- Gegê's
- Posts
- #2 - Trying again
#2 - Trying again
If it doesn't work the first time...
This post was originally published in September 27th, 2023 on my now dead Substack blog
Hullo again :3
How can I just do it?
Ascend and try again
Recommendations
Byee
Hullo again :3
Thanks again for taking the time to read this little art-journal-creative-process-thingy. (Still don't have a name for it :D)
So, August was a bitch and left me with no time and energy for anything. As it's usual in my work-life cycle, it took some time for decent paying gigs to show up, and when they did, they decided to all show up at the same time. It's a very annoying and constant truth in the life of the freelancer - that this is the cycle more often than not and there's nothing we can do about it. It’s 8 or 8000, never in-between. Somewhat feels like the universe laughing at your face for trying to cheat the system…One day I'll achieve balance though, mark my words. Anyways; shortly after, I went on a 2-week vacation - which was incredible, if not for coming back and instantly having to deal with a bed bug infestation in the house. Hey September, what the fuck. I thought we were friends. ;___;So because of all that, October is getting two issues. It comes in handy, given that I’ll be preparing things for Thought Bubble (I’ll be at table C15 for those going, more details soon) and I’d love to share the process of making them. That also means at least one Twitch stream coming soon: if you're subscribed to this newsletter, you will get an alert at the week in which it will be happening. Now, let's get to it. As always, hope you enjoy. :)
_
How can I just do it?
I took a vacation. This was the first vacation-ass-vacation I've taken in a looooooong time, and by that I mean a vacation that doesn't involve stopping to work at some point, and/or doesn't also involve a comics event happening in the middle of it. My mind is very practical with things, so I struggle a lot with doing anything just for the sake of doing it. Traveling for an event is the way I cheat myself into taking a break, because it means the event sales pay for the trip so I get to work in the event and then have some needed rest (usually) after, for my mind to reset, all the while “not spending any extra money”. Practical. Zero sum equation. Love when a plan comes together. But that doesn’t give me the feeling of a break: it’s a work trip, so there’s still the feeling of doing something useful even though there shouldn’t be and it kinda goes against the idea of a vacation anyways. I think this utilitarian way of doing things mostly comes from being raised in a very work-oriented city in a very work-oriented family - plus I really love doing what I do, so as much as I try to chill, at some point one thing pulls the other and I always fall back into this productivity pattern. Which brings us to this vacation, which had no useful reason in particular, I just did it to enjoy myself and visit some people I love. It was maybe the greatest time I’ve had since probably pre-COVID, and now, hunnies…We’re so back. Relaxed. Ready to work again. Is this why people take vacations?
Do you also struggle to give yourselves leisure time? Send a shoutout, I’d love to know. We need some group support.
_
Ascend and try again
My process for making pages is practically second nature at this point: I read the script and sketch something only I can recognize; then I sketch it way nicer; then it becomes drawings - perhaps straight digital inking; and then I color those drawings. And now, after 15 years of doing it this way, now that I’m making my own book, things have changed a little bit. Because the writing process is now happening almost simultaneously to the visuals being created, there’s so much room for going back and rewriting/redrawing things accordingly, and a lot more room for learning with the process. Even better: there’s a lot of room for me to ponder what I really want from a scene. The change in the process didn’t just come to me overnight; it started with me trying to find ways to get out of the burnout PTSD I found myself in ever since I finished my last two books - Made In Korea and Better Angels (done concurrently and finished in the SAME MONTH - oh boy). Almost two years after that, I needed to find the fun to make comics again, because I finally felt the call to do it again. I sat with it for some time and decided that it was time to work on my own book: the one that I had been sitting on for almost ten years at this point, the one waiting to be made until I felt mature enough to face the challenge of writing it. And that’s how I would get out of the funk. But it wasn’t until I went to a masterclass talk by the brilliant Rosemary Valero-o’Connell - in which they showed some process pages and talked about revisiting early pages of a book even as they were almost finished with it - that I realized I could make the process my own a little more by allowing myself to iterate and experiment more. And perhaps that would get rid of that horrid feeling that I could’ve made things different, if only I’ve had more freedom to make the mistakes I’d have liked to make before committing to final decisions. Furthermore, I realized that I had professionalized my process to a point that the art and the story became second, and the work and productivity became first, and some rebalancing was needed.
But let’s exemplify:
This is a page I’ve shown before in my example from last issue when I talked about page turns. But this is the first version of it.
In this first image, nothing is inherently wrong…the color palette is still the one I’ve set for the comic, the style is there, but…when you look at what comes before and what comes after in this sequence, the mood is completely off. This desaturated cyan harmony is quite cold and tense and a little heartless, and I wanted emotional, mundane and nostalgic for this scene. So this is how it turned out after I revisited it:
Now the focus is always on Luca’s (our character) expression, the magentas give it more warmth and the main big panel is so much more evocative with the skyline sunset shining over their face. That’s the theme of the page: even though we don’t know yet what’s coming, we know it’s an emotional moment. Something is waiting for them once they arrive, and now the reader gets that. The text on the plane connects the eye from the first two panels to Luca’s face in the third, and that panel is now so much more contrasted with every other panel, so there’s also more readability and breathability for the page and that is always a big plus.
All of those changes feel that they should have been quite instinctive from the start, but when you’re starting a comic that kind of thing is not exactly there. In other words: a lot of the time, you make it up as you go. You usually find the comic around page 50, not page 1 or 10. And that’s accentuated by the fact that we don’t get to do a lot of pre-production beforehand, so…those experiments are needed. And we should be able to continue doing it - to some extent of course - through the course of the whole book. When you’re in the middle of it, it’s so easy to hyperfocus: there’s a deadline on the horizon. So having this kind of zoom out moment to analyze things under a different lens is much necessary. I envy movie directors for this; editing allows you to do SO much with the material, while in comics we have to start pages from the very beginning again if we want even a smallest timing change to happen. One note to all of this: this is very true for artists like me who like to shift styles according to the comic they’re working on. There’re people who do their thing and it’s a very estabilished thing and they know how it’s gonna be from the start, and that is extremely valid. I just personally get bored drawing the same way every book, and I also come from a design background - which has the mentality of adjusting the work to meet the demands of the proposal and not the opposite - so something has to change, and that calls for this kind of experimentation.
Another more subtle example:
Here I was mostly trying to find my paneling style for this comic, and turns out the framed panels didn’t really work, and probably won’t suit the mood of this comic at all. I even tried using it only on the CLICK panel added at the end of the sequence, but still felt unnecessary. It’s something that worked really well in Better Angels - a historical fiction detective book with a lot of detailed and adhorned imagery - but here it feels heavy and out of place. I thought that blocking the panels under a common structure would be better for legibility, but it turns out I only needed to space them differently and allow the white to fill the gaps and help punctuate each cut. And that is only possible because I can go back to it days after and re-evaluate my choices. It’s easier if you work digitally, of course, but that’s one of the reasons I decided to stick to digital for this book in the end (even though I’d love to work analogically again and spare my worned out eyes).
So that’s another little insight in the process of making this comic. I still have a long ways to go with this book, but this feeling that I can make the comic I wanna make by being able to test my decision making in the process makes me more confident that this will probably be my best work to date. Again, if you have any comments or insights about this topic, feel free to shout in the comments or in my chat section for this post. ;)
_
Recommendations
→ I don’t know how I hadn’t read Bolero, the magical realism existencialist-romatic-drama minisseries from Wyatt Kenned and Luana Vecchio yet, but that comic was made for me. Kinda literally tbh, because there’s a transfemme character in it and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a transfemme character in a comic whose whole thing wasn’t about their gender, and that’s just MWAH!~ chef’s kiss (plus the whole comic is so surprising and fun and cute and well written). Really, if I ever see any of those two at a convention I’ll offer a hug. Here’s the premise, now go buy it:
A woman running away from a broken heart discovers a mother-key into parallel universes. The rules are:The key can work on any door.The mother will only let you visit 53 universes.Do not ask to speak to the mother. Never hop more than 53 times.
→ The Friends at the Table people are making a podcast to discuss media and they’re starting with HunterXHunter. It’s a great way to start watching what is probably one the best shonen anime out there (and hey, this one actually ends and is not THAT long), and hear some amazing people have a fun talk about it. So now you can’t say I only recommend girl anime.
Some recommendations from Germany, since I spent two weeks there:
→ While in Hamburg I went to Strips & Stories - a very cute comics shop in a more alternative little part of town - and I found some great stuff there - including Dan Goldman and I’s Chasing Echoes standing on the main rack! I also can’t believe I had to travel to Germany to find another Molly Mendoza book (I own a copy of last year’s highly praised Stray and I’ve been looking for more ever since I got that), this time it was Strip, another emotional, simple, sincere and lovely book. Molly’s one of my favourite artists at the moment, just an incredible talent. If you don’t follow their work yet you should.
→ In Berlin I had the pleasure to visit the Queer Zine Fest, which really lit a fire under my ass to make some self-published stuff. As stated before here, I don’t do many things just for the sake of it, but a lot of making art is about that so maybe I will. I have some ideas, and I think I’ll probably be streaming some of the process soon. Regardless, please take a look at these people’s works, this is all great and everyone was so sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to talk so much to everyone in a festival, overall great vibes, I hope I get to participate next time. Here’s my festival haul and everyone’s links:
_
Until the next one - which will be a little sooner - have a great one!
Reply