Now that Page 236 is here, let’s take a look behind the scenes at the process that produced it.

Step 1 – Planning. Abi and I talked over the page, and I had an idea of how to lay it out–three panels in the top row, two in the second row, one in the third row. I sketched this out to show her, and she wrote her ideas for the dialogue.

Step 2 – (Not shown) Script. Now that we had a plan for the page, I typed it up into a script, describing each panel and fleshing out the dialogue.

Step 3 – Lettering and sketches. Sam roughed out each panel, copied the dialogue from the script, and pasted it into word balloons. It’s handy to do the lettering first, so you can make sure it all fits and doesn’t cover up any important parts of the artwork.

Step 4 – Finished B&W artwork.

Step 5 – Color.