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.

First Half Page "Flat" Color

First attempt at full color (half) page. (I plan on combining half pages so the book is taller than it is wide).  The number of decisions required to produce this page was enormous. Trial and error, scouring manuals and chat rooms, watching Youtube videos, and more trial and error and here's what we get.

I've abandoned shading for the time being. Adjusting pixels, brush width, scanning resolutions, gradient fills, remembering colors so skin and clothes don't waver, and a zillion other tasks were technical  challenge enough. Once I'm relatively facile with drawing with a stylus, managing files, and so forth, and then I might return to Art School 101 and study shading, light, highlights, reflected shadows, again. However, I'm not going to live forever and this project already is ten months in the making. Even doing flat colors is arduous and time consuming. I estimate about 450 half pages are to be drawn, scanned, colored, and posted. It just doesn't seem right to me that, should this take ten years, a seventy year old man is still drawing comic books.

First Color Job

Arturo Alfredo Giovanni, 21 year old exchange student from Tuscany who is studying culinary arts. His
heroes include Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsey, Rachel Ray, Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck,and Epicurus. 

The things about the project that give me an overload of delirium and joy: 

1.Tapping into the part of my brain that controls eye/hand coordination. Moving your hand on a tablet while the drawing appears on a screen is a weird disconnect. 

2. Learning about layers, blending, eye droppers, and a zillion other tools is an unending swim in bliss. 

3. Marveling at the creative genius of the persons who invented digital art--every move I make causes me to gasp in disbelief. 

4.  The stylus that I draw with has no batteries, no wires, and get this--when you turn it upside down you can erase with it. This must be what it's like when aborigines see aircraft for the first time.

5.  The range of possibilities is infinite which again causes me great joy because I get to be a decision maker. Do I color this thing in plain colors like Tin Tin?

Or do I mush and blend like master craftsmen who paint with pixels? Look at this digital painting and gasp with me.

The amount of work that went into the shading of fabric and facial shadows certainly paid off. This is brilliant. My optimistic brain tells me, "If this person learned how to do this I can, too." But then another part of my brain says, "Dude, you're 60 years old and you don't have time to invest learning how to do this."


Then there's MAD artist, Tom Richmond. Look at this exquisite spread.

I feel like the desert crawler who stumbled upon a drive through coffee stand offering free Italian sodas in favorite flavors. Choices, choices, choices! 

New Stage = New Location

I'm in the character design stage. No more tweaking dialog, no more stage setting, no more shaping plot. This is the "what do these talking heads look like?" stage. The challenge is to make them visually appealing so readers identify with, like, and closely track with their philosophical musings for 200+ pages.

Consequently, I'm no longer spending hours in our living room couch with lap top computer and lap top drawing board. I'm now hunkered down here, a place as close to heaven on earth as I can imagine.

Milestone Reached

Just completed the new Draft Five. What previously had been 35 pages has grown to 53 pages (106 half pages in Publisher). I've added two narrators (space aliens) who eavesdrop on the class and comment not unlike these quipping pop culture icons:

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Muppets Two Old Men

Furthermore, I've isolated 22 main characters and have given them names, ages, majors, motivations, and philosophical orientations. It's like I'm playing chess while simultaneously inventing the pieces and the moves they make. I've created these 22 characters and turned them loose to listen to Dr. Q jabber on and on about life's futility.

So now, at long last, I begin the delicious task of making model sheets. I'm fighting the temptation to buy my Bamboo Tablet yet. I'll tackle this next stage of the journey with old fashioned paper and pencil. 

Story Boarding

Here are the first 16 pages. I'm inserting new pages of alien dialog into the previously posted 35 pages. It breaks up the talking head monotony only a wee bit.

I've tried a dozen different ways to break out of talking head format and failed. My creation is a wordy philosophical rumination and wordiness comes with the territory. Giving visual cues to who is ruminating requires me to draw heads. Many of them.

So, I'm back to my original ambition: draw those talking heads with pizzazz and verve. As I've edited the pages pictured above they've become rather sketchy and unsuitable for re-posting "as is" on the other blog for First Readers.

This creates another puzzle. When I introduce the alien narrators I'm afraid they'll be viewed as unwelcome kitsch unless I present the pages in full color and with full character development (model sheets). I'm constantly challenged to prevent the rough draft drawings detracting from story development.

If I buy the software and tablet for digital rendering now that'll require weeks if not months of learning new techie stuff which will distract from my current task: posting the rough draft for First Reader evaluation.

This poses a ton of new problems. 

How polished do I make the rough draft for public evaluation?
How long will it take to polish the first 35 pages?
Do I keep my original plan and print the Publisher pages of word balloons on card stock for pencil/ink line drawings to then be digitally colored?
Or do I try to learn how to draw them digitally?
If digitally, will the new software allow me to import 250 pages of Publisher?
If not, must I print and re-scan each page?
Once polished will First Readers subconsciously expect the remaining 200 pages of rough draft to look as polished?

One definition of creativity: throw yourself into a quagmire of complexity and then try to fight your way out.

Comics Artist Joe Sacco on Journalism and Drawing