After thoroughly enjoying Pine & Merrimac, I decided to try my hand at some of the artwork in the book and see what I could learn from Fran Galán’s style.
As an amateur artist, I have alot to learn. One of the first things I’ve been taught regarding faces is the Loomis method, a very methodical and mathematical process for generating heads and faces. I don’t think Galán is using the Loomis method. His work seems to embrace exaggeration, and I feel like he has thought out his own set of shapes and proportions for his faces. The result is a fresh feel on each of his characters.
I also see a more angular style, which frequently embraces hard angles where smoothed curves might have been expected. I feel like this choice makes his art more attention grabbing.
Lastly, it is challenging for me to convey emotion in my own figure drawing, so I specifically looked to see how Galán was doing this. His exaggerated style helps here. Big eyes, big mouths, and extreme postures all help to convey the emotion of the characters.
Facial expressions, and posture, used to show character emotions.
There’s always more to learn! Thank you Fran Galán ( @fran_galan_art)
A fun detective jaunt that echoes the X-Files with its humor and dark turns.
Released in January 2024 by Boom Studios, this 5-issue series crafted memorable characters while exploring a deep mystery. Now, more than year after its release, what lasts in my memory is not the details of the mystery, but the allure of the two protagonists: a husband-and-wife detective team that I cannot believe we haven’t seen more of yet. Will there ever be a follow up to this?
The comic comes to life through the skill of writer Kyle Starks and artist Fran Galán. Kyle Starks has comic credits going back to 2015, but seems to be best recognized for the 10 issue series “I Hate this Place”, from Image comics back in 2022. According to Kyle, it was themes from that series which motivated the story he’s crafted here.
Linnea and Parker in Pine & Merrimac
The story comes to life through the eyes of Linnea and her husband Parker, who together run a small detective agency on the corner of Pine and Merrimac. Linnea is a former homicide detective who couldn’t handle constant death and violence she was confronted with in the world; Parker, a former MMA fighter, is the muscle of their operation, and will literally move the world for his wife if asked.
They spend their days investigating infidelity cases and insurance fraud. But when a missing persons case comes their way, the violence starts to ramp up. The characters face real fear and shock at the deadly sins they start to uncover, but they can’t back down when they realize a girl’s life is at stake….
As a collector, I’m looking to go beyond the covers and the first appearances of minor characters, and instead am looking for the best examples of the craft. I not only want to be entertained, but I also want to learn something about the creators approach to comic making. Pine and Merrimac is the product of just a few individuals, but has the production value of a mainstream Marvel or DC comic.
On the writing front, Kyle Sparks (and editor Jon Molsan) has crafted a tight, short story, with excellent character work. Each issue moves the story forward several steps, while also using flashbacks to flesh out the backstory of this husband-wife team. Kyle balances a sense of realism with a mysterious supernatural angle, and manages to find those perfect cliffhangers to keep you coming back. The pacing on this run is perfect.
Not only that, but Kyle’s story has real value. His intention was to create a story that showcases a married couple, working well together. As he mentions in the issue #1 notes, “one of the best, most beautiful, marvelous things in the world is a happy couple.” But again, he points out that “pop culture has chosen to rarely highlight this”. And it’s true–there is something fresh and unusual in this story of seeing a team driven by unity, rather than drama.
Kyle’s story also gives a real weight to the violence in the story. Certainly this is a story written for mature readers, given it’s content and violence. But the violence is not just sensational–Kyle spends time showing the fear and revulsion his character’s experience from the violence shown. We as an audience understand that the violence has real consequences and effects.
With many comics, there are separate credits for the penciler, the inks, the colorist, and the letterer. For Pine & Merrimac ,Fran Galán does it all except the lettering (supplied by Pat Brosseau). But this arrangement allows him to innovate in some creative ways. First of all, he uses color extensively to inform the reader about the time
period and location of the current panels. In a detective story filled with different locations and flashbacks, Galán uses a separate color palette to subtly communicate when the characters have moved to a new setting.
Fran Galán’s coloring demonstrating change of location.Collage Style
Another innovation involves Galán’s layouts, wherein he occasionally discards the idea of paneling entirely. When introducing his characters, Fran tells their back stories through collage, rather than strict sequential art.
Lastly, Fran Galán has distinctive style here, that is both beautiful, impactful, and memorable. His distinctive style adds to the characters memory, and makes me want more stories with the characters.
Pine & Merrimac #1, Jae Lee Cover
For collectability, there are a few stand out, frame-it-and-hang-it covers. I personally love the work of Jae Lee and Tula Lotay, and they deliver a couple striking covers on issues #1 and #2, respectively. Another artist, Steve Lieber, whose work on Whiteout was phenomenal, delivers an excellent, mostly black and white cover for issue #3. I have a personal collector’s rule: black and white always gets valued a little higher in the long run because it is so hard to maintain solid black and solid light in Near Mint condition. The white easily takes on rub marks from other colors, and the black shows every wrinkle and spot of dust. Both the Lee and the Lieber covers have extensive white paint–I went with the Jae Lee issue #1 cover.
