In this consumer-based industry, it can be easy to forget the years of hard work that the people in the business put in. Behind every panel, it takes a skilled writer, artist, inker and colorist to make the product complete. Behind each scene goes hours of preparation. Hush Comics’ weekly article “Respect My Craft” will dive into the history of these comic book and pop culture greats that will hopefully give a new perspective on how the men and women behind the pen (or stylus) contribute to the collective awesome-ness of the nerd world, or at least give you a reason to invest in their work.
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Name: Tim Sale
Profession: Comic book artist
Notable Work: Batman: The Long Halloween, Spiderman: Blue
“I remember the moment I truly decided to go into comics–I was working at Taco Time, looking outside at a nice summer day. I said to myself, ‘If you had an ounce of sense, you would work really hard on your comics so you could take your artboard out there and lie in the sun!’ Ironically, it turns out that I can’t draw outside.” – Tim Sale
He was born in 1956 and attended the School of Visual Arts in New York. He even took some workshops under John Buscema. But what is most impressive about him, is that he is color blind. He can only work in black and white. Tim got his start in 1983 working on the series Myth Adventures and later the fantasy series Thieves World.
He made a real name for himself once he started to collaborate with writer Jeph Loeb. Sale and Loeb were asked to Batman: Long Halloween after the success of their Batman Halloween shorts graphic novel Batman: Haunted Knight. Long Halloween takes place within the Batman: Year One continuity. Long Halloween received mostly good praise and led to the sequel Batman: Dark Victory, which introduced Robin into the origin story. Together they also created Catwoman: When in Rome, a parallel storyline focusing on Catwoman. For DC the team, he also produced Superman for All Seasons.
Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb teamed up again to do the “Color” books for Marvel. These books focused on Daredevil, Spiderman, and the Hulk. The duo started a series for Captain America, but only one issue has been released since September 2005. These color book focused on key moments in the characters life with colors that reflect the characters emotions. Yellow for Daredevil represents fear, Blue for Spider-Man with sadness for the death of Gwen Stacy, and the Hulk is represented in Gray. The gray in hulk, at least from my point of view, just represents Banner’s struggle between himself, Betty Ross, and the Hulk. Captain America: White has only received a #0 issue so far and I have been waiting a long time for the continuation of this story.
Sale and Loeb also paired together to work on the show Heroes. Sale was the creator of the paintings done by the character Isaac. He also did the art for the 9th Wonders! comic seen in the series often being read by Hiro. In fact, whenever there is an illustration created by any of the character Tim Sale did the actual art. I was very happy that the producers decided to use such a strong talent like Sale for series.
Tim Sale has been my favorite artist for many years now. My first experience with him was coveting a small black and grey Batman statue a local shop had. It was $300 and just had a small tag with his name on it. From there I researched him, found Batman: Long Halloween and never turned back. His art stands above the rest.
None of the media in this article belongs to Hush Comics; it all belongs to their respective properties (DC Comics, Marvel Comics). Join us tomorrow as we continue our countdown to Denver Comic Con with Star Trek: TNG‘s Klingon Worf, Michael Dorn.
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