Archive for ‘Issue 4’
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Blake-Centric Page! As much as I wanted to get him out of harm’s way, Blake just has a way of nosing himself back into the fray!
This was a bit of an “experimental” page script-wise, in that there’s no in-scene dialogue. The only “voices” we hear are two people off-screen. Two people we haven’t met…yet.
The interesting part (at least in my opinion), is that the CAPS aren’t tied to the action– which you’d think would make things easier, but honestly, it felt a lot more like writing two separate scenes. It was an odd page to script, but I thought it’d be kinda neat to try to convey two separate incidents in one page.
I think it came out pretty decently…Just one of those little ideas about comic form/structure put into practice. It’s something that I really love about the medium, comics are very conducive and friendly with trying little things out, particularly with a 1-page story beat like this.
PROCESS
* Naturally, since there wasn’t any in-scene dialogue, DJ has to treat this as a “silent film” to some degree. Body language and facial expressions really come to the forefront. I think he nailed it, particularly Blake’s expression in Panel 6.
Scriptwise, for that panel, I just wrote: “Close up on Blake” in the slugline– so, the rest is totally DJ!
* Big fan of the layout of this page– nearly the “Hard 9” of Watchmen. I think this layout works particularly well considering you see Blake’s car driving in one direction in Panel 2, which nicely pays off the skidding turn-around in Panel 7.
(Interestingly, Moore and Gibbons didn’t stick to the Hard 9 throughout all of Watchmen– Here’s one that mirrors our current page in layout. As a side note, awhile back I attempted to write a script in a “hard” format, 4/widescreen in my case– it’s a LOT tougher than you can ever imagine)
* Speaking of the turnaround: Really nice improv moment from Lisa in Panel 7 with Blake’s headlights! It’s just a little touch, but really adds so much to that “anchor” panel of the page.
* Brant might the hero of this page– With such a tightly composed (7 panel!) page and a WALL of text to deal with, PLUS a “tweet” to comp in, AND a new “voice” to develop; Brant’s lettering pretty much owns this page.
(he even snuck in a little SFX in panel 3, and a fantastic “SCREEECCH!” in Panel 7)
It’s funny, Brant always kind of has to go “all out” on the Foucault pages, let’s not forget the last run of Blake and the Mysterious “Z” back in Issue 2! Brant also built that whole IM conversation by hand.
And indeed, on this page Brant built out a “Tweeter” Application for Blake’s communication– check it out:
You guys have followed Brant’s work for the last 4 issues, so needless to say, if you ever need Lettering or Logo design, look no further than Gonzogoose Design!
Interestingly, one last minute edit we made:
Originally the script read with one line by Blake in Panel 6: “Decision Time…” which adds some nice weight to the SCRRRRRECH! that follows. But looking at the page, I think DJ did such a great job with Blake’s expression, we didn’t need the line.
I know Brian Michael Bendis has talked about this in the past: How, when reading back art proofs of his books, he often pulls out balloons and CAPS, realizing that the art says everything he needs it to. And indeed, here’s a case where we see just that.
Take a look:
Did we need it? I don’t think we did.
WRAP UP
Sorry, bit of a quick write up again this week. I’m under deadline for a few day-job projects, and today hasn’t been the most stellar of days (some unfortunate “real world” stuff), so I’ve got to call the ball a bit early.
That said, I did manage a few site tweeks over this last week, including two new widgets running where out “links” section previously resided.
I swapped out our “Awesome Webcomics” list for the InkOutbreak widget, which is a collection/webcomic hub that I highly recommend. I signed up early on, but it’s only in this last week or so that I’ve gotten a chance to play around with the site, and it’s pretty great. Head over and check out some of their offerings!
I also swapped out the Collective of Heroes banner for a new widget built by Shawn Gustafson from The Specialists. Shawn did a pretty fantastic job with this, and if you hang out for a bit as it cycles through, you’ll see our banner in the mix. That said, you’re already here, so why not check out a few of the other comics in the Collective! There’s some great ones in there– I’m hoping to be able to spotlight a few of them down the road!
So that’s it for this week– Again, sorry for the small-ish update (particularly on a Blake page, for you Blake fans)– but we’ll be back next week for Page 9, which jumps us right into the action–
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Heya gang! Welcome back for the start of the PROM!!
Is Cally actually getting stood up by Sears? It’ll be a pretty safe bet that we’ll have our answer next week with the return of Alyssa in Panel 5!
Fairly internal-dialogue heavy page this week– and one that I’m kinda proud of from a written perspective– mainly for the “Noose around my neck” and “License to Kill” lines– Oh, and calling Sears an Oaf. That was just fun…
One bit of credit where it’s due goes to the very talented Artist/Writer (and my pal,) Tony Fleecs for prodding me in the direction of naming the Dance as a tribute to Kevin.
Tony had read an early “Beat Sheet” of the story and suggested that there should be a Kevin “Shoutout” at the prom– sort of in the style of 80s high school movies. When it came to scripting, I didn’t have the right moment to implement it, but the idea stuck with me…so, when I saw the opportunity to put something up on the the establishing shot of the prom– well, that’s what I came up with: A Celebration of Life…Just cheesy enough that it might be real.
If you happen to be hitting up ImageExpo, Wondercon, or KC Planet Comicon, make sure to stop by Tony’s booth and say hi!
PROCESS
We kinda flew by the seat of our pants on this page– a massive workload over the 3-day weekend had my internal calendar all screwed up, and I totally forgot to get page/script revisions out until this morning. Being on the West Coast, and with Lisa in Central time and Brant in EST, there was a bit of a ker-fluffle– That said, DJ has built up a pretty solid buffer of pages, so we were really only held up by me…
It’s always fun seeing some of the Behind the Scenes stuff, so I thought I’d share a little directional note from DJ to Brant in this week’s inks:
I really dig the sense of movement that DJ convys through this page– particularly in how he stages Cally moving away from the crowd. You can almost “hear” the chatter of the crowd in Panel 1 fading into the background in Panel 2– and by Panel 3, you can tell it’d be so quiet you could hear a “sniff”.
Part of the effectiveness is how DJ stages Panel 3 as an overhead shot– although it’s a smaller panel, you don’t question that Cally is alone by this point. Little flourishes like the shadow she casts help sell the tone as well.
There was sort of a funny Lisa moment this morning as well– She didn’t have the script open when coloring the page and mistakenly cast Alyssa in Panel 5 as Cally:
Brant was the first one to notice it, with an: “uhhh…” email– but I wasn’t sure if Lisa was aiming for a gag: Like, Cally and Alyssa wearing the same colored dress.
One quick email to Lisa, and minutes later (like magic!) Alyssa’s dress was red!
I can think of a few times in my life where I wish I had THAT superpower!
On the Brant side of things: I mentioned the stallout we had this morning (again: my fault), but as soon as the script page was revised (ironically, with no revisions), he shot into action.
The only real questionable moment of the page occurred in Panels 4 and 5 of the script, which read as follows:
PANEL 4
Angle on Cally as she continues to scout–
CAP: Maybe that says something. Maybe I should work on not being two different people all the time. I mean, mayb–
VOICE (OFF PANEL): Sniff…sniff…
PANEL 5
From Over Cally’s Shoulder– we see ALYSSA, dressed in her prom outfit, sitting on a bench, crying.
CALLY: Alyssa?
Which, lead us to a quick round of questions– would the dialogue work if it were flopped? With Cally asking “Alyssa?” in Panel 4 (where she appears on screen) and ending the page on “sniff”…
Brant quickly A/B’ed the two ideas, to which, the clear winner presented itself rapidly.
I really like the way the balloons overlap the gutter in this case, and it allowed us to go out on a question– which is always more dramatic than a sniffling.
So there you have it: A few stumbles getting this page off the ground, but we all recovered quickly– and honestly, if these Process segments didn’t run under a “full-disclosure” policy, no one would have been the wiser!!
SPYING ON THE NET!
A really cool announcement/demo from writer Mark Waid came out this week– Longtime readers might remember the talk on Digital Comics I posted awhile back featuring Mr. Waid.
At the time, he was teased some upcoming ideas he had on Digital Comics– well, today we get to see those ideas in action via a demo video– take it away, Sir Waid:
After a 25-year career in the print comics industry, my passion for the ink and paper of my youth is waning. Storytelling through comics’ unique alchemy of words and pictures is still my first love, and it’s probably the thing in the world I’m best at—but as print costs continue to rise and profitability drops to unsustainable levels for smaller publishers who aren’t backed by media juggernauts like Disney and Warner Bros, I no longer see designing for print-first as viable.
Over the past year, I’ve begun exploring the emerging digital comics medium and, in preparation for launching my own webcomics this summer, I’ve produced several short examples to demonstrate the tools digital allows writers and artists. (See the accompanying video clip, from my iPad, for a brief example.) Most “digital comics” offered by large publishers are little more than clunky adaptations of previously existing material first designed for standard portrait-format print comics, not for landscape-format monitors and tablets. When reading a print comic, you can see the entire page at once, and artists use that as a design tool. But print comics captured on the screen are almost always too large to “take in” without scrolling about or enlarging or isolating individual panels—the comics equivalent of the old “pan-and-scan” evil of presenting widescreen movies on square televisions by inelegant cropping and editing. Hence, my new passion.
Interestingly, I’ve actually seen this idea explored by, of all folks: The Pirates. A few titles (Mostly those by Mark Millar) have been cut/chopped/cropped to become “Widescreen Editions” of their print equivalents. A few of them have even gone as far as taking these editions and creating “Motion Comics” of a sort out of them–
While I’m not a huge fan of these Youtube versions, (really bad music, aside) the Widescreen editions quickly got my attention…enough to actually start to hack up our first issue in an attempt to deliver a Widescreen version of Spy6teen– Though, I quickly learned that it’s a very labor intensive process, and ultimately had to drop the project in order to keep up with our current issues!
All that said, it looks like Mark is the first guy to go out and really legitimize this format– and to that, I say: All the best, sir. I have my Paypal at the ready for you.
If you’re just getting starting on a web or digital comic, start looking at this form– it looks a lot like the future.
WRAP UP!
Well, that’s it for this week folks! It’s been a hectic week and shows no signs of slowing down, so this’ll be a super quick wrap up.
So quick…well, that it’s over!
Seeya next week for–
THE RETURN OF ALYSSA!!!!
…With that, all is right once again between Cally and Blake! And yes, Blake is still totally clueless with exactly how much Cally could help. Also, if you’re figuring that this page might be setting up something for Vol.2 and beyond, you’re right– let’s just say that Cally “letting” Blake continue on with his Foucault’s research might have some dire consequences down the road.
This page came out pretty great in my opinion– lots of talk-y back and forth, which is always fun for me to write. Basically the crux of this page is the resolution of Cally and Blake’s schism, which I’m actually pretty stoked about since it’s been carrying on for about 2 issues now– it’s time to get back to some FUN Blake again!
PROCESS!
*One of the cool things about rocking through 4 issues is going back and seeing how much progress DJ has made as an artist– Even just looking at his panel layouts, you can clearly see how much he’s grown as a storyteller.
Check out this page from Issue 1, which is another 6-panel layout, and compare it to this page. One of the biggest things to note is how DJ is varying and overlaying individual panels now– whereas, back in Issue 1, the structure was a little more uniform.
I see it as a level of artistic confidence that he’s gained over the course of the last 3 issues– And that can really only be attained by putting in the time and work between these pages.
* Something else that I really notice going back and looking at Issue one is seeing exactly how comfortable he’s gotten with drawing Cally– I said it back in Issue 2, the moment that I thought DJ “met” Cally– Whereas these days, I really feel like DJ “knows” Cally– Similarly with Blake, Conrad, and the rest of the crew.
Which makes sense, after all, there’s no one on the planet who has spent as much time drawing these characters as Mr. Keawekane.
* Stellar Lisa Moore Colored page once again– The one thing that stood out to me is the highlighting of Blake’s hair in Panel 2.
Lisa has been playing around with a cel-style/animated look on some Spy6teen pages, and I think this is one of the more noticeable moments.
If you compare the lineart to the final colors, you can see how much more depth and highlight Blake’s mane has.
One of Lisa’s greatest strengths as a colorist is that she always motivates her Highlights and Shadows– When Lisa colors a page, she always figures out where the light source is coming from– In the case of the above example: The lights in Blake’s house behind him.
Although we’re in a fairly well-lit scene, you can see that her highlights are always consistent with the primary light.
The end result of which is always a dynamic page!
* Fun Brant lettering layout for this page! I did initially worry a bit about the text in Panel 1– after all, Cally throws out a mouthful in the smallest panel of the page. Luckily, Brant had a brilliant solution for it: A double balloon.
Big word-y pages are always a bit hair-raising for me. On the one hand, I really like those “grace-note” trade offs between character dialogues– the “ums, uh, but…, I mean’s” and so ons. In particular, I tend to script Cally/Blake sequences in this style– because, frankly, that’s how sixteen year olds talk to one another.
The danger, of course, is that you can eat up a lot of page real-estate with start/stop dialogue…but man, Brant ALWAYS figures out a way.
WRAP UP!
There was an interesting write up by Kneon over at Shadowbinders this week– a piece on the voting system at Top Web Comics, that basically explains the mechanics of getting into the Top 10 and exposing the usage of bots and scripts.
It’s a pretty interesting article– and confirmed some suspicions I’ve held for quite some time.
I actually like Top Web Comics– I think it’s a very useful tool for us in terms of new readers finding us, and we’ll continue to use it as such. As I mentioned in the comments section of the write up, I’ve had a few interactions with Richard, TWC’s owner, and I find him to be a pretty swell guy as well.
It is a little unfortunate that some web savvy individuals feel the need to juke their rankings via unfair methods– but hey, what can you do? The way that I see it, you can have a million fake votes to propel you to the number one spot, but if your comic isn’t any good, no one is going to be reading it. So what’s the point? I’d much rather hover in the middle of the list with legitimate and awesome readers who are actually enjoying our work, than have 20,000 robots who DON’T read, voting away.
And at the end of the day, Kneon’s report just made me that much more proud of the fact that we once did this:
And we did it legitimately.
WE BEAT THE ROBOTS, GUYS!!! HUMANS ALWAYS WIN!!
So please, if you have a moment, do drop us a click/vote at Top Web Comics– we really do see a good amount of real/human readers who discover us through the site!
Ok that’s a wrap for this week, gang!! Seeya next week for…
