The official White House flickr feed. Photo reference for the Space Comic. I’ll stick Obama, or someone who looks a lot like him, in the comic but not Brown. For one thing Obama is going to have more international recognition than the British Prime Minister. For another, it’s unlikely the scotsman will still be in office by the time I finish. If there’s an election whilst I’m drawing the comic there might be a “call me Dave” cameo.
I really should attend one of the Loiterers’ Resistance Movement events, especially now I know about the troubles they’ve had with CityCo.
Befoer I dive into doing art I really need to work out what size my final pages will be on the Space Comic. I’d really like to do something large format rather than US comic, because I see it as being more European in style and I plan to pitch it over there when it’s finished.
Lulu do A4 (8.264″ by 11.694″) as one of their size options. ComiXpress, a more comic oriented print-on-demand company does an 8″ by 10.5″ format and is working on a distribution network to comic shops now that Diamond has set its minimum orders cut off lower than most small comic companies can hope for.
If I want to get the comic printed in this country Fallen Angel Media prints comics, including in A4, but I’d have to order in bulk from them. This is an option if I can get enough pre-orders I guess.
A4 is the way to go, I reckon. So I’ll be drawing it at A3 (slightly less, probably, to allow for bleed at the page edge).
I already need a new scanner. Guess I need it to be a bigger one, too.
I’m putting together the plot and script for the space comic, lining up the scenes I’ve already thought of and seeing what connections they suggest. I’m using software called ywriter. It’s quite good for breaking a story down into chapters and scenes. I don’t think I could use it for a whole project, but it was useful for initial scripting of some of the Venn scripts and collecting and ordering Sounds of Soldiers from the published scraps so I could complete the first draft.
Of course, my approach to putting the comic together is going to be more slapdash than the use of ywriter suggests. I’ll probably start doing layouts for the first few pages and character designs at the same time and the whole shape of the story will change a bit as I go along.
The other thing I’ve been considering is a title. The only ones I have at the moment revolve around Contact. Contact itself and First Contact have been used already. Point of Contact, or Contact Point are possible, but they don’t jump out at me. The project remains the Space Comic until I find a title I’m happy with.