One of the most common misconceptions that people have about cartooning is that it is a spontaneous process\u2013that a cartoonist simply sits down with a blank piece of paper and an ink pen and starts drawing the final published piece. While it\u2019s taken for granted that a prose writer goes through various planning stages and repeated drafts in order to eventually arrive at a final work, the idea that a cartoonist would, by necessity, have to go through a similar process is for some reason a surprise to many. Even people who are fans of comics sometimes don\u2019t have a very clear idea of the process.<\/p>\n
Preferring to light the proverbial candle rather than curse the darkness, I thought it might be fun to post my progress on the first page of the \u201cBoxing Bucket\u201d story I\u2019ve been collaborating with Chris Reilly on.<\/p>\n
This is the first time I\u2019ve really worked with anyone else on a comics story, and in this case Chris has supplied me with a script for the story\u2013so I\u2019m starting off with a substantial portion of the work already done. He\u2019s pretty flexible with his scripts, though, so I\u2019ll be doing a bit of visual rearranging in the process.<\/p>\n
Anyway, here\u2019s the first part of my process: a thumbnailed page with indicated dialog for each panel. I work in different colored pencils, beginning with the lightest colors and gradually getting darker, so that I can slowly build up the image I want. That chicken scratch to the right is all the scene\u2019s dialog, with each line numbered so I can just put a little number in each panel of the thumbnail to indicate what dialog goes in each panel. (click on the image for a bigger version.)<\/p>\n
![\"Boxing](\"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/upload_images\/bucket_rough.jpg\" "\\"Boxing")
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