Comic book artist teaches kids his craft

In his 15-year career as a comic book artist, Jack Purcell has never met a kid who didn’t like comic books. It was no exception during his workshop at the Sherborn Library on Monday.

After being taught drawing technique basics by Purcell, a couple of boys were perfectly content to sit and read through his personal collection of comic books while supposedly looking through them for ideas on developing a completely new character of their own.

Purcell said that nowadays, most children do not actively seek out individual comic books anymore, but the graphic novel has helped revive the art form. The town library offers this type of book to young patrons most often described as an expanded story using sequential art. Or, according to Purcell, essentially a series of comic books that have been bound.

The session began with Purcell explaining the stages of putting together a comic book. Five professionals are involved: a writer; a “penciller;’’ a black and white inker (himself); a colorist; and a letterer. Finally, Purcell told his young audience, an editor gets involved. “Like your teacher in school, he’s the boss,” Purcell told his students.

The artist does all his work “by hand” and Purcell “challenges anyone to do what I do by using a computer.” Holding up a “Countdown” comic book, Purcell said “This is a good example of everyone doing their job very well. Each person should add something to the page … for example, the letterer added a lot of sound effects.”

Purcell encourages kids to draw, saying, “There is no such thing as talent, it’s skill.” Using a sports analogy, he said drawing just takes a lot of practice. He demonstrated simple techniques for the children to copy. The first showed a method to draw a front and side view of a face using construction lines. Handing out large erasers, he added, “Ink is not your friend; pencils are forgiving.”

According to Purcell, “It’s like building a house. With a solid foundation, it will stand, if not, it will fall.” He gave suggestions to keep the lines light and went over simple lessons of anatomy. After learning to draw characters, the students were encouraged to draw a page of their own. Purcell told them there are usually at least three panels unless it is a prominent “splash” page. These include an establishing shot to let the viewer know where the action is taking place; a character shot; and either an extreme, close-up or far-away shot. For the last, Purcell drew a large eye opened in surprise.

Purcell is an art teacher at Frontier Regional High School in Amherst, and has taught courses or lectured for libraries, schools and museums, including UMass and the Norman Rockwell Museum. He currently is an artist for DC Comics as well. His latest work, “Batman Confidential,” will be released in October as part of a monthly nine issue mini-series called “Gotham Underground.”

He formerly created and published an independent comic book, The Cape, which was featured in a national television ad. Purcell has always been a comic book artist, saying, “I loved it and felt like I had to do it.” But the Batman book ... “It’s my dream book.”