Undertow Across America (and Canada)

One month since my last post and so much has changed--seems like the theme for my life which is rapidly approaching its halfway point with my impending 35th birthday.  Said goodbye to Atlanta this past month, and took a hellacious, two-thousand mile, four-day road trip to Boise, Idaho, that featured a visit to Metropolis, a thirty minute Q&A session with a very nice police officer without a lot to do, a big T-bone steak in Nebraska, and an evening spent in a Wyoming hotel bar with a bunch of truckers while the mountain highway was snowed closed.  God, I love America.

But back to comics!  Gibson Quarter was at the Toronto Comic-Con Fan Expo recently and managed to sell out all the copies of Undertow #2 I'd just shipped him, which has me stoked.  He'll be attending the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) from April 13-15, and then the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo from April 27-29.  Go Gibson!  Can't say enough about how much this guy helps me out.  Ghosthill Greg in the meantime will be attending the West Texas Comic Con in Lubbock April 13-14.  These guys stay so busy I don't know how they do it (no sleep and Dr. Pepper for Greg), but I appreciate it.

And in case you're wondering what I'll be up to during this time--I'll be back at work in balmy Naknek, Alaska, watching the ice in the Naknek River, waiting for it to break up and the tide take it out and away into Bristol Bay, so we can start bringing the tugboats and barges back in the river.  Ah, but the days they do go by.

I thought this was going to be a short post--not sure why I always go in thinking that because they never are.  Guess I've got lots to say, especially when it comes to my comic book.  My friend Jay at Comic Book and Movie Reviews recently posted an online interview with moi, which you can check out here, if you're interested.

There are also a couple of reviews up for Undertow.  You can read a review of Undertow #2 at Sequential Review, and there's another review of Undertow #1 just up at Crikey! so please take a look if you have the time.  Thanks for reading!

GHOSTHILL GREG

Just a few words today about a guy who has been my brother-in-arms through the whole Undertow process that's become such a big part of my life these last couple of years.  An interview with Greg Harms went up today on Comic Book and Movie Reviews, so I thought I'd mention that to start, and then show a little bit of what Greg does to help me out and make our comic looks SO GOOD--which it definitely does.  If you haven't seen one and don't think comics are just for kids, they can be purchased at the right hand side of the screen via Paypal account or credit card.  A digital copy of Undertow #1 is also available for $1.99 at DriveThruComics (the file is about 90MB in size).  With that being said...

This is some of the work Greg has done with Jonathan A. Rector that's appeared as the front cover of Undertow #2 (images on top) and back cover of Undertow #1 (images on bottom), for a story called "The Forgetting," which begins in Undertow #2.  Here's the kick-a$$ work done by JAR in pencil on 11x17-inch artboards, which is then scanned at a high resolution and moved on to Ghosthill Greg.

Greg then prints up the scans with blue lines in place of the gray pencils (again at 11x17 inches), and hits it up with his pens/brushes and helps to add focus, depth, and shade to the page.  The pages are scanned again in preparation for the coloring process, which will all be done digitally.  The illustration at the left has been scanned and adjusted to compensate for irregularities in the ink, examples of which can be seen on the right where the scan has not been adjusted.  This is how the page looks after Greg is done inking by hand.

Greg then adds the color and design elements like the logo and title/issue number for the front, and some text and ISBN code for the back.  I'm not gonna pretend to know what goes on here as I'm still a photoshop novice (but learning!), but I will say that it's a painstaking process to make things look as good as they do!  And on that note--a final word to my friend, Greg, and many thanks--I don't even want to think what Undertow would be with out you.

Thanks for reading!