Tässä legendaarisen Mustanamio piirtäjä SY BARRYn haastattelusta pieniä otteita. SY Barry ei ole antanut kovin paljoa haastatteluja. Lähinnä niitä olen löytänyt itselläni olevista ruotsinkieisistä Mustanaamio sarjakuvakirjoista, joita ei ole koskaan ilmestynyt Suomeksi. Sain ne itselleni Pohjoismaisen Mustanaamio klubin kontaktien avulla. Harmi vaan, etten puhu Ruotsia itse...joten mahtavat haastattelut jäävät lukematta. Mutta onpa silti hienoa sarjakuvaa SY bARRYN 1960 JA 1970- luvun stripeistä.
Tässä Sy Barryn haastattelusta pieniä otteita. Haastattelu oli paljon pidempi kuin alla olevat pienet otteet.
Interview with Sy Barry, March 29, 2004 ( Ed Rhodes)
Do you have any favorite memories or anecdotes from your time as a Phantom artist?
The conversation gets silly when you’re drunk from exhaustion by burning the midnight oil. We’d take a 5-minute break and start again.
We finally began using a messenger service and would call him prior to the completion of our work. We would expect him later, and within 10 minutes he would arrive while we were still cleaning the pages we would talk sports to keep him busy. These were the frantic days of ultimate deadlines, which occurred on Monday.
Could you roughly outline your approach to creating the art for a Phantom story?
The first step is gathering reference material…we would check out our files to find reference material for the locale of the story, working up the characters such as the villains, the victims, the natives of the countries where the story was taking place…animal reference.
Then we begin to put in the dialog…. the balloons of the characters who were talking
Then we begin doing the layouts…then the lettering is put in with pencil and we begin to tighten up or define the pencils.
And professional letterers would do the lettering in ink. (Letterers such as Ben Oda and Milt Snappin and Gaspar Salidino sometimes pitched in.)
Then the inking was done in India ink with pen and brush.
Could you explain the responsibilities of both penciller and inker on a strip? (breakdowns, tight pencils, inking etc.)
What I would have the layout man do is to give me a rough sketch depicting what’s going on in the panel. Telling the story through the layouts. If I were satisfied with the layout I would tighten the roughs and prepare them for inking.
If I weren’t satisfied with the composition, I would change it around to the way I saw it. To make it more exciting.
It wasn’t that the penciller wasn’t competent... I just looked at the overall page to change it so the eye flowed through the page.
How would you compare what is happening in the current strips to the classic Falk/Barry days?
(In later years) I had to work in a much smaller size.
(Today) If I look at the overall artwork, I find it rather difficult to find a central area of interest. There is so much work and detail placed on the page that there is little separation between the forms and shapes. I tried to get more whites so you could see one shape from another.
I tried to draw the eye to the area of action.
Do you have a preferred setting for the Phantom stories? The jungle, the city, the sea etc?
I think I prefer the jungle. Whenever I did the sea, I did enjoy the challenge, but I felt exhilarated doing jungle foliage.
Who would you consider your favorite supporting character in the Phantom strips?
I think primarily I enjoyed doing Rex...I enjoyed how he was found...how Lee Falk developed him as a character…the fact that he was a ward of the Phantom and was treated like a son with love and affection from the Phantom and Diana.
I felt rather bad when I lost him to his kingdom. I enjoyed his mischievous moments and he had to be reprimanded and he turned out to be an honor to his kingdom.
I also liked old Mozz as a secondary choice…I admired his legendary memory; he was marvelous transition for the Phantom from one generation to another
What would it take to get you to do one more Phantom story?
I wouldn’t need much encouragement to do an exciting story in a comic book in that kind of venue, because it gives you more room, more latitude for story and character development.
What are your thoughts on Lee Falk's other character Mandrake?
I really enjoyed it during its run I thought it was a clever idea he developed some great adventures. I feel at this point that it may have run its course in sustaining the public’s interest.
Koska kaikki eivät osaa englantia hyvin, olisi hienoa, jos joku vaivautuisi kääntämään tämän pienen osion suomeksi. Saisimme tästä Mustanaamio topikista todella arvokkaan ja hyvän kokonaisuuden, jossa on paljon tärkeää asiaa jokaiselle Mustanaamio fanille.
