An actual photo from the actual nightmare, 1999

I made a conscious decision early on in the development of the original Brainwrap Comics to stay away from any sort of rigid refinement. The years I spent working in movie theatres, while certainly a far cry from working in a coal mine, were a very "raw" time, and I felt that the use of rulers would prohibit the kind of crudeness that would be easier conveyed doing everything freehand.

Also, I never went to art school.

Each page of Brainwrap starts out in my sketchbook in a layout not unlike the final product. I think visually, and I've found that I can't quite say what I mean unless I sketch it all out at the same time (most traditional comics, for those few of you outside of the loop, resemble a screenplay before any drawing takes place). A single "page" of Brainwrap will occupy three sheets of paper in my sketchbook before I draw it all over again on larger paper.

Though it is indeed larger paper, three sheets are still required for the penciling. I use a sketch pad of 18x12" 50-55 lb. sheets on which I basically re-draw everything that's in my sketchbook (including the text), but in a much more stable and coherent form. It is here that I indeed use a straghtedge, but only to help in matters of perspective. I don't draw with anything fancy; a simple 0.7mm Bic mechanical pencil (with one of those ergonomic grips) will usually suffice. Penciling takes roughly two hours, including the time I spend slacking in front of my PlayStation 2.

Enter three more sheets of paper. Rather than ink right on top of my penciling (which would force me to undertake the arduous process of erasing everything I'd just done), I place my penciled artwork under a new, clean sheet and trace in ink (omitting any text or "talk balloons"). For any environmentalists who are mad at me for killing so many trees, you'll be happy to know that my original penciled sheets are then distributed back to nature, by way of running out into the street and tearing them up until the wind carries them into Lake Michigan. Inking requires a minimum of two pens: Lines with more weight and texture are created through the use of a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen "size B" (introduced to me by my buddy Gary Gretzky), and lines of a thinner and more intricate consistency are made by a simple Stylist pen or Expresso "Extra Fine." Inking, again, takes two hours.

Then the scanning. I scan all of the inked pages as vector images, which allows me to potentially reproduce the linework at any time in whatever oversized manner I please. I import the images into Adobe Photoshop, size them accordingly, and color. This is the most tedious step of the process, because my style of shading - and I know some of you are going to scratch your heads and go "What the?" - requires that I trace everything once again using the lasso tool. I tried a plethora of different coloring methods to get the right "look," and this seemed to be the only way. A few filters later, I've got a whole page of Brainwrap Comics colored, and it only took 18 hours. (This is the key answer to "Why it takes two weeks.")

I colored a page in a single sitting once. Once.

Manipulating Photoshop's boilerplate shape tool, I then create the talk balloons and proceed to type in some text (Lounge Bait font for the dialogue, Ugly Rumor font for the inner monologue). And there you have it. Instant online comic.

See, kids? It's that easy!

Jeebus, the whole thing makes me want to go back to work at the movie theatre.

 

no rulers were
employed during
the making of
this comic