Today we have a series of images showing the process behind my cover illustration for A Killing in Comics, the first of the Jack and Maggie Starr comics mysteries by Max Allan Collins. There were a few rough preliminary sketches before this pencil prelim. The drawing style is inspired by 1940's DC Comics in general -- the Batman newspaper strip, specifically.
Image #2 shows the inked and cleaned up line art. My favorite inking tool is the Niji "Waterbrush" (the large size) filled with Rapidograph "Ultradraw" ink bu Koh-i-noor.
This is followed by the colored version in #3. Melissa Kaercher did a great job (from my color notes) on the faux '40s comic book color --big dots, bad registration and all! And finally, there's the printed version of the book cover, incorporating a slightly cropped version of the art.
My cover illo for the second in the series, Strip for Murder, was a painting, incorporating some cartoon art. Unfortunately, the series came to a halt before the planned third book, which would have had an EC horror comics theme. Darn it -- I was really looking forward to illustrating that one. Heck -- I was really looking forward to reading it! Some day, if luck is kind, Max and I will be able to return to this series. In the meantime, we have other things planned....
2 comments:
Good stuff, Terry. Tell Mr. Collins that I loved the book as well. Tell him that I'd really love it if the Nate Heller books were in print.
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