I've given up on the weekly thing. That was probably madness.
Nothing about comics is really weekly, I'm learning.
Things have been picking up steam with Abigail's War. Sandrine is producing page after page of beautiful pencils. I believe she's working at pages 7 and 8 now, and 1-6 aren't going to change much before colours. Yay! Check out Robert's update here.
I still feel like I'm learning so much. I'm learning to give feedback faster, and more concisely. At first I had Creative Writing Workshop Syndrome (CWSS) and tried to balance every suggestion with a note about something that was working. (Yes, you may have heard me refer to this as the Shit Sandwich approach: loved this, this was shit, loved how you did this...) Boy, was that time-consuming and not-particularly-useful for everyone involved! Especially considering my feedback was being collected, filtered, questioned, clarified, etc. by Editor Robert.
Now, I just get right into it.
I feel like I can see faster and more clearly what's off (or very, very ON) about a given page or panel. Even in terms of composition.
Of course, my #1 priority remains story. That's just my angle. It's easiest for me to see what doesn't quite work because it throws the narrative off... it's much harder for me to see a new angle on something that would simply be very, very cool.
Maybe cool will come.
Comments
22:35 Sun May 4th, 2008
I've always tried to use the shit sandwich approach, too. It does help soften the blow...especially if the negative thing is minor and I don't want it blown out of proportion. But for clarity and expediancy, I can definitely see the preference to just get right to the point.
23:18 Sun May 4th, 2008
Interesting take, Yen, and I know what you mean by weekly updates. Sometimes things just seem to crawl along with nothing happening, then, BAM! I go in and look at my dashboard one evening and there is a new page of pencils, a new page inked, one colored and Page X lettered all to approve and comment on at once! The really cool part is seeing it progress. I've also been lucky in that the changes I've needed to suggest so far have all been minimal and easy (at least from my POV - don't know how the art team would have felt!)
01:16 Mon May 5th, 2008
I'll tell you one thing (two, actually): 1) I had soemthing very specific in mind for Deutschmaschine and Santiago managed to get it, but it took a few rethinks. I felt I was slowing down the process too much, and them BHAM! Page X layouts appeared, even before the pinup review was done. That's a positive surprise. That's a guy that doesn't let details slow him down. Awesome. 2) I still cannot believe the pace at which Rip Current's own Patricio has been shelling out pencilled layouts. Un-freaking-real.
01:21 Wed May 7th, 2008
Jennica does indeed make a fine shit sandwich. ''Wow, I can hardly taste the shit!'' ''That's the plan, baby!''
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mariathedreamer
22:05 Sun May 4th, 2008
That shit sandwich concept made me laugh! I've been taught to balance the positive and negative, particularly during editing. Not that I'm always good at it...