We begin with a screenplay. Not a comic script. A screenplay. And we hone the hell out of it. The screenplay for A Prayer For The Hunted took four months to write and began its life as a failed, low budget feature film. When we chose to turn it into a graphic novel, we completely redrafted it. This allowed us to fully develop Puerta de Cobre with a false history. Some people will say things like “the location is another character.” Bullshit. Characters are characters. But, mis-en-scene is incredibly important. So, we took time to build a 200 year history for Puerta de Cobre.
Another two months was spent on character design. We wanted to avoid the cliche of “big tough guys” and embrace the reality of people within the clandestine arts; they deliberately look like everyone else. Back in the 1970’s, they were “just guys.” They weren’t steroid-enhanced body builders. Robert Harper spends his days at a desk in Virginia. Nikolai Dzerzhinsky types documents in Hanoi. Anthony Greenglass is a chain-smoking, balding old man who eats homemade sandwiches while drinking coffee from a harvest gold Thermos on his lunch breaks.
They’re just human...Not superhuman.
Once we created our lived-in, ordinary, worn-out characters and our two hundred year-old mine, it was time to storyboard. I’m a filmmaker and so storyboarding is one of my favorite skills. But, I realized that my approach to storyboarding doesn’t always translate into a comic. I needed to let my illustrator have some freedom. Despite this, I set some ground rules that will serve the company for years to come. The number one rule is that the page has to read effortlessly and invisibly. So, no silly panel shapes. No overlapping panels. Major plot points are always revealed on the turn of the page. And panel layout needs to be conceived as a two-page spread with the final printing in mind.
The next steps are typical; pages are penciled and inked. But, our team made the bold choice to keep the graphic novel in grayscale with an emphasis on cinematic lighting. I auditioned sixty colorists. None of them understood light. And many kept saying that ariel’s grayscale was so good, they didn't understand why we were looking for a colorist. So, we decided to keep it in grayscale. Ariel did the first pass. I tweaked the final pages in Photoshop whenever a lightning effect needs more depth. Ariel’s work is amazing. My contribution is the occasional volumetric light ray, shooting out of holes in the wall. Sometimes, I enhance the lighting on a face or create a shaft of light hitting the wall. Our mutual goal is to make it feel like a movie.
Lettering is the forgotten art of comics. Too many people underpay letterers and rush the process. We found an amazing letterer. My instructions were clear. Avoid comic book cliches. Keep it real. Keep it grounded. No fancy effects. Wrap the sound effect around its source. The first few pages took fifteen drafts. Eventually, we found our groove and by page 140, we were completing the lettering in three drafts. I know I'm picky. This isn’t a business to me. It's a craft. And I’ll push and push and push until a page flows as smooth as silk. Reading must be effortless.
Lastly, the team made key decisions during printing. We tested the preview issues with a soft-touch finish. But, fingerprints mar the finish and sharpies don't autograph as well on a soft-touch cover. Also, the black fogs. So for the actual graphic novel, we opted for a traditional gloss coat. The blacks pop, no fingerprint issues and they autograph beautifully.
Every step matters. Story comes first...but every step matters.