Gutters and Closure closed
2012 January 11/11:47 PM
Hey, folks. As of January 13, 2012, I have shut down the Gutters and Closure mailing lists. If you’re looking for a place to discuss comic books, take a look at Comic Meeting Grounds.Welcome to Gutters, the Comics Art Illustrators Journal. There are a few important things you need to know.
And remember that you can always e-mail me your questions that don’t have to do with comics illustration. If you’re having trouble with the list, it’s better to e-mail me than to e-mail to the list. The list probably can’t help you—you’re having trouble with it, after all.
How can I read old messages?
You can go to the on-line archive at https://www.hoboes.com/Comics/Creators/Gutters/Archive/ and read them.
- Gutters archive
- The Gutters mailing list is archived for future reference.
How do I leave the Gutter?
Go to the web page +url and you’ll be able to unsubscribe there. So long, and turn the light off on your way out!
I prefer digests!
You can tell the listserver to send you your mail in digest format. Go to +url to modify any of your mailing list preferences.
I’m not getting any mail from the list!
Mailing lists tend to have what’s flatteringly called a “high signal to noise ratio”. This means that they have less fluff and more meat, to mix my metaphors atrociously. It also means they’re more episodic: conversations wax and wane. If you feel that you are having problem receiving mail from Gutters, do not send mail to the list asking for help!
Contact me instead. I can tell you if you’re still a member of the mailing list, and I can also tell you what the traffic has been like lately and whether or not mail sent to you has been getting bounced.
What is Gutters?
Gutters is dedicated to comic art illustrators: comic books, comic strips, minicomics, multi-panel narratives, and any ‘etceteras’. Working artists, folks who want to be working artists, techniques, and tips.
Most of the traffic on the net among comics folks is for writers, and the rest is scanning GIFS of superheroes. Gutters is a forum for comics illustrators to discuss creating images for comics—drawing, building, rasterizing, or the dangerously proverbial etcetera.
Oh, and the ‘gutter’ is the space between panels. And that’s as good a definition of “comics illustration” as any: if it has gutters, or if you deliberately left them out, it’s probably comics. Note ‘probably’. In the end, if you sell it as comics, it’s comics, but that’s a commercial criterion, and not appropriate for this mailing list.
What is not Gutters?
Gutters is not a place to look for an illustrator to do your work for you: if you’re looking for a collaborator of any kind, there are other services on the net for that. See The Comic Ground, for example. Gutters is also not the place to discuss comics in general, nor is it a place for press releases.
- The Comic Ground
- As of November 5, 2020, the Comic Ground has been shut down.
What should I read if I’m going to draw comics?
Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art• and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics•.
More Information
- Comics and Sequential Art•
- Probably the best “how-to” book on comics you’ll find if you’re an illustrator, and not a bad book for writers either. Will Eisner discusses panel layout, storytelling, expressiveness, and the uses of “sequential art” in a book that was way ahead of its time.
- Understanding Comics•
- Everyone who is interested in comics as an artform or as a medium of information exchange should read this book. You’ll have fun just leafing through it reading the various chapters.
Where do I send mail to?
If you want to send mail to the mailing list so that everyone can see it, mail to the address gutters@lists.sandiego.edu. If you want to modify your subscription, go to the web page +url.
