…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…

PROM ARRIVAL!!!

BLAKE’S BACK! I know a few of you out there (one in particular) are likely stoked at the return of everyone’s favorite spy-neighbor! And boy, is he in a MOOD…

This week kicks off a two page Blake and Cally story beat. It’s a little weird moving right into this after last week’s Conrad/Cally beat, but keep in mind that we’re in the early pages of our Volume 1 arc, so the dovetail of our emotional and inter-character exchanges is kind of necessary from a plot perspective.

In other words, I know you guys are looking forward to seeing some butt-whompin’ action– and all I can tell you is: It’s COMING!

 PROCESS!

* Just because we’re in a character beat doesn’t mean the art has to be bland! And DJ proves it right here, with one of my favorite Spy6teen pages yet!

There’s just something about how DJ designed the exterior neighborhood of Cally’s Montauk that I just love– There’s the quiet quaint town feeling to the design of the houses that always make it seem like such a nice place to live.

* DJ really knocked me out with that first panel too: Using the porch support beams to create a number of frames within one panel is a really cool touch. Plus, notice the perspective work, how the left side of the panel feels closer to you than the right side. Just really great stuff!

* Love the fact that DJ keeps the world consistent– notice the tree that sits between the two houses? Same tree Cally climbs between her room and Blake’s in Issue 2:

It may seem like a pretty minor detail, but those sorts of little details really help sell the reality of the world. Plus, I’m one of those nitpickers, and I really, really, really, hate how artists are constantly redesigning the layouts of places like Wayne Manor or Peter Parker’s apartment.

* Pretty interesting layout and another “Cally Breaking Borders” in the lower half of the page. If you’ll notice, this is a really conversational page– and DJ wisely left Panel 4 “blank” (as Cally is popping out of frame) to allow room for her balloons.
What I really like about this “blank” panel is that it gives the conversation a sense of rhythm, or a back-and-forth between Cally and Blake– as opposed to combining this into one panel and a giant wall of text.

* I always think its neat to compare and contrast the inks vs the colors– Obviously, I spend a lot of time looking at the Lineart (B/W), so it’s always a jaw dropping/eye popping moment when Lisa’s colors come in. Witness:

It always strikes me with how much MOOD Lisa brings to the page. In this case, the overall theme of the twilight blue elements– The sky, Cally’s dress, and Blake’s sweater, creates a fantastic visual moment.

* I’m not sure it’s 100% showing up in the low-res/web version, but you might be able to tell that Lisa texturized the walkway in front of Cally’s house– and the grass!

* After a few “easy” pages (see Page 1 of this issue!) Brant had a pretty good challenge with this page! Between the Out-of-Frame Cally, and the fact that I loaded up this scene with a lot of back and forth dialogue, he had his work cut out for him.

* Probably one of the biggest challenges for a letterer (particularly on a wordy page like this) is in laying out the dialogue balloons without stepping all over the art.
It’s really evident how Brant is aware of this by looking at Panel 2– where he breaks Cally’s second line of dialogue with a wide connector as not to obscure the mailbox.
Sure, the mailbox is hardly the most important element in that panel, but you always want to do your best to avoid covering stuff up!

* Funny enough, this morning Brant did the lettering layouts over the B/W line art– Obviously, this works well and is do-able, since Brant also Flats these pages (if you recall the dissection of Flatting from Issue 3– the Jellyfish people!!)– When he passed it over to DJ Kirkbride and myself, I realized: in all these pages, I’ve never seen the Line art with Lettering…It was just neat to see…so, I figured I’d share it with you guys:

WRAP UP!

If you missed our Tweet from last week, you guys probably missed a Spy6teen cameo/Easter egg in Jules Rivera’s Valkyrie Squadron!

Whatever is Cally doing off in a Sci-Fi comic about Humans fighting a giant war against the autodrones? Guess you’ll have to head over (and bookmark!) Valkyrie Squadron to find out!
Thanks so much for the cameo, Jules!! That was totally awesome!

In site news: Only the tiniest of redesigns over the weekend, I just added in a Issue 4 Jump link on the side bar. It’s a really minor thing, but I catch it every once in awhile and can’t believe that we’re 4 issues in!

In other cool news, it looks like after Graphicly’s big Digital Book initiative, we’ll be available on Apple’s Ibooks platform in the near future! Yup, read us right from your Ipad/Iphone/I-ball! More news on this as it develops, but obviously, we’re all pretty stoked about it!

Well, that wraps up this week! We’ll be back next week for Part 2 of the Blake/Cally beat!! Seeya in 7 days!!

If you have a moment, please drop us a vote on Top Web Comics:

No More Secrets, eh? Kinda doubt that!

Heya gang! Welcome back for Prom-Prep, Part 2– aka: Page 3!

We’ll kick off with a big shoutout and Spy6teen “NoPrize” to Iwasno1special, who totally called out the Corsage being a superspy gizmo in last week’s comment section! As soon as I saw that comment, I had to chuckle– but decided to hold off until the big “reveal” this week– yes, I think I can hear a “I knew it!” from here!

PROCESS!

* Well, just like last week’s DJ Dress design, I’m totally in love with the Corsage! And I think it goes to show that if you’re a budding comic book artist, practice drawing EVERYTHING. Because it won’t just be Batman fighting the Joker for 22 pages– you never know if you’ll be designing a corsage one day!

* In fact, everything about this page from DJ’s side of things just works marvelously: From the little background details in Panel 1 (notice the photo in the background?), to Cally’s “sotto” expression in Panel 2, and Conrad’s “Y’just KNOW I’m lying” expression in panel 6– This page is just filled with great storytelling.

*Layout wise, I’m a big fan of how DJ “Anchored” the page with a long shot in Panel 3– notice how it instantly orientates you to the scene, especially in regards to the sides of the room that Cally and Conrad are on.

* Here’s something cool I notice as I was writing this up– I had a preview of the current page alongside the “live” version of page 2:

…and it occurred to me how Lisa’s colors really move the story along– Just by changing the color of the walls, these 2 scenes (just one page apart, and continuity-wise, just one floor apart) have a sense of progression. Granted, we’ve established the colors of both rooms in the past, but seeing them next to each other was pretty interesting to me.

* I’m pretty sure Lisa was one step ahead of me on the script! I forgot to call it out on the page, but this scene takes place at dusk– Not a spoiler, but next week’s page is an exterior, where you’ll see the skies in action. Luckily, Lisa was on the ball and our windows in the scene reflect the time of day!

* Great closeup of Cally’s textured dress in panel 2, also!

* Brant, DJ Kirkbride & I had our usual pre-page editing session early this morning. I was originally a little concerned that Conrad’s panel 4 speech might run a little cramped. Originally I’d scripted:

 CONRAD: Cally, I just want you to know– everything I did, it was only to keep you safe. I know how insane this spy business is, and I just hoped I could let you have a few moments of a normal teenage life.

One big ‘ole block of text!
With just a few panel/balloon moves, I think DJ took the stiffness out of Conrad’s line– making it  sound much more sincere, which I was a little worried about.

Turns out, Brant managed to get everything in, so the word weight turned out to be a non-issue.
Between having one our patented “Technobabble/Science-y” dialogues, and a heartfelt moment, I think we’ve finally gotten a pretty good handle on Page/Word counts!

 WRAPUP!

Bit of a short write up this week– feeling a tad under the weather, so I’m going to wrap up pretty quick here!

In the meantime, here’s a quick little plug for our own DJ Kirkbride, who will be launch a webcomic of his own fairly soon (co-written by a great fellow named Adam P. Knave) & illustrated by Nick Brokenshire called “Amelia Cole”:

I’ve read the first issue and it’s pretty fantastic!
Not much at the site right now, but I’m telling you, just bookmark it now! I’ll be sure to let you know when DJ and the gang officially launch.

…wasn’t DJ and the Gang an 80s rap group? No? hmmm, they should have been

Ok gang! That’s it! If you have a moment, please drop us a vote on Top Web Comics:

If you haven’t joined us on Twitter or Facebook, please do!

NEXT WEEK: BLAKE’S BACK!