We've all been there ☝️, haven't we?
THE SOLAR GRID #5 is now 87% complete. Exclusive preview will go out to press, reviewers, and fellow makers later this month. Anybody who wants to be added to the list can totally just let me know.
Good morning + onward.
So late, but getting closer! Currently lettering, which is kept enjoyable by making the dialogue up as I go. I obviously had some idea what was being said in the drawing phase of these pages, but not in any detail and I kept it very loosely floating around in the back of my head without committing any of it to paper.
I didn't always work like this. Chapters one and two of THE SOLAR GRID I wrote full scripts for. But then I realized that only really makes sense if you're writing for someone else to draw (and letter and edit, etc.). It's not really necessary if you're doing the drawing yourself, might as well save on that scripting time. Also, from the standpoint of the craft of comix, unlike film where you can't really change the dialogue after a shoot (minor exceptions include scenes where you can't see an actor's lips), in comix you totally can! So why not save dialogue till last anyway? Seems odd to ignore a facet that is so specific to this medium.
Easier for makers who work all aspects of their comix though.
Of course, I cheat a little, because I've got the best assistant in town:
The year is 949 After the Flood, and life on Mars isn't all it's cracked up to be.
From the 5th chapter in the award-winning graphic novel THE SOLAR GRID, coming soon to TheSolarGrid.net
I used to color at a rate of about 2 pages a day, but now I'm lucky if I wrap up a single page every 2-3 days.
Look at this madness though:
Not gonna lie, quite proud of how it's turning out, and truth be told that's a pretty rare feeling for me.
A few years ago I created a multimedia installation (acrylic on wood + animation on screens) titled HANDS UP (VOL. 2), which toured a number of European cities as part of an exhibition titled MAGIC CITY: THE ART OF THE STREET. Since the last leg of the tour though, the installation's been sitting in a Berlin warehouse accruing costs. Time has finally come to clear out said warehouse. Happy to offer it for a reduced price to any institutions willing to receive it. Otherwise... I may just have to have it destroyed (alas, it is how things go sometimes ツ).
Yesterday I had the pleasure of partaking in a live Space-themed webinar organized by Space EU with cosmonaut Muhammed Fares and space scientist Ghina Halabi, a conversation I learned quite a lot from. Aside from the very practical and technical knowledge Muhammed and Ghina brought to the table, there's also a significant philosophical side to their thinking, something I think is vital when considering and talking about Space, but also science and technology in general.
One of the things Muhammed mentioned that will likely stay with me is how terribly frighting the pitch black darkness of space can really be. As someone who suffers from a degree of Thalassophobia, my perception of the oceans more or less = big deep death trap. And we're talking about an environment that still sustains some form of life, just not ours. Outter Space on the other hand sustains no life whatsoever, and it is vast. I'm not sure there's anything in existence even remotely scarier than being stranded in Space O_O
Muhammed recalled how being in space for 8 days only cemented his appreciation for Earth and its incredibly rich life-sustaining properties. He likened his return to Earth as a return to his mother's embrace.
How terrible we abuse our collective mother.
The webinar was conducted in Arabic (a tongue I've seem to have gotten embarrassingly rusty at), but it should be made available on Youtube with English and Dutch subtitles in the near future. Will post when available.
I think it was after Chapter 2 when I was contacted by someone (who is awesome) offering to act as editor on THE SOLAR GRID, an offer I had to decline only because I knew my process would bring nothing but terrible agony to this poor person. I have nothing in the way of a script (loose plot at best), my thumbs are practically unreadable by anyone other than myself, I work on my pages until literally minutes before upload... Agony, I tell you, agony!
And that was around Chapter 2, which still resembled what you'd expect out of most comix (well, to a degree). But now (Chapter 5) I'm coming up with things that look like this:
None of the text featured in the above preview includes any of the actual captions or dialogue that will finally make it into the page by the way. It's just a bunch of text I came up with in the process of creating the art. The inevitable dialogue and captions? They come later, and I have none of it scripted anywhere. It's all in my head. It only comes out during the lettering phase. I have no idea how an editor might even begin to navigate a project like this. I sure as hell know nothing like this can ever come out of the corporate assembly-line system of making comix.
Also in regards to the above pictured panel, I'm looking forward to what kind of space western vibes N Slash A will come up with for the Soundscape. Every now and again, I'll give tracks 1 and 2 a listen for just the right push to carry on with this project. I can't get over how deliciously textured those tracks have turned out.
In other news, today I bid farewell to this piece from February:
It shall be missed.
Inbox at 31. Neck could use a replacement. Awaiting newborn's arrival any day now. Local newspaper's obituary section was 43 pages yesterday.
Of course I was bound to include an art gallery scene sooner or later.
Inbox at 23. Current background listening: The Disruptors Podcast with Andrew Maynard.
Coloring at a rate of about 2 pages a day now, which as I type this puts me at 22 days before I'm done. Add a couple more days for lettering, so 24 days in total before bringing Chapter 5 in for a landing. Let's say 30 days before release.
Still too long if you ask me. Will try to work faster, but hopefully 30 days is the maximumest I need.
Needless to say, the process of creating THE SOLAR GRID has made clear the virtues of the assembly-line system by which corporate comicbooks are created. Where as you're penciling page 5, page 3 and 4 might already be in an inker's hands, with page 1 and 2 already being colored by a separate colorist.
Might be worth it to look into a working system that takes advantage of said virtues while avoiding all the pitfalls that tend to come with that assembly system (rehashed storylines, aesthetic sameness, lack of authenticity, etc.).
Something to think about later. Back to work for now.
Insomnia hit yesterday instead of the weekend, so I found myself up till 3:30 AM. Not working exactly. Given that I typically start my day at around 7:00-8:00AM, I can seldom function past the 2:00AM threshold, but my mind is still abuzz and much thinking tends to occur.
Woke today at 7:00AM and have been a zombie since, despite the 4 cups of coffee I've downed. Still getting some penciling done, but it is a slow drifting affair. Not full pages or anything, just bits and pieces of additional material that need to make their way into the chapter. It may only be a mere 20 pages, but it's a dense bastard, with some pages including 3-pages worth of material in them.
I suppose that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless you see the sneak peek I posted a couple days ago.