Next, I’d like to take you through the entire creation of a short comics story, from the writing, to the penciling, and finally to the inking and lettering.
I am part of a small, but plucky, local group of budding comics professionals who get together monthly to discuss and critique their work with each other, and yak about the comics profession. About once a year we publish a short run independent comic called RAMPAGE, in which we print some of our exercises in comics form.
I am going to share with you the entire process of creating a short comics story for issue #4 of RAMPAGE.
I began by turning some thoughts around in my head. I had been drawing a lot of Conan-esque barbarians in my sketchbook around this time, and I spent a lot of time nurturing a very earnest, serious, Frazetta mindset. Here’s an example.
After a few weeks of this, I felt perhaps there was an opportunity to vent the steam built up by all this seriousness with a little barbarian parody comic.
Since I didn’t have to get approval on the idea from any editors or anyone else, I didn’t bother to write out a premise line for the story, but I had it clearly in mind, and it went something like this:
Scragg the Barbarian, after single handedly defeating dozens of foes, tries to get cozy with a slave girl. He’s interrupted by a creepy wizard. The wizard tries to render the dangerous barbarian harmless by turning him into a furry little bunny. Unfortunately Scragg is dangerous no matter what his form, and he stabs the wizard mercilessly. Regrettably, Scragg is left in bunny form, with no one left alive to lift the curse.
Next entry, we’ll look at the roughs and character designs and nailing down the dialogue.
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