derelicts and heroes con 2022
Hey! So a week+ has passed and Heroes Con 2022 is in my rear view. Moving on to other things - more freelance, other personal projects, family, dogs, etc. Hit me up if you managed to get out to Heroes Con. I’d love to hear about your experience!
It was the first time I was invited to table in Indie Island. I’d been so busy in the run up to the show that I didn’t have anything new to table with so I made a point to put something together. That’s what this post is about. Soup to nuts on how Derelicts came into being and what the conception, production process looked like and how problems that popped up along the way were navigated around.
Speaking of problems. I often don’t finish my own projects. As a freelancer I'm as reliable as the Atomic Clock. My own stuff… I’m like a puppy with a new tennis ball, but as soon as work or some other SHINIER thing comes along, I lose focus and move on. Just how I’m built. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. So when Karla at Heroes let me know that I’ve got a table in Indie Island I knew I had to have something new. Full disclosure - the staff at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find welcomed me and my family with open arms when we first moved down to Charlotte from NYC. It was the easiest part of a difficult transition and gave us some stability in a growing unsteady world. But I digress… Indie Island! 40th Anniversary Show! And I got a big ol’ goose egg of new stuff to show off. BUT I’m a professional, who’s made his bones being faster than the next person. I can whip something up. Start something. Finish something. Progress. Not perfection. All that self help, motivational speaker kinda stuff, but you know… not predatory.
Blue Skies and Brainstorms
So what to do… what to do…? I knew I wanted to keep it short. I knew I wanted to make something that I wanted to draw that I don’t get a chance to do much. Keep it exciting and hopefully funny. I got it! A while back I did an illustration in Procreate of a retro, space faring weirdo. I called him Astronaut Mike because I’m excellent at naming things. I’ve also wanted to draw an action sequence that spanned a whole comic issue. I didn’t have time for that so 10 pages of… what?
Storytime!
I sat with it for about 37 seconds and decided I didn't need to reinvent the wheel. I’m just doing this to remind myself that I can cobble together comics. So a medic ship, distress signal from a derelict salvage ship, medics respond, they get on board, boom, all we’re missing is Sigorney Weaver. Add in a pacifist medic that takes “do no harm” seriously and trap him in a weaponized, gooey, nano suit with a prime directive to protect its passenger at all costs and we have a story. Outline. Edit for pacing. Moving on.
Pen to paper. All go. no quit.
So a while back I bought a pack of ArtyStacks comic templates for Procreate. As I was about to start the layout for this I was elbow deep in several freelance jobs that I needed to focus on. I have a pretty strict time management system I adhere to when I get really busy and I push the comic stuff until after hours. So after sitting or standing in front of a Cintiq for 8-9 hours I’m not inclined to crawl back to it after dinner. So working on an iPad Pro on the couch with some inane show in the background is perfect for this stage of the process.
The thumbnailed pages gives me a chance to see how the story flows panel to panel, page to page. All that truly fun sequential storytelling stuff for which comic process nerds pat themselves on the back. Listen it’s a pretty solitary existence, if we don’t hype ourselves up who will?
From this stage I jump right to inks. I’ll screenshot each page and paste it into the full size ArtStacks template. It’s 11”x17” in Photoshop, and I digitally inked it using brushes I got from Jing Sketch. As I tightened up the lines I maybe redrew a couple of panels for storytelling reasons or I repeated actions or I roughed in a bad establishing shot. I knew I wanted to keep the action quick, tight and claustrophobic so I only had a few panels to show how big the cargo area was and how easily things can hide in plain site can be. Whether that was accomplished or not is another thing.
Digital Crayolas
So I’m not the strongest colorist. I lay in flats and color everything like a coloring book. People are people colored. The suits are yellow. The instruments and hallways are grey. The personnel lights are blue/white. Very simple. Then I’ll add shadows and light sources and hotspots and reflective light effects. However I knew this was gonna be gory so I used that effect in old EC comics and the Creepshow movie from the 80’s. When something horrible is about to happen they drown the panel or the frame in harsh red light. So that’s what I did inside the Cargo Bay/Killing Floor *rubs hands maniacally* I changed the dominant color after the medic exits the ship and we’re on the exterior. Immediate threat is neutralized and the pace of the story changes. The medic is now the most dangerous being in the book. My point is, what I lack in technique and color theory I really try to make up for in storytelling.
Print production or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Full Bleeds and Trim Lines
I usually have a buddy of mine do my exporting for print, but damn it, I'm an adult! I can figure this out… with help from my printer contact at Boingo. Mary helped to get my files in the right place and even eyeballed a version of the cover where my name was gonna get partially cut off. I kinda don’t care much about signing things, but if it’s partially cut off then it looks unprofessional and my people will think I just forgot. My page count was off so I added a couple of pages of an outline and thumbnails to round that out. Moral of this story: ask questions and try and have people around you with the right answers. In the end I only printed 30 copies. A truly money losing endeavor, BUT I get to hold a book that looks kinda pretty, the people that picked it up really like it, and I got stickers to boot!
So all this was done on down time, after work and weekends, through a bout of Covid-19 (keep wearing those masks and social distancing if you can) and spending time with family. It’s silly, fun work that I take pretty seriously, but not my place in it. I choose to make funny books. I truly love it. I hope that comes across.
Take away:
Finish things
Ask questions
Do no harm. Take no shit. (not in the post. Just some words to live by.)
Make sure you click the links and check out the story here
