Ink Slinger Spotlight - Eric Lide
Originally published at RKdia Comics. You can comment here or there.
I met Eric through Meredith Gran’s Ustream channel, and immediately knew he and I were coming from similar tastes in comics. His work ethic is incredible and he to this point has an impressive 185 pages of his action packed web comic, Station Square.
Eric Lide hails from New York and New Jersey. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts’ cartooning program. I’m always excited to meet new cartoonists, but Eric is high on my priority list. He’s a very busy guy, but almost always gets his pages out on time, and keeps up the networking via his twitter.
You may stalk him at the following locations:
Website | Twitter | Livejournal | Facebook
Shoot him an email at erictheblack@gmail.com
As for his comic, Station Square; it’s incredibly fun to read. A true American-made shonen comic. Action packed, full of intrigue, mystery and memorable character…and not just because of their hair!
Drawing inspiration from many of the favorite shonen manga of the past 20 years that I’m sure he’s read such as DBZ, Naruto, One Piece, Lide has instantly recognizable adventures, epic rivalries and battles, a long winding story that is building ever upwards. Eric has a simple line style, choosing to not vary his line width much, if at all; Typical of animation styles. He instead chooses to make excellent use of hatching, spot blacks and tone-work to keep a sense of depth. Atmospheric perspective is key to his work and he happens to be very adept at it, knowing when to go in with beautiful textured details, and when to simplify to the extreme.
Station Square is a action/fight series set in a fantasy world. It follows the lives of two bounty hunters, Brin Highlands and Sven Buster, Sven and Brin have it rough, living in the slums of a city controlled by the rich. They hunt small bounties to get by and keep themselves fed, but circumstances lead them to hunting Graves, a small time criminal who’s bounty jumps dramatically after he steals a device, and plots against the city above…and those who keep most in poverty. This is when the cast opens up and Lide shows his talent for not only his impressive character design, but for developing unique individuals all with a purpose and back story.
His fight scenes are classic examples of manga inspired action, named attacks, powers, flashy moves and speed lines galore! While some manga can get out of control with these techniques, Lide shows restraint, keeping his fights more fast paced and real-time. This of course helps limit the dialog and exposition during the fights to only the most vital information, helping to prevent too much over-explanation.
If you grew up reading manga or watching anime, if you love action or appreciate animation style art in comics…check out Station Square. The story is JUST getting amped up and I’m very excited to see where he takes it. As of now, he plans to publish the first of 10 planned acts in early 2011, at the pace of about an act a year. I can’t wait to see it in print!
-RD