A sabbatical from his position as an art professor at Moraine Valley Community College gave Erik La Gattuta the time he needed this fall to focus on his latest project, a comic book series featuring a robot and human who eventually learn to join forces. Some of the finished pages – and rougher ver sions of others – are featured in the college’s first exhibition of the year, “Zack Hates Robots: A Story by Erik La Gattuta.” It’s on display through March 1 in the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery, 9000 W. College Parkway in Palos Hills. “Since the sabbatical affords him an entire semester off to pursue his artistic endeavors, the school asks that he exhibits his work on campus upon his return,” said Daniel Jarvis, gallery director. “I happened to be working as a gallery assistant and helped install his last sabbatical exhibition 10 years ago, and I must say that it has been a pleasure to see how far this project has come over the last decade. I can’t wait to see his latest work grace our gallery walls again!” Jarvis is a fan of La Gattuta’s work, calling him a “wonderfully talented” illustrator and painter. “While the label of ‘comic book’ is sometimes used in a negative connotation among the elites of the art world, Erik is one of many illustrators working today who prove that comic books can truly be an art form,” he shared. “Erik’s decades of teaching figure drawing have served him well; his characters are always incredibly expressive and feel undeniably human, even if they happen to have green skin or be part werewolf. His drawing style is fun and dynamic, with a great sense of humor even in the more dramatic scenes.” This exhibit required an unusual setup, Jarvis said. “The plan is to display each printed page from the first chapter of Erik’s graphic novel “Zack Hates Robots” in order so that visitors can experience the story as they walk through the gallery from left to right. We may also set up a projector or television screen to cycle through ‘work in progress’ images and videos to provide a more in-depth look into Erik’s process,” he explained. “It will be a unique viewing experience, breaking away from the norm of reading a traditional comic book or simply swiping through pages on a screen and instead seeing large comic book pages hung on the gallery walls.” The artist described his work as “kind of a blend between expressive bold line cartooning and naturalist figure drawing.” “My speciality since grad school has been in line drawing and figure painting, and my early artwork was all painting in that vein,” La Gattuta said. “My paintings started to tell stories and started to take on these science fiction themes. They were still realistically painted figures in space but started to tell stories.” His students said his paintings looked like comic books and started bringing their books to class, which La Gattuta began studying. He started including dialogue in his work and eventually switched to drawing, first in paper and ink – traditional materials – but soon was working only in digital format. “These days I do everything on an iPad on a program called Procreate,” he said. “I just draw with a stylus on a screen instead of ink on paper.” An image from Erik La Gattuta’s comic book series "Zack Hates Robots" highlights his distinctive style. “Any comics artist will tell you this, that comic artists invent a style for expressive reasons. I draw with these lines and shapes because it makes the expressive characters I like,” he shared. (Erik La Gattuta) The story in this exhibit is a prequel to a story he began working on 20 years ago that starred an AI sitcom-writing character who wants to be declared legally as human, and how his life falls apart afterward. The current story, inspired by the division in this country and across the world amid the rise of technology, stars Zach, an anti-technology activist, and Liberty, a robot. “In the beginning they don’t get along but they have a whole lot in common. Over the story, they sort of join forces,” La Gattuta explained. His work takes time because he’s a one-man studio, writing a script similar to a movie script that details what the characters say and do, creating a set of roughs for each page, how many panels will be on a page, penciling in everything, layer by layer. The final stage is coloring everything. “All these examples will be on the wall,” he said. “Eight of the pages are fully colored and all the other ones will be partially colored – 34 pages of the finished story will be on the walls,” as well as other things that show his process. “You’ll read them walking around the gallery left to right.” Making this time-consuming process more efficient was the reason he took a sabbatical from teaching this fall, his third during his long tenure at Moraine Valley. “There’s a difference in knowing how to do something in general and how to do it fast and efficiently,” he explained, adding that making a comic book is “a lot of work” because of the details and story involved. “The speed at which I drew a page increased during the sabbatical. I was slower but teaching myself how to go faster. The first page I penciled took me two or three days, the second one took a day and the third one took half a day,” La Gattuta said. “Before, I could spend three months on a single image. Now I spend three months on a single issue.” He called it a “real blessing” to have a month to write the script, and he’ll be passing along the knowledge he gained during the sabbatical to his comics and general drawing students. “It’s very relevant. I never took a comics class. This is stuff I learned through self-teaching. I do have friends who are comic book artists who have given me critiques.” Digital drawings for the first issue of a comic book series called Zack Hates Robots will be featured through March 1 in the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery at Moraine Moraine Valley Community College. They are the work of Erik La Gattuta, an art professor at the college. (Erik La Gattuta) Like many artists, La Gattuta hopes people who see his work will not only be excited to learn more about his comic and eventual website but also to think about the bigger picture. “I hope it gets them thinking about technology and society and how it’s evolving. It’s something we think about every freaking day. It’s also conversations with each other and people who can cheat,” he said, adding that he’s not against technology, given that he’s “embraced technology to make my comic,” but is against those who abuse artificial intelligence. “They’re doing things with it that are not only ethically wrong but illegal …. Stealing the work of millions to train AI.” He explained that AI “collects the work of humans and averages it. If there is no human work fed into it and training it, it will spit out nothing. It doesn’t create or invent anything. Here’s the problem: Because people are paying AI companies and using them for free to create content … they’re putting the humans out of business,” he said. “When AI trains on AI, it gets worse and worse.” La Gattuta knows AI has some valid uses. “If I’m drawing my character design and use AI to pose it from this view or that, it would speed things up. But if someone steals (my style) and puts it out there, that’s stealing from me.” Although he doesn’t yet have a deal to have his comic printed, La Gattuta hopes to have it finished and on his website by this summer. He’s not the only one looking forward to seeing his comic book in the gallery. “I’m incredibly excited for this exhibition,” Jarvis said. “I think it will be a great change for students and the community to see what Erik has been hard at work on for so many years now. I’m sure it will also serve as a perfect advertisement for Erik’s Drawing Comics class and a great experience for his students.” The gallery, which is free, is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday as well as during shows in the building. Information is at morainevalley.edu/fpac or 708-974-5500. Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.  ...read more read less