This Is It - Behind the Scenes

Some behind the scenes stuff for the "This Is It" scene - - as I've probably mentioned in every post, I had to rewrite quite a bit of the third act to add some "pay offs" and reveal what was necessary for things to make sense - - in any case, I've noticed now that I'm looking back over everything, that my inspiration for the names of each scene was definitely waning.

You can find the finished scene at this link: just click here! When I first started writing the story, too, I knew that the relic would "unlock" a device at the end, but hadn't really imagined what that device would be - - in my mind, I'd hoped it'd be this ingenious and convoluted device, but ... well, nothing to fantastic really came of it.

Though, perhaps this is fitting - - it's not like this was designed by a Mason or some brilliant engineer - - this was 1900 years ago, give or take, and in the middle of a war-torn nation.Perhaps this is more believable than some complicated Rube-Goldberg machine.

In this scene, I wanted to illustrate that once the relics returned into proximity to one another that their powers unlocked, like the earlier-mentioned magnetism experienced between the bones of Lazarus, and that they begin to react. I was aware that there may be confusion in this scene, where the relief carving of Christ on the Cross might appear like it was coming to life, whereas it was supposed to just look like it was being restored from the millenia of erosion (however much erosion occurs in a temple's sealed basement).

And then, of course, that's not the only reaction ...

Does it create just a weird laser, or do you think it means more? And if so what, but, if not, then ... it's still cool that you can shoot a laser out of a flag, or whatever that thing is, right!?

If  you've any questions, leave it in the comments section, or join up on the Facebook group and share your thoughts -- you can find contact info at the links (icons) below! Thanks for reading.

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Narrative and Character Development > behind the Temptation of Howard Bolam pt. 2

The Temptation of Howard Bolam was an interesting moment in the story to intentionally set our two protagonists against each other for a moment to explore how far they've developed since the beginning of their tale

Compare the rough pages with the finished pages at this link.

Casey is willing to stand up for his beliefs.

Of course we can remember Casey Miller being the timid, self-conscious scientist who was too conservative to let his imagination provide inspiration or motivation. Yet, when faced with higher stakes, for love, career and even for his life, he's had opportunities to confront his inhibitions and tackle obstacles head-on.

In the second half of this scene, he swallows his fear and jumps at the chance to not only stand up to Howard but also to the hulking Turk (who apparently has been hired as a security escort for the Sadducees).

And at the same time, Howard Bolam doesn't appear to have learned anything, he remains willing to sacrifice what he knows to be "the Christian thing to do," for personal gain and advantage. We know that this brings him shame and discomfort, but he's never felt that shame so much that he's ever resolved to discontinue taking advantages when they present themselves. 

There's an inner fury Casey releases, which continues to overcome unsuspecting antagonists.

I felt an extended action sequence to be overscored by the narrative exposition might be a balanced and enjoyable way to tell this part of the story. I probably should have used this method earlier and much more often! A lesson learned.

One of the initial mysteries I set up at the beginning of the story was, "Who was in the tomb beneath the church at Gobekli Tepe," if you can recall (here's some help, if you can't). While I was editing/rewriting the third act before publishing the pages, I realized I hadn't really answered that question, though I had fully intended to.

In any case, this answer was shoehorned back into the story, and probably isn't as rewarding a payoff as I had hoped. BUT it does satisfy some of the mythology I constructed in Lazarus's life story - - that one of his sisters, either Martha or Mary, had continued to spread the word of Christ and opened "ministries" outside of the Roman Empire to build the church.

And as the archaeological intepretation allows, great monuments and churches were built on top of the tombs of some of the most reverant leaders of the first church (like Lazarus's tomb beneath the chuch in Lanarka).

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Behind The Temptation of Howard Bolam pt. 1

The Temptation
The Temptation of Howard Bolam is a scene that I'd been waiting a long time to publish. It was something I'd planned the "Set up" for years ago, back in the first act I Tend to Agree With Your Partner.

I wanted character to motivate changes in the story just as much as the adventure - - I feel like this was something that was bound to payoff down the line - - that Bolam would be tempted to throw Casey under the bus again to save himself.

(If you clicked on that link - - think about how far the story has come since back then when they were still working at the museum. It's pretty cool. PLUS, that was freaking December 2010 when that was published. This story has been going on for a while now!)

Pacing
Ultimately, for the sake of pacing, I felt that 6 pages was too long for a scene to be. I felt that people would be impatient if it were too long, so I split it in two. This is the first time I've done this, and... well, perhaps you would have been fine with it if it were six pages long?

Let me know, I guess. In any case, I wanted the scene to be "finished" so I could say it was finished, because I feel people might wait for a few pages (or a scene) to accumulate before they check in on the site.

That was the impetus regarding publishing this in two parts, anyhow.


Check out the finished pages at The Temptation of Howard Bolam, pt. 1

The stick of straw in "The Turk's" mouth was just for fun in the rough draft, he felt like a grouchy rancher thwarting tresspassers when I drew him.

I raced through these pages while I was at my cottage back in the summer - - when I drafted out the rest of the story. You can see I was really racing through it, I didn't leave any details on the background at all.

Trivia
I'm not sure if these are facts, but I suppose it's interesting "trivia" if you ever wanted to know. I liked the name because it reminded me of both The Passion of the Christ, and The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (from Lost).

In my original draft, the final few pages were adapted into a series of scenes to accomodate pacing and narrative flow. This prevented it from being just a bunch of dialogue - - and I think the next scene illustrates a balance between action and diction.

Beyond "The Turk," I don't have a name for the big guy that's holding the gun, and I don't think I actually refer to him as "The Turk" in the story. So, his name is an unspoken secret between you and I. How do you like that!?

Drawing a guy holding a rifle is hard.


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Outfitted - - Behind the Scenes of Tomb of the Undead

Here's just a quick post from one of the more recent scenes at Tomb of the Undead: Outfitted. Before running into the Third Act for the script, I took a few days read and edit and tidy it up. After doing the artwork for the story up to this point, and getting a bit more familiar withe pacing of how the graphic novel works (for me, at least) I knew that some of the scenes would be WAY too long, so it had to be reworked.

That being said, I simplified some concepts down and reduced some dialogue and worked on the beat structure to get it into more manageable segments.

An example is this scene, in particular. Quick and easy, one page, tells a little story/character development, but doesn't drag ass. NOW, on the other hand, I totally dragged my ass while drawing and publishing it, but that's my problem, not the readers'. So I hope you felt it was quick and to the point and offers some cohesion and transition, which you don't ever want to be caught without.

Another discovery/admission I have is this: when I'm entering into a new setting that I haven't really figured out yet, I take FOREVER to get it designed in the rough stages and really struggle in finishing the page. Now, after I've established a setting, I can run the characters around in it without too much difficulty, but initializing the material is a different task altogether.

In any case, I hope you liked it!

Guest Strip for The Comic Community

I had a neat opportunity to write a guest strip for a webcomic writer I'd discovered on Twitter, which was a first of its kind for me. Check it out here.

I hadn't produced a comic for another site before (although the Fundraising Faux-Pas series was designed with a fundraising consultant in mind).

@TheComicCom simply tweeted out to see if anyone were interested in drawing a guest strip, and I jumped at the chance.

Shortly we connected, mostly via Facebook, and he gave me a few comic ideas. I picked one I liked. Truth be told, I hadn't really done a zombie comic before, which is crazy - - I've drawn zombies, but nothing with a story or anything.

Dinosaur Zombies, on the other hand, I have had a chance to experiment with (like the zombie brachiosaurus, zombie stegosaurus, zombie parasaurolophus and a zombie t-rex (and I've got a bunch of neat new ideas on that front!).

So I drafted a quick blurb using his ideas and made a very rough mock-up of what it might look like.

He responded with a thought about omitting any reference to Jane Austen and the "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" book series, and perhaps have the incoming zombie be a bit more confused about the whole situation. Which I was happy to incorporate.

He'd considered including some of his own existing characters, or adding some dialogue, but ultimately just left me with those two quick thoughts.

He mentioned that he was unsure of his Internet connectivity in the near future, so I set to work the very next morning to get it on paper, and ready to be coloured right away. My wife was really good about it, helping out with our son while I spent a little extra time working on it that morning, just to make sure it was ready in time.

The outline looked like this. With so many characters in the scene it was a great opportunity to tell a few stories at once, and I think it worked out well.

There's Mother, The Castigator, The Idiot and the Zombie. Everyone's story moves forward just a little bit, ironically, except for the subject of the joke, The Idiot, who is just taking everything in as it happens.

I had a fun strip earlier where there was some story development for a series of characters in a series of scenes that went with the King St. Capers - - which you can check out if you'd like.

Ultimately, this type of a strip is a LOT of fun to draw and write. There's so much going on that it leads to multiple readings and a series of different elements of humour. A real favourite.

Then there was the colouring!

I wanted the window to resemble (in part anyhow) the Dawn of the Dead (2004) DVD artwork, and I think it translated nicely.

Last step was the lettering to make the final product which you can find HERE. I hope you liked it.

Thanks again to my wife for helping make it happen, it would have been a real struggle without her support.

Behind the Scenes of Whatever Happened To ....

Whatever happened to that shy archaeologist from Pennsylvania? This scene is a moment for Dr. Bolam and Dr. Miller to take stock of their situation, and sort of reflect on their journey so far, and perhaps for the readers, too, to think back on how he's changed and grown.

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That was the hope, anyhow. Plus, I needed a segue that helped carry them from Cyprus to Turkey, instead of just saying, "Later, in Turkey."

I hope when you look at this, you can see and feel that it's a time for reflection and perhaps even personal introspection, as no doubt Dr. Miller has to realize his life will never be the same from now on.

really rough, hardly any background

Sometimes when I enter a new scene where I have to create a whole new environment for the characters to exist in, like the slaughterhouse earlier. I'll do a lot of web browsing to pick and choose how the areas should look and try and envision the mood I'd like to be captured.

And then there are scenes like this, where I just pencil in where in a panel I want the characters to stand, and then I just fill in the background and setting way afterwards, hoping that the lack of preparation doesn't bite me in the ass.

basically just blocking

Another challenge is to try and draw some parallels between where the position of the sun is in each sequential scene. I've become acutely aware of how many dark, late night scenes I've drawn, because it's put a great strain on my 6B pencil. It's getting more use than Aaron Hernandez's lawyer.

So I was eager to get into the daylight again and have some nice scenes outside. I'm getting back to that now that they're out of the slaughterhouse and back in transit to a new country and a setting that we haven't visited since Act I, way back in the early days!

Sometimes I feel like I'm not honouring the process enough when I skip over the rough-sketch stage, and no doubt, it'll come at a price. I just felt a bit rushed and wanted to offer an update. The pacing over the summer is a challenge because we've got so much more going on (or so it feels, anyhow).

Kodikas Galanos and balancing panels

Code Blue - - which in hospital slang is generally used to indicate a patient in need of immediate medical attention. Switch that into Greek, Cyprus' national language (along with Turkish, I understand) and you've got the name of the latest scene, Kodikas Galanos.

And not to be too confusing with the language switche-r-oo, I even made a point to specifically point out that Blue in Greek is Galanos way back on page 130. So that's where the name comes from, if you were wondering.

Once again, I wanted to keep the scenes short, for two reasons; first, it quickens the pace of storytelling, which is more exciting for readers (I hope) and second; it's more interesting for me to write and draw these scenes when they don't take a whole month to produce.

I hate drawing cars - - I totally avoided even sketching a car in this page. I just hate it.

I felt in an earlier scene that the downpouring rain turned out nicely, or at least accomplished what I hoped it would visually, so I was eager to include it again, and this seemed like as good a time as any. There was no call for rain in the script.

The script did, however, feature more gesticulation and language barriers between the motorist and Ian Escutcheon, but ... again ... for the sake of brevity, I eliminated that. Perhaps it would have been better if this were a more comedic moment, but the urgency I was hoping to imply didn't allow for it.

I couldn't fit the image into a quarter panel at the top, so I turned it into a banner-shape on the fly.

Sometimes the images don't fit, and instead of redrafting them, I just change it on the fly, without even erasing the guidelines. It doesn't feel necessary to be too refined in a quick draft. What's most useful when I'm putting these draft pages together is finding a way to share the images in a balanced manner.

For example, in the above page, four consecutive square panels might have looked a little to "geometric" or "blocky," and could have been a visual distraction. That might be useful at some point, but it didn't feel like a natural fit in this scene.

If I understand correctly, most comics writers draw on much larger sheets of paper, and then they're scaled down to fit into the standard comic book format, whereas I simply use 8.5"x11" common stock paper. When you've got a larger page, you have more room to do creative things with the panels, and add a lot more detail, which is later shrunk down into a really fine piece of work.

It'd be neat to try some time - - in fact, I actually used one and a half pages to draw this page: 
 

Follow the link to get a closer look, but I meant to put a LOT more detail into this page, because I wanted to really impress the spectacle of entering the Church of St. Lazarus. I think it turned out really well, though, if you look, in the middle panel amidst the seats, you can see the seam where I married the two pages together to complete the final image.

At first glance, I'd hope you wouldn't notice it - - granted, now I've pointed it out, it probably sticks out unavoidably.

The reason I did this was because I wanted the three saints hanging on the wall behind Dr. Miller to be more detailed than a small panel would allow. If you're familiar with your old saints (I'm not, but IF you are) you might recognize Saint Demitrius, Saint Moses the Black and Saint George the Dragon Slayer.

I think the added effort was worth while.

I wanted them to appear as faithfully as I could reproduce them. When they're just the size of a half of a dime on the original page I'm working on, it's hard to include any more detail than a mere shadow. Taking the extra time to draw them much larger than usual, and then shrinking it down, made all the difference.

ALL of that being said, finding a nice balance on a small page can sometimes be a challenge, I guess that's what I was trying to say.

Thanks for checking in - - if you have any questions, let me know, I'll be happy to answer them.

Production Notes | Spill Your Guts

Once again,  I have to note, Spill Your Guts is a scene that I conceived early in the writing phase for the story and have been looking forward to creating for years and years. It's taken that long to get here, but I think it's worth it.

It seemed a showdown in an abandoned slaughterhouse would be incomplete without resorting to a captive bolt stunner -- traditionally you'd see people hanging from meat hooks, but this was something I thought would be a good balance between gruesome and effective.

I was a little dismayed a few months ago when I was watching Person of Interest (I think) when the protagonist grabbed a captive bolt stunner and executed a combatant, too, stealing a bit of my thunder, but that was at the same time when How I Met Your Mother also created the "Bro Bibs" which encroached on my "Gentleman's Bib" idea -- frankly, it's stupid that there isn't a classy  apron or bib out there we can wear to protect our three-piece suits when we're sipping on lobster bisque.  RIGHT?!

Another scene where I've tried to balance plot, exposition and action - - though they have to occur sequentially instead of concurrently. But perhaps later on I'll have another go at it.

The circled numbers all over the page are measurements - - I freely sketch the cells and images during the conception drawings, and then measure them a bit more accurately for the good copy. For the horizontal measurements, I usually just turn to a cell being 1/3, 1/2 or 1/4 of the page's width, rather than measuring it out specifically.

Sometimes in the rough sketches I find I REALLY like how an image looks, and I have trouble duplicating it - - like when Mugabe is glaring up at Miller after being tossed into the stall. I worked hard to make sure that image was as close to the concept drawing as I could. I think it worked out - - other times I haven't been so lucky.

In the final page, I wanted Mugabe to look like he was preparing for a coup de grace, accepting his fate -- and I thought that came through well in the scene above, which is probably why I was hoping to recreate that cell as closely as possible when drawing the good copy.

As we near the midway point of Act III, of course we're probably hitting the point of no return for most of these characters - - Miller has now committed murder, everybody is show, slashed, tortured and beaten, and they realize that the stakes are pretty high, even if they seem pretty ridiculous (is releasing another plague on the earth a cool villainous plot or a bit farfetched?)

However, "releasing a plague" does live up to the "He wants to kill everyone" remark from earlier, which might have been difficult to live up to when you read it at the end of Act II.

I hope some of these production notes are a handy complement to reading the story as we go. I'm happy to answer any questions, too.

Thanks.

behind the scenes for "Saves the Day"

Here are some more behind-the-scenes rough work when I was prepping the latest scene, Saves the Day.

While writing this whole story, I wanted Evelyn to be a motivation for Casey, but I didn't really feel it was right to have her be a burden, or bait, or the damsel in distress all the time. However, she's young and a bit reckless, perhaps a bit moody, and obviously spontaneous - - something you'd expect in a student, and perhaps not in a professional academic.

In any case, I'd like to think this played out well in this scene, when Mugabe expects he can threaten her to save himself, when in reality (in every other instance when Casey isn't in berzerker mode) Evelyn is by far the more dangerous captive.

I hope after a brief flash of mortal action that you're prepared for a few more talkative scenes of exposition.

There's something to be said for the clever Batman and Spiderman scenes where the exposition can be revealed during a duel, as they parry and lunge they spar verbally as well. Alas, this scene would have been prohibitively long and I just don't feel I have the patience to put people through much more than four pages at a time anymore.

I hope you'll find in Act III the scenes are more brief and to the point than some of the lengthier scenes in the previous acts.

I hope you're enjoying it!

Behind-the-scenes background stuff for two recent scenes

I'm not sure if people are "into" this sort of thing, but here are some "behind-the-scenes" stuff that might be interesting to check out from the latest scene. Basically it's just the rough drafts of the pages that helped me organize the pacing and spacing.

I hope you might find it interesting:

Yup -- it's all done on 8.5 x 11" sheets of paper.

You can compare them to the finished pages here: Silence of the Lambs

I named it "Silence of the Lambs" as an homage to the book series - - the idea of winding up in a slaughterhouse was pretty bad-ass and villainous to me, so I hoped to include that as a great point of confrontation for my characters.

In "Hannibal" Mason Verger was hellbent on hiring some Italians to capture Hannibal and feed him feet-first to a hybrid of man-eating hogs while he was still alive in revenge.

I really liked the idea and optioned to let it influence what happens in here - there was also a great scene in "The Hills Have Eyes" (the 21st century remake) that didn't occur in a slaughterhouse, but was influential in writing this scene, too. 

The emergence from the freezer is intended to act as a traumatizing rebirth for Dr. Miller to shape his story arc moving forward -- to give him some "guts" as Dr. Bolam would implore of him.  I hope it turned out well.

From my choice of medium, I'm a little restricted in two ways - - first, a comic would usually been drawn on a larger sheet of paper, then shrunk down to fit a print piece. This offers a lot more room and detail in a panel, much more room than an standard-leaf sheet of paper.

Second, because I'm using simple graphite pencils, it's awfully difficult to use black and darkness to its fullest effect. I would have loved to made this MUCH darker, but the sharpness of an image goes WAY down when you're using a soft graphite pencil, the details are lost in the blur. Even the maggots in the meat had to be re-inked after I'd finished shading to stand out.

Also, it's a wicked mess when you've poured all that darkness onto a page - - if you think your hands get dirty reading the newspaper, working with soft graphite is like reading a couple papers in a row and losing track of your soap.

Anyhow, I hope you found this informative - - and you liked the scene!

Majoring in Comics as Literature, Dragons and the Graphic-Novel Trend

Cellphones make for a difficult challenge in dramatic irony anymore. You see them in almost everything, as information is instantly forwarded from one agency to another as the pace of a narrative rockets along. In fact, watching old films where characters stand around a rotary phone, or check in at a hotel desk to receive their "messages" seems so clunky and awkward now.

But cellphones have changed storytelling forever. Writers have had to adapt.

In the world of cellphones, it's hard to delay characters from interacting with each other - so often as soon as someone learns something new or dangerous, they go to inform the protagonist, but are stopped - and then viewers just watch as we know full well the hero is diving head-first into peril. Cellphones basically eliminate the possibilities of this - unless you get creative about why a cellphone isn't working.

And those scenes (where a nemesis is removing of disabling a cellphone) always seem a bit contrived - HOWEVER, I'm certainly not above it. Do you think anything will happen to Casey's cellphone while he's chatting with Barney? (probably!) Think this will be the last time it happens in the script? (probably not!)

Struggling with jet lag and his professional relationship with Howard,
Casey looks to make necessary changes in Why'd you do it?

See more by following the links:

• King Street Capers (updated Mar. 11)
• General comics (updated Mar. 12)
• Tomb of the Undead (updated Mar. 13) 
• Dinosuars (updated Mar. 7)
• Sketch Gallery (updated Jan. 17),
• Fundraising Faux-Pas, or the
• Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)

Graphic novels and webcomics
Check out Accursed Dragon, and see some of the other neat stuff that's being said about graphic novels at the academic level now! You can find them in the classroom as a learning aide, but you're also able to MAJOR in the style, as well.

Accursed Dragon
Ryan Smith
Accursed Dragon.com

This week I've started reading Accursed Dragon by Ryan Smith, and I'm liking it a lot. I've had this on my reading list for ages - and now I'm mowing through it. What I'm especially impressed with is that each page tells a little gag - which is great writing. It's a constant pleasure to see the narrative continuously propped up with pleasant breaks, while the pacing and serial story telling flow together seamlessly. It's definitely worth checking out!

Click to read more.

The Graphic Novel Trend
Harper Academic
Harper Academic.Blogspot

Reading the review of The Cartoon Guide to Genetics got me thinking about a huge trend we’ve noticed in the academic department: graphic novels. In fact, most of the books that teachers were really excited about (especially teachers of boys) at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference were graphic originals or adaptations. So I thought I’d share a few of our graphic books that the teachers I’ve met seem to really love.

Click to read more.

Yes You Can Now Major In Comics Literature
Rich Johnston
Bleeding Cool.com

As an English professor (Professor Jeremy Larance)at a relatively small public university in West Virginia, West Liberty University, I often try to find ways to sneak comics and graphic novels into my courses. For several years now, for example, I’ve used V for Vendetta as the culminating text in my British Literature course, because—let’s be honest—there just isn’t a better example of a modern-day Byronic Hero than Alan Moore’s V. Some scoffed, but my decision was ultimately validated by the fact that The Longman Anthology of British Literature now includes an excerpt from that graphic novel in its section of contemporary British fiction, just a few hundred pages after James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Click to read more.

Commemorating Will Eisner and Tarzan and the Top 100

After the completion of the second act, I've decided to complete the storyboards for the third act before I begin. So far it's going well, but of course it's taking a little while. I think the third act has been a bit of a challenge, but so far it's turning out pretty nicely. I hope everyone will enjoy it.

Struggling with jet lag and his professional relationship with Howard, Casey looks to make necessary changes in Why'd you do it?

See more by following the links:

• King Street Capers (updated Mar. 4)
• General comics (updated Mar. 5)
• Tomb of the Undead (updated Feb. 5) 
• Dinosuars (updated Mar. 7)
• Sketch Gallery (updated Jan. 17),
• Fundraising Faux-Pas, or the
• Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)

Graphic novel and Webcomic news
This week I've got the top 100 comic blogs to follow, the Lost Tarzan stories that will be coming out and an announcement on the theme for Will Eisner week. Check it out!

TOP 100 COMIC BLOGS TO FOLLOW IN 2013
Nikki Jeske
SnailBird.com

SnailBird lists the top 100 web comic blogs to follow, placing themselves at 60, which is very modest of them. Starting off the list is Webcomic Resources, which I've linked to a lot in the past. Check out the rest of the list.

To read more click here.

Lost Tarzan stories featured in new graphic novel
Michael Sangiacomo
Cleveland.com

I read these stories as a kid and was knocked out by the raw power and majesty of Burroughs' writing. The books are far superior to the simpler Tarzan movies. Powell has written hundreds of science fiction, mystery, and horror stories. He has worked in the comic book industry since 1986, writing for Marvel, DC, Malibu, Caliber, Moonstone, and Disney, among others, and has been nominated for the coveted Eisner Award.

Click to read more.

Will Eisner Week To Celebrate the Graphic Novel
Calvin Reid
Publishers Weekly.com

The theme for this year’s Will Eisner Week is “Read a Graphic Novel," Danny Fingeroth, said Will Eisner Week Organizing Committee Chair, “This year, we will be having Will Eisner Week celebrations in more places than ever before. The people doing the events are planning some amazing happenings that will spread the word about how cool graphic novels are, and that celebrate Will Eisner’s astonishing body of work done over a career that spanned seven decades.”

Click to read more.