A post about "Verona" (working title) (Patreon)

If you've been following my sketchbooks for the past couple of months, you probably recognize these characters. In August-September I wrote the script for my next short comic, first intending to pitch it somewhere in 2024, and then deciding to work on it for ShortBox's 2024 comics fair.

After I write a script, I'll usually break it down into individual pages. I do this by making rough thumbnails, and then transcribing the thumbnails into individual pages. I've explained this process before but badly, lol, so here's a visual example of how I work.

First, I write the draft. Then, with the draft as reference, I make thumbnails. Then, I use the thumbnails to break the script down into individual pages.

(above: my scrivener doc with the draft on the left, and the much longer and more visually evocative breakdown on the right)

(above: my super rough thumbnails for pages 3 and 4)

Breaking down the script usually only takes me a couple of days, but I've been working on this on and off since November, and it's still not finished. I think part of me is still afraid to make this comic. It's probably the weirdest thing I've written, and definitely the most violent. I have some trouble with visual violence, especially in movies, so I don't know what it is that keeps compelling me to draw things I'm otherwise averse to.

I've been thinking a lot about the scene in Ken Russel's "The Devils" where Oliver Reed has his legs repeatedly broken. When I first watched it, it was so much I had to pause the movie and take a break. But the film never shows the legs breaking, or even anything particularly gory. It's the way the scene is cut together (and Reed's acting) that sells the intensity of the violence.

(see what i mean, lol)

There is a very violent scene I have planned for this comic. It's so beyond anything I've ever drawn that I've tried to take it back, to find another way to get the same feeling across, but I don't know if there is. So I've been thinking about how to put together a scene in a comic that uses the same visual restraint as the scene from "The Devils". Film has the advantage of audio, and of controlling time, so the problem can't really be approached in the same way. I still don't know what I'll do. Hopefully I'll figure out something that works.

Thank you for reading. I'll be back with more process updates in the new year :^)