The Beginning of the End of the World
John wrote the other day (in response to the blog about my abandoned graphic novel At the End of the World with My Sister):
"To this day, I cannot comprehend why you got so demoralized and gave up on ATEOTWWMS. The first issue was quite good and the second issue was looking a lot better, in terms of the story picking up some steam."
Well, clearly the reason I gave it up is that as an acronym, it totally blows. Where's the elegance of "ST:TNG" or "WTF?" I'd taken to shortening it to just "Sister," but to my lights, all great works of sci-fi have to be able to have that great acronym.
Anyway, the reasons are manifold (clunky storytelling, unclear direction, more than I could chew, self-doubt, rickets), but only one really matters (psyched myself out). Here's most of the prologue. I'll let it go mostly without comment, except to note that the drawing quality varies wildly, from quite nice to pretty amateurish; the title lettering was done by hand - mostly copied out of my Letraset catalogue because I couldn't afford the real stuff and I actually enjoyed doing that kind of shit, and I have to confess that the wormhole on the first page is probably inspired most directly by the film version of Howard the Duck.
Also: the reason the panel borders are all bendy is not by some aesthetic choice, but because I used border tape that has, in the 14 years since it was affixed to the page, shrunk and warped. Those used to be nice straight lines. That was the point of the border tape in the first place. Ditto the mechanical tones (not Zip-a-Tone, which I hated and was either going or gone out of business by that point, anyway, but LetraTone), which is why there are halos around all the mechanical tones. Shame, because I was really anal about laying that stuff in just right.
Remember to click for bigness, and apologies for the two page spreads, which will require some horizontal scrolling!
Next: What the hell was all that about?
D.
"To this day, I cannot comprehend why you got so demoralized and gave up on ATEOTWWMS. The first issue was quite good and the second issue was looking a lot better, in terms of the story picking up some steam."
Well, clearly the reason I gave it up is that as an acronym, it totally blows. Where's the elegance of "ST:TNG" or "WTF?" I'd taken to shortening it to just "Sister," but to my lights, all great works of sci-fi have to be able to have that great acronym.
Anyway, the reasons are manifold (clunky storytelling, unclear direction, more than I could chew, self-doubt, rickets), but only one really matters (psyched myself out). Here's most of the prologue. I'll let it go mostly without comment, except to note that the drawing quality varies wildly, from quite nice to pretty amateurish; the title lettering was done by hand - mostly copied out of my Letraset catalogue because I couldn't afford the real stuff and I actually enjoyed doing that kind of shit, and I have to confess that the wormhole on the first page is probably inspired most directly by the film version of Howard the Duck.
Also: the reason the panel borders are all bendy is not by some aesthetic choice, but because I used border tape that has, in the 14 years since it was affixed to the page, shrunk and warped. Those used to be nice straight lines. That was the point of the border tape in the first place. Ditto the mechanical tones (not Zip-a-Tone, which I hated and was either going or gone out of business by that point, anyway, but LetraTone), which is why there are halos around all the mechanical tones. Shame, because I was really anal about laying that stuff in just right.
Remember to click for bigness, and apologies for the two page spreads, which will require some horizontal scrolling!
Next: What the hell was all that about?
D.
posted by Dave Kopperman | 12:09 AM
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3 Comments
