malandchad.com

Hey everybody, I just wanted to touch base and tell you what I’ve been up to lately.

These last months I’ve been working hard on the script for the third Mal and Chad book. “Third book?” you might ask. “Where’s the second book?” The second Mal and Chad book, entitled FOOD FIGHT! is coming out this January 19! Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s a little preview of the first page!

Without going into too many details, in this volume, Chad is being troubled by terrible nightmares, so Mal invents a special machine that will allow him to travel into Chad’s dream world so he can help Chad face his deepest fears!

Please pre-order the next volume now if you have a chance! Or, it’ll be waiting for you at your local bookstore when it comes out in January.

Anyways! Back to book 3!

Writing the script for this volume was hard– but I guess all the books so far have been hard to write.

It seems to me that the only way to write one good book is to write two books and then throw the bad one away. And boy did I throw out a lot! I had finished a complete script, sent it to my editor, and been waiting for him to send back his critiques for a week when I started getting the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about the book. So I began working on it again, deleting over half it, and keeping only the choicest parts. My cartoonist friend Michael Regina really helped me during this time with his feedback about the book, helping me keep focused on the parts of the story that were important.

It’s frustrating, but I think you can’t really understand what’s wrong with your story until you write the whole thing. It’s invisible until it’s written, but once it’s on paper it can be cut up and broken down and built up and made right.

But now that I’ve got a story worth drawing, I can say with all confidence that it was worth it! I’ve now started into the thumb-nailing process, which is where I translate the words of my script into the pictures of my comic book. Similar to story boarding in film and animation, thumb-nailing is a series of rough sketches that help me to decide composition and story pacing.

For some reason I like to work on thumbnails standing up– maybe just to get away from the computer. Here’s my setup– basically just a table stack on a dresser. But it works.

While keeping an eye on the script, I will draw rough versions of each page of the book. I like to draw on half pages to keep myself aware of the orientation of the page, (whether it’s to the left or the right). Knowing the orientation is important because I don’t want panels that bleed of the edge of the page to face into the spine of the book. Also, having the extra half page blank lets me have a space to redraw panels or figure out expressions.

In other news, while I was waiting for my editor to get back to me, I started working on a series of comics essays about creativity. You can read them here, on Doodle Alley!

Thanks for stopping by everybody! I’ll try to be in touch!

Hey everyone, in two weeks I’m going to be making my way to the heart of the strange continent known as Texas for Wizard World 2011! It’s going to to be held for three days at the Austin Convention center. I’d love to see you there! Click on the image below for more details!

Hey all! If you were familiar with my old website, Doodle Alley, it is no more! Doodle Alley has undergone a whole new transformation and is now a picture blog that details my thoughts on creativity and on being a creator. The cool thing about this site is that all the essays are told in comics form. There is now one entry up which tries to answer the question: Which is more important, an artistic process, or the principles behind the process?

Please check it out!

Hey all.

So.

I’ve finished the second Mal and Chad book, entitled: “Food Fight!” (see the link at the side to pre-order a copy!) and I wanted to show you guys the process I use to make a single page.

Namely, the first page of Food Fight!

My process is very similar to the work flow used in making films. Just like a film, it all starts out with the script. I use a free program called celtx to write out my scripts. It is fast and intuitive, and makes it easy to indicate who’s speaking and what scene you’re in. I use the screenplay mode, but it also has a comics mode you can use which might be nifty. The only disadvantage I’ve found is that it can’t export to Word, so when my editor asks for Word files, I often have to reformat it by hand.

Once the script is approved, I translate the words into pictures, much like a storyboard artist would do for a film. Except, instead of doing storyboards I do what’s called thumbnails, which are tiny, messy breakdowns of the pages I’m going to draw for the book. In this way I plan out every page in the book. Doing this planning step is important, because it allows me to make mistakes with little consequence. After all, only a small, messy sketch is on the line. If I make a mistake in the later stages, however, I might have to redraw and re-ink a whole page, costing me a lot of time.

Speaking of mistakes, you can see in the first pass, I wasn’t sure which “camera” angle to use on Chad.

After exploring different options, I find a solution that meets the needs of the scene, and clearly expresses the action I want to portray.

After finishing the thumbnails, I then begin penciling the book. By penciling, I don’t mean that I use a pencil, I actually use a Cintiq drawing tablet. During this stage, I draw a detailed but still some what messy sketch of the page. This is done at full size.

After I’ve finished penciling the entire book, I send a copy to my editor who checks it over for errors. Once I’ve got the okay, it’s time to start inking, which means I do my final pass, tracing over the messy lines with a slick black line. To ink and pencil, I use a great program called Manga Studio which was made for the specific purpose of drawing comics. I’d recommend it to any digital cartoonist.

Ta da! Thanks for stopping by!

If you guys have any questions, I can answer them in the comments.

If you’re in the Albuquerque area, I wanted to invite you to a Mal and Chad event I’m doing at Barnes and Noble. I’m going to give a short presentation on drawing comics, then read a passage from Mal and Chad: The Biggest, Bestest Time Ever! and then do a signing. This event is specifically designed for kids, but if you’re a grown-up, you’re still invited!

The event will be Saturday, September 24 at 3:30 PM and will take place at the Barnes and Nobles next to the Coronado mall. Here’s the store address:

Barnes & Noble, Inc. Store 2049
6600 Menaul Boulevard
Albuquerque, NM 87110

Hope to see you there!