Rough Stuff #3 cover by JRJR and Bob McLeod

How do you top a second issue full of beautiful drawings?  You get a John Romita, Jr. interview and open up the sketchbooks of an artist like John Buscema!

Rough Stuff is Bob McLeod’s magazine that focuses on the preliminary art (sketches, breakdowns, thumbnails, etc.) that go into making a finished page of comic book art or a finished cover.  The cover feature/feature interview for Rough Stuff #2 (first published early last year) is John Romita, Jr., the son of legendary Marvel Comics artist, John Romita.  McLeod offers us samples of Romita, Jr.’s penciled pages from Black Panther #1, Punisher/Batman, and Wolverine #20-21 (part of the “Enemy of the State” storyline), and two pages of pencils from Romita’s creator-owned Gray Area.  The interview also opens up details about what Romita learned from his esteemed father, as well as how being the son of a Marvel legend made him a marked man with some at Marvel Comics.

McLeod also opens the door for a lot of fans to the pencil roughs and sketch art of another Marvel legend, John Buscema, perhaps best known for all his work on Marvel’s various Conan comic book series, as well as for his work on the 1970’s Silver Surfer comic book.  McLeod also offers illuminating commentary and explanations about Buscema’s process and choices in producing roughs, layouts, and breakdowns.  Speaking of breakdowns, McLeod defines the terminology of the art of comic book art in “ What Did You Say, You’re Having a Breakdown?!?”

My favorite section of Rough Stuff, “Featured Artists” presents pages and pages of preliminary and pencil art from Mike Allred ( Madman Comics, Untold Tales of Spider-Man Annual #1), Yanick Paquette ( Avengers, Terra Obscura), P. Craig Russell ( The Ring of the Nibelung, Fables Annual), and Lee Weeks ( Cap Lives Again #1, Spider-Man: Death & Destiny).

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To see art that Bob couldn’t include in Rough Stuff because of space considerations go to www.bobmcleod.com/roughstuff.htm.