Too often, comic fans don’t know what goes on behind the scenes to see what work goes into making an individual issue–you don’t exactly get to have a ‘making of’ documentary when it comes to film or TV. This week, a number of really interesting interviews came out on just how an indie comic comes into being (spoiler alert: it doesn’t spring fully formed from the cartoonist’s head right into the reader’s hands).
Step by Step Process Guide for Rumble #4: This Image comic by John Arcudi, James Harren, and Dave Stewart has flown under my radar until now, but getting to see how the creators put together all the way from script to final work with colors and lettering has got me interested. Also the fact that their protagonist is apparently a “Scarecrow Warrior God” and, you know, those are three words I wouldn’t think to put together but sound pretty awesome.
James Lemire Talks On Building Bloodshot Reborn into Valiant Universe: This is an interesting look at Jeff Lemire’s work writing Bloodshot Reborn, part of Valiant Entertainment’s interconnected universe, and how that’s differed from his process on previous work. Lemire is someone who’s run the gamut from working as the sole creator on works like Sweet Tooth to corporate Big Two comics as a writer on Green Arrow, so he’s got a unique perspective on how one has to tweak their approach to comics creation depending on the project.
Declan Shalvey On What It Takes to Launch a Creator-Owned Project: As artist on the upcoming Injection with Warren Ellis and Jordie Bellaire, Shalvey talks about how a creator-owned project goes from an initial idea to a debut issue on the stand and, particularly, just how long that can take. There is a lot more built into getting a book off the ground than most readers realize, and Shalvey talks candidly about just how that works and his experience with it for the first time in Injection. This interview definitely will give me pause before complaining that all the cool books announced at Image Expo aren’t on the stands yet–way more goes into them than I thought!