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Thomas Alsop

Case study: THOMAS ALSOP

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

I met Chris Miskiewicz at the MoCCA Festival in New York in early 2011. The Devil’s Concubine was set to be published in the US that year but wasn’t out yet. I carried a print-out of the book with me, as well as a sample of my upcoming book STILETTO. I was blown away by the response. I wasn’t used to that kind of praise, and for the first time, people seemed to really GET IT. It felt like I’d been in a box for ten years and now someone had finally taken the lid off. I didn’t know what to expect from the show but I certainly wasn’t looking for work.

I met Chris as he and Dean Haspiel were setting up a booth. Chris and I clicked immediately. He gave me a copy of his Everywhere! anthology booklet he had printed for the show and asked me if I would consider doing an episode. We exchanged numbers and continued to chat for almost an hour. I walked back to the booth this Danish cartoonist had set up in the corner of the con floor and started reading the booklet. I texted Chris 5 minutes after we parted ways: “I’m in.” For a guy who wasn’t looking for work, I was totally failing after just one day in the country.

We stayed in touch over the next months via e-mail and texts. Chris sent me a great script for Everywhere! episode, a heist story that was more or less written with my taste in mind. It was a great experience and Chris continued to bring up Thomas Alsop, a concept he had pitched me on the con floor that first time I met him. I still figured it had nothing to do with me, not ready to commit to anything that major and not sure how to go about it.

Later that year I heard of New York Comic Con for the first time and figured I would try to fly over for that. I’d already been to San Diego Comic Con and did a few signings on the West Coast. I reached out to Dean and asked if I could come sit at his studio for a week or so before or after the con and he said sure. I went and got to know both Chris and Dean a whole lot better.

Scripts and photo references for Thomas Alsop started filling up our Dropbox and we did a little teaser episode for Trip City called The Case of Dead Uncle. Google it, I’m sure it’s still out there. Again Chris was smart enough to lure me in with something short and doable rather than a full script for 8 issues.

Chris had already written the entire 8-issue arc before I even drew a single page. It was crucial to have the ending (and wow, what an ending!) in mind even as I was working on issue 1. Whether it would ever go anywhere was still in the wind, but when Chris spent his own money creating a live action trailer (viewable on the front page of thomasalsop.com) I was floored. It looked like a million bucks! This crazy New Yorker meant business and he clearly knew what he was doing. 

In July of 2013 we pitched Thomas Alsop to BOOM! at SDCC. We’d bumped into a friend of Chris’ on the con floor who introduced us to Matt Gagnon and we chatted for like 20 minutes. Only after parting ways did we realize he was the editor in chief. 

BOOM! eventually picked up the book and I started breaking down the script and drawing issue #2. We did hit a small snag when the publisher suddenly wanted to discuss a key point in the story revolving 9/11. If it had been a minor element we would have probably obliged to change it but since it was in line 2 of the pitch they bought and was a crucial focal point of the whole series, Chris and I stood our ground. We eventually agreed to a add little essays as back matter, making it clear for the readers that Chris was not just some douche exploiting a national disaster but was himself a New Yorker, born and bred. The book went forward and the controversy never happened. On the contrary, the respectful handling of 9/11 in the story seemed to land us an even more committed fan base and the book was dubbed Best Mini-Series of 2014 by USA Today. So even though BOOM! decided not to do a second series due to lack of commercial success, we still have a book we can be proud of out there. And who knows, maybe some day…

Lessons learned:

If I have any regrets in my career, it is not going to a US con sooner. Where the US has an actual comics industry, Denmark does not. I learned a lot from working with Chris, and found out I don’t necessarily have to be the one behind the wheel to enjoy the ride. 


This post is an excerpt from my book SOLO – Survival Guide for Creative Freelancers – Pre-order now on Amazon.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: #SDCC, BOOM! Studios, Chris Miskiewicz, collaboration, comics industry, community, Dean Haspiel, Hang Dai Studios, New York, New York Comic Con, NYCC, SOLO, Thomas Alsop

Step-by-Step Guide: My Comics Process

by Palle Schmidt 6 Comments

This is my next graphic novel project! Filling in the blanks should be no biggie, right? Well, there’s a little more to it than that.

I recently posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook that got a lot of likes – and a lot of questions! So I thought I’d elaborate a bit on how I actually tackle the creation of a comic or graphic novel. I go into detail with certain elements in my premium 10-video tutorial series, but these are the basic steps I go through every time.

1: Script

Having a finished script before you start drawing increases your chance of actually finishing with about 3000 percent. The first 2 videos of the premium series covers this (and those episodes are free). Sometimes I’ll get a script from another writer but I often work off my own or have to break the story down into pages.

2: Thumbnails

This is little scribbles just to get a grip of the page breakdowns. I don’t neccesarily do it for every page but it can be very helpful. The more I plan before I start drawing, the more smoothly the rest of the process. There is a podcast episode about making those hard choices here.

3: Rough sketches

Once I know sort of what the layout of the page will look like, I can start rough sketching pictures. As you’ll notice, this is bare bones storytelling, just enough for others to make out what is going on. No more, no less. I usually sketch on half pages, not full size. No need for bigger format when I’m not doing details – in fact the smaller format often helps in creating a clear layout.

4: Borders and lettering

After scanning my rough sketches, I put them in an InDesign document. If it’s an issue of a comic, I’ll make seperate 22-page files that stick to the same template. I’ll start by creating a standard border for the entire project and just plunk that in between all the frames. Then I’ll put the lettering in where it needs to go. Please note, that this is not the final document! I can adjust the lettering once I have the finished art. For full breakdown of this process go here.

5: Borders and balloons

Using a print-out of my now lettered rough sketches, I am ready to draw the actual pages. BUT, since I might need my borders and speech balloons in a clean format, I do the boring work of inking that part first. This is what the image I posted on Instagram portrayed – I can see why there was some confusion as to how I actually worked!

After I’ve traced the borders and balloons on the board I intend to do the rest of the artwork on, I scan the whole thing. Why? I’ll explain in step #8.

6: Sketching

Using my rough sketches as a guide, I’ll sketch the pages going into more detail, especially on backgrounds and stuff. A picture might change from my original ideas, but I always stick within the frames I already decided on. There’s a video of that process here.

7: Inking

Using a lightbox I trace my skectched pages on the boards that already has the borders and balloons. I can adjust the images a bit if needed. Sometimes I do painted art and other times I ink with black markers. There’s a video of me inking a page of Thomas Alsop here.

I don’t need to worry about paiting outside the borders in this stage because I’ve already scanned the clean pages with just balloons and borders, and no art.

8: Scanning and clean-up.

Remember when I said I might need the borders clean? This is the step. I used to I scan my inked pages and clean up mistakes where I painted outside the frames or over speech balloons. Now I just use the already scanned borders. I just smack my clean borders over the finished art in Photoshop, turn the opacity down a bit so I can see what I’m doing and adjust the corners. It took me a while to figure this out, because sometimes a scanner will skew things a little bit. But I discovered that if I do a “free transform” and focus on the four outer corners of the borders, the rest will sort itself out.

Once the two layers match up, I’ll select all the white within the frames on the top layer and delete that. Then I turn the opacity of the layer back up to 100% and viola! I now have a layer with nice, clean borders and balloons on top, and whatever mistakes (painting outside the borders) I made are hidden underneath. I flatten the file and export it, usually as a high-res tiff file.

8.1: Coloring (optional)

I’m not gonna go into detail here, but you might want to check out this post on coloring in Photoshop.

9: Repeal and replace!

Admitted, I don’t really call it that. But I do have to go through my already lettered InDesign file and delete all the border blocks and replace my rough sketch with the finished art. Some adjusting to the lettering is usually neccesary but then I have the entire book or issue ready to send to the graphic designer or export as a PDF directly for print.

10: Celebrate

I usually skip this step, honestly. But having typed up this post and seeing how much work goes into creating a graphic novel, I feel like I should make a point of this going forward.

Hopefully this answered some of your questions and gave you a few ideas to implement in your own process. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

 

 

Filed Under: Pro Tips Tagged With: A. J. Kazinski, art hacks, Art Tutorial, balloons, borders, comics, creativity, graphic novel, how to, inking, making comics, mistakes, painting, Photoshop, planning, pro tips, process, sketching, speech balloons, storytelling, Thomas Alsop, tips for making comics, workflow

Bonus Video: A Most Productive Year

by Palle Schmidt 1 Comment

If you thought I was lying on a beach somewhere, you are thoroughly mistaken! Here’s part of what I’ve been up to this past year or so. Probably the busiest time of my life ever – and still is. Watch the video to find out why.

Filed Under: News, Video Tagged With: #makecomics, A. J. Kazinski, artwork, awards, bonus video, busy, career, collaboration, comics, comics industry, creativity, crime noir, drawing, illustration, making comics, New York, novel, planning, pro tips, productivity, storytelling, studio, The Last Good Man, Thomas Alsop, workflow, Writing, writing for comics, YA novel

Making Comics with Patrick Yurick – Comics for Beginners Podcast episode

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment


“I find that art is 90 percent fear!”

Artist, teacher and CEO of MakingComics.com, Patrick Yurick, visited Copenhagen and I got to show him the better parts of the city. We also managed to record a podcast on his view on the craft, career, his experiences with teaching comics to teens, his zombie buddy comedy Hipster Picnic and the future of making comics.

Links to stuff mentioned on this episode:

My video on lessons I learned from working on Thomas Alsop

GutterTalk podcast interview

ThomasAlsop.com

Webcomics Underdogs

TheHeadComic.Com

@patrickyurick

MakingComics.com

StoryForgeProductions.com

Patrick-Yurick-in-Copenhagen
CEO of MakingComics.com Patrick Yurick (left) hanging out in Copenhagen with Palle Schmidt.

Filed Under: Podcast, Pro Tips Tagged With: Adam Greenfield, Anime, art, artists, Comic Con, comics industry, cosplay, craft, DC comics, fear, Gutter Talk, Hipter Picnic, Illustrator, Little Fish, making comics.com, Manga, Marvel Comics, online, overwhelm, Patrick Yurick, Photoshop, podcast, publishing, reference, social media, StoryForge, storytelling, talent, teaching comics, Thomas Alsop, webcomics

Video: Lessons from Thomas Alsop

by Palle Schmidt 7 Comments

I’ve just finished my work on the monthly book from BOOM!, Thomas Alsop. This video is about some of the lessons I learned working on that book – hopefully there is some value in it for you too!

Filed Under: Pro Tips, Video Tagged With: art hacks, Art Tutorial, bonus video, BOOM! Studios, career, Chris Miskiewicz, collaboration, creativity, drawing, improving as an artist, inking, learning, lessons, mind hacks, mistakes, painting, process, productivity, reference, Thomas Alsop, tips for making comics, video, watercolor, workflow

Bonus vid – Painting a page of Thomas Alsop

by Palle Schmidt 2 Comments

A time-lapse video of me painting a page of Thomas Alsop from BOOM! Studios. Hopefully some helpful tips here. More on the book at thomasalsop.com

Related videos: Sketching a page of Thomas Alsop

Filed Under: Pro Tips, Video Tagged With: Art Tutorial, how to, inkwash, making comics, painting, pro tips, Thomas Alsop, timelapse, video, watercolor, workflow

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