Creating Christmas Comics — Part 2 (or “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”)

Posted by george on Oct 15, 2008 in Christmas Comics | 0 comments

By George Broderick, Jr.

In our last installment of Creating Christmas Comics, I discussed a little about my background and what brought me to the momentous decision to spend my time crafting my happy little holiday tales.

And what a decision it was!

Comics, or more specifically, working professionally in Comics, is a lonely, sedentary life. You don’t really think about it much, but a great deal of time and effort goes into crafting a single comic book… and Christmas comics are no exception. Sure, they’re fun… but a LOT of sweat goes into that fun.

To create even one issue of a Christmas comic… say, Christmas Eve Winter Carnival, a book I just sent to the printer in early October takes almost an ENTIRE YEAR for one person (me) to produce.

“How can this be?”, you ask, aghast, mouths open in utter disbelief.

Well…

We start with the story. The script, as it were. I began writing the script for Christmas Eve Winter Carnival last December, during the break between Christmas and New Year’s, while the holiday spirit was still fresh within me. This volume, rather than one long 52 page narrative (as the first Christmas Eve book was), would feature five shorter stories, ranging from one to twenty-three pages in length. They’d all be around a central theme, different aspects of the winter holidays, and I wanted to showcase a different cast member (or members) in each one, not make them all just about Christmas Eve. One story would feature Eve and the girls in typical Christmas Eve action, one would mainly center on Eve (in a cautionary tale), one would be about the Sugar Plum Fairies, Holly, Noel and Carol (with guest star Greta Poinsettia), one would be a New Year’s tale, featuring Eve and Father Time and add to the Christmas Eve mythology and, finally, there’d be a one page, silent “gag” strip starring Ol’ Tannenbaum, The Talking Christmas Tree.

With my line-up set, I began writing. The scripting took me until mid-January. I’m a freelance artist and I DID have other paying work to schedule in. With the scripts written, I now could start drawing the entire book in pencil (still, remember, working on those other paying jobs simultaneously).

When I “pencil” a comic (as most comic artists do) I work bigger, on 11 X 17 Bristol board. The art will later be reduced to the printed comic book size of approximately 6 5/8 X 10 ½. But that’s waaaaay later. I choose to do my pencil work in non-reproductive blue pencil. Non-repro blue won’t show up on most copiers or process cameras, so it saves me a step in that I don’t have to go back and erase the stray pencil lines later.

On a good day (one without interruptions), I can pencil up to three pages. I RARELY get good days, so my average is 1 ½ to 2 pages. Working on this and another book simultaneously, the penciling takes me to Easter week to complete. Easter was March 23^rd this year, so I finished the penciling just before the start of April. Plenty of time until Christmas, right?

Not so, friends and neighbors! The next step in the process is what we call “inking”. Inking involves going back over the pencil art in India Ink with a pen and/or brush, adding detail, texture, light source and last minute flourishes. It’s way more involved than simply “tracing”… just ask any of my inker colleagues.

Anyway, I can ink 1-2 pages a day. But I don’t work on weekends (I have to spend SOME time with my family) and it’s nearing the end of the school year and my daughter is a graduating senior this year. Plus, when summer starts, I begin teaching my Kid’s Cartooning Summer Camps at the local Art Centers, five days a week, three hours a day. Lots of fun, but very time consuming. So, this part of the process took far longer than I was comfortable with, but I finish inking by mid-July. Just in time for my family vacation! Tick, tick, tick… time is running out.

So, now we’re all August! The next step is to scan the pages into Photoshop, color them, letter them and format them according to the printer’s specifications. Scanning is quick and relatively painless. But… and here’s the hard part… to color the pages in an appropriate manner, I need to channel my inner Christmas Spirit (in such abundance back when I first started scripting in late December).

In my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, we get some honkin’ hot summer days. 85 to 90 degrees and humidity with a capital “whew!”. It takes a LOT of induced Christmas Spirit (and central air) to get in the mood. So, out come the Christmas CD’s.

I play them long and loud.

That, coupled with some Merry Christmas Radio, visiting the forums at My Merry Christmas and watching some Santa and Rudolph DvD’s and I’m good to go. I drive my family nuts, but I’m good.

The rest of the summer is a flurry of coloring pages and lettering the dialogue balloons and placing them in such a way as to cover up as little art as possible. Wow! It’s a good thing I saved that erasing step back when I started inking! Way to go, non-repro blue!

So, here we are in mid-October. The book is done and gone off to the printer. Almost an entire year has elapsed since I started, with a lot of the work being done during the hottest, most “non-Christmas-y” months of the year. Time to start the process all over again for next year.

And now you know how I spent my summer vacation.