The Making of 'Prisoner in Your Own Mind' Part 1

First I was on to Scott McCloud and his theories, now I'm on Dave Sim, creator of Cerebus. I've been reading some of his old letter columns at http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/artists/nftp/notesindex.html and I've been brought some more realizations that I've haven't been doing as much as I could've been doing. I've thought about this before, but I've always had my reasons to delay. Sim was saying, look at those things that stop you from doing your comic. These are the things holding you back from realizing your dream. Yes.

Generally, I know that I need to just do something, but even when an idea comes my way or after I've written a script, I'll typically sit on it for a little while if it doesn't feel right and maybe revise it. That goes for drawing ideas as well. I used to just do them, but now they have to reach some standard of perfection before I even touch the page.

Sometimes I wait for it to "feel right" as if there was some divine intervention going on. Hell, that's how I used to do it. Now, I've filled up many a page with sketches that I don't like. Never seeming to be able to get my style just right. Other time photo reference or the perfect thumbnails are needed. So I'll know for certain that when I sit down at my desk for the next 8 or so hours, that I'll come up with something that I am happy with.

That reasoning is flawed in several ways. I have so many distractions now with a family and school, that the right times to do anything are few and far between. Often times this waiting phase will be prolonged because if I start on something, I feel like I'll miss a good show or won't be able to read a book I've wanted to get to that day. Those were misplaced priorities, I can admit that now.

At least I don't have cable anymore. I'm not surprised I don't miss it. Where I live, there is bad reception, so even with deluxe antenna, I can't catch broadcast channels. I don't miss TV at all much. I don't feel the desire to need things quite as much and I'm more content with what I have. I generally feel I have more time to do important things as well. I bootleg alot of movies and make a night out of watching them every once in a while. Podcasting and streaming news takes the place of everything else. And no ads! I can draw while I'm listening to podcasts too.

To the comic:

A couple days ago, I don't know how to compute it, I woke up during the evening and just felt like doing 'Prisoner in Your Own Mind.' I was really feeling the first sentence and the vision of the first panel I thought up when I awoke. So, I got up, still needing to pee badly, went downstairs and quickly rewrote the script and it came out the way I wanted it to.

Taking a cue from Eisner, rather than going on to the next page, I did the thumbnails to the story quickly. I had the drawings all bunched up in my hands, but still I had to go pee, eat, and watch a show. (Bad, I know.) I still maintained the feeling for a few hours afterwards, so I took some ref photos just for the poses and started on the first panel.

The first panel came out with practically no flaws, but I was nagged with the feeling I needed to do tight pencils because I was using some good art board that I had been saving for years. First time I used them for any occasion. I even used comic strip boards of roughly the same quality during that time. So, either this was a special occasion, or I just realized that this comic would never fit it a three panel strip. Well, maybe that is a special occasion. I wrote a comic that I actually feel could go beyond the bounds of a three panel strip with no challenge. In fact to two pages, further if I let it. Two pages was all I thought I needed though. If I stretched it to two weeks or two different days, that would keep the story like I wanted it. Not too short, not so long that I feel I could waste time.

I've written longer stories. A number of short stories under my belt and many "Scenarios," but no novels yet. As far as word-wise, longer than graphic novels, but not story wise. I know how, just haven't yet.That's one thing I learned in my creative writing class, you have to crawl before you can walk.

I've been doing comics and even comic book length stories practically all of my 25 years, but I've never stuck with anything long enough to do long range stories. It's funny when I was taking the class, I looked back at my thick portfolio of drawing since grade school to see all the comics I've done stories I've written, but I can't honestly say I've done any long range stories. Most writers don't though until they're my age. I should feel secure in that. I wasn't prepare mentally yet. Not that I honestly haven't tried, because I have tried to write novels. I just let stuff get to me.

That hardly means I'm unqualified to be in this business. I still steadfastly would rather think of myself as a "writer" than only a comic artist/writer. Drop the comic part. Some of what Dave Sim said still applies to me though even then. Not like Stephen King didn't say the same stuff.

After the first panel, it took me a while to do the rest or the page. I had to eat several times, my body clock didn't exactly know when it was supposed to eat not sleeping and all. I had to watch Poetic Justice and had to mess on the web a little bit. But all the while, I was working on the comic in between, still needing to do tight pencils before I could go on to the next panel.

It was maybe 1 or 2 in the afternoon before I was down to just one more panel. The pencil I use is hard so I don't get too messy, but as a result after ever so many erasures, the pencil won't lift from the page. So I just did a little "place holder" inking where the eyes and mouth would go on the second panel and moved on. By the last panel, I was tired, but I knew I didn't want to go into my nap without at least having one eye and the mouth done on the close-up. I did one eye, which was coming out a little too realistic, so I had to make it look a little bit more stylized. I'd previously noticed that is hard to get the feel I want out of a story when I get too realistic. Even though this story is serious, I didn't want it to be slowed down with too many details. So what I ended up doing after I redrew the stylize eye was call it finished and scanned the page into the computer.

After piecing it together in Photoshop, I touched it up in Alias Sketchbook Pro, fixing panel two and flipping and reworking the right eye so it wouldn't look like a mirror image. Damned if I didn't work on that for another hour or so before I called that done. It still didn't turn out just like I wanted it too, but I wouldn't have even had that opportunity if it was just pencil and ink. I would've already screwed up the page and would've had to just ink what I had.

The stage I'm at now is bliss. All I have to do now is bring the pencils into Painter and ink it. Then add the word balloons in Adobe Illustrator. That way it'll stay editable. After all I've needed to censor one of my comics already. It's not quite victory, but as far as I'm concerned, this process is like post-production seeing as how I've done the heavy artwork already. I should have kept the pencils loose. I'm much more sure with the pen in Painter than I am doing unfinished pencils now. It helps me go faster when I can get immediate feedback of how it's going to look. Just use "Preview" to check the progress every once in a while.

Well, I'm going to bed now. I just know this thing is too long to read and it'll be another podcast. If (and it will) it becomes a podcast, I'll definitely put it alongside page 2 of 'Prisoner in Your Own Mind' that'll come out next week. Look for the first installment on Saturday or Sunday.

Tomorrow I'm doing page 2 as well, so maybe I'll tag that onto the podcast going up next week as well.