first page preview

I am posting the first concrete proof of a new story, but really more to document my first steps into this new terrain of computer assisted assembly. In the past I did it all on paper - thumbnail page layouts led to ruled and bordered bristol board pages, then hand lettered. Then pencilled upon, then inked. I had experimented with pencilling on layout paper, then backlighting it and inking that. Bad idea. In the digital age I sketch and then scan and then finish on computer. But I've never quite assembled a comic page in this way:

Sketches both impromptu and required by my story outline are scanned; then from the same hand drawn page layout thumbs I make an illustrator file of the borders. Then set the lettering in illustrator text boxes.. which is a huge boon and a huge curse. What is miraculous is the ability to resize text boxes and tweak line breaks infinitely; not set in stone like the ink days. What we lose is the spontaneity and personality of hand lettering - HUGE LOSS of one my distinguishing features, expressive text and word ballons. More on that in a bit.

Next the sketches are placed, masked, scaled, and overlaid until I get the balance of text and art and feel I am drawing the viewers eyes properly through the story. 

I am doing this so that when I ink, all the images have the same "scale". In the past I have inked loose images then assembled them into a page, but found that scaling caused the inks to look inconsistent. As if I was using a variety of different brushes and pens.

Now, that text. ugh. It's cold, but so was EC comics and nobody whines. I think I may resort to an odd solution -- set it up like this, but print it out and redo it all hand lettering and scan back in. That wouldn't take long and would allow me to keep my distinctive lettering.

Anyway.. I shouldn't share incomplete, but I am not gonna complete this tonight (need aliens, word balloon tails, etc). The script is also not quite final.. especially the reverse text. Don't worry it makes more sense on the next page, but I am trying some new narrative tricks. Had to grab on first page, opening of story is kind of small. This is pretty WTF, yes? Old readers will see familiar characters; new readers will have it explained easily.