The People’s Publisher

Rather than more teasers I think this week I am going to keep it simple and short…

Another week and everyone is working hard to make Abigail’s War come along! Sandrine is doing an outstanding job coloring the remaining pages. Ed is right there lettering the book to the style and likings that was outlined in the initial Vision Document (along with all the other CCN books!) and lastly Jennica and myself are reviewing things as they come in.

Everything is coming along great with additional news that Sandrine will be working on a lovely painted cover for the book after all the production is done. That’s it, I am outta here. I want to get out into some of that sunshine and give my vampire skin tone a touch of a skin cancer!

*…Robert creeps out, looks around, unzips his Gibson suit, sneaks over to the desk and looks at you very cautiously….*

Okay, so yeah, where were we? I got all sicky *cough*hack* plus I gotta keep a look out as I heard that someone put a number on my head so… yeah, here we go:

Oh look, Ed Brisson managed to do a stunning job on the lettering for Abigail’s War and here is a teaser of page 3 for yah!

Both Jennica and I are extremely happy with the look and feel that Ed’s lettering brings to the book! *Robert looks over his shoulder into the shadows, then turns back quickly while hopping out of the chair by the desk*  Right I gotta get going. Next week, more teasers as things keep moving into a higher gear towards the finish line!

*Robert slips into the suit and dives back into his bed…*

Okay let’s get into more Abigail’s War news… wait.. what? It goes to eleven? Huh? Well yes, see I thought that smoking crack made you smarter but I guess I missed the memo and somewhere along the lines, I missed a few posts and now we go from post 7 to post 11. At least now we are up to date. So things are going along really well on the Abigail’s War. Sandrine is working extremely hard on the colouring for the remaining pages of the book. Here you can see a mixture of her pencils and colours on Page 3 (not final page as we have some minor revisions)…

Also Ed Brisson  has done a great job on the Page X lettering which can be see here

I missed our editors meeting this past weekend (my bad) so I haven’t heard how the rest of the cohorts in the Comic Creation Nation are doing. I am assuming all is well or well enough. Next week I hope to have more teasers and perhaps some pages lettered to show.

Lucky number seven this week for Abigail’s War. Sandrine has been working very hard and gave us a the first page of the book in colours. I am a huge supporter of a strong first page for any book and I think Abigail’s War comes out very strong with Sandrine’s great artwork which made Jennica Harper and myself go WOW! Have a look see…

Other Abigail’s War news is that Ed Brisson has come onboard the book to do the lettering on the book so Sandrine can concentrate on the colours of the book. As you may have heard from the other editors we have a July 1st deadline for all the books so we needed to re-adjust to ensure that we could make this deadline. Sandrine has stepped it up a great deal in that she is putting out great coloured pages now Ed will come on the book and make the lettering just pop!

Next week I hope to have some more coloured teasers and maybe even a newly lettered Page X by Ed!

It’s Tuesday and time for another update on Abigail’s War. This week I have the pleasure to announce that Sandrine has completed all the penciled pages and has begun work on colouring the approved pages. Jennica and I are in discussion over the recent revisions and last pages that were completed. I am hoping that by the end of this week, any and all revisions will be done and Sandrine can just concentrate directly on colouring the pages while I talk to Julian for who will be coming on board to be lettering the book. The initial plan was to have Sandrine do all the art work and letterer for the book but due to our recently revised schedule, we thought it best to bring in a letterer and give Sandrine less to worry about.

Here is another page of Sandrine’s pencils that just blew Jennica and myself away…

Next week I hope to have some coloured pages to tease everyone with!

So its Tuesday and time for some Abigail’s War. Where was this update last week? Well, I failed on that part, after our editors meeting last week, I was back to business at work and didn’t blink at any AW until today. That said, Sandrine and Jennica are working hard. — Sandrine is working hard on getting the remaining pages penciled and Jennica is doing a great job of reviewing Sandrine’s work. I came back from Emerald City Comic Con and barely made our weekly editors meeting then was off again. Busy with work and life as I took this Victoria Day long weekend off to celebrate my wife’s birthday and just now getting back into the groove of things.

So lets get into the groove, here is another wonderful piece of work by Sandrine – a shot of Rebecca, sister to Abigail and a big part of the entire book!

Currently the book is about 80% done and I hope we can start the colored pages some time early next week given that our revisions are minimal. So far Sandrine is hitting all the visual cues of the book perfectly so I cannot wait to show more of her great work!

Yay it’s Thursday and [Robert looks outside and raises an eyebrow]… okay well maybe it is not a bright and beautiful day here in Vancouver (or Port Moody to be exact) but it is a good day.

The production of Abigail’s War keeps moving on with pencil production. Discussion and reviews have had Sandrine revise her beautifully detailed pages 1 to 4. Sandrine is now working on pages 9+ while Jennica and I are reviewing the recent revisions while also finalizing the revisions for pages 5 to 8. Here is the large size of the teaser of page 4 that I put on the blog last week.

This weekend I will be attending Emerald Comic Con and will have my laptop in tow so I can check up on the production if I have a chance. I also may be doing some live blogging if I have a chance on Between the Staples. Remember get your free Between the Staples bookmark at Elfsar Comics & Toys!

Wait… wha? Is it Friday already? Oh man… wait, I have to follow Andrew Foley’s post? Oh man. He rocks, did you read that? I am still taking notes. Oh and that thumbnail he did — WOW, it puts my digitized boxes arrange pretty on a page we called “thumbnails” to bed!

Now what is better than knowing that in a few hours I will be seeing Iron Man the movie? Well, knowing that soon Sandrine will have more penciled pages of Abigail’s War done!

Yes, Abigail’s War is now in full production which is partially why I missed our Tuesday blog date. I know… I know… bad Robert but I have flowers. I do, see…

This is a teaser of the lovely pencils that Sandrine is doing for AW. The great Jennica and I are in discussion over the currently penciled pages while Sandrine continues her magic on more penciled pages. I am hoping that we can get some revisions done and then maybe move to either coloring or some penciled pages to tease you with for next week. Have a great weekend!

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Oh and speaking of the weekend…. do not forget to go out and hit FREE COMIC BOOK DAY tomorrow! Yes. You heard me correctly, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day where Comic Book stores will have free comics to give out. Go and check out what is happening at your own Local Comic Book store. Lots of stores are doing big huge events and even Zeros 2 Heroes is apart of one in Vancouver with Elfsar Comics & Toys, full details can be found here:
http://elfsar.com/FCBD/FCBD_2008.htm

Also (as a complete shameless plug) only at Elfsar can you get a LIMITED edition cool Between the Staples bookmark on Free Comic Book Day! Come by, have fun and grab a few! I plan to be there between 11am to 12pm if you wish to come down and put “KICK ME” signs on my back!

Today I am very sad. Two of my hockey teams in the NHL Playoffs got knocked out last night. No All Canadian playoff final wet dreams for me anymore. So.. *sniff* yeah… wait, what was I suppose to talk about today again? [Robert looks off screen, reads the cue cards then brightens up] Oh riiiiiiiiight!

Alright everyone here we go… The production of page 20 of Abigail’s War was selected for Page X. Those that might remember, Page X is the Zeros 2 Heroes (Z2H) process of building one page to full artwork and lettering and stands as the standard for the rest of the pages of the book.

When we began on Abigail’s War, I went through the script with Jennica Harper and built out thumbnails of the pages so we could get an idea of how it would look like and if the pages needed revisions due to too much dialog, too many word balloons or just too many panels in general.

Here is the thumbnail for Page X

Sandrine then came on board and began working on the pencils for Page X based on the script and the Vision Document. Here are the pencils:

From that we went to the painted colored version of Sandrine’s artwork:

Then the lettering was added to bring it all together in one complete package here:

So now Sandrine has began full production work on the rest of the pages of Abigail’s War while Jennica and I are reviewing and discussing the rough pencils of the pages as they come. I am very pleased with the process so far and I am extremely happy with the work that Sandrine is doing!

Hey wait, what’s this?

Is that a teaser for some of the production art work on Abigail’s War?! If you still need more Abigail’s War news (come on, we all know you want more!), check out the two part interview with Jennica and myself here…

Part 1 on this blog http://blog.zeros2heroes.com/2008/04/08/making-of-abigails-war-part-3-page-x-interview/

Part 2 on Jennica’s Z2H blog post
http://www.zeros2heroes.com/component/option,com_myblog/show,Abigail-s-War—Week-4-Update-Quid-Pro-Quo.html/Itemid,107/

Also Jennica Harper was on The Gutter a few weeks ago.
A great listen, very enjoyable, check it out here:
http://www.zeros2heroes.com/component/option,com_myblog/show,The-Gutter—March-31-2008—November-s-Song.html/Itemid,110/

Have a good one this week. I am still trying to figure out if my cats knew it was Earth Day yesterday or just wanted to bring in huge mounds of dirt into the house for fun? I mean worms are cool but no need to step in them in the morning unless you are camping.

Cheers,
R