SPECTATORS - Part 101
Plus, Niko Henrichon talks TERMINATOR!
Are you on vacation this week?
Brian here, and while my family is off riding roller coasters, I’m taking advantage of the quiet that comes with Los Angeles partly shutting down to get ahead on some writing deadlines. Forgive my absence, neglected offspring, but the planet has an insatiable hunger for NSFW new comics!
And while we were able to give letterer Fonografiks the week off with this wordless scene of Spectators, co-creator Niko Henrichon not only pencilled, inked, AND painted these stunning new pages, he also crafted another amazing Artistic Autopsy for us (about this very sequence), which he’ll share in just a bit.
But first, our spectral protagonist Val vividly recalls her first time watching the 1984 feature film The Terminator (directed by James Cameron, written by Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd), a decadent use of our graphic novel’s page count that’s probably building to something…?
I love Niko referencing Cameron referencing Buñuel! Such beautiful pages.
If you’d like to own one of these masterpieces of original art, I’d visit Essential Sequential asap, since I imagine any remaining pages will disappear right after Niko and I inevitably announce a home for the print version of our completed graphic novel (stay tuned!).
Each hand-drawn watercolor page of Spectators is a whopping 18x12, and as a proud owner of more than one Henrichon original, I can assure you they look even more magnificent in person…
Tower members get an additional 15% off any/all Niko artwork by using the secret code paid subscribers can still access at the end of this prior dispatch, and we’re keeping our spring sale going, so annual membership to Exploding Giraffe—which also unlocks all past/present/future bonus nonsense in our Archives—is now less than 30 bucks:
Your continued support will allow us to finally complete Val and Sam’s epic tale later this year, and I’m particularly proud of these final scenes, so thanks again for being here.
Speaking of The Tower, here’s that lovely new Fiona Staples cover to the first of our upcoming new 6x9 editions of Saga that you generous paid subscribers got a first look at last week:
Thanks to comics journalist Zack Quaintance (who apparently has a comic of his own coming soon to Kickstarter) for this piece over at The Beat about our new editions of old-school Saga, the first of which arrives this September (but never fear, ever-patient monthly readers, you’ll have brand-new issues of our next arc before then; more on that shortly).
“Commuter-sized,” I like it!
They may not be for you, but lots of readers love these slightly smaller (more intimate?) volumes, so I’m excited for a whole new audience to hopefully join us for Hazel’s continuing adventures.
Last week, I self-servingly asked Tower members if/how they first discovered Saga, and our intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe randomly selected a few commenters to receive any shirt they’d like from the Official Saga Threadless Shop, including this latest winner from Fiona and merch maestro Ben Rankel:
First up, bryboflavin kindly wrote:
I was aware of Saga when it debuted, but it was my boyfriend at the time, who was getting it pulled for his weekly stack from Chicago Comics, the legendary shop I’d visited as a high schooler on trips into the city, and where I was now a semi-regular, when we’d stop in to pick up his haul of single issues.
We both loved Saga, reading it on weekend mornings. He and I had a difficult break up in 2018 after 9 years, but it was truly a comfort and a relief when, after a couple months, we were able to talk again and be friends. One specific moment I cherish is being able to talk with him after the crushing loss of [spoiler redacted]. I’m really grateful for this series, yall’s work, and for sharing with people I love.
A reader who goes by ›x‹73k typed:
“THE SAGA BEGINS IN 2012...” That was the headline from the July 25, 2011 Image Comics press release (post San Diego Comic-Con). Here is the link. Note that the date is incorrectly listed as the data corrupted all-time classic of “December 31, 1969” (indicating, *cough*…IC IT 💩 the bed when updating the backend). All good, tho😉 because that Fiona Staples promo art was in FULL E-F-F-E-C-T otherwise known as EFFECT: straight 🔥, y’all!
That’s my first SAGA memory of the twenty-tweens. I had a freshly minted OG iPad that I was flexing. So, my comix were strictly DIGITAL via the similarly OG and still indie comiXology. Issue numero uno dropped on March 14, 2012. I have a bunch of those weekly CMX emails archived; that’s how I confirmed the date. At the time, I was bouncing between NYC and LA for work. So, I didn’t actually purchase and download my copy until April 6, 2012. 💩was that hectic!
I still have that OG iPad somewhere. It’s got many downloaded issues of SAGA on it. I should excavate it just to re-experience SAGA thru the sweet magic of a 9.7 inch slab of glass and aluminum (at the then amazing 1024 by 768 at 132 PPI). OK, that last bit was just for me. HA!✌🏽
I’m afraid I have no idea what most of that means, but Scott M. shared a sentiment that I could identify with, especially his haunting closing sentence:
I kind of forget how I found out about Saga - mostly because my wife and I were expecting our first child but as a semi regular lapsed and unlapsed comic book fan I got word of it somehow and the new parent angle definitely drew me in.
I was a floppy guy for the first year or so (hard to remember how and why I was able to get to the comic shop but I guess that was my getaway from the family) but I eventually went digital.
It’s funny how the series is about raising a child during wartime and I don’t want to overinflate my own experience but it’s almost hard to remember that first year of child rearing because there’s a sense of a kind of PTSD - certainly when I try to remember what life was like before becoming a parent. It’s like your childless self dies and you’re reborn as a parent just trying to survive the experience
Writing about a very different world of shit, Ninjahosk said:
I first heard about Saga from a mentor who would bring volumes with them on deployment. My first time reading Saga was on my first solo deployment, and I consumed as much as had been released in a matter of weeks. It made the time go by much easier. Due to packing constraints, I read it all on a black-and-white Kindle, so I hope to own the series in physical copies someday, so I can appreciate Fiona Staples’ awesomeness in full color.
Reading all of Saga on a black-and-white tablet is bonkers, Ninjahosk!
For your dedication and service, we’d like to send you our 1,300-page Compendium, so you can finally experience Fiona Staples (and the multihued word balloons of Fonografiks!) in glorious color.
Thanks to everyone who responded, especially the many of you who continue to support the same local comic shop where you first picked up Saga #1 a dozen years ago. We’re back with new issues in JULY, so start your reread today. This next season is…fun.
How about YOU?
Whether or not you’re a paid subscriber, please feel free to click whichever option best describes if/how you happen to presently consume the Image Comics ongoing series Saga:
Thanks again for indulging my curiosity. Your first look at Saga Chapter 67 is coming soon.
For now, back to a comic script that’s been trying to murder me, but I leave you in the superior hands of my creative better half Niko Henrichon.
Have a chill week if you can, and I’ll catch up with you next Monday evening. - BKV
Hello, everyone!
For this month’s Artopsy, I'll be sharing a few words but a lot of process images and... video!
These latest pages include many interpreted snapshots from the classic movie The Terminator. I’ll show you how I adapted images from the movie to the comic book form.
Let’s start with the layouts where you can see my basic sketches. I didn’t want to copy/paste exactly what we see on the movie screen for creative reasons (but also to avoid copyright infringement), so I took some liberty with the content, as long as we can still identify the movie our characters are watching.
For instance, I added some additional blood wounds. The movie is very violent, but we don’t necessarily see many obvious wounds in all of these scenes. But since this is Val’s memory of the movie we are witnessing, we can allow some creative freedom, right?
Let’s continue with the inks…
You already saw my finished colors, but after the paywall, I have several timelapse process videos of various steps that I made especially for this sequence, along with BKV’s full script for today’s pages.
Hope you enjoy!