Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Engines of Creation

Page 38 is a great example of how to turn a seemingly boring scene into something rather interesting. In the seminal book “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” by Stan Lee and John Buscema, there is a comparison of a scenes done in two ways: One boring and one “the Marvel Way!” The first one is a pretty straightforward depiction of the story; the other has very dramatic angles and interesting body language. It’s the same setting, but with two very different approaches. As you might have noticed by now, Reverie is a not story driven by action, so I always make sure that every page looks artistically appealing.

Take this page for instance, it could have been a straight forward scene with six panels or so. However, I’ve been wanting to make a collage page for awhile, and I thought this was the perfect time to do so. What I like about composing a page this way is how it conveys the passage of time. It also involves the reader by immersing them in the documents Inspector McConnor is reading. I had some concerns about how it would come out with Metasearch’s faded look, but after all was said and done, the scene played out beautifully. Lettering was also a concern of mine, since there was so much text going on, but I try to integrate the narration into the art as much as I could and it worked pretty well too.

It is often the case with me that the pages with which I struggle the most, turn out to be some of my favorites. I’ll see you in that page.

Oddman Out