I wouldn't be drawing comics if not for Tim Sale
Tim is gone.
I postponed writing this every day since his passing because I did not want to face the thought of never seeing him again.
I emailed Tim about a month ago and never heard back, which was highly unusual for him. He would always answer and would check in regularly. Simply because he was genuinely interested in other people’s lives. He wanted to know how you were doing and what you were up to. Curious and excited, always. Never a bad word about anyone. Encouraging, generous and kind.
Tim was one of the first artists whose art made my jaw drop. I believe it was around 2012 when my partner put The Long Halloween in front of my eyes. I was just starting reading comics by then and was not at all into superheroes. My introduction to comics had been Watchmen and I was looking for that sort of out-of-the-box, provocative storytelling. I opened it and my jaw dropped. Not out of adoration, as I’d like to remember. I thought « wow, that style is WEIRD ».
Little did I know back then that you only get that type of response less than half a dozen times in a reader’s lifetime. It’s fucking hard to do different. And an artist that combines different and masterful? They’re the rarest of breeds.
Drawing courses don’t buy you a voice. I don’t even think experience does. Experience can help unearth or refine what you’ve already got in you, sure (look at Mignola’s artistic evolution!). I think that may be why artists like Tim Sale get so much deference from other creators: we’re endlessly puzzled at the magic that comes out of their minds, their hands.
Quickly after The Long Halloween (by then my initial gut reaction had been replaced by nothing short of an obsession), I delved into everything else Tim and Loeb had done. Catwoman When In Rome, Superman for All Seasons, Dark Victory…I bought and devoured them all. That was before I was even considering becoming an artist myself but I already felt this urge to recreate for myself the feeling of his lines, if that makes sense. So I redraw the big Joker spread from Long Halloween, when he’s standing in front of the chimney.
I don’t have it anymore, sadly, but this was probably my first official piece. I inked it and color-penciled it. I didn’t put it into words at the time, but looking back, I think it was my mind’s attempt at telling me that my heart lay in that space between cartoony and dark. In that sense, I really believe that Tim’s work shaped my entire art.
I met Tim about 4 years after that redraw. He was at a show in Paris, my first creator-owned book, The Infinite Loop, was coming out in the US and Pierrick (co-creator of the series) and I dreamed of a cover by him. I was extremely anxious at the idea of him rejecting us. When you’re just starting out and your confidence in yourself and your comic is really, really low, that big NO from your favorite artist can truly kill you. Your spirit, at least. I approached him while he was signing, clumsily introduced myself (he was all smiles) showed our first issue (he flipped through it, said he liked the art!) and almost offered to do a cover before I could finish asking. He knew where I was going and was kind enough to help me not embarrass myself too badly.
That was Tim. Always a cheerleader. And that’s the beautiful cover he ended up drawing.
I saw Tim maybe a dozen times total since I first met him in Paris but our conversations always had a big impact on me and I already miss them dearly.
I already miss him.
If you’re so inclined, I would love to hear about your Tim Sale favorite stories. Either meeting him at shows, reading his work, anything that had an impact on you.
Take care,
Elsa
 | A guest post by
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I want to say it was about 10 years ago or so at Toronto. Tim Sale was one of the guests and I made it one of my primary missions to get a commission from him. Unfortunately, so did a lot of people. I had a four day pass and missed the first day as the 8 hour drive to Toronto was well... 8 hours. However I was told to stop by in the morning for a slot. So I did. Three consecutive mornings, three times I missed out on it. On the last morning, he had noticed that I had stopped by every time only to miss out. So he asked me to stop by in the afternoon. When the hours passed, I stopped by and greeted the handler asking for a possible commission. She had mentioned that all slots were taken and Tim would do no more. But then he peeked up from a commission he was finishing, called her name, and nodded his head. I was going to get a sketch. Being a fan of his Marvel colors series, I opted for a Doctor Strange sketch telling him I think he'd do Doctor Strange justice on a Marvel colors series or just a run in itself. He thanked me for being patient and humbly replied he'll try. As he sketched and ink washed, we talked. Where I came from, his traveling for conventions, about how his art has a moody noirish feel, his inspirations. About old TV shows, with which he then whistled a tune unfamiliar to me at the time but then through him learned of Kolchak the Night Stalker. I have a Doctor Strange sketch from Tim Sale because he took that extra time for a fan, this memory will stick with me and I'll always forever be grateful for that.
EDIT: Took a while to post this but I've been away from home for a while, but here is the sketch:
https://imgur.com/a/HBQnHGC
I met him just once, I believe, which was last summer at Terrificon in CT. He was sat next to Klaus Janson (what a pair!!!), and was signing 2 books for free. Accordingly, I got my copy of Darwyn Cooke’s Batman: Ego and Other Tails, and Spider-Man Blue #3 (the MJ cover) signed.
We chatted about how much he enjoyed working with Darwyn, even if Darwyn was AWOL for a good chunk of time with the scripts for the final two parts of their Superman: Kryptonite story that ran in Superman Confidential. He laughed that the monster featured on the cover of issue 4 of that run looks so different from how the monster appears in that story because Darwyn was late on the script and unreachable, so he had to just make something up on the fly to make the deadline.
The thing he said that surprised me the most, and still continues to blow my mind whenever I look at his and his colorists’ work, is that he is COLORBLIND!!! This fact came out when I complemented, as many others here have, his work on For All Seasons, and, my personal favorite Tim Sale work, Spider-Man Blue. I laugh, and as I recall so did he, that the guy who is famous for the Colors series at Marvel is colorblind. What an amazing artist & wonderful human he was.