at SCAD. On some level it is a process of critical self analysis. You tear apart your work and evaluate what it is about your work that makes it unique. You critique what you were trying to do and where you were successful and how you failed to achieve these goals. You find out what your natural tendencies are in terms of rendering technique and subject matter. But probably more insightful, you start looking at the things you avoid drawing and why.

So how do I define myself and my work? I defined my work simply has "Oldschool Adventure". A phrase I coined while I was working on my thesis project (part of which has evolved into The Pirate Musketeers ) in graduate school. "What is 'Oldschool Adventure?'" you ask. Quite simply it is a style of art that follows closely to the illustrative traditions set not in the comic books, but in the adventure strips that appeared in the newspapers from the 1930's to 1950's. It is work that is directly inspired by Hal Foster, Milton Caniff, and Alex Raymond. Though I have coined this phrase to help define my own work at present I believe current artist like Mark Schultz, Steve Epting, and Jay Potts epitomize the spirit of these strips more than myself. I plan to do a series of post to further define "Oldschool Adventure" as a style of sequential art, and how it applies to my own work. I also plan to explore in more depth the fore fathers of this illustrative tradition in sequential art. I'll try and touch on why artist choose to follow in this tradition, and even include a few in my "What I've learned from..." post. Until then, I leave you with a panel of mine that I believe was one of the first to really define my rendering style and begin to create a look solely my own.

- Anthony Summey