When story energy grabs hold, I’ve learnt, you need to catch the wave. Recently I developed a new approach to ‘writing’ a story. I usually develop a script and then I storyboard off of that. In this new mode I tell myself the story as I draw it out, rolling both visual and written elements to form the narrative.
I’m reaching the end of a novel design and new project fever gripped me. The novel needs a bit more work in terms of design and some last few illustrations. At this point I tend to start thinking of what I want to bring out next. For some time now I’ve been thinking about developing a ‘pulp’ kind of story. Some sort of horror story. Thus the birth of ‘Bloodbath on Unholy Island’ a pulp vampire story. The aim is entertainment, the joy of the story itself.
In my new mode I quickly developed the story and have a complete tale all told. Now I’m going back refining and finishing in some cases. The style of the graphic novel is in the spirit of some of my favourite graphic novelists. Pen and ink, I love the medium but I tend to be a very harsh self critic of my work. But, I’m going to focus on not overworking and developing the work to get it out.
So, here’s a glimpse into behind the scenes of my new graphic novel.
