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!
Here’s a look at the inks for the finished page:
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.
Here is the fully inked page:
Tradition is only created when people choose to carry over qualities or behaviors they feel are beneficial. I’m at the designing stage for the book of Long John Volume 5 and I’ve noticed that design traditions have carried over from book to book, making them expected and necessary even if they go unnoticed.
There are more obvious elements, of course, like font choice and the logo. However, there are more subtle choices––the back cover and the inside back cover are always the same; the “Looking Back” at the bottom of the inside front cover is always a terse and abstract recap of the previous volume (an idea stolen from Cormac McCarthy’s chapter descriptions in his horrifying book, Blood Meridian); of course, there’s what I call the “white page” at the end of the story content of each book (something I started doing with my previous comic series). Then there is the frontispiece.
Although I’m being a bit liberal with terminology here, a “frontispiece” is what I’ve come to call these drawings. Technically, a frontispiece is an illustration on the facing page to the title page of a book. It’s on its own standalone page and is not printed on the inside front cover of the book. Also, since the title of the book is also on this page, that would technically make my inside front cover the title page, but that does not excite my snooty tastes.
The frontispiece for every Long John book has been unique (some of them have even been featured Sketch Friday drawings), though only the frontispiece for volume 1 was explicitly created for the book. The illustrations featured in volumes 2-4 were all sketchbook drawings––ball point pen drawings made either to 1. come up with ideas for the cover or 2. find a “tone” for the upcoming chapter to be written and drawn.
Volume 5’s frontispiece brings it back to the first volume and was created solely for the purpose of being a light illustration behind book information. However, like those that came before, it is emblematic of the themes and tone of the story it precedes. One could even view it as an “after” drawing for the cover’s “before.”
It’s a tradition I look forward to, whether created in a moment of inspiration long before I’ve started the book or drawn in a fit toward the end of a book––it’s a fun chance to be poetic with a character who runs around in his underwear.