Author: beyondforward

I’ve gotten to the age where I’m not only comfortable in my own skin, but with the writing and drawing style I’ve developed over the countless hours of honing my craft. That’s not to say I’m closed to learning new and better ways to get the job done. In fact, I probably study writing and art within and especially outside of the comic book medium now more than ever. These efforts, I hope, have expand my view and helped inform the creative decisions that are made every time I put my fingers on the keyboard, or my pencil to the page. And there’s hundreds of decisions, at every stage in that process. I’ve also learned to stay honest, to let my core style flow freely on the page and not pander or shoe-horn anything that isn’t true to  myself. 

In that context, HARK is probably the most honest story I’ve ever written and drawn. 

SR

Here’s a short video that I shot on Wednesday, me rambling excitedly about my return to the traditional tools of penciling and inking comics. 

This is the page that basically serves as my initial style guide for HARK’s world. Although I had created a lot of pre-production art, some of which will be posted here eventually, most of the environment concepts were comprised of a ton of photo references. That, plus what I had envisioned but hadn’t put to paper yet. My goal is to make the setting prominent and important, just like a main character. I’ve always liked stories in which the backdrop is as interesting as the sequence of events happening in front of it. 

SR

A little back-story about this comic. I wrote HARK as a manuscript about 2 years ago, so getting from a rough draft novel to a graphic novel has been a long process. This is the second time I’ve written a manuscript, only to decide later to adapt it to comic book form. The first was The Overman, which was eventually published as a comic book mini-series. I swore I wouldn’t do that again, going to all the work of writing a novel, only to later rework it into a comic book script, and yet here were are again. On the other hand, I think that crafting the story first in novel form ultimately lends an intrinsic weight and depth  to the comic, in a way that a ‘direct to comic script’ can’t. Adapting a story in this way has also forced me to become a better editor of my work, forcing me to objectively evaluate the manuscript and discerning what’s important and what can be either eliminated or reduced in order to best serve that story.  

SR

Here’s a video glimpse into the work-in-progress on page 11, plus a thumbnail view of the finished page. I may end up changing some things before it’s released, though. I tend to make some last minute lettering changes, so don’t be surprised if this page reads differently later.  Regardless, I’m on to page 12 now and will try to post some more WIP soon.

SR