Back in 2015 I posted on how I put together comics after being asked and this ties in with this post so read on after an explanation.
Originally, the Dr Morg Trilogy was a Small Press publication and this cover was used on -the art on a couple of different shades of card stock.
But when it came to the trade version of the six part Black Tower Adventure series, Return Of The Gods: The Twilight Of The Super Heroes the Jack Flash character appeared on the cover but not as a silhouette.
I played with two ideas. this one...
But the original 197 pager ended up with this cover....
But when amended to over 300 pages, which saw Jack Flash and his involvement become more central, a new cover had to be created and I went with this one -both versions are still available at the store.
That's how it works, folks!
Now that 2015 post!
I am one of those people who prefers not to be tied down to a straight forward 5-6 panels page. I like to use a few different techniques in my work. I will draw on an A4 (A4 paper size is 210mm x 297mm, or 8.267 inches x 11.692 inches) sheet. Maybe a single illo. Maybe 2-3 illoes and I will then cut and paste these onto an A3 (A3 paper size is 297mm x 420mm, or 11.7 inches x 16.5 inches) sheet.
This means that you can move the panels around until they look okay on the page and then glue 'em down! The good thing about this method is that you can take an A4 sheet and make it a panel to them work on and alter before pasting down. For instance, below, that page to the bottom right features the character Jack Flash -a major character in theReturn of The Gods and a key character in Green Skies. Originally there was a strange creature to the background, heavily shaded and an outreached claw coming over his shoulder. But I then realised that the page worked better with a solid black background which left a lot up to the reader's imagination.
Below shows the A4 "blacked out" page and the actual print-proof copy of WWW where the creature and claw are seen. I looked once and thought "redo". I do not waste paper and if a page is wrong and can be corrected with white India ink, Tippex or a patch (a piece of paper cut out to fit over something that needs redrawing) I do that.
Below I'm busy at work cutting and pasting. Why take a very long time to draw a figure broken up into puzzle pieces when it's more fun to draw the figure and then cut it up into puzzle pieces to then paste into a panel?
I have absolutely no idea what happens from panel- to- panel in my comics let alone page-to-page. I do not use a script -I only write scripts for other people. This means that, quite literally, a character in panel 1 is talking to someone and in panel 2 a chunk of rock falls on him and I never actually (consciously) thought about that.
Also, I'll be drawing and think "right, I know" and will look around and perhaps grab a template or something else to go around a panel or become a central object on the page. As with the floral pattern on that page my hand is over. I only use brushes for large solid black areas so all size brushes come in handy and in 2007 (?) I purchased a 600 ml bottle on India drawing ink and it is still quarter full. Ink needs time to dry and if the ideas are coming fast and furious you cannot mess around.
For quick solid blacks I use Berol Broad and even Fine fibre tips and have done since the 1980s -people used to argue that I was using brushes to draw when I just used Berols to draw! Sharpies...no. I was given one but the ink seems to last far less than a Berol -someone want to send me Sharpies to try out and review? I've recommended Berols to artists for decades.
There's an article here but I'm guessing some of the photos are missing by now so I may re-write it soon:
hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/…
Below: I washed and posed for this photo with GoBo for a photo for an interview in The Imagineers (I think it was for that) but it was never used.
And below some of the last "Small Press" Adventures (volume 1) -the yellow covered bumper issue is VERY rare but some idiot on ebay paid £20 for it?????
The End
ALL artwork and characters are (c)2017 T. Hooper-Scharf and BTCG
Originally, the Dr Morg Trilogy was a Small Press publication and this cover was used on -the art on a couple of different shades of card stock.
But when it came to the trade version of the six part Black Tower Adventure series, Return Of The Gods: The Twilight Of The Super Heroes the Jack Flash character appeared on the cover but not as a silhouette.
I played with two ideas. this one...
And this one...which I rejected pretty quickly!
But the original 197 pager ended up with this cover....
But when amended to over 300 pages, which saw Jack Flash and his involvement become more central, a new cover had to be created and I went with this one -both versions are still available at the store.
That's how it works, folks!
Now that 2015 post!
Someone Asked (a while ago) How I Draw My Comics
I found a disc that had "family photos pets etc" written on it. Being in a morbid mood I thought I'd see if there was anything that needed transferring to a flash USB stick.
I got a surprise. Well, for me. Photographs taken while I was working on two comics in May, 2005 -I could have sword it was much later but the photos are dated for that time! The first is the end products -Words Within Worlds, that became the first part of the Dr Morg Trilogy and had a limited run as a small press comic. This one has a white cover and others had a yellow card cover. Worth a few £s now. The other is the original A6 (A6 measures 105 × 148 millimeters or 4.13 × 5.83 inches) GoBo zine that I was handing out at the Bristol Spike Island event BUT thanks to a certain person sitting there saying "It's s***. Bin it, it really is s***!" a good few ended up in a waste bin by the doors -and I 'recycled' them!
I am one of those people who prefers not to be tied down to a straight forward 5-6 panels page. I like to use a few different techniques in my work. I will draw on an A4 (A4 paper size is 210mm x 297mm, or 8.267 inches x 11.692 inches) sheet. Maybe a single illo. Maybe 2-3 illoes and I will then cut and paste these onto an A3 (A3 paper size is 297mm x 420mm, or 11.7 inches x 16.5 inches) sheet.
This means that you can move the panels around until they look okay on the page and then glue 'em down! The good thing about this method is that you can take an A4 sheet and make it a panel to them work on and alter before pasting down. For instance, below, that page to the bottom right features the character Jack Flash -a major character in theReturn of The Gods and a key character in Green Skies. Originally there was a strange creature to the background, heavily shaded and an outreached claw coming over his shoulder. But I then realised that the page worked better with a solid black background which left a lot up to the reader's imagination.
Below I'm busy at work cutting and pasting. Why take a very long time to draw a figure broken up into puzzle pieces when it's more fun to draw the figure and then cut it up into puzzle pieces to then paste into a panel?
Also, I'll be drawing and think "right, I know" and will look around and perhaps grab a template or something else to go around a panel or become a central object on the page. As with the floral pattern on that page my hand is over. I only use brushes for large solid black areas so all size brushes come in handy and in 2007 (?) I purchased a 600 ml bottle on India drawing ink and it is still quarter full. Ink needs time to dry and if the ideas are coming fast and furious you cannot mess around.
For quick solid blacks I use Berol Broad and even Fine fibre tips and have done since the 1980s -people used to argue that I was using brushes to draw when I just used Berols to draw! Sharpies...no. I was given one but the ink seems to last far less than a Berol -someone want to send me Sharpies to try out and review? I've recommended Berols to artists for decades.
There's an article here but I'm guessing some of the photos are missing by now so I may re-write it soon:
hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/…
Below: I washed and posed for this photo with GoBo for a photo for an interview in The Imagineers (I think it was for that) but it was never used.
And below some of the last "Small Press" Adventures (volume 1) -the yellow covered bumper issue is VERY rare but some idiot on ebay paid £20 for it?????
The End
Now for the business side of things, as if!
Invasion Earth Trilogy I & II-The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes/Cross Earths Caper
I -The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes
Paperback,
A4
Black & White
331 Pages
Price: £20.00 (excl. VAT)
Prints in 3-5 business days
Earth’s heroes and crime-fighters are going about their daily tasks –fighting a giant robot controlled by a mad scientist’s brain, attackers both human and mystical -even alien high priests of some mysterious cult and their zombie followers and, of course, a ghost and a young genius lost in time.
Pretty mundane.
But psychics around the world have been sensing something. A "something" that sends feelings of sheer terror through their psyches.
There is a huge alien Mother-ship near the Moon. Undetected by deep-space radar and other instruments, only a few on Earth have sensed it and they cannot penetrate the hull but only feel psychic screams and....worse.
And then it begins: strange orange spheres isolate and chase some of Earth’s heroes who then vanish into thin air –are they dead? An attack by an old foe or foes -?
Black, impenetrable domes cover cities world-wide.
Then it becomes clear to those within the domes what is going on: Alien invasion of Earth!
A war between the Dark Old Gods and the pantheons that followed!
Warriors from Earth’s past having to battle each day and whether they die or not they are back the next day!
No one suspects the driving force behind the events. One single evil guiding events. Events that could cause destruction and chaos throughout the multiverse.
Assaulted on all fronts can Earth’s defenders succeed or will they fail...is this truly the end?
II-The Cross Earths Caper
The Cross-Earths Caper: Part II of the Invasion Earth Trilogy
Paperback,
A4
Black & White
107 Pages
Price: £15.00 (excl. VAT)
Prints in 3-5 business days
Following the events on Neo Olympus and the Boarman invasion of Earth, many heroes and crime-fighters have withdrawn from activity. Some are trying to recover from injuries while others are fighting the mental scars left by the events.
But things have to go on. As heroes from other parallels who helped during the recent events return home, members of the Special Globe Guard are shocked at the sudden appearance of Zom of the Zodiac. Never a sign of good things a-coming!
Very soon, a group of heroes mount a rescue mission and find that a quick rescue mission can turn sour equally quickly. As they overcome one challenge the the heroes become lost between parallel Earths and face new threats.
Sometimes one Earth just is not enough. The complete story published in issues 7-10 of Black Tower Adventure now in...one handy dandy book!
ALL artwork and characters are (c)2017 T. Hooper-Scharf and BTCG
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