Black Snow Comics

I'm Famous in Japan! page 2

Check it out. The torch is passed, and Mark “Rawr” Egan has run with it. For my slow, dense fans (and I know there are many of you) I drew the panels on the top row, and Mark did the rest.

I like the way my part turned out, and once again I’ve used manipulated photos for my backgrounds. I really like the way they blend with the pure drawings of the characters and think they look fairly natural together.

I really like Mark’s transformations of the characters. He did a really good job of changing their style to make them his own, while still retaining the qualities that make them unique. It’s always really interesting and exciting to see what other artists do with something you have created, an honor really, and I really enjoy how Mark did it here.

The last panel shows he really gets the humor as well. The Lone Wolf’s stupid mood swings are still present, and even enhanced here by the drama of Mark’s manga style. He really turned it into a true punchline, more-so than I could have imagined.

Black Snow: Two Drink Minimum page 12

I’m really happy with the way this one turned out. These wordless pages are always quite a test of my storytelling skills. I think this one came through clearly and conveys all the necessary info. Beyond that, I think I did it with some style!

Surprisingly I did this whole page basically in one evening and the following morning. Let me just comment on the content for a moment. Redemption just tortured poor Arthur for some time to send him over to the bank unwittingly strapped with a bomb, then he blew up the bank and all the money! I think that pretty awesome. Chaos and complexity. The bomb being strapped to Arthur was my idea, originally it was just already in the bank. I think it was a great touch.

So what’s Redemption really all about? He’s got his own reasons for what he does, as you’ll learn more about as the story unfurls.

Let’s talk about the technical aspect of this page. It’s really complex and has a lot of elements. I also redrew some panels several times trying figure out exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.

What did I end up doing? This page is a mixture of pure drawing, photographs, filter effects like blur and paint dabs, burn, dodge, smudge, clone stamp, transformation, transparency, more drawing: all mixed together.

So it was a lot of work. I continue to play with manipulating photos to the point where I try to blend the line between what is photo and what is drawing. I did that much more than ever before here, and pretty much changed the photos until they were boiled down to their essence then built them back up into the way I wanted them to look. I tried other ways of doing this like just drawing everything traditionally based on the photos and what I wanted, tracing certain elements, building initial background shapes based on what I wanted, etc. But in the end I just thought what the hell, I like the photos so I’ll just start with those.

I also really wanted to do something interesting with those top two panels and do an interesting pov shot. The explosion was an interesting thing as well, created with all those Photoshop tools I mentioned earlier. I was going for the initial impact explosion of real life vs the fiery infernos of the movies. Fellow Mythbuster fans should know the difference.

This page let me experiment and story-tell in ways to an extent that I haven’t really gotten to since I drew issue 6. It was fun. Look forward to more, and the start of a fun new scene.

Black Snow: Two Drink Minimum page 11

This was a pretty fun one, as I’m beginning to really enjoy drawing these torturous scenes. I was actually inspired by a wrestling promo from Raw last week, CM Punk’s contract negotiations with Vince McMahon. There was a lot emotion and intense back and forth in it that gave me some motivation as to how I wanted this scene to play out, as far as the energy.

So Redemption just released Arthur here; in the original draft it would have taken about 2.5 times as many pages to reach this point. I’m glad we shortened it. Keeps things moving at a fast pace, and will get us to the next page all that quicker. It’s going to be nuts. Get excited for it.

To tell you a little bit more about this page, I started it early last week but had to put it on hold for the 2nd page of I’m Famous in Japan, which will likely be completed by Rawr this weekend. It features a bit more action then most of our typical duologue laden scenes, which is always somewhat of a challenge for me, but one I always enjoy. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at drawing expressive characters having conversations, but I still have a ways to go in other areas.

I’m happy with the way this one turned out. On to the next challenge!

It is I, The Lone Wolf!

Yay Japan! I’m going to Japan! Japan won the Super Bowl! Or some such game. I care not for sports. They bore me so.

Woman’s World Cup, you say? Hahahahahahahahahaha! Little tiny Asian women playing sports games! Absurd. Stupid USA. You shame yourself.

The world is full of such folly. My Mr. Rosenstein has told me I’m off to the Orients. To the Chinas! Or was it the Japans? Some Asian place, for some reason. I did not care to listen, but I’m definitely going somewhere. I KNOW THAT!

I can’t wait to see all the silly little people scurrying about their hovels. They worship me as a god there. I am a kind god, but stern! I’ll not stand for any blasphemy. Especially from foreigners…who don’t even speak the King’s English!

I’m not sure if I’ve been there before, but I’m assured the hoards await me with open arms. Wherever it is I’m going.

But yay to Japan, you silly little crazy land of sunrises.

Karate Chop!!!

Japan?!

Follow the Lone Wolf’s adventure’s in Japan at http://blacksnowcomic.com/famousinjapan.html

I'm Famous in Japan! page1

Here is page 1! In case you couldn’t tell, it was drawn by me. When and how will Rawr come into this? Wait and see.

So this is one of the most simply written comics we’ve done. When Alex and I sat down to write some of these Famous in Japan Alex commented that if we did things are normal way we’d spend the whole one-off getting them to Japan. Then I suggested we should just do one comic where Rosenstein tells the Lone Wolf he’s going to Japan…and Alex wrote this. I thought it was pretty short, but we both agreed it was fine.

So when it came time to draw it I had a lot of options. I thought it would be funny to see a more straight man, bored/annoyed Lone Wolf for once. He is quite reserved here compared to how wacky he usually is. So Rosenstein is the wacky one here, but even he is sick of the Lone Wolf’s stupidty in that middle panel. I also wanted to bring back the idea that the Lone Wolf loves technology and likes to tweet and text. The phone use combined with the cafe setting was supposed to instill in the reader what a Hollywood yuppy the Lone Wolf has become, and make it an even bigger deal that he was going to be leaving.

See, I put thought into everything, even the ridiculous. Another thing about this comic, for whatever reason I didn’t really feel like drawing it at the time, so that may also account for the grumpier tone of the characters. I drew it pretty quickly too, in one morning pretty much. Not to say I didn’t put my full effort in. I did. Just fast.

Let’s talk about that cafe setting for a second. I didn’t draw it. At first I tried to come up with something simple to give the feel I was looking for, but I had some trouble. And as I often do I scoured the internet for reference photos. Even those weren’t yielding the exact results I was looking for. Then I found this picture. I really liked it, and thought instead of recreating it in a drawing I’d just try manipulating the photo.

Careful readers will know that I’ve used photos in Famous and Black Snow sparingly over the years, but never as a background. So I resized the picture, cropped it to show what the two panel camera angles would should, played around with some painterly effects, changed a couple things then blurred it. And I really like the way it turned out.

As far as the bottom panel background, I reused that wonderful Japan imagery from the site background as I thought it would look really good radiating from Rosenstein and emphasize what he was saying.

So there you go, a long explanation for what in many ways was a super simple comic. Look forward to page 2!