The People’s Publisher

Im back in Vancouver again, the greatest place on earth if you can believe the license plates, and it’s feeling pretty chilly. We have had a lot of  progress on the book this week. It looks like the pencils are all finished and posted to the dashboard. This must be a relief to Miguel, as he has really been working hard, usually completing a page per day or more over the last three weeks. As well, each page was done right the first time. Out of the whole comic I have only had to have two revisions done to pages,, and each time he brought something totally fresh and dynamic to the table.  It has been great working with such a talented, and professional artist.The pencils are the foundation of the comic book, as they will dictate where the black lines will go, (provided by the inker, of course). If the art does not look good at the pencil stage, the most talented inker and colorist will not be able to make it look good. You cannot polish a turd, and without a solid foundation, clear and correct pencils, you cannot have a good comic page. FOR EXAMPLE: Good looking pencils, good looking Inks.The inks and colours for this project have been provided by Ian Sokoliwski, and he has been impressing everyone with the super high quality and speed providing his pages for this comic.Ian has finished over three quarters of the inking, I believe we are at page 18 of 22, and the first 5 pages have already been colored as well.Here as promised is an example of one of the finished pages.  

I can’t believe I have already been in La Ventana, Mexico for a week. The weather has been pretty consistently good on the water. Baja Joes and the rest of the town are booked up solid for the kite board race and competition scheduled for this weekend.

It’s pretty great to be able to keep working on the Mix while travelling, and things are really coming together quickly. We now have most of the book pencilled and the inks and colors are almost half done too. The dashboard seems to be working well, and there have been very few problems of late.

For the writer and the editor both, much of the work in making a comic this way comes at the beginning of the process. Making the script fit into the comic book format can be challenging, and making sure that it works well at this stage is crucial, so that revisions later on are kept to a minimum. It is not possible to simply put a film script together with PANEL1 replacing SCENE1.

Because the comic page is a static image, motion and action, two of the main elements of a dynamic story must be broken down into: before, and after; or during, and after etc. in order to be read effectively. There are many ways to do this, and keeping things interesting usually involves using more than one way to show an action so that it doesn’t feel too static and predictable. The author and editor will collaborate at this stage, making thumbnails and revisions, to see what is working, and what isn’t. Once this part of the job is finished and the script is finished, the art team must then go to work and bring the script to life with dynamic images to illustrate and complement the written word.

This week, as promised Ian Goodwillie, the author of the mix has sent some of his thoughts and impressions about the process of making a comic with Z2H and I would like to share those with you now:

“As someone who has been involved in a variety of creative processes, I
have found work on a comic book in this fashion interesting. Naturally, it
is weird working with people via the Dashboard you haven’t met in person
but I got used to that quickly. The steps are key to the process. From the
vision document to Page X to creating pages of the actual book, it is
about the steps of taking the vision of people new to the project and
matching it up with the vision of the creator.

Page X is the first time I could feel everything coming together. It was
the first page that was fully scripted, inked and colored. I was amazed by
how close it was to what I had been picturing. After that, it has been
interesting to go to the Dashboard and see what new developments have been
put up. It’s actually been quite exciting.

I can’t wait to see how everything looks when it’s done… ”

So there you have it, the straight goods from a writer who has seen his vision come to life page by page over the last month. Next week I promise to have some of the artwork to show on the blog here. Until then, Buenas Noches.

Alex

Welcome to the blog for the Mix part 6. Hey that rhymes.

 I’m writing this from La Ventana Mexico, and I probably should be out on the water right now, the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, but when ya gotta blog, ya gotta blog. Hey it could be worse I know. I went to the circus last night in La Paz, and ended up “volunteering” to be the assistant for the knife throwing act. When I say volunteer I mean I was dragged into the ring by clowns. I’m not kidding. Clowns are intimidating. Luckily he was a very talented knife thrower, and I escaped without injury.

This week I asked the writer for The Mix, what his thoughts and observations were about this process of making these comics, so I should be able to share someof those insights with all of you next week. It is sure to be enlightening, and I think he must be excited to see the story coming to life as a comic, and I imagine that he is feeling pretty good about how things have been developing so far. I know I am.

We have had some really great pencils coming in , too many to show you at this time, but we are close to the halfway mark now on those. We have a couple of pages of the inks completed, and those look pretty great too. It seems like Miguel is really finding his stride now, and I really like the look of his new pages alot, really tight line work, and his character’s expressions are bang on. There has been very few revisions necessary, and I am feeling really lucky to be working with someone who seems to nail it on the first try almost every time.

The only frustrating part of the process so far has been trying to keep everything on schedule, and meet deadlines. Whenever one is collaborating on a project, staying on top of the work, and making sure it is consistently finished on time is crucial, because the team is only as fat as the slowest individual. Let’s face it, life has a way of intruding on the best laid plans, and the best intentions can be waylaid so easily. So far, things have not happened quite perfectly for this team, some of the deadlines had to be pushed back for various reasons, but, knock wood. that seems to be past now.

I’m going to be testing the true capabilities of long distance comic production, by attempting to continue editing this comic from La Ventana, Mexico for the next two weeks. I will continue to attend meetings and facilitate production over the internet between kitesurfing and fishing. Things are starting to pick up speed again now, and it feels like the artists are really hitting their stride.
I love what Im seeing from the teams working on the other beta books, Brothers MacElroy and Gustav Hayes both look awesome.
On the Mix this week, Miguel has at least two pages of finished pencils done now, and they look awesome. Here is page two as just an example. Those thugs are badass looking.

Hello Z2H blogloggers,
The art team is back at work roughing out the revised script after a little holiday break. Things did slow down a bit, due to the Xmas/New Years season, but it looks like we are back on track for 2008.
Santa brought me a new Wacom tablet, and the weather has been perfect for staying inside and drawing. We have a BIG meeting today to go over the beta books progress so far , and any issues that might have come up using the dashboard system. Not much else to report at this time, but I will be continuing to blog every week to keep you up to date on how things are progressing. Stay warm, and don’t eat the yellow snow.

It looks like we finally have page x completely finished, with inks inked, colours coloured, and text lettered.

CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL TO SEE IT FULL SIZE

Well, the holidays can leave us feeling a little logey (is that a real word? It should be, it perfectly decribes the mixture of apathy and slow motion that is induced by too many big beers, turkey and staring at all that wrapping paper and tinsel blanketing the floor). Say it, l-o-o-o-ogey. Just sums it all up, no? However despite all this, the beta books are continuing to come together with blinding speed. Or maybe it just feels that way to me in my current underwater-sensation state. The first page of The mix has been coloured,

and so has the pin up,

and we are now just waiting for the lettering. Robert, Julian and Josh all have done a great job of showing how we have gotten to this point on the beta books. Let us remember that the hard work and dedication of the writers and artists that make our jobs look almost easy. I have included in this post the script, original thumbnails, and the pencils and inks so that those who are interested can see how we have gotten to this point. The script for The Mix was written and formatted to comic book format by Ian Goodwillie, The pencils were done by Miguel Lopez, the inks and colors were both provided by Ian Sokoliwski, and the editor is myself, Alex Cieslik.

Click on the thumb nails to see them full size.

So things are proceeding quickly with the book this week. The art teams have been working hard to get the first page of the comic completed on deadline,the penciller has done some great character sketches for the characters in The Mix and we have the first draft of the inks for page X done today. I must say that it has been a really amazing experience to watch the pieces come together to make this comic!

Some of you were asking what it takes to be an editor at zeros2heroes, and Julian gave some feedback on this, but we all bring different skills to the job.
As for me, I attended the University of Victoria creative writing program, and am also a visual artist. I have had a lifelong interest in comics and have been drawing my own comics since I was a young lad.
A good grasp of language, both written and visual language is important for an editor, as well as a love of the medium itself. A comic book editor also needs to be able to communicate effectively with the writer, and the artist. The editor also requires a good deal of patience, and flexibility, as there are deadlines to deal with, and things often don’t go as planned.
Here is a sneak peek at the Page x for The Mix as it looks so far….

Hi all you comic fans, this is my first post on the blog, but I will be posting regularly until we get the beta books completed to let people know how it is going with their production, and using the dashboard to produce comic books on-line.

My name is Alex, and I am the editor for the beta book comic titled The Mix, which was written by Ian Goodwille. The beta books are comics that we are producing to get ready for the Comic Creation Nation kick-off, to make sure all the systems are running smoothly, and the process for creating them will be the same as for all the future books published by Zeros2heroes.
I have been working on The Mix book for a couple of weeks now and it must have been on my mind, because last night I dreamed about it, except in the dream, The Mix was a video game that I was playing. It ended ( the dream ) with me finding a rocket launcher and blowing up a roof-top parking lot. I’m going to have to lay off the cheese before bed maybe.
I should tell you that the Mix is an action/crime comic, with lots of this type of action (no rocket-launchers though). The story focuses on a young man who grows up in a criminal family, and has to contend with his evil and possibly psychotic brother on his way to becoming the leader of the family and the criminal underground in the fictional city of New Unity.

So, where we are at right now in the production of the Mix is: the art teams have been chosen for the book and the script has been formatted for the comic book page. The artists are now working to create the first character drawings and the first page of the comic should be completed by next week. The art style will be dark and somewhat sinister, but have a modern feel.
The dasboard has been working well so far with only minor glitches, and those being worked out quickly, and it promises to be a very powerful tool for comic writers and artists to post and communicate and to produce comic books online
I will keep you updated as the book continues to come together, and we should have The Mix published on line as finished comic early in the new year.