1. SSC 3990 Graphic Storytelling: Comic Book Art and Narrative
#12: Final Drafting Layouts
Comic Book Covers
Color in Comics

2. Comics Covers
Focus on character: Note how Fiona Staples in Saga creates pin-up posters out of these covers.

3. Comics Covers
Horror content to shock and intrigue: New Mutants: Cover art by Bill Sienkiewicz and Art Adams.

4. Comics Covers
Romance/Playful Content to intrigue: Variety of artists on New Mutants

5. Comics Covers
Finding an iconic image within a character: The Joker

6. Comics Covers
The power of Origin Comics: iconic imagery:

7. Comics Covers
Borrowing from other art forms: Salvador Dali’s “Persistence of Memory” explored as Wolverine art for an Amazing Spider-Man cover.

8. Comics Covers
Consider where the eye can rest amidst a busy background

9. Comics Covers
Consider creating a border around the art to distinguish it from the other books on the shelf.

10. Comics Covers
Consider creating a sense of depth, to metaphorically lead readers inside.

11. Comics Covers
Consider the story a cover can tell, and the power to intrigue. What stories are implied in these images for “Pretty Deadly” and “Batwoman”?

12. Comics Covers
The impact of the real: for Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” Dave McKean built his collage covers by hand (no digital content at all), creating atmospheric, surreal, but very grounded visuals.

13. Comics Covers
Dave McKean built structures, like shadowboxes, around his paintings and filled them with found objects. When he wanted fire, he actually set the art on fire and took the picture.

14. Comics Covers
X-Men – Days of Future Past covers by John Byrne

15. Comics Covers
The impact of well-crafted Positive/Negative Spaces, and sfumato to create new shapes:

16. Comics Covers
Alex Ross and the impact of paint: realism, depth, energy, and light

17. Comics Colors
Comic coloring directly impacts the way your reader receives the story. Color creates or enhances mood or excitement, creates focus, enhances distance, and can provide clarity.

18. Comics Colors
Color for Mood: How does color affect the feeling of a story?

19. Comics Colors
Color for Mood: How does color affect the feeling of a story?

20. Comics Colors
Color for Clarity: Increase contrast and brightness of hues on the main subject, to help it pop against a desaturated background.

21. Comics Colors
Color for Clarity: Increase contrast and brightness of hues on the main subject, to help it pop against a desaturated background.

22. Comics Colors
Color to Represent Distance: Things that are further away are less saturated, less detailed, less contrasting, less dark and (on earth) show blue-shift.

23. Comics Colors
Effects of paint on Color Presentation: Appearance of flat fills vs watercolor fades vs oil.

24. Comics Colors
Effects of paint on Color Presentation: Appearance of flat fills vs watercolor fades vs oil.

25. HOMEWORK #12: FINAL Draft of Your Final Project Comic
(Due on Piazza Tuesday, an hour before class) PAGES: Create final versions of all intended pages including consistent use of ink and color, and legible word bubbles. Color is not required, and ink does not need to be “clean”– we are looking for a consistent appearance to the pages. We will organize your pages for printing next class: they need to be ready! One Photoshop file, 8”x10”, 300ppi, each page in its own labelled layer-folder. Post PNGs to Piazza. You will likely only have time to work a couple of hours per page. Please work EVERY DAY rather than trying to do it all the day before.