It something I still didn’t really have the patience for. For all intents and purposes, I didn’t draw with any serious aim for about six years until I had made the aforementioned short with Eben.Īnimation was still quite difficult. After that experience, I basically stopped drawing entirely. the company had some problems and shut down, which soured me on the whole enterprise. They moved me to character design and storyboarding for short cinematic sequences - things I was more suited for, in hindsight. I learned quickly I didn’t have that, and so did my supervisors. I’m not the most patient artist and animation demands patience, focus, and a look at the larger picture. I was interning at a startup video game company that, although a lot of fun, really showed me whether I wanted to pursue animation or not. My animation “career” ground to a halt pretty suddenly. What was that process like - transitioning from storyboarding to a full-fledged comic book series? Eventually, both of our talents grew to the point that we were confident enough to develop our own comics, Eben with B-Squad and me with Long John. Over the course of six years, we made a lot of mistakes but, as a consequence, we learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Eben and I developed the premise, stories, and scripts for our webcomic, Eben07 - an action/espionage/humor comic about secret agent janitors. We switched the format to a comic/webcomic. Also, I enjoyed storyboarding more than actually animating. However, animation is very time-consuming. Taking a concept I co-created in high school with CrockerCon co-founder Eben Burgoon, I started storyboarding an animated short. I started making comics in 2007 because I was a failed animator. I also wanted to touch on your Long John series. Seeing the sort Iron Man-style ports in Calero’s CrockerTron, I asked, “what if those weren’t weapons but givers of power?” That thought really focused the image, one in which the CrockerTron is bestowing the power of art onto a person, giving them the strength to express themselves. I wanted it to be seen more as an artistic protector of Sacramento. One thing I really wanted to avoid was giving the CrockerTron a menacing quality - it is a monolithic symbol of the power of art, as is the Crocker itself. In contrast, I liked the magical quality Nate Flamm gave the Tower Bridge and the gentle giant found in Melissa Pagluica’s poster last year. Both of those posters presented the CrockerTron as gargantuan forces of nature - representing a kind of full-on artistic assault on the event. I loved the basic design of Sean Sutter’s original poster and the cartoonish grandiosity of Michael Calero’s. Bethel drew inspiration from Paglucia and previous artists when creating this year's CrockerTron. The 2018 version of CrockerTron by artist Melissa Paglucia. But I wanted to make sure I brought something to this poster that was, if not unique to the lineup, emphasized what I value as an artist and storyteller. I have the pleasure of knowing the artists and the art of the previous CrockerTrons, so I already knew the prior posters quite well. Given the chance to draw the CrockerTron, however, I felt like I could really put that fandom to work.
I needed to concoct some amount of narrative to bring my version of the CrockerTron to life.ĭespite being a big fan of the Transformers as a kid, I never developed a penchant for drawing robots or mechanical things. I don’t do a lot of posters or pinups because my brain isn’t very good at designing them I like to have each drawing moving the story forward. I am primarily a comic book storyteller and mostly draw only when making a page for my comic series. So, how did this year’s version come to be? What was your process like?
As is always the case, this year’s CrockerTron looks nothing like last year's. It’s fascinating to see how each artist puts their own spin on something as seemingly mundane as a building. Each year, we ask a different artist to draw CrockerTron, which is basically a mechanized version of the Museum itself. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. You can find his work at CrockerCon or online at. In addition to creating an existential cowboy series, Long John, Dan also serves as an English professor at California State University, Sacramento.
Dan Bethel, the artist behind this year’s CrockerTron, recently sat down with us to discuss all things comic books.
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