The People’s Publisher

Hey everyone!

In this weeks episode… I mean blog post, we look at the coloring of Gustav Hayes. Last week we covered the script, pencils and inks of Page X. Now for the coloring of the book.

Those that remember, we wanted to make Gustav Hayes different than other comic books that are produced these days. A key to accomplishing such a task is with the usage of half tones and colors. Morgan Jeske made reference to the toning & colors during the early development of the Vision Document. The idea is to capture that old school 1980’s (and earlier) feel with the half tones and bright base colors of that era of comic books. Where Spider-man’s costume depended as much on the toning as it did the pencils and colors. Just take a look at some of the Essential Marvel books and you can see good examples. This was the look & feel we wanted on Gustav Hayes.

We informed the colorist, Cristian Valdes, of this style choice early in our discussions. Cristian had made the initial Page X come to life with his use of toning and colors. Now he has done a great job again on our latest Page X, just have a look:

As you might have noticed, the coloring on Page X appears when the main character, Gustav, begins to “sing”. This is to signify the usage of Gustav’s special powers and visually express the idea that Gustav’s song, and more importantly he may have the power within to (perhaps) start changing the grey world in which they live in. In this scene, Gustav comes out of the bathroom in a drunken state, kicking the door open (with inward wind, YES inward wind - a great script from Morgan! *smile*) to try and save the day. This moment of action deserves attention so it was requested that the panel be colored. It’s an old visual trick.

I believe that the toning and coloring is one key factor to the book. One which gives the book its own look and feel. Making it special and different, much like Gustav Hayes himself. You will see more examples of this “effect” when we have the more of the pages done.

Speaking of other pages, John Daniel Bradford has been working extremely hard on the full production of the book. Here are some of Bradford first few inked pages.

Let us know what you think! Next week more Gustav Hayes pages and an interview with John Daniel Bradford and maybe even Cristian Valdes.

Cheers!