Broken Frontier

In this final installment of the series on creating my self-published sci-fi comic, I’ll get into my actual working process for each issue of Runners, from scripting to pencils to final page art.

Naturally, the issue begins with the script. Since I’m the only who really sees the script, I don’t bother with any sort of formal format. Instead, I write it as a fairly simple script of all the character dialogue along with some setting descriptions and stage direction. I don’t add too much superfluous direction in the written script since, as the writer and artist, I pretty much already know what I’ll want to convey in the artwork.

As I write, I don’t think about the panel or page breakdown just yet, leaving that sort of detail work for the next step. Instead I just try to keep the whole thing around 5-6 pages of typed script. I generally find that one typed page of dialogue and stage direction can comfortably be broken down into 4 or so pages of artwork. So in shooting for a 6-page limit, I can usually break the script into 24 pages without too much hassle.

Breaking down the script

Once I have the script finalized, I break it up into individual comic pages. I try to shoot for the standard 24 pages, but if the story needs more room to breathe, I’ll expand the issue to more pages as necessary. But I try to avoid this whenever possible. Since I’m doing all aspects of production, each additional page of art takes 1 day to pencil, 1 to ink and 1 to shade. So if I do an additional 4 pages, that’s another 12 days, which can be hard to justify when working against a deadline.

I first start with the broad page breaks, which typically occur at scene changes, since I’ll usually want the beginning of a new scene to start on a new page instead of in the middle of a page with another scene. Then within the broad breaks, I divide the scenes up further into individual pages, allotting more pages for action sequences since those require more splashy panels. If need be, I make up for that by crunching the dialogue scenes into fewer pages. I figure I’d rather crowd a talk-y sequence with more panels since nothing much is happening physically anyway.

After the script has been completely broken down into pages, I do the thumbnails to figure out the page and panel compositions. Generally I found that there are two very different approaches to doing comic pages. The first (which I think of as the Jeff Smith style) focuses the importance of the page on the artwork that’s inside the panels. The page consists of standard grid-like panels, with clean gutters separating them, and the flow of panels is straightforward with the focus of attention on the story transpiring within the actual panels. The other model (which I think of as the Chris Bachalo style) is that the entire page is a single piece of art, where panels don’t necessarily follow a grid-like structure and often sit on top of an uber-panel that bleeds out across the page and forms the background. While I do enjoy comics that employ this style well, more often I find the excessive overlapping of panels difficult to navigate as a reader. So I opt for the simpler first method, which I find to be equally-effective, if not moreso as the story in the first style is not overshadowed by distracting page embellishments.

Pencilling the page

Once I finish the thumbnails, I start pencilling the pages. I like to work on smooth finish bristol plate as I have found that to be the best surface for both brush and pen. While I love the convenience of pre-ruled blueline comic boards, I found that all the ones I used took brush and ink very well but tended to bleed with the pens I was using, which was not acceptable. So instead I use plate bristol and rule out my own 10x15” drawing area.

I pencil using a very light pencil (generally something like a 6H) since I don’t want to spend a lot of time erasing a darker pencil after I ink the page. I don’t care too much for blue pencils since the lines are a bit greasy, which causes problems in the inking stage with the grease repelling the ink from the paper.

As I work, I actually pencil in all the dialogue from the written script onto the art board. I don’t make it perfect since I know I’ll be doing the real text digitally, but I rough it in so I know exactly how much space the text will take up. I find that doing so ensures that I leave the proper amount of space for the necessary text so I don’t get crunched for space later.

Inking the artwork

Once the pencils are done, I move on to the inking stage. For organic shapes I use a Raphael #2 brush and Winsor & Newton Black Indian Ink. I found this ink to have a nice dark blackness to it, unlike a lot of other inks that look watered down. For mechanical shapes (ships, weapons, architecture, etc) I use ink pens (either Pigma Microns or Staedtler Pigment Liners). I prefer these to technical pens since (a) they are disposable, and (b) they have a slight amount of give to the nibs so you can get a little variation in line weight with varying amounts of pressure.

At the inking stage, I don’t use any French curves or straight-edges (other than for inking the panel borders) since I like the look of hand-drawn lines more than perfectly drafted lines. I may use straight-edges occasionally in the pencilling stage, but I’ll ink over those lines freehand. I find the imperfections of the freehand line gives the art a little more life, and to be honest, it’s just much faster for me than constantly juggling curves and rulers.

After the panel borders, the next thing I ink on any given page are the word balloons. Although I do the text digitally later, I do ink the balloons on the page, since style-wise, I like the look of hand-drawn balloons over the stiffness of digitally created perfect ellipses. Also, given the amount of work I already have to do, I’d rather not waste time doing artwork in an area that’s going to be covered by a balloon anyway. By inking the balloons first, I know exactly what art I have to do, and what I don’t, which can save me a good chunk of time.

Lettering and shading

After the page has been completely inked (and the pencils erased), I scan the page to be completed digitally. For this, I highly recommend the use of a large-format (11x17”) scanner. They can be pretty pricey at upwards of $1000, but the ability to scan in a comic page at actual size in one piece is invaluable.

Once I get the page formatted and sized appropriately in Photoshop, I do the digital lettering and shading. With the lettering I use a professional font bought from a comic lettering website. For my first two issues, I actually hand-lettered the pages, but I soon came to realize that neat handwriting did not necessarily translate to good comic lettering. So I opted instead for a digital font, which I think looks infinitely better.

I shade the pages with varying grayscale values to add the kind of volume and detail to the artwork that I can’t achieve with pure black and white. On the bottom-most layer in Photoshop, I block in the base values for all the characters and large areas. On subsequent layers on top of the background layer, I add more shading details like shadows, alien spot patterns, highlights, paint chips on vehicles, and special effects.

Once all the shading is done, I consider the comic pages finished. Then all that’s left to do is send the completed issue to the printer, get it listed in distributor catalogs, send out press releases to comic news sites, go to comic conventions to promote the book, do all sorts of marketing to raise awareness for the series, and of course, get to work on that next issue.

Ah, self publishing! What have I gotten myself into??!!

For more on Sean, go to www.seanwang.com.

- Sean Wang