I’m making a comic book!

by theworm · October 8, 2015

After publishing The Resurrection Tree and Other Stories earlier this year and deciding to write Higgs & Soap: Galaxy Delivery instead of the next Powerless novel, I had a look at my year-to-year planner and decided to do a comic next.

Firstly: yes, I have a year-to-year planner! I have so many ideas for novels, short stories, graphic novels and games, I know for a fact I will never complete them all in the time I have left on this planet. So I worked out roughly how long each project would take and scheduled it out in a spreadsheet. Not only was it a sobering exercise in defining mortality, it made me think about which projects were of most interest to me. It was those I made the priority.

Secondly: based on the plan, I decided to do a comic as my next project. There were several reasons for this:

I have loads of ideas for graphic novel length comics, and rather than diving straight into writing and drawing a 120 page work, I thought I would test out my skills on something smaller first.
I wanted to get used to using a graphics tablet (my lovely Ugee M708 – just as good and 1/4 the price of a Wacom) and the Manga Studio software I got in a bundle a couple of years ago and learn the process of sketch->inks->flats->shading->publishing. [As a side note, I highly recommend the books The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing Comics (for the practical side) and Making Comics (for the art and theory side)]
I also know some people will be waiting for the third book in the Powerless series, so I decided to use an idea I had for a short story set in that world and turn it into a comic instead.

This all means I get to continue and expand on the superhero city I’ve created, fans of the series get something to pacify them until book #3 arrives, and I get to train myself up on the skills required to do longer comic works.

So, after that long preamble, what’s the comic all about?

Well, it features Hayley Turner, the teleporter who saves Martin’s life in the first book and becomes a trusted partner in the second. She lives two lives: one as a police officer, trying to do her bit to maintain order in Element City and another as a Hero, working with Martin to take down the organised crime she can’t affect in her day job. This does create major conflicts for her, not the least of which is if she was ever found out to be powered, she would go to prison (in this world, those with powers cannot work in the police, ambulance, fire service or military), not to mention she isn’t registered as powered in the first place. As the books (so far) mostly focus on Martin and other characters, I thought it would be nice to show a bit more of Hayley’s inner thoughts and day-to-day life.

Progress-wise, I am currently about a week away from finishing the first pass inks, then it’s onto the flats (base colours). I hope to have it all done and dusted and printed off for True Believers on Feb 6th, and of course it will be available on Comixology US / UK and DriveThruComics.

Below are a couple of the almost-finished inked pages, and I’ll keep you up to date on the colouring and publishing process.