Filed under: comics, comics theory, graphic novels, my comics, writing | Tags: books, comics, fiction writing, graphic novels, writing, writing theory
Sometimes your favourite bits of writing aren’t a good fit for the story…
When I’m writing a graphic novel and I find something that works, there’s this tendency to ‘over-write’. One small element of a story will suggest a side story or something in a character’s past, and when I sense that there’s something there, I’m almost obligated to follow it.
Writing fiction is a weird process.
Doing it at all seems to require entering a sustained state of lateral thinking. Finding something that really works, that takes on a life of its own and gets up and starts walking around, feels so miraculous when it occurs that you sort of have to let it do its thing and see what happens. What can happen is you end up with stuff in a story that does something effective in its own right, but doesn’t actually benefit the story as a whole.
A result of these tangents is that you can end up with a large project that appears complete but still doesn’t feel fit for sharing. At least three times now, I’ve experienced the immense relief of cutting a big chunk of material out of a larger work, and realising that it never really belonged there, that it was getting in the way of the real story.
The stories I love the most are very simple, but suggest deeper things going on just before, just after, just off-camera, just under the surface. Explicitly expanding a story too much robs it of mystery or space for the reader’s mind to work in. You have to cut the part to save the whole.
Cutting something out of a story can be agonising.
When you’ve found something good, you’re desperate to hang on to it, even when doing so doesn’t make sense. You can’t discard something that you like this much, you think, and you rationalise keeping it in by convincing yourself that it makes the larger work ‘eclectic’ in some vaguely-defined way. Some writers can do ‘eclectic’ and make it work to brilliant effect, but don’t you just hate it when you’re enjoying a book, and a new chapter starts, and the viewpoint changes, and suddenly it’s about something else? ‘Hey,’ you think, ‘I was enjoying that.’
So to convince myself to remove these parts that I like but which weigh down the larger work, I have to ‘save’ them in some way, to gain some kind of closure and move on from a story that’s still living in my head. They have to expand into their own full story, or stand alone as a short story, to in some way find a final form. Maybe by itself it doesn’t necessarily have a firm ending. Maybe, in the same way you’re trying to acheive for the main work, an excised sub-story like this can sit as a fragment, suggestive of something bigger.
Filed under: amy & kay, comics, drawing, graphic novels, illustration, illustrations, my comics, writing | Tags: art, books, comics, illustration, sketch, writing
There’s a time in your early twenties when you start to realise that you’re not cool anymore.
You start to see all your friends getting real jobs, getting real relationships, moving into nice homes, and meanwhile, you’re still the same punk you’ve been since you were fourteen, the one who all the kids used to think was the coolest person in your local town, the one who everyone used looked up to, the one who always knew where to find a good time, but now you’re twenty-five and all of a sudden it seems like no-one cares anymore.
At least this is what it’s like for Amy and Kay. Life used to be so simple, but now it feels like everything’s slipping away. And when the painfully uncool Laura inserts herself into Amy’s life, it becomes painfully obvious that adulthood has arrived, and if Kay chooses to ignore it, who knows where she might end up…
I’ve been drawing this thing with a 4B pencil for a year or so now, fitting it in to spare days and watching it grow. As it nears completion, I thought I’d share a short scene from the second chapter. I’ve been gradually working on several graphic novels over the last few years. Call me scatterbrained, I can never seem to focus exclusively on one project. But Amy & Kay is getting close to completion at around two-hundred pages, and I can’t wait to share the complete story with everyone who’s ever wondered if they’re about to be left behind.
Filed under: illustrations | Tags: books, children's books, graphic novels, illustration, travel
Is it really beach time?
Currently working with some talented people on a travelogue like no other.
Comics and diagrams, fantasy and reality, maps and diaries, history and the modern day, illustrations and photographs. This book is bringing together so many of the cool things you can do when images and text get together.
So often we use categories like ‘picture book’, ‘graphic novel’, ‘illustrated novel’, book formats with their own specific rules and design principles: a set of things that are allowed. But recently, we’re starting to see more and more crossover between those different formats. If the only rule is, “It’s images, and it’s text, on a page,” the possibilities might be limitless.
Can’t wait to share more :)
Filed under: amy & kay, comics, drawing, graphic novels, illustration, illustrations, my comics, writing | Tags: art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch
The great cartoonist Seth subtitled his brilliant Wimbledon Green with the words, “A story from the sketchbook of the cartoonist Seth.”
Wanting an excuse to make some fun comics just for himself, he decided to put aside a bit of time each morning to draw a little comic in his sketchbook. Without planning ahead, he drew what came most naturally to him, and gradually a story emerged, eventually ending up as the complete book.
I’m working on something with a similar approach: a graphic novel called Amy & Kay.
Every page of this comic is drawn without any under-drawing. It’s just me and a pencil, drawing it as I go along.
Working this way permits a lot of spontaneity to come out in the drawings. The standard way of drawing comics, and the way I’ve usually done it (as detailed in my last post), is to create a careful underdrawing and then ink over the top of it. This is a tried-and-true method that’s served people well for countless great comics, but the results can look a little overwrought, and lacking in the focus and emotional immediacy that a spontaneous drawing can give to a character’s expression and gesture.
When I noticed that a lot of my sketchbook drawings and doodles were stronger than my more careful illustrations, I knew I had to find a way to make my comics more like my sketches.
I’m quite deep into this book, and I’m starting to see the result: a story in pictures where the drawings may not be technically perfect, but where the immediacy of the drawing hangs together in a natural way and seems to give more life and character to the story than I’ve managed to acheive before.
More info on the book coming soon! Until then, here’s a few snapshots from the drawing board in the last few weeks.
Filed under: comics, drawing, grand theft horse, graphic novels, illustrations, my comics | Tags: art, books, children's books, comics, drawing, graphic novels, illustration
Yes, that’s me up there, talking to a room full of people about drawing horses.
Last week I completed a schools book tour in Florida after Hillsborough County’s school libraries chose Grand Theft Horse as one of their Summer Slam books.
With Greg Neri, I did seventeen talks, and spoke about myself and my background in comics, the process behind creating Grand Theft Horse, and our upcoming project Time Traveling Dino Detectives of Antarctica. We also did book signings, prize giveaways, drawing lessons, posters, and more.
I met a lot of people, adults and kids alike, who were really enthusiastic about what we’re doing and are already looking forward to the new comic coming out.
Also, since it was my first time in Florida, I was grateful for the opportunity to see one or two alligators, swim in the Gulf, eat some key lime pie, and many other very cool Floridian things.
I’d like to say many thanks to Greg and his family, and to the brilliant Kimberly DeFusco for organising the trip. Also to all the great librarians in Hillsborough County for hosting us at their wonderful schools.
Filed under: drawing, drawing theory, illustration, sketchbook | Tags: art, books, drawing, illustration, life drawing, sketch
Whenever there’s an event featuring a graphic artist of any kind and they end up fielding questions from the public, there are certain questions that always get asked, and probably the one you hear the most is:
“What would be your advice for someone who wants to be an illustrator?”
This question is usually posed by a starry-eyed youngster, perhaps even a small child, just dying to know that one, closely-guarded secret that will cause them to become a successful graphic artist.
Of course there are no secrets. Or if there are, I don’t know them. But there is a specific answer most people give to this question, and it’s a very good answer. I was recently lucky enough to attend the Harry Potter Book Night to hear illustrators Jim Kay and Chris Riddell in a panel discussion about their work, and Riddell, inbetween his usual bouts of very fast and impressive live drawing fun, was asked this classic question, and gave the classic answer.
The answer to this question is always, “Keep a sketchbook.”
That’s it. Usually followed by the suggestion to keep it with you at all times and draw anything at all, as much as possible.
And if you want to become good at drawing and figure out how to world looks and how to capture as much as possible with lines on a page, then there really is no better advice. The more you draw, the easier it becomes. But as simple and effective as this advice is, it can be very difficult to follow.
A little while ago I went through an intense period of sketchbook drawing for a few months. I’d filled two thick books and was in to my third before it fizzled out again. This is normal for me. I go through heavy periods of sketching, and then I leave it for a while. Basically it’s because doing it properly is so time-consuming.
Doing one-minute doodles of people on the bus is fine, but if you want to get stuck in and seek out and draw big, full, unique scenes from life, you have to commit to sitting there for a good long time. I tend to spend around an hour on drawings like the ones you see here. So when I do it, I have to commit to it, and go out and spend entire days working on this stuff. It takes a lot of energy.
My point being, I suppose, that if you take the perennial advice of keeping a sketchbook (and we all should), don’t beat yourself up if you don’t finish off a thick book of fully-detailed, unique and exciting drawings every month. This stuff is hard, it takes time and patience, and the only way I’ve found to do it properly is to take a good, long look at the world in front of me and settle down into it as patiently and openly as possible.
Filed under: comics, grand theft horse, graphic novels, illustration | Tags: art, books, comics, graphic novels, horses, illustration
After working on this graphic novel on and off for four years, Grand Theft Horse has now been officially released by Lee & Low Books under the Tu Books imprint.
Written by Greg Neri, author of Yummy and Tru & Nelle, Grand Theft Horse is based on the true story of Greg’s cousin, Gail Ruffu, who kidnapped her own horse to save him from being raced to death by the syndicate that controlled him.
I’ve given a few updates on this book over the past few years, but I’ve been pretty coy about it. It’s a great release to finally see it out there and the physical edition looks great. Many thanks to Stacy and everyone at Lee & Low for making it happen and making the final book look so awesome.
It’s got some pretty good reviews, too!
Filed under: comics, graphic novels, illustrations | Tags: art, books, children's books, comics, graphic novels, horses, illustration, writing
After a long hiatus, I’ve just finished drawing the gigantic project with G.Neri (author of Tru & Nelle), that’s been ongoing for some time. I’ve generated a four-inch-thick stack of pages with roughly the heft of a small child. Still much to do, but the complete, unedited thing is there, in a big box under my desk.
Filed under: comic artists, comics, graphic novels, illustrations, my comics, politics | Tags: art, books, children's books, climate change, comics, graphic novels, illustration, politics, sci-fi, science
So 
this is just one illustration for an upcoming info-comic-book, pamphlet, public-information type-thing, that I’ve been working on with the Supergen Bioenergy Hub. It shows energy crops being grown to produce bioenergy and reabsorb emissions released by the previous generation of energy crops, ad infinitum. Drawn with a brush and ink, but coloured digitally!
Several other artists have been working on the project alongside me, including the brilliant John Swogger whose blog is extraordinarily active and interesting. Check him out.
More on this project soon. Also, A Dream of a Low Carbon Future, shown in my last blog post, is out in print and digital format.
Filed under: comics, graphic novels, illustrations | Tags: art, books, children's books, climate change, comics, graphic novels, sci-fi, science
Take a look at just-a-few panels from my comic for the upcoming graphic anthology novel science book educational kids thing, A Dream of a Low Carbon Future, presented by Leeds University’s Doctoral Training Centre in Low Carbon Technologies.
The book’s a multi-character exploration of a future Britain shaped by climate change and showing how human society can use technology and new ways of living to adapt to a changing world.
The story I worked on is about a girl out of time, obsessed with a past which everyone around her sees as obsolete. It’s a sort of central narrative which ties together other parts of the book.
Corban Wilkin: Illustrator 