This is it friends, the big countdown has begun! Shattered, With Curve of Horn will be debuting in a little over a month (and if things go according to plan it might get here even sooner). As part of our run up to the big day here’s a study of Caitlin, one of the four principal characters in the book.
I can’t really say that Caitlin is the main character, as all four have equal weight and (nearly) equal focus where the story is concerned. But here she is with a smart little suit on. Sorry, pals, there won’t be any color previews for Shattered. You’ll just have to wait and seeeee…
As will probably be the case with every page drawn in the book, this was sketched in graphite, inked with my sweet, badboy pen, and then toned with ink washes. I throw a little more graphite into the mix at the end to round out the tones before scanning the whole thing.
On another note, I read something interesting today:
While cartoonists must exploit multiple disciplines to realize their work, the best comics, perhaps more so than any other art form, rely on a gradual accumulation and interplay of deceptively revealing suggestion, seemingly unrelated snippets, discordant detours into humorous “light” incidences, partially hidden clues sumewhere between writing and drawing, convoluted relationships, contrasts, and details, fragments both formal and conceptual, textual and visual, to achieve their resonance within such a symbolically loaded and complex system. Larger themes are manifested through the build-up of subtly relevant minor chords, connections revealing themselves in a manner of expression unique to comics’ mysterious voice. The ambiguous nature of the language has always functioned in this manner: meaning as ordered through individual sequential panels is inherently fractured, so both underlying concepts and overall essence coalesce as in no other medium, begging to be deciphered, even in the most seemingly straightforward and innocent narrative.
This comes from the introduction to In the Studio by Todd Hignite (who I think is editor of Comic Art Magazine?) The above quote is an absolutely fantastically put breakdown of the language of the comics medium. The idea that themes can become manifest through “subtly relevant minor chords” is such an attractive idea! It sounds so simple the way Hignite stated it, but I can’t get over just how much these few sentences jive with my own thoughts. Something that was always a major frustration for me with straight up fine art painting was the difficulty of imbuing a single painting with enough meaning to make it worthwhile, and to tell a story, all while still leaving it accessible enough for the casual viewer. Not to mention the other important element: that there’s one person out there that likes the thing enough to buy it.
Let’s return to the analogy of music. Minor thematic chords. Color harmony. It’s true that the creation of a graphic novel, even if perpetrated by a single individual, is much like a symphonic creation. The graphic novel auteur then becomes the grand maestro. There are so many elements that have to be tended to in tandem or the whole enterprise is likely to go haywire and fall into the river. But if you can get your assets and skills in order and turn them with a keen focus onto the task at hand, the making of a graphic novel, then it’s possible to make truly great work. Building a graphic novel word by word and picture by picture is one of the most flexible and rewarding experiences a storyteller can ever embark on. The ability to have complete, micro-managing control over every aspect of the process is unmatched in any other media, and that’s precisely why the format is so exciting. But of course, now I’m banking on the hope that there’s significantly more than one person out there willing to buy this graphic novel when it’s finished.
