Last month, I was contacted by a journalist employed by Sac State (the official nickname of the university) interested in making a story about me as a comicker and a teacher for the official Sac State newsfeed. After a phone interview and gathering at my home office, the article is finally live!
It was a really fun experience with a lot of really good conversation that resulted in this really fun and thoughtful article with a companion video interview as well! I would like to take a moment to thank the journalists––Jennifer Morita and Rob Neep––for making the experience really comfortable. I also can’t express enough thanks for the incredibly kind words from my friends Kyrun Silva and Eben Burgoon that are featured in the article.
Here’s a new video showing the use of the iPad to create digital pencils for another page added to the beginning of the upcoming Chapter 5! In the commentary, I talk about the fun (and sometimes frustration) that comes with drawing background characters (including some behind the scenes easter eggs!). Also included (at the end) are the final inks AND the final colors for the page, as a special sneak peek! Enjoy!
At the very last minute I decided to add three more pages to the beginning of the upcoming Chapter 5. I was hesitant because I knew that they would be a lot of work, but I realized it was work that needed to be done. They’re all pages establishing the scene, so it’s all about conveying a sense of scale and scope for where the chapter opens up.
These were so last minute because there had always been a nagging sense in the back of my brain that the chapter would be bolstered by some solid establishing shots. I knew it, but I didn’t want to draw it. When making comics––especially if you’re writing your own comics––you want to, obviously, draw what you enjoy drawing. For me, I enjoy drawing people. I try to do that as much as possible. I don’t enjoy drawing large cityscapes, complex machinery. Cars. Cars are hard.
But, then I went to the Eastern Sierra Nevadas last weekend for a research trip, and took the opportunity to visit the town of Bridgeport––a town briefly introduced in the middle of Chapter 4 (where we met The Rook)––where Chapter 5 opens. In Chapter 4, we visit Bridgeport at night, in the rain (a nice way to make drawing things you don’t enjoy drawing go faster), but this was going to be in the morning in broad daylight. So, the only way to avoid drawing it was to simply not draw a large establishing shot of the town. Maybe find a way to fake it, which is what I had done.
But while in Bridgeport, standing on the street I had Long John ride down, I realized that cutting corners was not only artistically cowardly, it harms the power of the story. The story of Chapter 5 deserves a big establishing shot. So, being there in the place motivated me to confront my artistic weakness and give it my best shot.
Of the three new pages, this page was the most complicated, but it turned out pretty well. It’s nice to know I can do a drawing on this scale and complexity and not have it turn into a complete mess. Furthermore, doing a drawing like this is much less scary than it was before (but not a cakewalk, either––let’s be clear about that). As I say at the end of the video (sorry for no HD quality there; I don’t know what happened), doing this made me a much stronger artist than I was at the start of this chapter, a reward that I am always striving for, even in my lazier moments.
