Comic-Strip Reprise
COMIC STRIPS:
-----this is the medium in which I basically learned my 'craft' during my very early 20s: I got taken on as an apparantly 'promising artist' by British Publishing Giants D C Thomson aged 22: my background before this had been a directionless melee of dead-end jobs and anti-system bile, neither of which made for any real fulfilment in 'what to do with my life'.
The British comics market was thriving and vital in my youth: many artists found full-time work due to the healthy amount of quirky, very perochially UK comics put out during the 50s to 70s period especially. Come the 80s, sales and standards were in obvious freefall, leading to the poor state of what is left of this Industry today: namely THE BEANO which today only sells around 35 000 copies---a fraction of its' 50s heyday, when sale averaged around two Million.
Anyway, allowing for my uber-enthusiasm for 'drawing for the comics medium' at a time when it was fast becoming a dying trade, eventually I just threw the towel in, due to the increasingly receding scope for opportunities finding work----and oh yes I was not especially enamored by the overall quality of most output reaching the shelves during the 90s and beyond, in any case...over time, I just lost interest and packed this aspect of cartooning in for good---I honestly never thought I was ever likely to take this up, ever again.
HOWEVER!
------Although the world of printed cartooning is fast approaching virtual extinction, other opprtunhities for doing this are arriving in this year of 2017, right out of the blue, and I have had two offers from entrepeneurs requesting I do pro-level comic-strip work for them, which has kept me fairly busy over recent weeks.
The first one is a Promotional Comic Strip --the first elaborate sequential strip I have turned out since the very late 80s----and I will be adding this work onto this site once copyright clearence is through.
More recently, I have had interest regarding myself taking over a strip from another artist, and my first draft is included here, along with supplementary composites----this was quite a rushed job but it turned out OK, considering:
I have been away from reular strip work for so long, even I am bewildered at just how much my technique has changed, all this time later;
RAB L. RAUSER
-----this is the medium in which I basically learned my 'craft' during my very early 20s: I got taken on as an apparantly 'promising artist' by British Publishing Giants D C Thomson aged 22: my background before this had been a directionless melee of dead-end jobs and anti-system bile, neither of which made for any real fulfilment in 'what to do with my life'.
The British comics market was thriving and vital in my youth: many artists found full-time work due to the healthy amount of quirky, very perochially UK comics put out during the 50s to 70s period especially. Come the 80s, sales and standards were in obvious freefall, leading to the poor state of what is left of this Industry today: namely THE BEANO which today only sells around 35 000 copies---a fraction of its' 50s heyday, when sale averaged around two Million.
Anyway, allowing for my uber-enthusiasm for 'drawing for the comics medium' at a time when it was fast becoming a dying trade, eventually I just threw the towel in, due to the increasingly receding scope for opportunities finding work----and oh yes I was not especially enamored by the overall quality of most output reaching the shelves during the 90s and beyond, in any case...over time, I just lost interest and packed this aspect of cartooning in for good---I honestly never thought I was ever likely to take this up, ever again.
HOWEVER!
------Although the world of printed cartooning is fast approaching virtual extinction, other opprtunhities for doing this are arriving in this year of 2017, right out of the blue, and I have had two offers from entrepeneurs requesting I do pro-level comic-strip work for them, which has kept me fairly busy over recent weeks.
The first one is a Promotional Comic Strip --the first elaborate sequential strip I have turned out since the very late 80s----and I will be adding this work onto this site once copyright clearence is through.
More recently, I have had interest regarding myself taking over a strip from another artist, and my first draft is included here, along with supplementary composites----this was quite a rushed job but it turned out OK, considering:
I have been away from reular strip work for so long, even I am bewildered at just how much my technique has changed, all this time later;
RAB L. RAUSER
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