Page 26

Page 25

Page 24

Page 23

If I were to create a chart on which one could measure the increase of completed pages, we'd note that with page 23 a milestone has been reached: the end of chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes. The work ahead is still unfathomable yet when I see how far I've come in a month (1/12th of the journey complete) I'm encouraged.

Page 22

Page 21

This page took about three hours to draw....so I can now average the time it'll take me to finish this whole thing. Ages!

Page 20

Pages 18 and 19

I once visited the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in Orlando Florida and saw a life size roadster someone had built out of match sticks. I remember thinking, "Odd hobby." This graphic novel project makes me think somebody will say of it, "Odd." What propelled the maker of that matchstick car? Fame? Riches? Distraction from a boring life? Visions of glory?

What propels me? I'm making art out of profound philosophical questions. If on lookers say, "odd," so be it.

Page 17

This page marks the end of day two in the classroom. I've divided Ecclesiastes into discreet sections defined by paragraphs of text, each representing one day. I shudder to think there are 48 days to go. My motive for drawing this graphic novel is to deal honestly with despair and existential dread in the Hebrew scripture. My motive for blogging about this experience is to study the ebb and flow of enthusiasm for this project. I'm notorious for not finishing projects. Reflecting on the creative process will, I hope, give insight into ADD, boredom, faith, optimism, grief, subjectivity, and delusion. Investing hours and hours (years!) in a project that may never gain popularity is a huge gamble. Two things egg me on: the pleasurable distraction it affords while my wife's health deteriorates; the buzz I get when I think this project may be of interest to readers other than myself. Fantasy plays a crucial role in creativity as does the approach/avoidance syndrome when facing trauma. It's art therapy.

Page 16

This page (like all full pages) is comprised of two half pages. It took me 3 hours to finish. I whittled 15 minutes off of my time. Poor Karenoia's earring isn't colored in, there's a patch of white next to Tan Fran's head, and the shading looks like it was applied by vandals. Yet I press on.

Page 15

I boot up my computer at 8:20 and printed the page of text to pencil.

Pencil layout and characters: 25 min.
Inking pencil drawings with pen: 30 min.
Scan and touch up lines digitally: 65 min.
Inking, shading, applying gradients digitally: 75 min.

Grand total: 3.25 hours.

This statistic is troubling on several counts.

1. My facility with digital software can be improved only minimally. I've now got the basics down and have reached my speed limit.
2. Any increase in speed will surely result in decrease in quality. Note the white ear on guy with white beard in panel four. To correct that would've been too time consuming so I left it. Somehow, once I apply gradients I can't go back and touch up things. The picture gets locked. I haven't the energy to research how to correct it.
3. At the rate of three hours per page I'm looking (at least) at 750 hours ahead of me. Daunting? Yes. Can I sustain enthusiasm, energy, and focus for that many hours? Seems nigh impossible today (I'm fighting a headache and cold).

Furthermore, Dr. Q appears twice in every page (jabbering the text of Ecclesiastes). This means I'll be drawing him 500 times. Waves of self doubt wash over me at this point. I'm a big fan of mocking bad movies (MST3K comes to mind). But now I regret ever laughing at substandard movies because 16 months ago I embarked on a journey of creating my own substandard work of art. I can hear the hoard of jeering mockers crashing the gates even now.

Me thinks it's time for a break.

Page 14

I did it. I drew three pages (six half pages) in one day. Granted, it was a long day and the quality is nothing to brag about. But this gives some indication of how long it'll be before this graphic novel is finished. If I can do three pages tomorrow (Sunday) I predict I'll finish this draft (# 9) by Christmas. That doesn't necessarily mean the book will be done. I still need to tweak draft 9--coordinate colors, shading, backgrounds, props, and any other gaffs which draft 9 currently contains--and turn it into draft 10, the finished product. Let's hope all these talking heads don't bore readers to death. I find them interesting, but that guarantees nothing. Like the alien son told his dad, "They're better than a chemistry set!" Mix 'n match and watch the sparks fly.

Page 13

Page 12

Page 11

Shaded background! We nailed it (with the help of my graphic designer daughter Olivia). In my excitement I failed to notice the gradient is pale blue like day one....and it makes it look like the class is outside. I just don't have the oomph on this round of rough drafts to add building interiors (walls, windows, light switches, posters, molding, etc). But to get this feature working (finally!) is a big boon to my enthusiasm.

Page 10

Page 9

More Musings and work space photos

Here's where the un-magic happens. I gave our kitchen table away, am using three old tables and file cabinet on wheels, and loving the new floor on which I can roll around in an office chair (not pictured).

As you can tell from previous posts I'm not working on the shading technique. There are only so many learning curves a guy can tackle. The beauty of digital painting, after hacking away at 450 or so pages I will have hopefully gotten into the groove of file management, inking, scanning, tidying dialog, etc and will have the leisure to retrace my steps and tweak the shading (while studying Richmond, et al). As you may have noticed, I've accidentally switched Megan's clothing color. I'm not too concerned since that'll be one of a hundred adjustments to make. Now, it's get the dang thing digitized with semi complete characters, dialog, etc. This truly is multitasking at it's task-iest.

Page 8

Further explanations: I'm trying to depict the growing confusion of the students. Is Dr. Q talking science or metaphysics? Even though these brightly colored cartoons will appeal to middle school kids, the "is" to "ought" debate will register with collegians familiar with ethics. I'm also hoping the student's orientation (Attributes and Ideals) are becoming clearer. It's hard to tell at this early stage. Maybe there are too many characters too fast. By the way, I've included subtleties for my own enjoyment--a nod to Vonnegut and ice-nine, Attributes and Ideals (a nod to AI as opposed to Biographical Sketches, BS), and others. I'm at the point now where I hope clean lines, hand gestures, bright colors, uniform word balloons, and distinct philosophical orientations will merge into a coherent whole thus distracting readers from the amateurish dialog. I've never written fiction before so what I lack in talent I make up for in volume. My aim is to eventually speed up to 3 pages a day. That's insane but I'm in a hurry. I did page 9 in one day. 

Page 7

If I want this book to have a shelf life longer than a month I should minimize references to pop culture, all of which change at the speed of light. On the other hand if I don't make mention of any current affairs it'll be too esoteric. Will current readers know that Fiddler on the Roof is an iconic depiction of Jews grappling with providence? Will Tevye be remembered a hundred years from now? I actually think so...with the advent of the internet. Will current and future readers have any clue who are the heroes named in pages 4 and 6? I hope so. My last ten posts have been a catalog of all the things I see wrong with my graphic novel so far, including this page. What happened to Joker's left arm? Why is it asymmetric with his right arm? Why does the shading look like it was applied by a drunken graffiti artist? The Joker's tongue is white as are the lenses in his glasses. One nice thing about inking this thing digitally, I can go back and make corrections. I'm even tempted at some point to give a color PDF of each chapter to a proof reader to catch incongruities, gaffs, blunders, asymmetric body shapes, botched shading, typos, etc. My proof reader better have lots of time on their hands. I'll keep 'em busy!

Who's the guy in the blue hat? His ID has been purposefully kept secret as his role is pivotal in chapters to come. His visage, by the way, is based on the book photo of Daniel Gilbert (Stumbling on Happiness).

Page 6

I adjusted the width of my blog. This makes the pages gigantic...but the text comes out sharp and not fuzzy. Why does Tan Fran look like her body is on backwards? And what's with all those smudges on their faces? I wonder what these bio sketches will evoke in readers? I started drawing on Feb. 21, 18 days ago. Six pages in 18 days = 1 page every three days. This is not acceptable. I must increase my output.

Page 5

I keep posting these pages hoping by magic the text will be less fuzzy. I'll fix this before I publish the finished pages on that other blog.

Page 5b roughs

Rough Draft 1 (using the original placement of word balloons)

Rough Draft 2 (Ooops, students came out way too big; Dr. Q looks shrimpy!)

Rough Draft 3: tidying up placement of students

Rough Draft 4: still trying to place word balloons so they don't bleed off the page

Rough Draft 5: ready for color

Finished 5B fully colored (though not yet shaded....)

This half page took 5 hours. Ouch. I don't anticipate many future splash pages like this since they're so labor intensive. I've added several of them early on to hook readers into the story. I know that page after page of talking heads await unwary readers so I'm subtly creating an unspoken expectation that future pages will contain sufficient visual variety so as not to bore readers. It's blatant manipulation.

Finicky readers will note that the students are not sitting in the same places they were on page 3. If I were making a movie somebody would catch this inconsistency. I'm hoping that readers will read quickly and not catch the mistake; I hope they get the sense that the students have an enthusiastic naivete about Dr. Q's lecture. That'll change soon enough but on this first day of lectures they're on board.

Page 5a

This half page took about 3.5 hours with breaks to schedule clients, wash clothes, and cook. I'm still having technical difficulties which are aggravating to the max. For some reason I'm obsessed with speed; if I were to slow down and enjoy the process my output might improve. Why speed? I'm staring at 500+ half pages (many alien pages are not even written or sketched yet) of rough drafts that need to be printed as empty text/panel pages, inked by hand with pencils, light table, and fine tip fountain pen (fun but labor intensive as I'm still fleshing out each character [costume, physiognomy, age, skin color, size], scanned, colored (fun and highly labor intensive as I continue to flail around in the deep end of this digital pool), shaded (not fun as I haven't a clue at what I'm doing both technologically or light/shade and value-wise), merged, and posted. If I increase my speed to 3 hours per half page (an ambitious estimate at this point) that's 1500 hours. If I work 25 hours a week that's 60 weeks. Even though I've been hacking away at this graphic novel for 15 months (with a 3 month hiatus), can I sustain interest for another year+? Speigelman took 11 years to draw MAUS but he was young when he started. I'm racing against my biological clock which, once the alarm goes off, I'll be infirm, decrepit, and unable to conceive--IE., manipulate pens, mouse, touch pads, scanners, etc. Also, there's a weird symbiotic relationship between my wife's deteriorating health and my obsession with mental challenges. Distracting myself with 101 tasks of creating a graphic novel is therapeutic, or so I like to believe.

Page 4

Didn't somebody somewhere say at one time, "It's the poor craftsman who blames his tools?" I had a very difficult time putting this page together....and I blame my tools. I'm using a new program called GIMP2 which has more whistles and bells than I know what to do with. The tech problem I experienced was clicking on a tool button and nothing happened. Add to this it's Monday morning and I've got appointments, clients, and duties to accomplish. Add to that I'm timing myself to see if I could get this page complete in record time. It took 2 hours to complete the bottom half of page 4 and about 10 minutes to cut and past 4a and 4b together to make page 4 compete. (Somehow the text is still coming out fuzzy. I suspect it's this blog's fault because when I open completed pages in Publisher, Gimp2, Corel Painter Essentials, Paint, and MS Office Picture Manager the text is clear and crisp. I'm beginning to miss my leaky Rapidographs.

Page 4a

As I drew this half page all the voices of all the writing instructors, books, and coaches I've ever had screamed in my head, "Show, don't tell!" I scream back, "I don't have time. Shut up." My attitude is a less than perfect finished manuscript is better than a perfect unfinished one. Right or wrong, this is the creative path I've chosen. This somewhat simple page took only 2 hours; my speed is increasing. Yay.

Cutting and Pasting Digitally

I outfoxed myself. In my last post I displayed page 3. However, when I drew it I thought I'd save time by NOT sticking closely to my rough draft and chose rather to omit one of the students (Betty). To my dismay when I saw my rough sketch for page 4 I discovered I needed to have Betty appear in page 3. What to do? I didn't want to redraw the whole thing...so I tried the digital cut and paste feature. Here is the result.

Like magic Betty has now appeared. I simply cut and then pasted Terry and Karenoia to the right. I drew Betty on a separate file and cut and pasted her into the panel. You'll see on page 4 why this was necessary. This digital world will put eraser companies out of business.

Page 3

Dr. Q has entered the building. Still no gradient fills in the background; this quest is maddening. These first postings are still tentative. I anticipate at some point reaching the tipping point where I'm no longer experimenting with software, tweaking techniques, and fumbling with tools. This page took two days (6-7 hours total) but will (he said optimistically) be shortened as I increase in skill. I can't want until I can do one page per hour. I often chuckle when agonizing over minute details that readers of this graphic novel will spend about 3 to 5 seconds per page. I suppose this is the essence of art. Weeks, months, and years of producing translate into mere moments of consuming. What eggs me on is the hope that there will be many readers spending those moments in consuming. One artist spends 360 seconds creating a page in hopes that 360 readers will spend at least one second reading a page. Do other artists make these calculations? 

Gradient example

Look at that glorious purple background. Darkish on top, lightish on bottom. How can I do this without spending $500- $600 for new software? My Corel Painter Essentials 4 does not permit such colorization. Here's the extent of what it can do. Don't look directly at it; you may go blind.