Evolving Styles

Since the story contains political content, it has a definite shelf life. Throughout the book, you’ll notice the art style changing. The beginning is rendered in the traditional method used by comic book artists since the early 20th century. The process begins with thumbnails, to penciled roughs, and then final pencils, all by hand. Normally, there is another stage for ink and color, but those were not possible for a one man operation due to time constraints.

A major style change occurs at page 70, with the introduction of a digital tablet (Axiotron Modbook). This allowed the process to be streamlined. Thumbnails were now drawn on the back of script pages. After the thumbs were scanned and resized, final pencils were drawn directly on top of them. What results is an interesting texture of ghost lines and on occasion, words from the script bleed through. In later pages, a more painterly style was applied to certain images along with the introduction of gradations created the more finished look typically found in graphic novels.