islandcomics:A Conversation between Emma Ríos and Jose Domingo...

Staring folk


Sketching stage


pencil stage


Inking stage


Coloring stage


A new project


END!

islandcomics:

A Conversation between Emma Ríos and Jose Domingo about Island #3, comics and being a being a megalomaniac Crusoe.

How everything started…

(Phone call)

JD- Hey E.! I just wanted to start begin with my story for Island, I know that you’ve already told me like three times how the thing goes, but… would you mind explaining it to me one more time?

( meeting at a cafe)

Both - blah, blah, blah, Island rocks, blah, blah, blah… total freedom, blah, blah, blah, look at the paper…cheap…cool…Brandon… blah, blah, blah, do whatever you want, you know, what an Island means to you… do something long….blah,blah,blah

JD - Yeah, you know… I wanted to do something with this guy… ( see notebook sketches) He arrives on an island and somehow he becomes… he makes…builds.. things! and makes the whole island like mechanical… including himself, he’s like a kind of mech…but he hates, you know, the strange people and the birds who live on the island before his arrival and who look at him in a stupid way so….

E.- SOUNDS COOOOL!!

JD- …Yeah, thanks. I guess it doesn’t make any sense when told like that…but I think it’s going to be a good story!!

This is what usually happens to me when starting out with a story for a comic ,I’ve got just a nebulous idea of what I want to do… images, a phrase, a little doodle in my sketchbook… I always say to myself that I have to develop this and that, do some research on a certain theme, work out a storyboard.. and finally none of this really helps ( when I get down to do it ) to figure out the story. The only thing that works for me is just drawing. Afters years dedicated to this work, I’ve finally come to realize that drawing is my way of thinking. The little spark that gives me the idea for a story is just scratching the surface. It’ not until really I put my hands to the task that everything starts to fall into place and make some sense.

E- Talking about that spark, I loved that under this speech of freedom and equality, a family, community, whatever… you came up with a totalitarian representation of the Island in your short, dude! It’s rather hilarious. The island is mine, you’re mine, I’ll eat you forever. I know you enjoy working with this kind of extreme characters but, still, I’d like to know the source. Has this anything to do with the documentaries of the Great War you were listening to recently? the ones you recommended me?

JD -Maybe unconsciously yes! Hadn’t thought about that from that perspective. Maybe when I thought about the story I was annoyed and feeling away from the world and pissed off by it… I don’t know. In the end I just thought about a guy losing his mind because of the solitude, solitude made worse because he’s not really alone but accompanied by these folks to who he can’t really connect to. He constructs his own city and becomes its vigilante, which is nothing different to a fascist, imposed, civilization. Maybe in the end it is just a environmentalist allegory: YOU BETTER LEAVE THE STRANGE SILENTLY STARING FOLKS WITH GOOGLY EYES ALONE IN THEIR JUNGLE!

E- Maybe I’m nuts, but if you compare this with the poor salary man in your Adventures of a Japanese  Businessman (Nobrow), it’s almost the antithesis. The poor dude was eaten by the city , now the crazy dude devoures the island… It almost looks like retribution.

JD - It’s like a Ying Yang thing!! The poor businessman going through all kinds of suffering without fighting back and this guy taking over his environment in a very violent way… but in the end, what appears to be strength is actually inner weakness and doubt and the businessman is resilient, strong in the inside.

But yes, you’re nuts.

E- Are you considering playing with this concept in a longer format?

JD- Yes and no ( today isn’t my ‘having things clear’ day as you can tell!) In the beginning I thought that a long story could come out from this short one but I don´t think so now. I’ve been keeping in my mind for many years a kind of a similar character that could develop a long story, but I’m not sure, probably its too simple for such a long thing. This pure black and white ethic stories work well when exaggerated and in small bits.

But  I’m sure I want to do something long for Island! I’ve been toying around with some ideas and even made some sketches ( see sketches from the notebook above)

Maybe it’s the wheel starting to spin again…

E - I’m truly psyched about it. So glad you liked the format, in the end. I think it’s fun and challenging to have your stuff published with people you like, I was so motivated when thinking about ID myself…

JD - The format is cool and exciting and even necessary. A magazine where there’s room for people to develop their own weird stories, which allows new authors to publish in the states, that is completely wide open to different and new aesthetics and narratives, with a high rotation of stories and artists but at the same time providing a consistent amount of pages of each story… That is good both for the authors and for the readers!

And it’s fun and exciting to publish together with people you admire and follow on the internet, because it creates a connection. For instance, I was happily surprised when I knew that Dilraj Mann was doing a story in the same issue I´m in. I had bought some stuff from him last year when I discovered his work because I loved it so much!

It´s just like when we were doing Barsowia, do you remember? It was exciting to create stories for it while you know your mates are doing their best too, and finally see the result.

In a way, it feels like actually owning the final product and at the same time knowing tha it’s been a collective work, that without any one it wouldn´t have been the same.

E- Oh mann, Polaqia (a self-publishing association where Emma and jose met) was such a cool training zone for all of us. Working on Island feels so similar to me, but for the fact that creators can get paid here…

JD- That’s the best part of it.

E- Ok, we could continue ranting forever but we are also supposed to show your process here as real pros. Please tell us a bit about it.

JD- My process is fairly simple. Trying to get down to earth that intangible idea through drawing. Sketches first, in my notebook, having a coffee, directly with a pen, not thinking too much.

Pencilling after that, using a template I designed previously on the computer to fit margins, bleed areas and technical boring things. Using rulers to draw, measuring very carefully where everything is placed, taking care that the things drawn are expressing what I want from them

Inking after that, using a lightbox and technical pens ( Sakura 0.1 and 0.05, Kuretake Zig Cocoiro, Brush pen for black masses) holding my breath when making the lines. 

Scanning and coloring in the computer, playing with the colors so they create a certain atmosphere ( from clean and bright to a muddy and oppressIve lighting and feel in this case)

E - I like how small you work with the previews stuff, i do a similar thing with my layouts, but my stuff is totally unreadable. In your case though, I love how much you can detail at that scale. The are almost like those ‘Tillydoos’ (stands for TIny siLLY DOOdles) you do for fun on Instagram. What is the regular format size you use for the real pages?

JD- I can draw really small. It´s an ability I´ve always had, don´t know why. Maybe is because of being a fantasy miniatures hobbyist when I was a kid, painting microscopic eyes on tiny orcs and elves.

But when it comes to do the original art, I work at the printing size most of the times and sometimes slightly bigger. I like to be accurate about this because otherwise I´m unable to visualize the final result. If I work too big ( even though that´s the ideal thing) I´m always afraid of putting so much detail into the drawing, while working smaller than the printing size can ruin the line, something which I a rely on A LOT.

But I‘m getting too serious just to speaking about such a silly story. 6 pages, just 12 or 13 sentences. A guy arrives to what seems a deserted, virgin, vegetation covered island. The island is not that deserted, some birds and strange folks live there. Big-eyed, stupidly-staring folks and birds.
The guy builds ( who minds why? ) a kind of industrial thing out of the existing stuff on the island. Steel leaves, wooden exhaust pipes, wicked cabins and ladders everywhere. He takes over nature for his purpose, he builds his world, he becomes a kind of king of the island ( even though nobody asked him to ) But these thankless folks still look at him like idiots. And he hates them for it. So he cuts them in half with a sword.

Who hasn’t ever felt like that ?

E -I guess you’re quite an urbanite…

JD -And how could I have had a clear idea of this story beforehand?

E- Wait— You’re a crazy megalomaniac!

END!

——

+ Emma Ríos is co-editing Island, drawing Pretty Deadly and writing Mirror. All courtesy of Image Comics.

+ Jose is the author of  ‘Adventures of a Japanese Businessman’ ( Nobrow Press) and just released ‘Pablo and Jane and the Hot Air Contraption’ (Flying Eye Books) his first book for children.