ALIEN age 11 - Comic/Graphic Novel and Blog: Let go

Jones to the rescue and Ripley hits the airlock button - alien comic page

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2013

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Let Go - Goddamn You! [68]

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Getting there

How long is it since the last page - 6 months? more?

I'm very excited about this one and have been dying to show it to you. Jones comes to the rescue once more - and just when it seemed the poor little fellow was probably a gonner, too!

The last time I posted here with a page I was probably still buzzing after seeing PROMETHEUS, the big geek-movie event of 2012. Now I'm super-excited about seeing the big geek-movie event of 2013: Man of Steel - tomorrow with my wife and son. He's only 7 so I reckon his mind will be blasted. Sometimes I wonder if most of the fun doesn't come from sharing the experience with him more than seeing the film itself! [But then again, he wants to see PLANES next week so...] Some day I'll watch ALIEN and ALIENS with him for the first time. Just think: he still has all of that ahead of him! Do you know, he asked me yesterday:

"Can we go to see World War Zee, daddy?"

Probably not, seeing as you're only 7...

I was also very excited last year after bringing the previous 2 pages of this, and some other scraps like the Star Wars age 9 one to a comic con where I met a MARVEL talent scout. He was very impressed [I was frankly amazed] and he sent me a few sample scripts to try out. I never did try them, because I spend my time either parenting, working at my web design job - or asleep! To be honest, I also felt daunted by it: not up to the task.

Resolutions!

However - I've made a decision: because I really don't want to spend my life sat in an office typing CSS code all day long [14 years so far!], I'm going to finish this comic - just a few more pages. Then, I'll use the skills I've learnt from this, on the MARVEL stuff; and then I'll get working on that new original webcomic that I spent about 6 months sketching and plotting - but never started. I think I'm detecting a patttern Captain.

The MARVEL thing won't happen, and I'm not even sure it'd be a good thing if it did! - but it'll be a valuable learning experience if nothing else.

Now, time to do another page!
- John

Art Notes

This page, like all of the others started out the old-fashioned way: pencilled and inked on Bristol Board. Then, flatted and coloured in Photoshop.

I admit to cheating a bit with blur filters on the smoke effects but to be honest, it's pretty much par for the course these days. I'm trying for a cinematic feel too. There's about 20 layers in it. When I do my new webcomic, it'll be in a simpler [faster] style than this!

I link/placed the layered PSD into InDesign and added the frames and text elements. Its great because when you make a change to the layered PSD in Photoshop, it updates in InDesign!

I also timed myself on this page. Comic artists don't get paid very well. they work too hard by and large, for long hours, maybe 6 to 7 days a week. Previously I was taking 2-3 days to do a page, but this one actually only took about a day/7-8 hours!

Apparently Ron Smith, Judge Dredd artist used to use an alarm clock. He'd set the alarm. When the alarm went off, the page was finished. I can assure you: his work never looked rushed or sloppy. He was just being economically realistic!