Thursday 2 July 2009

a couple of weeks back, Alex Holden, an artist worthy of our attention, wrote on his blog about the elusive Zipatone:
Zip A Tone has been on my mind because I recently received "Two Eyes Of The Beautiful" from Ryan Cecil Smith, who is currently living in Japan. Some equivalent of Zip A Tone (in virtually unlimited variety) is still widely available in Japan, despite the advent of the computer. "Two Eyes of the Beautiful" is all about Zip A Tone, from simple dot patterns, to trees and foliage......even buildings.
I recalled this because in the course of scanning my Ace Rock'n'Roll Club pages as part of the routine digitalization of my whole back catalogue, I came across a particular story where I set myself the challenge of making all the pictures as much out of tone as possible, with supporting ink-work kept to a minimum, even excluding panel borders. This is a panel from that story, drawn in Feb 1979, thirty years ago.

(click for a close-up)
I was able to get some tonal gradation using superimposition and overlap, creating a sense of light and atmosphere, but this approach proved too expensive and time-consuming. I carried a much simpler version of it over into the Alec Book. The white lines in the picture are a result of shrinkage of the material, which happens over time. I'd probably want to mend those if i ever reprint the story.
For more on the subject, click the label.

******
I'm told that the event I discussed here last thursday went well, and Amos's latest posters sport nifty slogans such as:
"YOU'RE GOING TO HELL AND THE DEVIL IS MY BITCH" and "I KNEW GOD WAS A WOMAN, BUT I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS BLACK!"

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5 Comments:

Blogger Nate said...

I picked up a copy of "Ace" at the local shop last year and loved it. The Zipatone has a hazy "painted-on" look that makes the book look like a fond and faded memory.
Nate

2 July 2009 at 09:13:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Yoga Gal said...

Wonderful stuff!

2 July 2009 at 21:08:00 GMT-5  
Blogger spacedlaw said...

I suppose you are lucky that it only has shrunk and not peeled off completely (although that might have been an easier problem to mend, maybe?)

4 July 2009 at 09:42:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Dave McKenna said...

A bit late to the zip-a-tone party, I know, but thought you might want to know that it's not too hard to get your hands on the Japanese screen tones; I order them from akadotretail.com (they're based in California, so no idea how much it might cost to ship to Australia. The individual sheets are quite inexpensive). Deleter is the 800 lb. gorilla of manga supply companies, so maybe a Google search could come up with a more convenient means of procurement. Anyway, I've got acres of the stuff and use it regularly.

15 July 2009 at 20:17:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

Thanks, Dave. Friend of mine introduced me to the Deleter. I wrote about it a while back.

http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/2007/09/1-all-about-zipatones-in-my-continuing.html

28 July 2009 at 17:22:00 GMT-5  

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