Issue 3 Thumbs – Now Online!

Just in case you were wondering if we are really serious about completing a 7-book series by the end of the year, you can check out the thumbnails of all 22 pages of Issue Three: Into the Mouth of the Beast. I’m a total sucker for cool DVD extras, and that’s how I’m looking at these posts (and the posting of the b/w drawings and color pages without letters). A huge part of the fun for me doing this is being a part of the creative process. Here’s how it works:

I’ve broken down the stage play into seven sections. Then, section by section I adapt the stage version into the comic book issues, adding visually what’s in the past been described in dialogue, trimming the dialogue to its bare essence, and also finding new comic-book-appropriate ways of telling the story (for example, there are a lot more action scenes in the comic book, which in the radio drama would have sounded like pure cacaphony).

Then, Tim and I meet to talk through the entire script and he sketches out the thumbnails, making sure that what I wrote actually works on the illustrated page. Once I approve the thumbnails, Tim draws the book in a mix of blue pencil (which doesn’t show up on his scanner) and ink (which does). He scans the final pages into his computer to send to the colorist who picks it up from there. Once the book is colored, I go back through the dialogue and tweak and tease it to make it really tight with the visual storytelling. Then we send it to the letterer who adds that final, cool step.

Voila! A comic book!

Here are a couple of the thumbnails and you can check out the whole thing HERE.