WHAT: I’ll be exhibiting with Volume 1 Hellrider Jackie artist, Josh Tobey, with both volumes of Long John so far, two Long John prints, the Logan-inspired “Legacy” print, and bookmarks.
WHY: A fine excuse to drink good local beer and to show support for your hard-working local creatives (like myself).
I’ve been asked if I worry about these videos spoiling anything in the upcoming chapter. That had crossed my mind, but it’s not something I’m particularly worried about. A single panel shouldn’t be enough to ruin a story.
To be honest, I am being a little selective about what I show in these videos, and even though I show the full page at the end of the video, I think that the story is only fully appreciated when read in its final form, which is definitely not what is being shown here. Once so far, I have redacted images from the video, but that was more to have fun than to actually safeguard readers from any potential spoilers.
This video shows a lot of how decisions are made in the art. The pencils are usually pretty loose, allowing for decisions about adding details to be made during inking, usually. In addition to details, the choice about rendering (adding elements to indicate lighting, depth, etc.) are usually left for the inking as well. With the panel inked in the above video, I really was aiming for a specific look which I mostly hit, but the final panel is a bit messier than what I had wanted and, had I done more planning, it would look better. But, that would go against, a bit, about the creative ethos of how I create Long John. I want it to be a learning experience that will rely on my experience in making comics for ten years (TEN YEARS) now (well, in September) and to trust my talent and sensibilities to guide the art for the comic.
Such trust also allows for happy accidents, which has happened often; however, this also allows for stumbled attempts along the way. There have been a fair amount of wobbly perspective, strange anatomy, and bad compositions. With that in mind, it all still passes my own bar for clarity. As poorly drawn as a panel could be, I always ask the question, “Does this make it hard for the reader to understand the page?” If yes, I redraw the panel, usually on a separate piece of paper that I cut out and tape over the rejected one––that has happened a few times. If no, which is most often, I roll with the punches or try to improve it with coloring. The one thing I don’t do is use Photoshop to redraw, remove, or replace any art. What is on the page ends up on the screen for the reader (with some very, very slight exceptions), because that’s the comic I want to make.
At this point in my creative development, I would rather have my best efforts in the hands of the reader than a “perfect” comic. The latter would just be boring.
Another week in and more Long John pages are getting churned out and I’m always surprised at how much of a blast it is do get these done.
I’ve been vocal about how frustrating I feel that drawing is, but I’m usually pretty satisfied with the end results. While making these videos, I wonder where, exactly, the switch flips to being fun and rewarding.
Honestly, I feel the layouts are the most creative part, but are also very difficult. It’s at that stage where I’m bouncing back and forth between scripting and thumbnailing that all of my insecurities come out as a storyteller and getting to the point where I say “I’m done” is really more of an act of contrition than satisfaction.
I think putting pencils down is the trough of the process for me. I don’t feel particularly creative while doing it––though it may be one of the most literally creative parts of the process––because I’m really just embellishing what was already done on the layouts. Also, this is the most frustrating part for me because this is where the logistics of the scene must be worked out and whittled into a shape I can live with. For instance, with last week’s video where I inked the lineup of the bad guys (spoilers, I guess), that was a profoundly frustrating and exhausting page overall (since I basically had to draw that panel twice). First, laying out the characters was daunting because I wanted the lineup to look imposing but I didn’t want to draw thirty guys. Second, I basically designed each person on the page (with the exception of the guy in the middle); I bounced between them, making them as different from each other as possible. Because they were all new characters, I needed to be detailed with the pencils––what is called “tight” pencils––and, once I was done, I noticed that I had made the middle guy much bigger than the rest. While I designed the panel to emphasize that middle character, there were some lines of fantasy that I just couldn’t cross.
Inking, while time-consuming, I think is where things start to lighten up for me. Putting ink down makes the choices permanent be they good or bad, and when combined with my confidence knowing how this world is supposed to look and its overall aesthetic, it suddenly becomes a known quantity and I can start to have some fun making these drawings start to look like a finished comic.
This week’s video is an example of that. It’s not a perfect panel by any means––I could have worked a bit more on the perspective on the house (the eye line is off) and the dude in the black bowler looks a bit funky, but I had fun playing with depth. Most importantly, I think it reads clearly and easily. We know who the important characters are and where they are and we get a sense of the story as well as the personalities of the characters.
I’m not saying insecurity doesn’t bleed through; I certainly lay down ink that shouldn’t be there. But that kind of thing is an easy fix. A line can be removed or changed, but if the entire composition is off, then no amount of lines can save it.
