Emma Newman writes short stories, novels and novellas in multiple speculative fiction genres. She is a professional audiobook narrator, and a Hugo Award winning podcaster. Her current podcasts are ‘Imagining Tomorrow’ and ‘Tea and Sanctuary’. www.enewman.co.uk
The Script
Comic script - this is exactly what happened to my son in the small hours of this morning. I only saw the messages when I woke up, and he told me what happened once he was awake. It made me laugh, and I immediately thought it might make a fun comic and Beanie agreed!
A young man (if you want to base him loosely on my son, he’s 16 years old, tall, short brown hair, blue eyes) is about to leave his room but spots a huge spider on wall next to the door (it is on the wall that the door would rest against when open and the dressing gown hanging on the back of the door would brush against where the spider is) .
He is terrified of spiders, so he can’t open the door. It’s the small hours of the morning.
He leaps onto his bed on the other side of the room, a bookcase blocking the line of sight between him and the spider and tries to phone his Mum who is sleeping in her room across the landing, and message her on WhatsApp, but her phone is on ‘Do not disturb’ so there’s no answer.
Panicking, he phones friends until one finally picks up - ‘Help! There’s a huge spider in my room!’
Friend: What colour is it?
Beanie: Black? Brown? I dunno! It was BIG
Friend: You’re okay, I don’t think they can climb.
Beanie: IT’S ON MY WALL! (throughout the rest of this exchange the friend also now freaking out is just making Bean panic even more!)
Friend: Oh, that one can climb then! Just dash out the door!
Beanie: It’s by the door, I can’t get out!
Friend: IT’S IN YOUR ROOM?!
Beanie: Yes, I told you this!
He peeps round the bookcase. The spider is gone!
Beanie: It’s gone!
Friend: THAT MEANS IT COULD BE ANYWHERE!
Beanie’s eyes flick to all the posters it could be hiding behind, and all the clothes and stuff on his floor it could now be lurking under.
Beanie: YOU ARE NOT HELPING!
He hangs up and hides in the duvet. If you think that a final shot on the spider’s hiding place would be a good ending, do add that in, but happy to end it on Beanie hiding.
Artists Notes
One of the goals of the project was to try and work with as many writers as possible, and so I told every writer "Don't worry - I'll take any format of script" - there are sort of comic script standards, and attempts have been made in the past to really hammer them in, but for the most part every writer I work with works a little different anyway. That said, this script required a lot of thinking about to get the most out of the story (you can argue amongst yourself whether that's what I did).
Firstly there's a sort of action limit in comics, every action will usually require one panel - character opens door, walks through door, locks door? that's three panels. I felt like, on this script, there was too much going on to fit in the super limited single page I had, plus some of the action I wanted to build it up a bit more, so I knew I'd be putting a bunch of panels towards the getting ready to go out (because build up build up build up build up PUNCHLINE!) I also knew I wanted the dialogue interaction to have that ratatatat rapid delivery, which meant I'd get a single panel for that set of dialogue. This meant brutalising the story a little, cutting out the contacting of his mum and going straight to the friend. I also wanted a little end note on the spider - I thought that would be fun, a happy little chappy. (remove the last spider panel and the page feels like it's not quite finished - it's a figurative and literal full stop)
The manga shading effect/speedlines came after I'd drawn it and realise it would work better with a little bit of manga (tonally too, fits a teen), and the coloured lettering was because I needed someway to quickly distinguish the two sets of dialogue (I decided to eschew clip studio's balloon lettering tools a) because it would take ages to get exactly how I want it and b) because I thought I could add more character to it that way. The background of the room is pretty much a direct tracing of my teenage son's bedroom (which is so quintessentially teenager it looks like a set from a modern John Hughes teen comedy). (And it's all my son's work, he's done that all without parental help)
Anyway. This was finished the day before publication, but I think it turned out ok.
Oh, and because I drew it, and then slathered lettering all over it, here's the page without dialogue...
So if you’ve followed along with the Blender basics, I’m now going to start to get into doing USEFUL stuff with Blender.
When I first started using Blender it was as a bridge to go from sketchup to clipstudio – I know a lot of artists take sketchup screengrabs and push them into clip studio, but I found having the 3d model in clip studio was a whole lot more useful.
Now, I find myself mostly grabbing 3d models from Sketchfab and then bringing those into Blender to ensure they’re the right scale and then going from there to sketchfab.
This is a Clip Studio Tutorial, so if it’s not your thing, that’s cool!
I’ve pretty heavily customised my version of Clip Studio. By small degrees over time, I’ve built up a whole bunch of time saving things that are now part of my muscle memory and god help me if I have to use someone else’s clip studio because then I’d be mush.
We have a family chessboard. Handed down from my dad. I remember the scant occasions it was taken out, and it’s only now, with the wisdom of age that some things have become apparent to me.
So, mulling over yesterday’s post I figured I should give something useful, basically, I’m gonna post things I’ve learnt or found useful (or frustrating)
Blender, if you’re not familiar, is a free (open source) 3d program. I’ve dipped my toes into blender every few years but it started life with a painful interface (in fact many 3d programs have awful awful interfaces, why – for example – does zbrush put it’s standard menu – file, edit, window, etc in ALPHABETICAL order? madness)
By Blender version 2.8 they’d normalised the interface to something most people would recognise, and I’ve – lately – been pouring more time in to learning it.
If you do 3d in comics at all, you’re probably more familiar with sketchup – sketchup is a brilliantly easy way to build simple 3d models, but it’s ownership has changed hands a number of times (build – ironically – first by a company called @Last Software, then bought by google who made it free, then by Trimble softeware who stopped making it free).
You can still get a free Sketchup, but, largely, it’s hard to find and many people spring for the licence which gives you more features as well as ways to convert sketchup 3d models into other forms.
I’ve been on a bit of a crusade to pursued comic artists to move from sketchup to blender, primarily because it’s cheaper (nothing is cheaper than free, right?), but also I think, more powerful.
In the process of learning sketchup I’ve been following a few youtube videos, firstly, this guy:
Who does a lot of gaming/blender tutorials, building low-poly (ie simple) models in 10 minutes. Which strikes me as the right balance between I NEED TO BUILD A 3D MODEL and I DON’T WANT TO SPEND ALL DAY BUILDING A 3D MODEL.
Blender relies fairly heavily on the keyboard and he says the keys as he’s using them so you very quickly get a sense of how fast you can build when you’re familiar with it (keys you’ll learn : E to extrude, I to insert – you’ll hear those a LOT)
I watched a bunch of these just to get a feel for blender (he’s on video 57 of Build a low poly thing in 10 minutes, which means he’s done it over a number of versions of blender, so i’d start with the later videos to see what it looks like at the moment, before going earlier)
Also this is a good youtube video, take copious notes!
Another great youtuber is Ian Hubert – Hubert makes “lazy tutorials” how to build buildings super quick, very lazily but with lots of details. While Hubert’s focus is for indie filmmakers, there’s lots of good stuff in there.
In my experience, I’ve pretty much avoided worrying about textures, instead focusing on building objects with enough shape so that I can see what they are. I’m still figuring out the best way to work with textures. The end results I’m after are a 3d model I can bring into clip studio (blender saves models in its own .blend format by default) as an OBJ file and put in a scene, I then use clip studios LT render to convert the 3d to simple piece of line art (I like to work this way because it’s super high resolution and I can move the model around on the artwork making it less hit and miss than, say, grabbing a screen shot of a 3d model and drawing over it).
One final youtuber is this guy Paul O Caggegi whose focus is on making comics and using Blender.
There’s lots of free models on sketchfab, and some you can pay for too. If you’re doing wwii stuff it’s pretty darn useful.
I’m still digging my way through it, but largely I’ve been pretty happy with some of the stuff I’ve done, both editing sketchfab models I’ve downloaded and creating whole new things for the new Chimpsky strip I’m working on.
I drew a quick alien (about 40 minutes?) I was gonna leave it uncoloured, but I figured I might as well spend the 10 minutes required to colour it.
Anyway, just in case you’re interested, I’ve uploaded a high res version of it for you to colour yourself – have at it, and then drop a comment where others can see it!
Thought you’d like some behind the scenes stuff on Captain Cookies. Readers, did I make mistakes? of course. Will I pointlessley try and correct them several months (actually a full year) after drawing the strip and a month after it saw print? sure, why not.
But first, here’s episode one in glorious monochrome-o-vision…
Captain Cookies Page 1
Captain Cookies Page 2
Captain Cookies Page 3
Captain Cookies Page 4
Captain Cookies Page 5
Captain Cookies Page 6
Captain Cookies Layout
Captain Cookies colour guide
So let’s take page 1, which I think, has the worst story telling issues (and entirely my fault) basically I should have stuck with my thumbnails for the Dredd bike, suspect I just couldn’t hack the angle. (And the sound effects are misread as coming from Dredd’s bike canon, so I should’ve drawn the weapon on panel 1 to be obviously something else, and moved the “Blams” somewhere they couldn’t be misinterpreted) I sent these pages to Matt in April, so, Chimpsky fans, if you’re wondering, I drew the Christmas Chimpsky AFTER this one was finished, scheduling meant it worked out the other way round in print.
Since I sent it in April it’s logical to assume I was drawing it in March, about a year ago and just as the first lockdown started – so let’s chalk it all up to that – it was rough last year, father-in-law was seriously ill in hospital (almost a year in and out of hospital before covid hit, and then passed away not long after this) kids taken out of school and the whole covid thing (which is, obviously still on going).
I was struggling with drawing traditionally – my eyesight has been constantly a pain since it started going in my thirties (just as my pro career started- thanks karma) and it’s close up work that I struggle with, so believe it or not, I have to tilt the table now not because of the dangers of back pain but because it lets me keep the art the same distance from my eyes whether it’s the top of the page or the bottom. Drawing digitally takes that issue away since I can just move the digital page around as I like.
So this was me pencilling traditionally and moving to digital inks.
(Of course, all of the above reads as an excuse, it’s not – it’s simply background details that can have an impact)
I’ve largely given up on traditional and moved entirely to digital drawing (traditional drawing is a rubbish term, but there’s no better way of explaining it – analogue drawing? actual drawing? nothing makes sense at all)
More Chimpsky to come, readers, and he’s now off in his own little strip, so no more near misses with Dredd – you’ll be pleased to know… (and let’s face it, he may be superintelligent, but he’s been lucky Joe hasn’t just hit him with a heatseaker already…)
Superfocus. Superprocastination. Sometimes there’s things I’m so desperate to put off I will literally ink an entire comic to get out of doing it. i mean, I need to do both jobs, but drawing is just, fundamentally, the easier of all the jobs.
So I become hyper focused, yesterday I finished four pages of inks. Granted, one was mostly done the day before, two finished during the day/evening and the final one came in around 1am – so strictly speaking, I completed inks on two pages (or three if I’m being generous to myself).
But I wasn’t half aware it was because I was hyperfocused on it, to the point that anything taking me away from it was annoying and I could think beyond those pages. It’s not terribly healthy, is it?
Inking though, (and especially if the pencils are super tight) I’ll sit down, stick on something on netflix (or, actually, more likely at the moment Disney+) and just start inking.
I’ve pretty much thrown my lot in with digital drawing, my clip studio process is now hyper tight, I’ve reprogrammed all the basic function keys and when you’re in that zone…
Galadriel turning bonkers mad is still one of my favourite, most used call-backs from the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.
At some point I’ll have to write up my entire clip studio experience, it’s extraordinarily flexible.
Anyway, procastination, you’re now a party to it.
And if you’re here, why not share the worst kind of procastination you’ve done…?
(My wife preys on my weakness though, she knows I hate doing dishes, so she’ll suggest a chore she’s not keen on for me to do in exchange for doing the dishes. Walk to the shop to buy milk…? and you’ll do the dishes instead of me? Brilliant, you’re on…)
Prog 1544 to Prog 1630 July ’07 – April ’09 (the written label is a mess, and has the wrong progs, I’ll fix it…)
For the record, these volumes hold 27 progs which means this is averages about 14 progs per year.
This volume pretty much finishes up the 86ers, completed by Arthur Wyatt (originally written by Gordon Rennie). I think Gordon had felt he couldn’t do much more with the 86ers (he hadn’t entirely finished with the Rogue Trooper universe though and would turn his attention to the much more successful – and certainly much better drawn – Jaeger). Between the 86ers, futureshocks and odds and sods, I didn’t get another bite of a series until Al Ewing and I did Dead Signal in prog 1581 – set in two universes, one I greywashed the other drawn in more solid black and white (a trick I’d use to better effect in Numbercruncher with Si Spurrier). We had big, bonkers plans (well, Al did, I was content to go along for the spin) but sadly, this was another series that didn’t get the chance to go beyond one part.
My luck with series with 2000ad has always been pretty grim, there were strips I was originally talking to the writer to draw and didn’t (and then, sometimes would actually end up back on the art as another artist went off). And I’d generally figured my luck with getting a series was so awful even if someone proposed one I’d often tell them “this sounds cool, but honestly, you might be in a better position to pitch this without me first”. More than likely some parts bad luck some parts just a little paranoia on my part, but certainly in this period I felt like a reliable hand on the tiller, but not someone who could get a ship launched.
Of course, this has turned slightly, Chimpsky took off (though I put that down to the strength of the writing, anyone can draw a chimp) and Dept K – a fun little series Rory McCulloch and I came up with for the 2000AD regened progs went down so well, the editor has commissioned a series (sadly, I’m up to my eyeballs, so I couldn’t draw it – boo!)
So volume 2 done and I’m stuck a little as I’ve run out of the 2000ad “Thrill-Power Containment Units”. Need at least two more (maybe three?) to finish what I’ve started and room for the next few years.
Finally got the first of the 2000AD “Thrill Power Containment Vessels” (ie Binder) filled up – from Prog 1233 (March 2001) to Prog 1522 (Jan 2007) one entire volume of about six years worth of work. Doesn’t look like a lot. I’m not even sure I remember what else I did, between it. I had a day job – started a new one in January 2000, after that got married in 2003, then our eldest son, Nathan, was born in 2004. The binder holds about 28 issues, so averaged 4-5 issues a year. But… 2008 is ahead and that’s where it gets interesting, because, fact fans, 2008 is when I gave up my day job…
This first volume, as I said, starts with my Dredd, then Rogue Trooper (mentioned in previous post) after that it’s on to the 86ers, then a little period where I became 2000ad’s oh-my-god-someone-else-has-ballsed-up-their-deadline-can-you-do-it? go to guy, then more 86ers and a fill in Dredd.
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