Get your freshly printed Demons!

I have a new printing of We Will Never Leave You comic/coloring books. It's very exciting to think that I actually sold (and gave away) all the copies I printed this spring!

I thought I would show you the "behind-the-scenes" for creating this comic, but, if you are short on time, here is the most important part... you can now get your own print copies and/or download a PDF version, from my Etsy store. I've also added a pack of 5 comics for a reduced price - for those of you who would like to give the comics as gifts. And if you want the fabulous, deluxe, Thesis-edition - there are a couple still remaining (from the Kickstarter).

Here's the description for We Will Never Leave You:

This is no ordinary, relaxing, meditative comic book/coloring book. Oh, no - this one is actually quite stressful, but will leave you feeling reassured... in the end.
Perhaps.

We Will Never Leave You is a comic interview with my Inner Demons. With special guest appearances by OCD, Anxiety, Creativity and others - We Will Never Leave You is a fun romp through the lovable mess in my head.
And perhaps, your head too?

This print version features 12 B&W interior pages printed on lovely paper perfect for markers and colored pencils. You can color on both sides of the paper with no embarrassing show through.

About 7" x 8.5" in size.

The Evolution of My Inner Demons

Well.. I think the Demons have always been there, but this is how these particular representations of My Demons happened.

It began with a big anthology project during my first year at The Center for Cartoon Studies. The theme for the anthology was "Speak of the Devil" and I created a comic called "The Little Devil" (which I really SHOULD turn into a mini-comic...)

The character sketches were based on some drawings my daughter and I created - a little boy with a devil t-shirt - he gets struck by lightning and becomes the devil creature...

The character stuck with me and I found myself drawing it in my class notes...

During a summer program with Alec Longstreth... on the first day of class (Monday) we were given the assignment: Create an 8 page comic, inked, and printed, due Friday morning.

I spent the first day getting to know my characters and what they wanted, what they were afraid of...

Then I started sketching out the plot line and some dialog... the blue pencil grouped the images, etc. that I thought belonged together on each page.

On Tuesday, I rearranged those bits and pieces into panels and thumbnails. The thumbnails are tiny representations of each page's layout. I quickly realized I needed extra pages to tell the story. My 8 page requirement grew to 12! (With this kind of project, you have to work with pages in multiples of 4. A sheet of paper folded in half equals four pages.)

Here's a close-up of pages 10 and 11:

On Wednesday, I blew up the thumbnail sketches and started refining, adding details and text. This is the same page shown above (page 10) but in full-size pencil sketch form...

This is a full progression for Page 1, from blue penciled sketch layout, to pencil sketch, to final inked page.

On Thursday I finished inking all 12 pages, then scanned, cleaned up, and laid out the pages in InDesign.

Friday morning, I printed and assembled the comics! I used the original class doodle-drawing as the cover, but I redrew it quickly in marker to match the style of the comic.

Normally... I would have used gray marker to add shading and depth to the pages, but there was NO WAY I would have had the time to do that for this four-day comic! So... it is a "coloring book" and you can add your own colors. I started playing around with colors and was surprised to learn that my Demons are purple-y!? I'd still like to do a version all in grays...

Meanwhile, back in the Thesis... the Demons had started creeping into my daily comics - not all my Demons look like little devil creatures! The Heart (Self-care), butterfly-bug (Creativity), Lilah Beans (yeh, well, they're Lilah Beans!), Dragon (my inner Bitch... more like "Puff" than "Godzilla." I need to work on that...)

It was getting pretty noisy in my head! Everyone had their own opinions...

But the Demons could also be very helpful and I was starting to take comfort from the fact that, well, they would never leave me.I decided to feature them in the second issue of BEGIN AGAIN, "The Issues Issue" (ha ha!). I think it took longer to design the cover than it took to create the mini-comic! But it felt really good to "flesh" them out in watercolor and gouache.

I hand lettered the title - tangled "BEGIN" and used a folded cola pen to draw "AGAIN" with all the great splatters.

I added the rest of the text in Photoshop. I think it really looks like a magazine! (There are still a couple of these left on my Etsy site.)

Group Portrait with my Editorial Staff!