Page number is in our title! Page number is in our title!!
Ok, I realize that with most comics, hitting page 16 isn’t really cause for celebration– but, hey: We’re Spy6teen– and our crew loves a great party! So, let’s put up some banners, we’ll get a band to play– you put up a pinata and I’ll bring the punchbowl! (did someone say contest? Why, yes– we should have a contest…)
Seriously though, we’ve kicked off to a pretty stellar week on Spy6teen– Our ad slot on Top Web Comics has driven in RECORD SMASHING page views! If you’re joining us from TWC, thank you very much for swinging by. We really hope you’ll stick around to see what we’ve got coming up!
I usually save the TWC vote initiative for later in the entry, but seeing as it’s a big Top Web Comics week, I figured I’d pop it up early– TWC has been amazing in terms of new readers, so if you like the comic, the best way to show support is just by clicking this:
…and, if you happen to be a member, we’d love it if you’d consider favorite’ing us! Our humble drive is to hopefully push into the top 100 (whose isn’t?) but honestly, we’d be just as happy breaking out of the 200s, where it seems we’ve been trapped for quite awhile.
Ok, so that out of the way, let’s move on to our commentary for page 16!
So, after the one, two, three, punch of our mid-issue “action beat,” we’re moving into some Cally decompression time!
Lisa did a fantastic job with her colors and lighting on this page– In particular, I’m always a fan of how she works nighttime scenes. Coloring, much like B/W inking, is really all about knowing your light sources. If you take a look at how the shadow to highlight falls on Conrad and Cally’s faces in their closeup panels, you can “see” the lighting– which in turn, creates depth. Also note that because Conrad and Cally are facing one another, the light source switches from right to left. Which takes us way back to Page 7, where we talked about the 180 degree rule.
At some point, I’ll have to post up a line-art to Colors comparison– well…as soon as I figure out how to make animated .gifs, I suppose…In the meantime, maybe if we ask real nice, Lisa can schedule up another Livestream coloring session!
In terms of Line Art, this one is another one of my favorite DJ pages– Funny enough, considering it isn’t an “action packed” page, but rather a small argument scene– Kicking off in Panel 1 with a canted establishing shot gives the page some dynamism that it would otherwise be lacking in a “two people talking” scene…everything from the acting on this page, to Cally’s pose as she’s flopped on the chair– these are the kind of scenes I just love seeing DJ do. Big pin-up/fight scenes are one thing (and also stellar,) but these quieter scenes are the bread and butter of comic storytelling…
We’ve also moved into Conrad’s office, which I know DJ spent a good amount of time designing– That’s another one of those “hidden hours” of making a comic book. Most people figure, “yeah, you just sit down and draw, right?”– but there are often hours spent sketching out locations. The High School, Quad HQ, Cally’s house– even Blake’s room, which we’ll see next issue– They’re all “real” places, at least in terms of knowing the contents and dimensions of each one.
As a writer, seeing location sketches is just downright awesome– In particular, when DJ shot over his Montauk High layouts, it instantly started to rev up ideas for future stories!
So, yeah: Warp Daemon!! We’ve named our tentacled friend from last week! I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by letting you guys know we’ll be seeing more of him (her? It?) down the road– and, man– speaking of designs? You guys are gonna flip out when you see what DJ put together for our “full view”– It’s the stuff that nightmares are made of!
CONTEST!! PRIZES!!
Driving around the other day, I realized today’s page would be our 16th– and since we were having a party in our opening paragraph, I figured that it was time for another Spy6teen contest!
This one is open to our US/Twitter followers (or, even if you aren’t following us twitter)– all you have to do is swing us an @spy6teen and drop our tinyurl link: http://bit.ly/beu3Wa
along with a twitter micro-review– (obviously, there aren’t a lot of characters left, so you’ll have to be concise!)
We’ll keep the contest rolling through the week and I’ll pick my favorite tweet for the blog on Thursday. Winner gets a prizepack/grabbag of a whole bunch of comics, shipped to them for free!
Sorry to our international readers, once again– I do promise to eventually put together a contest just for you.
So, that’s it for this week! Again, big thanks to our friends at Top Web Comics, as well as our new readers from Reddit! We’ll see you back on the blog this Thursday for a lively discussion on Digital Comics!
