This is the first appearance of many hand-lettered sound effects that will appear in Long John. This isn’t the first time I’ve experimented with them. I was directly inspired by the works of Simon Roy whom I first found years ago when the internet was discussing his short, Jan’s Atomic Heart. I was intrigued by the book and was surprised when my local comic book store had a copy the week it came out (it wasn’t released through a major publisher). I devoured it and was impressed and puzzled by how Roy’s wavy, imprecise linework seemed so confident and consistent, carrying over into the sound effects and the lettering. Because of this consistency, it was one of the first times a comic really felt whole––it was in its entirety a complete piece created by a single artist––at this point, Roy was a young twenty-something in art school and I was…not. It was a very inspiring book in many ways, not the least of which was approaching sound effects in a more organic and artistic manner. Jan’s Atomic Heart was recently re-released as a collection of a bunch of Roy’s work by Image comics. Roy has gained more recent acclaim as part of the initial writing team and illustrating the reboot of Prophet for Image comics along with co-writer Brandon Graham. Though still working on Prophet as it draws to a close with issue #45, Roy is also co-creating a new––and very strange––mini-series at Image called The Field.
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