Hi, folks!
I’m sorry I have been so absent from Alas lately. My absence will continue until around Mid-February, which is when (if all goes well) I expect to complete the main bulk of work on the new “Hereville” graphic novel. Until then, however, carving out time for creating anything other than Hereville will be difficult.
In the new year, though, I plan to return to posting here – and, I hope, to do a lot more political cartooning, all of which I’d post here on “Alas.” Meanwhile, I still read all the comments (even the ones from trolls! Hi, trolls!), and I hope to find the time to write an actual post here sometime soon.
Meanwhile, here’s a bit of what I’m doing on Hereville 3 (in progress). It’s from page 45, a panel in which Mirka is running fast down the porch stairs.
As you can see, it involves work not only by me, but also by my wonderful collaborators Adrian Wallace (who draws the environments) and Jake Richmond (who does the colors). We also use a computer model of Mirka’s house which was created years ago by Mr. Matthew Nolan.
Transcript of image:
In the script I wrote, Mirka was in the house, and then the next scene began with her running through the woods.
When I laid it out, I thought it would be better storytelling to include a transition panel. So I scribbled a little stick-figure of Mirka running down the porch stairs.
Then I did a slightly more detailed version, so that I could look at the page layout and see if I liked it, and also so that folks like my editor and Adrian Wallace (who draws the environments) could understand what I intended.
Months later, after I had completed writing and laying out the entire book, I did an “underdrawing” showing Mirka’s pose and (hopefully) correctly sketching her proportions.
In the underdrawing, I drew Mirka lifting her skirt as she runs down the stairs, which helps make her look more desparate (and is also more realistic).
Using the underdrawing as a guide, I did a much tighter drawing of Mirka running down the stairs. And using THAT drawing as a guide, I drew Mirka again, in the final black lines that get printed in the comic book.
At that point, I send the page to Adrian Wallace, who draws the environments around Mirka. One tool Adrian uses to create his drawings are 3d computer models of the environments. Adrian often creates the models himself, but in this case he used a model of Mirka’s house which was created years ago by Matthew Nolan.
Adrian merges his background with my drawing, and then the whole thing is sent to Jake Richmond. Jake first goes through and does flat colors on everything, using a horribly limited color palette I chose in consultion with Jake.
After Jake finishes laying down the flat colors, he goes over the colors again, this time adding highlights and shading.
And finally, the completed panel:
That’s pretty cool!
Jeez, how far the world has come. I think I was there the first time you ever tried cutting that grey dotted plastic with an x-acto knife to try and do a Dave Sim effect. Ziptone? Was that what it was called?
1983 us would be pretty flabbergasted by what you just summed up. Hilarious that I considered learning to be a LETTERER in hopes of getting my scripts read. You have 3-d rendering instead of Gehrhardt. I have 11 pen names via hotmail and enough abandoned projects on free sites going back to the Geo-Cities days to give Ultron a headache.
Thanks, G&W and Brian!
Brian: Actually, Gerhard often used 3d software to produce his underdrawings, just like Adrian does! I’ve had a lot of people tell me “oh, so you have a Gerhard now?” when they here about Adrian’s role in this book. :-)
It was called Zipatone, and nowadays it’s almost impossible to find. And yeah, I often find myself flashing back to our first attempts at making comics back in 1983 when I’m working on Hereville. I sometimes wonder if 1983 me would enjoy my current work, and the truth is, I have absolutely no idea.
30 years later, I can see a lot of your influences from then, and see how you got from point A to point B. I’m sure you picked up ideas and techniques from artists I am not familiar with. But I can see where you’ve taken a bit of Berkeley Breathed and Walt Kelly HERE and some Eisner and Ditko from THERE and developed a style that fits your unique vision damned well. I remember your 1980s work better than I remember MOST of that decade, so I can see how the trajectory makes sense.
Even the stories you tell fits what 1983 you were into. I see how you’re mixing fairy tale and tween development, and I remember an idea we messed around with for a few months. We took a bit of sibling rivalry and teenage “finding an identity” and equal parts of inspiration from HAWK & DOVE, THE SPIRIT and Neil Adams run on BATMAN and came up with a pitch that I still think First or Eclipse would have bought. (I forget who got the ball rolling, but you had some good ideas on the HUMAN side of it, that makes HEREVILLE seem like a logical progression from where you were thinking back in the day.)
1983 me would be disappointed that my life’s work is more of a personal diary to keep me sane than a blockbuster hit. But then what I was doing THEN was mostly meant to keep me from being a teenage suicide statistic. So of course it makes sense that that’s still the main function 32 years later.
From what I remember, the theme is still damn near the same though. I just recognize it now as what it was: an attempt to invent Christian Existentialism as if it’d been invented by Fletcher Hanks. Heck, the moral to damn near every half finished project I’ve done was summed up in this year’s Dr. Who special.
“You’re a dream who’s trying to save us?” – Imperiled confused person
“Sweetheart, I’m Santa Claus. I think you just defined me.” – Santa as by Nick Frost.
Damn! Cuddly Amp becomes Amp, Inc. Suddenly the idea that corporations are people doesn’t seem so absurd.
How did you come by a staff of assistants? Have you had the pleasure of firing people? Are your assistants independent contractors, or subcontractors of your publisher — or do you get to treat them as employees, do tax withholdings, etc.?
And I thought coming up with stories and drawings was complicated….
I can now add “draw” to the “things I will never be good at” list.
Although I did use Zipatone back in the 80’s. I was putting together graphs in my master’s thesis and used it to draw the different lines in them.