Mr. Suttichart Sarapaiwanich
Abstract :
The processes of art are different depending on each artist. Even a year, a month, a day, an hour, or just a few minutes, the processes between the starting to the finishing point always cause some painful physical or mental health. This project focused on the processes of the creation of the comic “JOE the SEA-CRET Agent” through many comic tools especially “G-PEN” the nib pen that mostly comic artists used with black ink to create the line art. Compared to digital comic art nowadays, the fingers and hands hurt when we use the G-pen for a long time. This painful process also hurts the other parts like the back, the neck, etc. that possibly develop into office syndrome. However many comic artists can’t skip this pain because comic art needs a number of pages to tell the story and when the processes are finished and published, the fulfilled success emotion will replace the pain and this loop will begin again.
This project was inspired by the relation between the pain and the delight of the comic creation. The artworks of this project were created by combining the main character of the comic “JOE” with the G-pens as a weapon that stabs into his chest at the ink ocean to metaphor the mixed emotion of the comic artist between their creation time. This project also used the G-pen nibs combined with the old or broken stationaries modified to be the hurtful “mock G pens” inspired by the sadist-masochist situation. The last art piece of this project is the exaggerated size of the G-pen with the custom nib of JOE the comic main character. This set of artworks titled “The G-PAIN” uses puns on the words “pen” and “pain”.
The G-Pain was exhibited in “Festal Life Art Exhibition Space” Phase 2 at Future Park & Zpell department store, 6 July – 4 October 2023.
Keywords: comic, G-pen, painful, mixed media, painting
Objectives :
- To observe the emotion between the comic art processes.
- To create the artworks inspired by the relation between the pain and the delight of the comic creation.
- To experiment with the mixed media technique by the comic tool and the useless stationaries.
Conceptual Framework :
This project was inspired by the relation between the pain and the delight of the comic creation through many comic tools especially “G-PEN” the nib pen that mostly comic artists used with black ink to create the line art. This set of artworks titled “The G-PAIN” uses puns on the words “pen” and “pain”. Compared to digital comic art nowadays, the fingers and hands hurt when we use the G-pen for a long time. This painful process also hurts the other parts like the back, the neck, etc. that possibly develop into office syndrome. However many comic artists can’t skip this pain because comic art needs a number of pages to tell the story and when the processes are finished and published, the fulfilled success emotion will replace the pain and this loop will begin again.
Process / Methodology :
This project selected the popular dip pen used by many comic artists “G-pen” as the symbolic of the painful comic creation process. G-pen are often used for the main lines of characters and contour lines, the hardness and feel varies by manufacturer. (too corporation,n.d.)
The first artwork is a set of three paintings combining the illustration of G-Pen as a weapon stabbed from the back through the chest of the main character “JOE” from the comic JOE the SEA-CRET Agent” to be the symbolic of the pain from the traditional comic processes. The three artworks are composed in three different distance shots from the middle shot, long shot, and extremely long shot to present the pain of many same characters like the real process in comics when the artist must draw many characters on each page.
This project also experimented with mixed media by the physically painful object by using the nib of the dib pen combined with the broken or useless stationaries from the comic creation processes. Some of the new mock G-pens attached pins to represent the finger pain when using a G-pen and also use the concept of sadist-masochist or sadomasochism, the situation about a controlled exercise of physical pain that turned into the emotional and spiritual (Andyburu, 2023) compared to the relation between the pain and the delight of the comic creation.
The last artwork is the big-size G-pen with the JOE character head as a nib to emphasize the concept between comic tools and characters.
Techniques and Materials :
The techniques of the three paintings are only traditionally crafted line art on paper by G-pen, brush, and ink. The color scheme selected three colors: black, red, and blue to present limited color for budget printing in the traditional weekly comic book magazines in Japan like Shonen Jump, Shonen Sunday, etc. that the manga reader is familiar from some color chapters of the manga “Dragonball” that were partially drawn in color (typically only a limited color palette of red and grey), then switches to a simple black and white. (kanzenshuu.com,2020)
These mock G-pens use the nib of a dib pen combined with the broken or useless stationaries from the comic creation processes.
The big-size nib holder was modified from the baseball bat by cutting the end of a bat and scrubbing all painting to show the wood texture like the real dip pen holder. The character head is sculpted by epoxy AB or AB glue which is a common material for fixing and easy to find in any hardware shop in Thailand and also used as a sculpture material for art toys. Epoxy AB is the two kinds of separated liquids for mixing that can sculpt in a limited time of around 20-30 minutes before it is hardened and ready for scrub and coloration. (ynbond,n.d.)
Result / Conclusion :
The result of the observation of the emotion between the comic art processes has shown the relation of pain and delight state that the artist must try to control their physical and mental health to create the best works in the end. For the experimental mock G-pens try to explore the value of tradition and digital comic tools and invite the audience to observe and value their work processes.
After three months of being exhibited in the “Festal Life Art Exhibition Space” exhibition, The audience mostly engaged with the mock G-pen because some represent the pain directly through its visuals and they are different from the art of common comic that is printed in two dimensions. So this experiment can be developed into the next comic art conceptual exhibition.
References :
Inking – how to draw manga – too corporation. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.too.com/manga/en/inking.html
Manga guide: Color chapter collection. (2020). Retrieved from
https://www.kanzenshuu.com/manga/color-chp/
Andyburu. (2023). A sadomasochistic relationship. Retrieved from
What is Ab Glue? (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://ynbond.com/en/new/57.html#:~:text=Epoxy%20AB%20adhesive%20is%20a,alkali%20resistance%20and%20so%20on.
