ROSE and ISABEL TPB - Coming Soon

In my discussion with printers regarding a reprint of R&I part 2, it didn't take long to see that a small print run of new Part 2 books was going to be cost prohibitive (since the former printer is the one with the plates). 500 copies would be the minimum to keep the price down and since there's fewer than 100 copies of part 1 left, I'd have to go back to print for that book too. It's kind of like the hot dogs to hot dog buns ratio thing; you'll always have more of one than the other.

What I've decided to do instead is put together a collected edition. I'm in the process of making some cosmetic fixes to the pages and fixing some continuity. The plan right now is to have the TPB go to print in early January 2010 and be available in February.
The TPB will be a square-bound softcover and will make its debut at the Emerald City Comic-Con in March (online orders will be available before that).

I'll post more details about the TPB and other projects soon.

Reformatting Rose and Isabel

I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself here, but eventually the ROSE and ISABEL and CORA stories will be combined into one mega-volume that chronicles the complete story of the three women. I've been reticent to re-format Rose and Isabel because it would be quite a jump from its nearly square format to one that is rectangular and vertical.

I've made a couple attempts (below) and it seems possible but no doubt will require some fancy footwork to keep the page breaks working in a dramatic way.



I'd also really like to redraw sections of the book, but I'm a firm believer in keeping the old stuff intact to preserve the progression of the work over time. There will be a few cosmetic changes made for an upcoming TPB of Rose and Isabel, notably a few drawings here and there, and an overhaul of the balloon placements. I had a tendency when I was starting out to cram the balloons into the corners and stuck to the tops of panels (as evidenced in these pages) so I'll be cleaning those up.

Single Image Storytelling (Part 1)

Oftentimes when I review story portfolios, I'm looking not only for sequential storytelling, but also for single images that tell a story. Sometimes these are character studies drawn at an airport or coffee shop, figments of imagination or vignettes of moments. This kind of storytelling is not always the easiest to pull off and requires an acute sense of observation. Attention to gesture and attitude as well as a good sense of composition lead to clear storytelling in this sense.

Here are a couple examples of storytelling in illustration:



On first glance, this image appears to be a group of people looking at a painting. Then we take notice of the way they are clustered. We want to know more and ask ourselves: "why are they huddled together like that?" and we look closer to investigate further. In effect, we've been pulled into the story. Upon further inspection, the painting they are looking at is of a large sun and bright colors. We see the crowd is dressed in winter clothing. The paintings surrounding them (that they are not looking at) are of cool valued winter scenes. The Calder-like mobile above them could represent snow or rain. We now know why their interest is focused on the summer piece.

Obviously, color is important here, but compositionally it is doing its job as well. The artist has created focus by grouping the characters together and posing them in a way that is interesting and that draws us in. We barely see any of their faces but still are connecting with them based on their postures.
They're sick of winter and that one painting is their momentary escape from it.




The artist is using several tools here to make the story perfectly clear. The woman is out of place in the environment. How do we know this?

Composition: The woman is surrounded compositionally by a forest of male figures. Their looks are all directed towards her. The most noticeable is the man that's with her. His head is tilted at an unnatural angle to draw the viewer's attention to the woman. She is crowded into a sliver of the image.

Gesture: The woman is mid-step; off balance. The man's feet are rooted to the ground. The woman is touching her head/hat, a sign of possible insecurity; maybe it's loud in the gym and she is holding her hand to her ear. Her purse is clutched tightly at her side. The men are smoking cigarettes...one has wrapped hands, another has a tattoo and is carrying a bucket of rags.

Color: The woman is colorful; her green hat and yellow paper in her pocket are the most colorful things in the image. They draw attention and create contrast. The men are mostly neutral earth tones and are low contrast in relation to one another.

Value: The woman is bright, her shirt being the lightest value in the image. The men generally are dark. This creates contrast in the characters and therefore contrast in the story. If the woman was just as subdued tonally as the men, what would the story be? Where would the focus be?


More to come soon...

ASGARDA

I was forwarded a link to a photo-essay on Boing Boing about a modern Ukranian tribe of Amazons...

click the photo for the story...

CORA research

Google maps has become a very useful tool in helping to track Cora's journey through the American West. I picked a general route that she will take (I've only shown a small portion here) and turned on the photos, video and wiki elements in order to search for possible areas of interest along the way. I may find new routes for her to take based on the info I can gather. Fun stuff.





Here is an example of Butte, Montana, which was mentioned briefly in the second book of Cora's story.

CORA3 :: Cover study

Rough sketch of one idea for the cover of CORA3. I'm considering devoting the entire book to Rose, cover to cover.

CORA part 2 now available online!

Thanks to everyone who came by the booth in San Diego this year --it was a great show! For those who weren't able to make it to San Diego the new CORA book is available right here on the blog via Paypal. Please see the sidebar on the right for ordering information.

Thanks!

Looking for a New Printer

After an unfortunate experience with the Canadian print company that had done all 4 of my books, I'm on the lookout for a new print shop; one that will be able to deliver quality books at a reasonable price and also have an interest in small print runs and customer satisfaction.

Rose and Isabel part 2 is sold out and needs to go into a second printing soon. CORA 3 is in production and I'm hoping to have the book ready for WonderCon or Emerald City 2010, and CORA 4 ready for release in the fall of 2010. I'm also prepping a story for AFTERWORKS 3, due next year as well.

These personal projects will not see the light of day without a great printer to bring them to life...suggestions are welcome in the comments section. Thanks.

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

It looks like the film I mentioned way back in this post is finally coming to US theaters. Well, NYC and LA at least. Hopefully there will be more cities to come.

"Meh" US trailer here.
Way better German trailer here.

Rose and Isabel part 2 :: SOLD OUT

The first printing of RI2 has sold out. If you are interested in a copy, please email me and I will let you know when the book becomes available again. Thanks everyone for your support of the books and stay tuned for more info.

Comic-Con International 2009 is this week!

The CORA part 2 books have arrived and will be on sale starting on Preview Night, Wednesday, July 22nd.

Comic-Con International 2009

Booth #1215 (across the aisle from the gold and silver pavilion) (see map)
San Diego Convention Center
San Diego, CA
July 22 - July 26
2009

Get updates now on Facebook and Twitter

Now there are more ways to keep up to date with Rose, Isabel and Cora. They are now on Facebook and Twitter. Click the icons below or in the sidebar.

CORA2 :: teaser images

Here are a few images from various pages throughout Cora vol.2. Color proofs should arrive today. The book is on target to be delivered July 14th and will go on sale on the blog shortly after that!

R&I technical issues

Blogger is failing to redirect the R&I blog to the custom URL roseandisabel.com, so for the time being I have moved the address back to roseandisabel.blogspot.com (roseandisabel.com is not accessible at this time). It has been almost a week and Blogger has not fixed the problem, so I'm looking into Wordpress (and potentially getting an actual site up and running), so please stay tuned.

UPDATE: (6/23) Redirect has been fixed.

-T

CORA Part 2 :: Cover

Down to the wire

The date for Cora Part 2 to be delivered the printer is rapidly approaching. June 15th is the day that all material has to be uploaded. It's an intense time and I'm still scrambling a bit trying to get the book done. The B&W pages have gone out to a couple of folks for notes and I'm busy incorporating those as well. It's really important to me that I share what I'm working on and get opinions and suggestions from others. For me it's not good to work in a total vacuum.

The panel below is an homage to Norman Rockwell. I grew up with books of his stuff around the house and the panel is based on a painting of his that has stuck with me over the years. In designing the old man's home for the Cora book, the image kept coming back to me as a source of inspiration. It is one of my favorites of his; I love the layering of space in the Rockwell -- looking through a window and through one room into the next where activity is taking place; dark is played against light, where the light (and active) area is a significantly smaller portion of the composition. There is also a bit of Rosemary's Baby influence in the panel below, from the shot when Mia(?) is on the phone and her face is hidden from view. I can't find a still of it at the moment, but will upload it once I find one.

CORA2 update 5/26/09

Zeroing in on getting all the pages cleaned up and ready for paint...this can be a tricky time because it's the last opportunity to do last minute changes before committing to color and final pages.



I just recently decided to rework the last few pages of part 2 because I sort of "phoned it in", mostly due to lack of research material relating to the scene. I found some reference the other day and wrestled with myself whether to redo the pages, two of which were finished already. Better judgement won out, because 1.) the scene is more historically accurate (to some degree at least) and therefore, more interesting and 2.) My conscience is satisfied because I did the right thing. "Do the hard work" is a good motto when producing work that you want to be 100% honest with. I see lots of work out there (esp. in the motion picture business) that is lacking in honesty -- much of this stuff is released during the summer months. wink wink.



I always try my best to be 100% honest with my characters because they are the story. They are going to have moments of pause, of strength, and of weakness; they are going to have moments of triumph as well as failure; they are going to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. They are going to emote; they will be proud, and at times stubborn. This is how people are. The tough part is getting to the core of what makes people people and representing that on the comic page. A difficult task indeed but worth the hard work.

Isabel in Montana Territory

Page detail from the new book. Montana in 1888 was still a territory, and wasn't admitted to the Union until late 1889. Although I haven't visited the state, the photos I've found while researching show a beautiful and incredibly diverse landscape. I hope to incorporate as much of it as possible, which may result in some artistic license as far as locations go...The story will continue through Wyoming (Territory), and perhaps parts of Colorado and New Mexico, where I'm planning the story's climax to take place.



Status: 30 pages are done, but need some color work still.
11 pages to clean up, and 7 layouts to go.

BTW, it's been a while since I talked about film-related stuff, so I'm planning to blab a bit about that in the next post.

Movin along...

It appears I like to wait until the last minute to begin these undertakings. The scenes for chapter 2 of Cora's story were conceived quite a while ago, but it seems I need the dangling sword of press time hanging over my head to actually begin producing in earnest. The production of the book is now a 7 day a week affair, but that's what it takes to get these things done at this late stage. I work best under pressure, and am happy with the way the pages are turning out.



The beginning of the clean up phase is always a struggle. I made a conscious attempt to push the drawing style of the book, by working looser and introducing more black to shadow areas, territory I have been intimidated to venture into previously. What resulted is a lot of difficulty finding the sweet spot where everything flows smoothly, so I went back to the exact process I used on the first book and am much happier. I'm realizing once again that artistic development and evolution should be natural and not forced. I feel myself heading in new directions artistically and it is a result of trial, error and discovery. If you feel yourself in a similar situation, don't force it; let it happen naturally.



Thanks to everyone who has left comments, sent emails and supported the books through blogs and websites, and the retailers who are carrying them. It means a lot. Cheers.

Second pass (UPDATE 4/23)

The layout (first pass) of CORA book 2 is almost finished. In this first pass, all of the layouts are drawn, a lot of the dialogue is written, and pacing issues are worked out (for the most part). In the second pass, the layouts are refined, rough color ideas are laid down in preparation for the final clean up and painting phase; dialogue is re-written, layouts modified and the storytelling and shot selection are pushed.

Below is the first page of the new book, showing the first (layout) pass and the second (rough) pass. The first pass was merely the idea of an owl over a black background. For the second pass the positioning of the owl has changed and the black background has changed to color with a graphic accent in the left corner. This is close to the image that will be tied down for the final.

UPDATE: directly below is the final page. There is still an issue for me to resolve with the bottom left side of the owl; I'll choose whether or not to address this later after the pages are all finished.

final


second pass


first pass

Closing in

I have 3 pages left for layout and dialogue and then finishing will start on book 2 of Cora (actually, there is a 6 page intro to a new character that needs to be figured out that I'm saving for later that will open book 2). I've been having a lot of fun writing the story and working with the new characters. More updates and images coming soon.

6 1/2 weeks to go.

Emerald City Con & page layout

Derek Thompson and I will be exhibiting at the Emerald City Comic-Con this weekend in Seattle at Booth #606 under the name E-VILLE PRESS. I'll have all 3 of my books (ROSE and ISABEL 1&2, CORA 1) and Derek will have his MONSTER ANNUALS as well as Storyboarding DVDs and original art. Swing on by and say hello.

Here's one of the latest rough layouts for part 2 of Cora. I'm getting a chance to write some fun dialogue here which I'm enjoying. More to come soon.

CORA2 - WIP

A work in progress page from book 2 of Cora. This is the level I've been working at for the rough layout of the pages. It's in this phase that I do a lot of visual "thinking"...trying things out in a loose and fast manner that is visual instead of just words on a page. I'll slug in temp dialogue that gives an idea of what needs to be said, but mainly I try to let the visuals tell the story as much as possible.

Portions of the book (like book 1 of Cora and Rose and Isabel) will be told without words. It's a kind of storytelling I like a lot. I like to let the dialogue back up the visuals, not the other way around. This particular sequence requires some dialogue, but only enough to emphasize what I hope to tell visually.



15 pages left to lay out, then back to the beginning to make changes before starting the next pass of (tighter) roughs.

Moving Forward

Hit a major roadblock over the weekend, a particular story point relating to Rose's legacy. After several hours of trying things out on the page and discarding lots of drawings (a bunch of which I really liked but had to scratch), I decided to pack up, head home, sleep on the idea and come back fresh in the morning. The next day a new idea surfaced which was better than any before it, and I was back on my way.

When it comes to story, sometimes it's best to just walk away and let sleeping dogs lie. Your project will always be waiting for you when you return. Don't be afraid of it and don't let it rule over you. It's easy to become overwhelmed in the face of a story crisis, but there's always a solution, it just may take some time to arrive.



status:
22 pages rough
6 done

Research :: Lilith

From what I've posted before, it should be no surprise that the folk-legend Lilith will have something to do with the Cora story. I have been researching her for quite a while, but just recently I heard about this Warren Beatty film based on the character. I check out a lot of things looking for nuggets of inspiration, so I'm curious what this film is like. I'm working on Lilith's intro to the world of Rose, Isabel and Cora right now, for Book 2 of the Cora series (which will be released in July 2009).


Another surprise to me (which any fan of TV's Frasier probably already knows) is that the Lilith in the show actually has ties to the legendary character (or so Wikipedia tells me).