The Box Upstairs

A candle in the studio

Sometimes making comics can be quite the lonely passion.

Many say that comic books are a dying breed, even though the movies based off near hundred year old characters are thriving. It goes along with the worldly fact that most physical “anything” is becoming less and less common in our digital age. Basically what I’m saying is that a comic book creator is insane. And a comic book creator who lives in Houston, TX is permanent-resident-in a-mental-asylum level insane.

Ok, maybe that’s bit of a hyperbole, but seriously, there are so few of us in Houston compared to more art driven cities, or perhaps they are dwelling in some abandoned cave in the depths of the bayou, but I really don’t think so. Like I said, it’s a lonely passion.

Night Shift

It was my birthday last week. As I got home from my day job, I set down my back pack, kicked off my shoes, and headed upstairs to my studio room where all the creative magic happens. I turned on the light, and there was a cubed box sitting on my art table accompanied by a new desk lamp. My heart fluttered a bit. My wonderful girlfriend had left me a gift before she went to work, knowing that even though it was my birthday, I’d still be working on comics.

In this moment, being a comic creator felt a little less lonely, and truthfully, that’s all I need sometimes to get me through the hard days.

I was so moved that I had the urge to create art from that moment. I set aside my editing and lettering duties for the day and pulled out my pencil and a piece of sub-par scratch paper.

I set my mind to freestyle and just let my pencil run wild, trying to replicate what I had seen just a few minutes before getting into the studio. Here are the rough pencils:

I was going to keep this page in black and white and do my typical energetic and loose inking, but I suddenly felt the need for color in this piece, being that it was such a heartfelt moment. As I said before, the paper quality is terrible, which I sort of regret using, but that’s what art is - conveying how you feel, creating something out of whatever tools that you can get your hands on. So, ultimately, I think the thin paper adds to the work. This is a shot of a quick watercolor pass using some random and cheap watercolor circles that were on my desk:

After the color, I used a zebra fine tip pen and my felt tip reloadable brush to bring out some of the lines and shape up each panel. I usually do a lot more when inking, but since the watercolors had already done most of the work, I just needed some simple blacks and a sparse ink wash for the background. I scanned in the final version:

I loved doing this. I know it’s simple and unpolished, but it was something that I just had to let out of my brain. And most of the time I feel like my art is that much better when I work like this, not getting too bogged down in the details. This page represents what I felt in the moment, and I appreciate my girlfriend so much for giving this obsessive creator a second of clarity.

Thanks for your time,

Nico