Tuesday 10 November 2009

Worth a thousand words

I said no pictures from the last 30 pages or so, but I feel justified in showing this one off because, firstly, it contains no spoilers and, secondly, you would probably not stop and take it in when you're racing through to the climax of the book. Yet, like so many of Leo's and Nikos's panels, it deserves to be framed and appreciated in an art gallery.

There are few sequences that better show Leo's attention to detail. I set a few short scenes in the auction rooms of Mr Kotivedes (that's him with the gavel) which are intercut with some big, fast, spectacular, set-piece action bits. (From action to auction, a classic writer's trick for racking up the tension.) As I can never keep anything simple, even the seating plan at Mr Kotivedes's rooms is vitally important to the story. So Leo devised the full cast of attendees seen here, who have travelled from several continents to buy the sort of article that is appearing in the early days of the year: Nessus's first horseshoe, the figurehead of the Argo, the eighth color that Odin rejected for the Rainbow Bridge, that kind of thing.

But it's not just the detail. Look at the body language. This is just a snapshot moment, a brief cut away from the deadly peril that our main characters are in, and yet this single panel is a story in itself. I feel guilty covering it up with word balloons - hence this opportunity to see it in all its glory.

6 comments:

  1. Damned speech bubbles. Are you sure you need them..? I mean, really, really need them..?

    What a wonderful panel...

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  2. Just totally amazing! A really knockout panel and another superb example of the teamwork between Leo's awesome draughtsmanship and Nikos's sublime colouring.

    Perhaps two editions; one the regular comic with balloons and the second collector's edition with a text version with working drawings, sketches etc, etc and then pages from the story minus balloons.

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  3. Nelson - don't worry, I was just now putting that page together and I found out I didn't write any text for that panel anyway. In fact there are only 10 words on that entire page - the pictures do all the heavy lifting.

    Peter - two editions would be great, but I don't hold out much hope of convincing Random House to do that. If we can just get the regular version on the shelves next September, I'm going to count that a major victory :-/

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  4. Well Dave that will do me fine, it's going to be next year's Christmas present for several of my graphic novel fixated chums.

    Can't wait!

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  5. Good luck getting it out in some form. If you can't do a book, how about an online version like Freakangels?

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  6. Kaza - I'd very happily do it like that, but unfortunately we don't control the publishing rights. That is probably how you'll first get to see our rom-comic Sweet, however, as Leo and I are publishing that one ourselves.

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