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What Do I Look For in a Comic Book Artist?

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By D. Lynn Smith

I recently answered some interview questions, and one of them was something like what advice would I give to artists wanting to work for Kymera Press. I talked about getting your work up on sites like Deviant Art and not being shy about displaying your work. But I thought it might be helpful to tell you what I look for when searching for an artist.

Kymera Press is a new publisher and we want to support young artists so they can continue to grow and develop. This does not mean, however, that we are going to hire an artist just because they can draw. Yes, drawing is important. But more important is if you can tell a story with pictures.

My previous entries about the writer made the point that, for the most part, the writer of the comic book is invisible. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of narration. I’m constantly trying to cut back on the number of words that appear on my pages. That’s really difficult, but if you have a good artist, it’s much easier.

When I go to sites like Deviant Art, I’m looking for an artist who has posted more than just illustrations. I want to see sequential pages. I want to see how you arrange your panels, if your art tells a story that flows from one panel to the next, if you left some room for dialog bubbles.

I really like to see artists experiment with panel arrangements. A comic that plays with this is Gotham Academy, written by Becky Cloonan and Brendan Fletcher with art by Karl Kiershl. I’m continually delighted by the creative panel arrangement in this comic. So play with the panels: maybe have a full-page illustration with panels arching across the page from the top left to the bottom right. Or have a two-page spread where the panels go across the top of two pages instead of just one.

Something different and interesting always catches my eye. I’m also looking to see if the artist draws a background. Many young artists draw the action, but forget that the characters are somewhere, not standing in the middle of a cloud of nothing.  If they are in a restaurant, are there tables, people, wait staff? Is there food on the table, pictures on the wall?

So if you’d like a job as a penciller or inker on a comic book, post some pages of sequential art. If you don’t have your own story, ask a writer friend, or look for a script online and draw up one of the pages just as a sample.  Show me you can tell a story in pictures.

One of my favorite comics is Bitch Planet written by Kelly Sue Deconnick and drawn by Valentina De Landro. In one of the issues, the action is happening in the foreground while a whole different action, the beginning of a prison riot, is happening in the background. It’s absolutely brilliant. And yes, Kelly Sue wrote it that way, but that’s because she also fills in the background, something I’m working on learning to do. The point is, the background can be as important as the foreground.

Many young artists post a lot of fan art. While these are usually interesting to see, it doesn’t show me that these artists are able to conceptualize their own characters. Building a character is a very important part of the storytelling process. I may post reference pictures for a character, but it is the artist who actually brings that character to the page. When I’m searching for an artist, I want to see if they can create original characters. Fan art simply doesn’t do that.

Finally I’m looking for consistency. When I’m doing a series, I expect my character in Issue #30 to look like she looked in Issue #1. Some artists have a problem recreating a face from one panel to the next.

These are the main things I look for in an artist. Of course there are other things as well, like professionalism, price and just plain niceness! Don’t underestimate the value of being easy to work with.

A Glimpse Inside the Comic Book Production Office – Part 2

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By Paul Daughetee

Last week I went over the hardware a production office needs to put a comic book together. Today we’ll be covering the software and processes involved in getting your comic ready to print or to submit to an online publisher.

SOFTWARE

Here at Kymera Press, we use Adobe products almost exclusively in the production of our comics. However, for all of the Adobe products I list below, there are applications from other companies that can do the job equally well.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC – All of our freelance artists submit their finished artwork in a digital format—typically either Photoshop’s native PSD format or the TIFF format. Photoshop will likely be what you use to verify the submitted art meets your specifications. If it does not, you may need to use it to get the art to meet your specs . You’ll also need this if your production office is creating ads or other content for your book.

ADOBE INDESIGN CC – InDesign is the application you’ll be using to pull all of your art together in book form. It’s forte is the creation and layout of digital projects such as your comic book. When you’re done with your layout, you’ll use InDesign to export your book to a PDF document; a PDF being the preferred file format for most printers and digital publishers.

ADOBE INCOPY CC – InCopy is software used for copy editing. It feeds your copy directly into the layout you’ve created with InDesign. Although it’s not strictly necessary, it is quite useful as it allows copy editing without directly modifying the InDesign files; the InCopy files will simply be links that appear in your InDesign layout.

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CC – You’ll use Illustrator for creating illustrations using vector graphics that are scalable without any loss of resolution. This is very useful if you’re publishing online and need that ability to scale. You may find some artists prefer Illustrator as their primary drawing/painting tool and it is often used by comic book letterers.

PROCESSES

SPECIFICATIONS – You’re going to be taking art that’s passed through the systems of numerous creative types and trying to fit it into your book’s format. To ease that process, it’s imperative that you provide your artists with a detailed specification that delineates exactly what you want from them when they deliver their files to you.

ART PAGE SIZES AND RESOLUTIONS – For Gates of Midnight, we specified that we want our pencils and inks drawn/scanned at 300/600 dpi and at 150 percent of the finished size. For us, that corresponds to a page as follows:

• BLEED: 10.3125” x 15.75” (6188 x 9450 pixels @ 600 dpi)
• TRIM: 9.9375” x 15.375 (5963 x 9225 pixels @ 600 dpi)
• SAFE: 9.1875” x 14.625” (5513 x 8775 pixels @ 600 dpi)

Our “Final Page Format” that will be sent to our printer for offset printing of the comic is as follows:

• Bleed:  6.875” x 10.5”  (2063 x 3150 pixels @ 300 dpi)
• Trim:  6.625” x 10.25”  (1988 x 3075 pixels @ 300 dpi)
• Safe:  6.125” x 9.75”  (1838 x 2925 pixels @ 300 dpi)

FILE FORMATS – Our artists typically are working in Photoshop so all artwork is in Photoshop’s PSD file format typically. As an alternative, files can be saved and uploaded as TIFF files with NO file compression.

LAYERS – The artists should be consistent with your policies concerning layered art. Ours are as follows:

• Pencil/Inked pages will have their layers flattened prior to submission.
• Colored pages may have their layers flattened prior to submission at the discretion of the colorist.
• Lettered pages will have all lettering in a single layer separate from the art to aid in changes, corrections and the translation of the comic into other languages.
• Cover art that is submitted should always include the various graphics (art, credits, titles, etc.) in separate layers. During the production process changes and corrections are much easier if the separate layers are intact.

COLOR CALIBRATION – We urge the use of a color calibrated monitor as we here at Kymera Press use color calibrated monitors and printers when reviewing submitted art.

COLOR MODE – Our artists work in either RGB or CMYK mode but we require all art to be submitted in CMYK. We recommended that the Gamut Warning tool be used in Photoshop prior to submitting the CMYK files for review. We use the tool and art that has out-of-gamut colors is returned to the artist to have the color corrected.

COLOR SETTINGS – We provide our artists with a color settings file (.csf) to be used with Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) when creating art for Kymera Press. The color settings file is based on the color settings advocated by Hi-Fi Colour Design in their book Hi-Fi Colour for Comics.

ASSEMBLY – So the creative team is done and now some assembly is required. Besides the twenty two or so pages of your comic, you’ve got a front cover, a back cover, a credits page and whatever pages you need to fill your comic book. The total number of pages must be a multiple of four as commercial printers assemble a comic book out of sheets that have two pages printed on one side and two pages printed on the other.

INSPECTION – The first step in the assembly process is to open each and every page and verify that it meets your specifications. If a page does not, either make the adjustments yourself or return the art to the creative team and let them decide how best to fix the issue.

DOCUMENT SETUP – Open Adobe InDesign and create and save a new document. Our setup is as follows:

Intent: Print
Number of Pages: 32
Start Page #: 1
Page Size: Custom
Width: 6.625 in
Height: 10.25 in
Orientation: Portrait
Margins: 0.5 in (Top/Bottom/Left/Right)
Bleed: 0.125 in (Top/Bottom/Left/Right)
Slug: 0.75 in (Top/Bottom/Left/Right)

DOCUMENT BUILD – At this point I have all of the art that’s going to go into the book in a single folder on our Dropbox site. All of the artwork at this point is in the TIFF format (no compression/no layers) and in the CMYK color space required by commercial printers. The content of this folder is a copy of all of the art that has passed the inspection process. I do not work with the original artwork as it might be altered in later printings and I want to be able to archive exactly what is going into this printing.

Open the folder containing your art and drag and drop the issue’s cover from the folder to the first page of the InDesign document. It should completely cover the white page and extend out to precisely fit the red lines that indicate the document’s bleed edge. If not, then there is a mismatch between the cover’s size and your documents settings. Go back and inspect your artwork and your specifications and adjust your InDesign document and/or artwork until there’s a perfect fit.

Repeat this step with each and every finished page that’s been created for your comic book. Save your work along the way and pat yourself on the back when you’re done. You’re close to having a finished book.

 

Next week we’ll  have the final installment of our series, How Many Artists does it take to Make a Comic Book, with part three of A Glimpse Inside the Comic Book Production Office.  Don’t miss it.

Amelia Woo Talks Gaming and gives Advice to Aspiring Artists

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By Autumn Daughetee
ameliawooOver the past few weeks I’ve shared the first and second parts of my interview with Amelia Woo, penciller and inker for Gates of Midnight. In this final installment, Amelia talks about her work as a fledgling video game designer and offers her advice to aspiring comic book creators.

I’ve been told that you are also a game designer and are designing your own video game. Can you tell me about it?

Everything started when I spent two years developing a fictional world called Copernicus Island. This was originally designed to be the basis of a comic book. But in the middle of the creative process, I thought about the possibility of doing a game based on this world. I read a ton of books, practiced a million of the tutorials, chose my engine (UDK) and pushed myself to the limit to discover what I could do. In the end, I had an adventure/stealth genre game.

Being a “green” game designer with a background in art was pretty hard at the beginning of the project. I had to learn how to program and polish my 3D technique.  I did some animations as part of my Bachelor of Arts degree and that proved useful when I was polishing up the animations.

Creating a game is one of the hardest things someone could do. It’s a marathon and a mental challenge. Without support, it is almost impossible. UDK forums have been a crucial part of my development process since the very beginning. Indie game developers are very supportive, maybe because we love games.

Does designing video games have much in common with creating a comic book?

Both are a marathon! Comic books and video games also both communicate with the audience via immersive worlds. Well, most of them do. I know some designers would mention Tetris, but I think even this game has a “world” to share, with minimalist scenery in the black background and a lot of geometric shapes. The Tetris world has this aesthetic with a purpose, simple and effective.

Another thing games and comic books have in common are what I call the “filling gap” effect. In comic books, the audience has to complete the thoughts and action between the panels, completing the narrative. It is a kind of interactive process and requires the reader to follow the panels laid out by the comic creators. In video games, the players must complete actions laid out by the game designers. A comic book creator and a game designer both have to make sure that their audience can follow what they have created.

If you could give advice to an aspiring comic book artist, what would it be?

Don’t listen to anyone else! I’m kidding … a little. If you ask two different people to describe the same experience, they will tell you two different stories. Am aspiring comic book creator should decide what is best for them by trying different things. You can keep other artists’ words and advice in mind, but sometimes what is good for one person isn’t good for another. Try various ways of doing things and judge what works best for you.

Just for fun, if you were a comic book character, who would you be?

I think it would be Bulma, from the Dragon Ball Z series. She is intelligent, rich, the “princess of all Sayans” and never gets killed by anyone. Maybe her super power is good luck. But I rarely want to be a comic book character, because they always have a tragic story! My life is hard, but those comic characters have horrible lives.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Yes! For aspiring comic book creators, I’ll skip the advice about never giving up and being persistent, because they hear it all of the time. (It is true. Never give up!) I’d advise that they don’t go along with things they don’t believe in. If you don’t want to change your drawing style to fit this or that publisher, don’t do it. Make what you create for you and your audience, period. Also, don’t wait for your chance; create your chance. If nobody wants to hire you, make your own comic book or team up with someone else to create one. Learn the business part of the industry or team up with someone else who understands it, paying attention on how to make your comic a viable business. Don’t try to fit your plot into the genre of the moment; everything has an audience. Find your audience to make your goals practicable. Be dynamic and make a move or you will stay static.

Artist Amelia Woo Shares the Secrets of Creation

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This week, as part of our “How Many Artists Does It Take to Make a Comic Book” is the first of a three part interview with Gates of Midnight artist Amelia Woo by Staff Writer Autumn Daughetee.

By Autumn Daughetee

ameliawooThe incredibly talented Amelia Woo has been integral to the creation of Gates of Midnight. In fact, she worked as both the penciller and the inker for Gates. I recently had the opportunity to interview Amelia about her role with Gates, comic books, and much more.

When did you first decide to pursue a career as a comic book artist?

“I’ve always liked to write stories and telling them in a visual way felt the most appealing. So, I decided to learn how to draw. As an author, becoming a comic book creator was what I wanted. Eventually I found that working for publishers was the best way to learn and practice my storytelling techniques in a visual way.”

How did you go about it?

“I started working in a manga style. At the time, western audiences didn’t look kindly on western artists working in an eastern style, so I adopted the name ‘Woo’ to fit in as an artist. I started getting jobs under this name and later couldn’t disassociate myself from it.

“The start, as always, is the hardest part of anything. I spent many months trying to find a job within the comic book industry. My name is now on the Glass House Graphics artist list and having an agent makes my life much easier.”

You work as both penciller and inker for Gates of Midnight. Can you describe your process for me?

“First off, is the layout step. I read the script and try to create a picture in my mind, separating the scenes into sequences. I try to identify the ‘flow’ from the writer’s storytelling and determine how I can translate, as near as possible, the writer’s intentions into a visual product.

“After this, I go to the details (from macro to micro), selecting what is the most important element of each page (the panel key), trying to make all of the other panels on the page converge to this ‘panel key.’ Every scene has a hook for the next one, and the pages have the same logic. Sometimes I try to emphasize this panel key with some movement.

“For me, the layout step is the slowest process, because it is the base, the foundation for the following steps. If something doesn’t work in the layout process, it won’t work later. I usually like to send the layouts in a batch of pages, because it works better for me and is easier for me to figure out the whole picture. After everything is done, I send it back to the writer and editor, Debbie and Valerie in this case, and wait for more instructions. If there is nothing to change, I go to the next step—the sketching. If there is something to edit, I redo it until it is approved.

“The next part of the process is the sketch. Each artist has different ways to do this. Some of them have rough lines and others use solid technique to end up with nearly finished work. I belong to the first group, using rough lines for a far-from-final result. I choose to do this because it is faster to make changes to the drawing later. Working in a team, I prefer to leave the drawing ‘flexible,’ allowing quick changes. Again, I prefer to send in pages in a batch instead of one at a time.

“My technique is 100 percent digital. I do all my sketches directly onto a computer, using a Wacom tablet. When they are approved, I print only the character sketches in black and white for the next step. The backgrounds (architecture and props) are done on the computer. It saves me from having to use rulers and squares. Doing straight lines on a computer is faster for me than doing it the ‘analog’ way.

“And that brings us to step three—the inking. Some artists’ sketches are very near to the final art. Also, some publishers ask for the pencils to be very close to the final product, skipping the inking process. As my sketches are a mess and the styles selected by my clients have ‘clean’ lines, I don’t skip the inking process.

“For Gates of Midnight, I’m using brushes and China ink (Nankin) on a good quality tracing paper. I’ve tried a light table, but I didn’t adapt well to the light in my eyes all the time. I also spent years working with materials, such as acrylic and gauche and it made things smoother for me when I switched to brushes and ink. I found the inspiration from one of my favorite artists, Takehiko Inoue, and it gave me the courage to try using the brushes and Nankin. It’s still kind of new for me, because it is the first time I’ve done the inking for a comic book without also doing the coloring. Usually I work simultaneously on the coloring and inking. Gates of Midnight was a new challenge for me.”

Tune in next week for Part II of this fascinating interview.

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