Monday, December 28, 2009

Jack B. Quick: "Smalltown Stardom" layout, page 3

Over the weekend I found this layout for page three of the first Jack B. Quick story.  You can see the pencils and inks in an earlier post here.  Panel four was giving me the most trouble at this stage.  Since all of the JBQ stories were done from full scripts and it seemed unlikely that any of the text would be changed, I started out by lettering each page, then I'd work on refining the drawings.  It seems backwards to some people but it really helped me determine how much space I had left after the balloons were added.  The drawings could be moved around but the dialog couldn't.

5 comments:

  1. What you described reminds me of something I saw in one of the old Russ Cochran EC volumes. What you did for this job is reminiscent of the old EC process where the dialogue is lettered on the page first and the drawings were made to fill the space.

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  2. I don't think it is backwards at all. I mean, with those stories, it was going to have a large amount of dialog so laying out the text and dialog is very smart. Why spend time drawing all those figures, backgrounds and details when they'd just get covered up. Maximizing the panel space that is given is the key.

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  3. In my short foray in the comics biz I often wished the process was done that way, but alas the powers that be...

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  4. Mr. Nowlan, do you often find that editors want a completed page rather than a sketched, or roughed one? in my limited experience, ive sent in completed pages only to be asked to make changes. that is only after i sent in thumbs and was given the "green light".

    so am i out of my mind when i say.. "no. i'm changing anything because you approved the thumbs." ?

    happy new year
    peace out

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  5. Most editors are fairly agreeable to whichever way you prefer to work but that's easy enough to pin down at the beginning of a job if either of you have a strong preference.

    You're justified in feeling a bit put out when an editor asks for changes after he or she had a chance to approve or ask for changes before you started on the finished art. I had one editor who never seemed to read the scripts until all the art was inked and colored.

    But I'm not going to tell you you're right when you refuse to make the changes. That's biting the hand that feeds you. Just chalk it up to experience and try to learn from it.

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