Out of Time - Page 1

Welcome to the "Making of". You can read this free comic as a book here.

Find out who the mysterious strange is in tomorrow's edition!

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The Making Of

Character Designs

The very first stage in making any comic book is getting the Characters designed, particularly because we need to know that we can portray each character consistently panel after panel and book after book.

Together, we designed each character, from my instructions, to Andrea's eventual definitive sketch:

Max Tempus

My vision for Max was communicated to Andrea as follows:

Max is a young Time Traveler (or Timenaut as he would have it).
He is idealistic, well meaning.
He looks like Logan Lerman with a hairstyle like this. Age him to be roughly 27 years old.

Make his suit what you will, if you need inspiration, I reference you to this. It should have wires attached that are sucked into the time vortex behind him and measure his biometric signals. There is a big button with a T logo on his left-side of his torso. He can touch this with his right hand to collapse the vortex and return to his time in moments of emergency. The suit is designed to keep his atoms together and protect him from the time-space field distortions.

Throughout the story he floats within the vortex, his lower body undefined, streaming back into the vortex - he is literally propelled into the future, while the time distortion field keeps collapsing beneath him, sucking his lower body back into the vortex, making his legs look like a stream into the vortex.

And this is how Andrea translated prose to visuals:

The Future Humans

Next, we needed to design the two future humans. Since they would have features in common that were related to our evolved ancestors, I gave Andrea my thoughts on how our progeny might have evolved:

Since this is the future, I imagine that all humans would be perfectly healthy and immaculate looking, having solved most of mankind’s problems. There would be a genetic component to this that would defy even a major disaster. Perhaps they would look a bit like Jude Law in A.I. Of course, they wouldn’t be robots, but rather would have found ways to control aging, have perfect health, remove impurities, make themselves “more perfect,” etc.

Since they would have aging well under control, I think they should look immaculate and young, but their expressions would show their age. A 20-year old person has very different expressions than a seasoned 40-year old or a commanding 50-year old.
As for clothing, I think an advanced, more cultured society would have fewer ego issues;  they would be a more practical, less showy. They’d wear comfortable clothes. Perhaps they even wear a variation of futuristic robes. Since mankind’s rise is largely driven by its intellect and creativity, I imagine that the robes would have interesting and playful patterns on them. This is not a culture where innovation destroyed the human spirit.  Instead it made it “orderly.”

They would also have technology integrated with their bodies, but I doubt this would be made overtly visible - or perhaps these overt displays of integrated technology would perform some sort of purpose that communicates to others one's function, position, role or status?

Benoid Syc

His personality is composed, diplomatic. There is a sense of terseness against Max Tempus, but he contains it very well. He obviously is the leader of the group. I imagine Benoid to be in his 50’s and have the seasoned, smart and down-to-earth expressions of a 50-year old man, despite his immaculate face.

Andrea's work:

Martia Svenson

She would share the same futuristic features as Benoid, but is very different in personality. She is ambivalent, does not agree with Benoid, yet is also not sure if the alternative is better. She runs interference without ever daring to totally oppose Benoid. She makes it clear, however, that she does not like the position he has taken.
Martia is in her early thirties and has expressions conforming to this. She doesn't have to be good looking.

While it's true that these two people are in the same room, they aren’t married. I doubt Max Tempus or our audience will ever notice this, but this subtlety matters. Martia and Benoid are two people put in the same situation, who otherwise probably would never have a relationship with each other!

At this stage, we haven't even started on page 1, but we've already had to create a lot of artwork to make it happen!

Page 1 Art Process

Every artist works differently, but Andrea completes pages going through pretty much every stage, giving superb control over the quality of the eventual produced artwork:

Stage 1: Layouts

First, we've got to layout the panels on the page following the script:

Panel 1
A man (BENOID SYC) and a woman (MARTIA SVENSON) are sitting in a futuristic living room, roughly 1000 years from today. Through the windows, we see the futuristic city beyond. It is night.
PS. the links above don’t mean that you have to draw the room or the city beyond like that.  It's just to give you ideas. Your vision alone matters. I just want to give you some inspiration.

The people in the room seem bored, sitting around with their heads bowed, not doing anything.

Panel 2
A vortex opens before them, ripping through time and space, literally tearing a fabric in their reality and their living room. The group of people look up, but don’t seem too alarmed by the bizarre phenomenon.

Panel 3
A man (MAX TEMPUS) appears through the still unstable, growing vortex. The body of the man seems to be propelled with amazing force through the vortex. The atoms of his lower body are still in flux, streaming through the hole in time and space.

MAX TEMPUS
It worked!

 And here are Andrea's layouts for the script:

Stage 2 - Roughs

In stage 2, we create a rough of the page, making sure that all the details on the page are in alignment (both characters and environment). It also allows the project Art Director to spot any anatomical or perspective issues with the proposed art.

Stage 3 - Pencils

Now Andrea adds details to the initial rough, resulting in the pencils:

Stage 4 - Inks

Inks make the pencils crisp and clear and fit for print. Usually the penciller and inker are two different people, but since Andrea is an all-rounder, he opted to do the inks himself:

Stage 5: Colors

Colors are the final stage of the artwork. Ylenia Di Napoli and Andrea worked together to produce these beautiful colors for the page:

And there you have it! A new comic book page is born ;-)

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