The Fielding Course
Submitted by Faith on June 3, 2009 - 19:34
First Second told me it was okay for me to post a few panels from the book I'm drawing (The Fielding Course, written by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan), to show the world what has been occupying my time since January ... and by "occupying" I mean, I went outdoors today and screamed "what the hell is that???" at the ball of fire in the sky. Oh right, it's called the sun.
Anyway. I'm EIGHT PAGES from the end of this book, which'll be somewhere around 150 pages when complete. It's been a really different experience drawing someone else's script rather than my own, and I found it really challenging psychologically. It was difficult to trust my art skills completely throughout this thing, mostly because I've never had to before. I've always relied on some other cleverness to distract readers from what I think is the weakest point of my comic-making: my artwork.
And I couldn't do that here. I had to sit down and provide the best possible artwork I could, and most of the time, the best I could produce wasn't to my liking. So I spent a lot of this book banging my head against the nearest wall, angsting about what I was producing, forcing myself to look at what I didn't like about my work, and improve it or die. It was really rough. But I honestly think I reached a turning point and I'm starting to see new influences in my work (Urasawa mostly; I think he's been good for me), and I think it's really improved. I'm happy with what I've done in this comic. But God, what a struggle.
Anyway, enough art blather. Here's some panels from The Fielding Course, written by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan. It'll be out from First Second Books sometime in late 2010, and will be coloured, though not by me. The story's about two misfit kids who're dragged off to a ominous summer camp, where there's some really creepy goings on. And then crazy stuff happens. I probably shouldn't say any more. One thing that kind of amuses me, though, is that the kids do a lot of maturing over the course of the summer, and I feel that's sort of accidentally what happened with my artwork as well. So the art grows up along with the kids. Aw.
I enjoyed drawing all the forests. My next comic will be completely set in a forest. At night.
The two main characters meet each other. Aw, they look so young here. Also, the boy's hair gets gigantic over the course of the book. Guess he started using volumizing shampoo or something.
What camp story isn't complete without gross food? Sidebar: my first non-White lead!
Um, I kinda based him off Kurt Russell... :D
YAY FORESTS! Hey, make up your own dialogue and you get a prize.
That hair is totally going to stomp on Tokyo.
Oh yeah, and since the kids were growing up over the course of the book, the guy got quite a bit hotter (imho), while the girl remained kinda nerdy looking. SUBTEXT. :D
If you don't et your meat you can't have any pudding!
I don't know why, but I love this panel. That is some awesome hair.
So yep, that's a little peek at what's been destroying my right wrist since Christmas. It's been fantastic, really. The schedule was a bit crazy, but I'm really thrilled I've gotten the chance to take a break from the animation studio life and do comics full time. It reaffirms it's what I want to do, and I hope I'll be able to keep doing it.
And now, what's up next for me? Well, that's a whole 'nother blog post. But yes, I do have another graphic novel lined up already ... which I'll tell you about later. ;)
