Process.
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006Hey gang!
It occurred to us that none of you out there know anything about our process. With most comic books, the process is about the same: a writer writes it, a penciller pencils it, an inker inks it, and a letterer finishes things up.
This is not the case with us.
Our process is much more involved (re: complicated). The three of us are in on every stage of development which not only allows us to create a product that tells our story exactly the way we want it to be told but also allows us to play to our strengths.
To demonstrate, I will run you through the development of page 2 of our first issue.
Step 1
First, we begin with Josh’s script. This is pretty standard fare as far as scripts go. You might notice, though, that Josh has included statements of mood and intention for my benefit. Josh and I have been friends for many years so this sort of shorthand is for the most part legible to me. Jason, on the other hand, only cares about explosions, dinosaurs, and robots—so these mean very little to him.
Step 2
Once I get my hands on the script, I read through a hard copy of it and make notes to myself in the margins in the form of textual notes and mini-thumbnails. We have decided that I will do the main translation from script to sequentials. But we don’t want Jason being left out of the process (and it’s possible that I might misinterpret Josh’s annotations), so I crank out a very rough storyboard of how the story progresses in my mind using only text locations in roughed out page boxes.
Step 3
I do this for the entire issue in one big grid. This allows us to see how the story will pace without being hung up on graphics (which also saves me a considerable amount of drawing time. With this done and agreed upon (you’ll see that some changes were made before the next phase), I begin to rough out an actual rough thumbnail of the page.
Step 4
With a visual in hand, Josh and Jason offer their critiques. For the most part, we want to shoot for compression. Often I spend too much time dilly-dallying with inconsequential scene elements, so it’s their job to point out superfluous panels or concepts that could be combined into a single panel. Jason has a real incentive for this because every bit that stays in, he must draw in full detail down the road. Compression is our friend. Once this is worked out, I next draw up a more refined thumbnail which has all the details that I want Jason to make sure he includes.
Step 5
As you can see, this thumb is a lot more legible than the one before. You can also see how whole panels were reworked and even deleted to tighten up the story. Once we have this one in place, Jason takes the wheel. Using my tightened thumbnail for reference, he sketches out his working thumbnail from which he will work during the final pencils on Bristol.
This is the last I will see of this page until Jason gets the final pencils done. Once done, he will pack them up in a snail-mail envelope and send them to me for inking (something that I enjoy and that Jason finds artistically disturbing/daunting). When these are done, it’s back up to Jason to drop in word balloons and art design elements to make the package cohesive.
So that’s our process as it stands. It’s time consuming and involved, but it allows us to generate a product that we’re all excited to create. Rather than ship off chores to isolated departments, we work together to bring you the best comic that we can make—playing to our strengths and avoiding our weaknesses.
Love,
Micah
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- Rapid City: B-Sides Wins Gold for Adair Printing
- RC in NYC.
- Re-corking the Bottle
- Developments
- Taming Horses
