Updates, samples and graphic novel/comic industry news by Beckett Gladney and Debbie Ridpath Ohi

An increasing number of educators are using graphic novels and comics  “as everything from early developmental reading tools to serious literary texts.” See Publishers Weekly: Comics In The Classroom.

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I thought I’d post a bit about how I go about getting a page finished. Debbie’s script is well worked out as far as how many panels per page, what happens in each panel, dialog and character reactions and so forth, so I have the fun job of interpreting and trying to enhance what she’s written with the graphics. This all starts with the page rough, which I draw in pencil to work out various problems, decide what sizes to make the various panels and where dialog boxes might go.

This is the initial page rough for Page 8 of our graphic novel project. You can see how rough the drawing is, but it gives a pretty clear idea of what goes where. I send this back to Debbie and we go back and forth and make revisions as needed.

From here, I go on to the blueline pencil drawing on the final board. I use non-photo blue pencils (Steadtler, I think they are) to lay in the drawing that I want to use for the final inking. I generally refine and enhance the drawing from what the rough was, but the basic shapes and layout remain similar to the final pencil rough.

Blueline with pencils

I lay out the panels first, then I work on the page overall to get the basic layout down, working very loosely and trying to keep in mind the overall look and shape of objects on the page and how they work with each other. I watch for bad tangents, unfortunate line convergences, flow of the text bubbles and I tweak placements as needed to make the overall design stronger. After that I go in on each panel and refine and detail the characters and action in each panel. This page is pretty close to done with the detailing.

Detailing the blueline

Once the page is all drawn, I go in with the ink. I’ve been trying various different pens for inking, and I finally splurged and got myself a wonderful fountain pen with a good quality flexible nib that allows me to draw more naturally and get variations in line width with different hand pressure. For larger ink areas I fill in with a permanent felt marker for a deep solid black because it’s fast and leak proof, though some people brush in the ink on large areas. I have found with fountain pens that the right ink is crucial; I use Koh-I-Noor Fount India, as it flows evenly, dries fast and stays a rich black no matter what and the pen can still be washed with water. It’s gotten hard to find good fountain pens for drawing and harder to find this ink, but it’s the best I’ve ever tried;  solid black and bullet-proof.

I lay in the panels first, then the dialog bubbles. Other people have very different methods for doing this, but for now it’s how I’m working. I detail the boxes and the dialog bubbles to add a bit of line variety and interest; I made a design decision early on that I wanted the panel boxes and dialog bubbles to vary in line emphasis and have unusual edges to add a bit more interest and to help emphasize the dialog flow.

Starting the inking

And here you can see the page inked. This particular page is very full and busy, so I’ve kept the layout pretty straightforward; on other pages I plan to shake up the layout a bit by using characters and action breaking out of the boxes more. But readability and the flow of the story are more important in this project, I think, than being really cutting edge and possibly causing the story be harder to follow. Since we’re aiming for  middle school readers, I want them to be able to easily follow the dialog paths.

Here’s a bit of detail on the inking for the bottom of Page 8. The blueline drawing has been carefully erased from the board so that only the ink is left, but erasing is a tricky business and can smear or lighten some inks, so using the right ink is crucial, as well as a very soft eraser. It also helps if you haven’t made the blueline drawing too heavy and dug into the paper!

I try to make the ink lines vary in width, to let the white spaces act as design elements, and to allow for the possibility of the page being colored later. Color will add a whole different set of problems to deal with, but if the initial layout and inking work well and the design is strong, the color will fall into place.

At this point the inked page gets scanned into the computer and cleaned up if it needs it in Photoshop (and they always need cleaning up at least a bit). I do use a white-out pen if I goof on the inking, but I prefer to keep that to a minimum and I know that I can clean the page up in the computer.

I’m finding that I like to keep the sketches and previous pages handy to look at when I’m doing the layout for the next page because it helps me stay consistent with the characters’ looks and the environmental elements that they’re in. And it’s easier to draw the characters so that they still look like the same person if you have all the previous drawings of them in sight. It acts as a reminder of who they are and what they look like from various angles, and it’s fun to draw them in new and different poses and expressions and see what develops.

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According to Publisher’s Weekly, cartoonist Barry Deutsch has signed a book deal with Harry N. Abrams to publish his webcomic Hereville as a graphic novel under its young adult imprint, Amulet.

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Bookreporter.com is launching GraphicNovelReporter.com later this month, a site which aims to be an in-depth look at graphic novels and manga for adult, teen and kid readers. From the announcement on the main site: “What will be there? News. Viewpoints and opinions. Bestseller and ‘Best Of ‘ Lists. Books Into Movies and Books On DVD features. Upcoming release dates. Contests. And, of course, the smart, crisply written reviews and interviews you expect from The Book Report Network.”

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I’ve never seen this drawing technique before and couldn’t figure out what he was doing at first:

The artist is Emmanuel Guibert, author of Alan’s War: Alan’s War The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope.

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Stone Dragon Press’s comics are all b&w with color covers. They publish speculative fiction, science fiction, horror and fantasy.

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The National Post had an interesting article yesterday about graphic novels.

For 30 years, the literary world has wondered what to make of graphic novels. Are they a new art form-or just an adult rehash of the classic comic book?

The author concludes that graphic novels are comic books that hate to be called comic books.

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Beckett and I are starting to exchange bigger and bigger files now that we’re working with Photoshop files and colour layers. And whoa, these files are HUGE! I usually work in Corel Painter, which does recognize PSD files, but have recently started to learn Photoshop basics via Lynda.com.

Anyway, right now we’re investigating the best way to exchange files. Current experiment: using the iDisk facility at Apple’s MobileMe. MobileMe’s iDisk, however, seems to have issues. Any suggestions for the best way to exchange 46 MB files would be much appreciated!

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According to Publishers Weekly, DC comics is folding Virgin Comics into the new Liquid comics. DC has also announced that it’ll be shutting down Minx, a line of graphic novels targeting teen girls.

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