Year of the Artist, Day 95: Yildiray Cinar, Part 2 – Tales of the Starlight Drive-In

Every day this year, I will be examining the artwork on a single comic book story. Today’s artist is Yildiray Cinar, and the story is “The Starlight Goes Pink” from Tales of the Starlight Drive-In, which was published by Image and is cover dated June 2008. Enjoy!

Tales of the Starlight Drive-In is an interesting graphic novel, written by Michael San Giacomo and featuring short stories about a drive-in theater over the course of 50 or so years. San Giacomo got a bunch of different artists to illustrate it, and Cinar was one of them! While this came out in 2008, I’m pretty sure Cinar drew this in 2006, so I’m showing it before any of his work on Noble Causes. Just so you know!

I’m only going to show a few examples from this story, because it’s fairly short and Cinar doesn’t really get to show off too much. His pencils have gotten stronger in the few years since yesterday’s example, and he’s doing some nice stuff with facial expressions. He’s being inked by Henrik Horvath and colored by Michelle Silva, and they both tend to soften his work just a bit. Horvath does some nice work here – he uses some nice hatching on June’s face in Panel 1, which shows her age and experience just a little. Horvath’s thick lines in Panel 3, in which Romeo is etched quite solidly, contrasts with Silva’s shades on his shirt, which makes for a bit of tension in the art. Cinar is getting better at details – June’s face in Panel 1 is well done – and his work with body language, which we saw yesterday, is very nice in Panel 3, when June believes things will go bad (they do) and Romeo looks smarmy as he reassures her.

Romeo immediately begins screening porn, which Neil, the projectionist, thinks is a terrible idea. I love his face in Panel 1, as he realizes what Romeo has done. Cinar shrinks his pupils and widens his eyes, making the white even vaster, and combined with his large teeth, we get a weird vision of someone who is both angry and interested. Horvath’s spot blacks help create this very bizarre image, as Neil’s eyes and teeth rise from a well of darkness. In Panel 2, Neil’s eyes are still in darkness as he confronts Romeo, which is a nice touch. Cinar does a nice job with Romeo’s shit-eating grin as he sticks his head into the room.

Romeo’s plan collapses, of course, and Neil explains how on this page. Cinar lays the page out quite well. In Panel 1, Neil sits in the back left, the smoke from his cigarette obscuring his face. Cinar lowers his face a bit and Horvath inks him heavily, as he remains the bearer of bad news throughout the story, and he’s contrasted, even in this moment, to Romeo’s more sunny outlook. Plus, Romeo threatened to fire him, so for Neil, this is sweet revenge. Romeo, in the right foreground, is upset as Neil lays it out for him, and Cinar contrasts the two well – Neil is calm and composed, while Romeo’s face is crestfallen and he holds his hands against his head. In Panel 2, Romeo is inked quite darkly, as well, indicating that his rosy scheme is crashing down around him. He’s facing toward the third panel, where Neil sits “facing” him, still sucking on the cigarette. Cinar keeps the focus on him in Panel 4, simply moving in to his mouth so that letterer Tyrone McCarthy can fit all the words in the panel. Romeo’s pose in Panel 5 is another nice one – he’s trying to ward off Neil’s words (and failing), and Cinar begins with his right hand, larger than the rest of him because it’s more forward, leading us right back to his panicked face. Cinar again gives him a good look of worry and even despair. Just a few tweaks of Romeo’s eyebrows and a slightly twisted mouth is enough to so how upset he is. He made his bed, and now he has to lie in it!

As I noted above, Cinar got his big break on Noble Causes, and I’ll take a look at that book tomorrow. We can see a little of the artist he would soon become here, but it was on that book that he really took off. Come on back and see what’s what! Of course, you could always meander through the archives, too!