I enjoy arts and crafts time; or at least I do until I inevitably reach the part where it's not going the way I want it to and I'm trying to cram it together and power through to the finish. And the Wife always says I should just buy a 3D-printer and grind stuff out that way. Also, I almost always choose the wrong tool for the job, or the absolute hardest, most time-consuming way to do anything. So let's take a look at the newsstand!
The idea came from a Larry Hama house ad from 1982's Bizarre Adventures #32. (He also wrote and drew the short "Demon's Bridge.") Step one, then: stock the magazines for the newsstand, by ganking them off Google.
Pulp magazine covers! Newspapers from comics and movies! 70's Marvel mags! A...Spider-Man cereal box, for some reason! (Full disclaimer: I ate a ton of that. In college.)
I pulled way more than I could actually fit, and while most of them were from actual magazines (or faux-covers from movies, like Obadiah Stane on Newsweek for the first Iron Man) there are a few that aren't: the Black Mirror covers were on io9 some time back, and I know there's a Bruce Timm pulpy detective cover in there too. Are they accurately scaled? Eh, in the ballpark, I think. Cut them out, and glue them onto backing boards. If you want to give the impression of multiple copies, print up more.
Step two: buy some wood! Which were popsicle stick shaped, and I needed them squared off...just buy them squared off, if you see them! Using backing boards, glue, and tape; slap them in the shape of a shack! I did actually buy a little hinge, because I wanted to build a functioning door...that was beyond me, yeah. But cram on a shelf, and leave the roof unattached, so you can put whoever inside. I wanted a skeleton clerk, but went with a McFarlane Toys Al Simmons. Not the most poseable corpse in the world...
Step...six maybe, since you should've put in a window and everything. A real newsstand--which I keep misspelling!--would probably have the magazines held on by clips or something, but we're using putty. Slap 'em all over!
Anyway, most of the fun in this is the magazines. I may have to look for it now, but I'm pretty sure for several years, my folks had outside their house a birdhouse I built in junior high, which was basically a wooden box with a circular hole cut in it. That's basically it for my architectural skills, but good enough for this! Later, we'll check out making a miniature spinner rack!
2 comments:
You are really awfully good at this sort of thing. The props are amazing, and the amount of thought and energy you have put into this just makes the resulting storyline all the better.
I wish some of the artists put as much effort into the backgrounds of their panels!
Oh btw, I ate some of that spider-Man cereal. Not as good as the animated series honestly...except for the marshmallows.
Post a Comment