The discussion of hand-lettering got me thinking about this one.The first notion was to do a Haunted House story but it evolved into something a bit more cheerful than that.
I had a lot of fun drawing it, mainly because Jeff Parker is one of those generous writers who tries to play to an artist's strengths.
The house is based on a real building, located a couple of blocks from here. I changed it a little but the basic shape is the same.
Working out the details on the title/poster images was the biggest challenge here, but I think they add a lot to the splash so it was worth the trouble.
The Marvel office not only let me do my own hand lettering, right on the board, but they let me do the colors and seps too. I kept it mostly flat but put in a few graduations/airbrushing here and there. My model for coloring is still the Silver Age comic covers at DC. With Photoshop, it's hard to know when to stop, but I still want the coloring to look like old comics, without the big dots.
Ah, that's great. I love that you didn't ink the outline of the left side of the roof, just defined it with the colour. It's subtle, but it makes that end of the house recede into the background a little.
ReplyDeleteI think I've said before, this is just one of those pages that is well designed. Using the story title, the framing of the title with characters in blocks and the giant splash page to open up the story with. Just reminds me of what Eisner always tried to do with the Spirit. And a glorious house drawing.
ReplyDeleteWonderful work the form you put the letters and details on this page make me cry with this great lesson ^^.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of those splash pages that made me feel like a kid again! It was so enticing! "Read ME, there's a great story after this page!"
ReplyDeleteHey, Rico... that's about the highest compliment I can imagine. Thanks!
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