Paul Mason has been making his own comic series, The Soldier Legacy, for many years. His first work with Gestalt will be officially announced soon, and we thought a good way to introduce Paul was to have him take us all on a walk through his studio space.
The Drawing area:
A) The Drawing board: bought for me by my beautiful girlfriend for Xmas a year back. Before that, I would draw on a folio folder on my lap. More civilized now, and easier on the posture.
B) Lamp: Let there be light.
C) Clips: I don’t have enough of these: holds work in progress, reference pics that aren’t on the laptop, “To do” lists that seemingly never end, large bills that I forget to pay.
D) The Human Fly San Diego Comic-Con promo card: When I was part of a short story anthology released in the US and Canada. The closest thing I’ll have to touching a Marvel story, back when that was an ambition. In a book with Layton, Milgrom and Perlin is a bonus.
E) Inking pens and markers: Cheap, nasty, available everywhere, and gets the jobs done.
F) Me and Lou Ferrigno Polaroid from San Diego Comic-Con 2011: It’s the Hulk. He doesn’t really like comics, he told me. Fair enough. At 3am some days, I don’t like them either.
G) Freelance work: it will get done eventually.
H) Soldier Legacy concept art, Gestalt concept art: reminding me I don’t have a social life for the next year or so.
I) Doctorate certificate: I’m a Doctor of Visual Arts. I don’t know why, either.
J) iPod: I can’t stay focused without music playing.
K) Inspiration, references and comics: one of a number of stashes around the house.
L) Previous recent comic board/drawn pages: continuity, folio, whatever.
The Computer area (Writing, scanning, colouring, lettering, digital assembly):
A) The A3 scanner- saves a lot of time and screwing about, without having to stitch together 2 x A4 scans of comic boards.
B) Comics: inspiration, reference for possible colouring approaches that I can’t achieve anyway, or just somewhere I’ve stored it to keep the office “neat”.
C) Metallica – Ride the Lightening album: My sister bought it for me, one of my favourite bands. I don’t have a vinyl player though, so I just stare at it sometimes.
D) The hard drive: nuclear codes, blueprints to the pentagon, J Edgar Hoover’s back up dirt.
E) The PC: Old enough to suck, fast enough to run the programs I need to colour, letter, and assemble. I’d like a Cintiq one day, the bank robbery plans are almost complete.
F) Wacom Bamboo tablet: Cheap, nasty, gets the jobs done.
G) Double screens: One is a TV, which plays DVDs. If I’m writing on the laptop, I play Metallica concerts from it.
H) A clock: It has Spider-man on it. I’ve had it in a box, still in original shrink-wrap since 2004. I opened it 12 years later.
I) The MacBook Pro: For lecture writing, and comic story notes. It doesn’t fit on my desk.
