SPECTATORS - Part 74
Plus, a new Artopsy from Niko Henrichon!
Greetings from the twitchy eye of California’s first hurri-quake!
Brian here, grateful that my loved ones and I are all just fine (with the possible exception of our extremely nervous dog Milkshake, who’s been sheltering in place under the kitchen table since this madness began). But I know we’re far from the only people on the planet facing weather-related challenges at the moment, so I hope you’re doing okay, too.
For all the horrors Spectators protagonists Val and Sam have witnessed in their far-flung future, climate no longer seems to be a major concern, perhaps because of some of the strange technology seen in today’s sensational new pages from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks…
Next week, Sam and Val head to the Ramble in Central Park, so get ready for more graphic naughtiness and/or birdwatching.
For now, it’s finally time to award our last two Founder Prize Packs to a couple of you generous giraffes in The Tower. Representing our new paid subscribers, intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe has randomly selected… John B. from San Francisco!
And for our “classic” reader, Genesis reached deep into the ol’ membership list and picked out… Ryan Kirkland!
Congrats to you both, and my deepest gratitude again to everyone who joined The Tower. Your contributions allow us to continue to create this dream graphic novel of ours—and to do it 100% independently—so we can’t thank you enough. Those Founder Packs may be gone, but we have plenty more cool prizes headed your way.
Speaking of which, I also promised to give away a signed collection of Y the Last Man to one of you who participated in last week’s exceptionally informative discussion about your favorite dream sequences from any medium.
Sandman, Nightmare on Elm Street and Inception were perhaps obvious responses, but there was also a lot of love for lesser known dream scenes from episodes of Scrubs, Futurama and The Leftovers that I definitely need to check out.
The Big Lebowski, Brazil and Fellini’s 8 1/2 were three of the most popular choices, but our randomly selected winner lostcosby spoke for many of us when writing:
David Lynch is the King of the Dream Sequence, and the infamous “diner scene” in Mulholland Drive is his best. Unspeakable fear watching that for the first time. What sets it apart is the manner in which he ratcheted up the tension: narration from the dreamer describing the dream, and its effect on him, before we see the conclusion in the “real world.” Still hits the same way every time, too.
I’d post a link to that terrifying sequence, but you really need to see it in the context of Lynch’s entire masterpiece, so if you’re lucky enough not to have watched this film for the first time yet, I hope you’ll shell out $3.99 to your preferred streaming provider soon.
All right, my kiddos have off from school today because of Hilary, so I should go play a few rounds of Castles of Mad King Ludwig, but I’m honored to once again turn the controls over to my pal Niko Henrichon, who’s got a particularly excellent Artopsy lined up for you folks in The Tower.
Everyone else, have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next Monday for more free Spectators, a new interview with one of my favorite creators, and a very positive update on that long-awaited next issue of Saga, thanks so much for your continued patience and kindness!
Hi, everyone! For today’s Artopsy, let’s dig a little more into the archives of the Noah comics.
The published graphic novel is only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of preliminary work has to be done for every project, depending on the complexity and familiarity of the subject. I showed many sketches and preliminary drawings on the previous Artopsy. This time, I’ll show more of the sequential work. Most of these images have never been seen outside the close circle of the work environment of Noah.
To start the whole process, I wanted to do a very simple, generic page to get an overall feeling of the style of drawing and colors I would use on this 200+ page story. So I did this following page. Writers Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel specifically warned me to not go toward the classic peplum-like “sword and sandals” style. So I drew a sandal in the very first panel. Obviously as a joke. Yes, I’m like that.
The following pages were made to test how I could work the storytelling in a small scene. At this point, I had not set the designs for the characters so they look much different from the ones in the final version.
This is a scene from the book that we can compare with the definitive ones that I will show right after. It’s the scene that depicts the death of Og, the last watcher who helped Noah build the ark.
And now the sequence as it appears in the actual comic, followed by many more never-before-seen examples of my layouts, inks, and manual colors…