As an author, script writer and illustrator who does the cover art and all the graphics in grydscaen: tribute, it is a passion for me. The project “A Storm’s Coming” or otherwise known in kanji as “Imminent Storm” is the first graphic novel or manga for grydscaen. The project took about 3 weeks to create once all the drawing was completed. The manga is black and white and features Rom, the main character on the cover.
Rom was the very first character created in the grydscaen saga. His name means ‘Read Only Memory’ and he is a homeless hacker who had his memory wiped when he was captured by the government. Rom is the subject of three stories in grydscaen: tribute. He is 16 years old and lives in a subway squat before he joins the Packrats.
The process of creating the manga which is based on the short story by the same name included writing the dialog first which was based directly on the dialog from the short story. After the script was written, it was just a question of making the drawings. The character design for Rom was already set as I had gone to art school and Rom was a homework project that I had to do, a full 360 design of the character. I also had drawings of Rom from back in junior high school when his initial unkept Mohawk and tan trench coat and ripped of clothes were first designed. Since I had that reference and had saved it after all this time, I used that as the initial character design.
Drawing backgrounds were hard for me and there are still scenes in “A Storm’s Coming” that I would like to redo with more of a cityscape feel but I have more study in perspective to do. I did take a perspective and architecture class in art school but my rendering is still slight compared to what I actually want to accomplish.
Once I had the dialog down it was a question of executing the drawings. I had purchased manga paper from an art store which was 11×14 which I used for the pages. Each page I had to design the panels first before the drawings actually went in. I designed the piece as a project, each page as its own self contained narrative. There were times I had to fit the art into the blocks. Since I already had the dialogue, that was the last thing to go in. I had to fit the dialogue from the short story and at times had to change it slightly to fit the drawing. Most of the dialogue in the manga is direct from the short story with little changes.
Once the 48 pages were all drawn, I had to draw the cover image of Rom in an alley with an Ang, Packrat ceremonial knife and his signature trench coat and design the back panel which is Rom looking for food in a trash can. Since Rom is homeless I wanted to show that so searching for food and his ripped up clothing give the feel I was looking for.
It was difficult to ensure Rom looked the same in each of the panels through the manga. I found that to be the hardest part. I did character designs for Rom and Xander Storm the Zone Police officer who is the other main character in the story. When I made Xander bald it seemed to work to give the feel I wanted. The riot gear also of the Zone Police is central to the story as well.
Once all the pictures were drawn I needed to get them scanned and scaled. I took all the manga sheets to Kinkos and had them copied from 11×14 down to 8.5×11 so that I could use my printer to scan them. Once they were the appropriate size I scanned all the pages into my Mac and then transferred the pages to my other Windows 8.1 computer on which I had Photoshop and InDesign.
The production process once all the pages were scanned was to bring up each scanned page in Photoshop and add the dialogue bubbles and the narration and dialogue. This was done using the text tool and the pen tool and selection tool in Photoshop. Once all the dialogue was in, I saved the pages as png images and then imported all the pages into InDesign along with headers and footers as well as page numbers.
Once the pages were in InDesign which were 8.5×11, I created the InDesign project as 7.5×9 which is the typical comic book size. The InDesign project included a reader spread of all the pages with the images placed and scaled for each page. Once all that was done the project was exported to PDF and packaged.
I then got a quote from Alphagraphics and I had an ISBN which I had lying around for a few years. The back cover text with social media information was added and each chapter had a stand alone drawing representing that chapter with a new picture of Rom in closeup.
The printing process at Alphagraphics was expensive. It was cheaper than it could have been since it was black and white which cut down on cost. The cover was designed in InDesign using the image of Rom in the alley with some graphic accents. The printing was expensive and I only needed a limited run for the time. The whole process was self funded, no Kickstarter or anything like that. A lot of artists use Kickstarter for their projects but that was not a route I wanted to take.
The initial run of “A Storm’s Coming” was 40 copies. After it was printed I shopped it and circulated teasers on social media and got prints of the chapter 4 title opening of Rom for giveaways at 8.5×11 and added grydscaen branding.
Since grydscaen is young adult and Rom is 16 I use grydscaen as a social message about self esteem and hope. I shopped the manga around to various youth organizations and counseling centers and was able to get two counseling centers to pick up the manga as a tool to help troubled teens with self esteem.
I had always wanted to create a manga out of grydscaen. The author bio on the back of the books states that clearly. Well with “A Storm’s Coming” I finally got my wish with a totally self illustrated, written, scripted and produced by myself. It was a labour of love and it was done in a relatively short period of time, less than a month actually.
I fell in love with this story, and the follow on story “Rogue” may also sometime in the future get a manga which would be longer since the story has about 11 chapters in grydscaen: tribute. I have yet to start on that project to date. Another new project is the full colour grydscaen graphic novel which will be 4 volumes based on the book grydscaen: beginnings. This project includes 4- 52 page full colour books with dialogue which should in the future be available on the grydscaen website right here. This project also used Photoshop and InDesign. A print version may also be in the works but that since it is full colour would be very expensive to print. It is still on my list of things to do irregardless of the expense. I also have the design for music inspired by the bands in the grydscaen series and there are lyrics for 4 songs already, a book about one of the bands and a design to have a short 1-2 minute animation also for grydscaen. These things are farther off because they require coordination with others to achieve them but they are on my list.
I said I wanted a graphic novel of grydscaen, and there will be more than one. I got what I came for. There are more grydscaen manga and graphic novels in the works as well as more grydscaen novels. This series is epic and it makes commentary about social conditions in today’s world. I am on a mission and I will not stop until it is achieved. All Hail the Packrat Code!
