Multiple passes
Forgive me if I've posted this sequence before - I don't think I have.
When I was making Bobbins.horse in its final run from 2018-2020, I got tighter and tighter with the layouts, they became very complex for a little cartoon strip. Towards the end they became brutal. I think, subconsciously, I was keen to get back to drawing full size pages, but didn't have the energy to commit to them on a daily basis. While looking through my archives today I found a page that I drew in multiple formats to try to accommodate a complex top down shot.
This was the first version. I had made a 3D model for Ryan's bedsitter, which enabled this decadent top down angle in panel 1. Panel 1's luxe design made panel 3 look pretty rough and I couldn't balance it to my satisfaction.
So, foolishly, I redrew the whole comic in a completely different format. This was me going off the deep end, trying to solve the problem of too much complexity by enlarging the page to make complexity more easy to manage as part of a whole.
Now this is pretty nice. But I couldn't have done that every day at the time. I was feeling very weak. I worked out how to use bits of that big revision in the first version.
So here I've got a brand new panel and I've used the last panel of the big one, except I've had to re-ink it, because the line widths are too different for the big and small comics.
What I should have done, when the first comic didn't work, was turn off my computer, perhaps for two days, perhaps for two weeks, and come back when I didn't feel like I was losing my mind. Because what I have repeatedly failed to learn over the last few years is that when you can't draw something that should be easy, the problem is not that you have suddenly lost your ability to draw, but that you have drawn so much that your poor brain doesn't want to do it any more.
I wish there was the equivalent of a smoke alarm that would go off in my office when I achieve this state (it is one day since our last workplace accident, dear reader). But at a safe remove of nearly two years, I still like that final comic.
Comments (16)
Who was Amy's crow-looking friend? I've forgotten now. Unless she was just for the purposes of this one strip.
Ljubljana (I THINK that was the spelling, like the Slovenian capital). Very goth/metal aesthetic. There's a whole arc about this date and an impressive meal at Dorado's (Hugo's dad).
That’s why they invented “the weekend,” I think
I down tools at 6 and never work at the weekend! The weekend... is not enough
Thank you for the fascinating insight into the craftsman's work. The layman sees the first version and thinks "what's wrong with that?", but can see the finished product is so much better. And I always like Ryan.
I'm just gobsmacked that someone has the talent to draw any version of those 3.
In defence of the final panel, first pass, the motivated ceiling lighting is great.
I think what annoyed me about the final panel was that the characters didn't seem to exist within the background correctly. At some point I will do a post about my "theory of the boring wall".
I'd be curious to know more about your lettering choices in the future if it's something you'd be interested in posting about. How do you decide how much text goes in a speech balloon/panel? How much is too much? ALL CAPS vs. Mixed case.
This is a great one, Matthew, I will see what I can do!
The other side of that coin is walking away and staying away too long - as evidenced by my turning sixty soon with next to nothing to show for my comics making efforts. Getting better, though.
I always have the prospect of poverty to send me back to the drawing board. Good luck, John.
Programmer with burnout here. Modulo the word 'draw', you just managed to put in words exactly how I've been feeling the last couple of years. Thanks for sharing your struggles as well as your creations!
"Hi, Richard!" +1 here. It's not so much the "burnout" part that's depressing, it's the "years"...
I don't make comics, I make software, but this exact thing happens to me often. I still need to learn to just go for a walk, instead of falling further down the rabbit hole.
I wish there was a siren on my desk that went off automatically when "enough is enough"! A smoke alarm is, in retrospect, insufficient