Hello everyone! Paul here. I wanted to first thank you all for being a pre-launch follower for The New Amsterdam Game: Gooseberry's Counterfeit Caper! Having a strong start is key to a successful crowdfund campaign, and you are all part of it. So, thank you! We're at 17 followers now, but if you get a friend to join, and they get a friend to join, and so on, we're going to get this comic to you sooner rather than later!

 

Ok, let's get to the real reason for this update. I wanted to share some behind-the-scenes magic with you. Bear in mind that a lot of this will be from the writer's perspective. Below, what you see is the script for page 10 of Gooseberry's Counterfeit Caper. I'm showing this page because it's a really good insight into my process, and we have an inked page for it.

You see that I break it down into separate panels, with varying levels of description to allow for the artist to bring their own ideas and style into the story. Notice that in each panel, any given individual is limited to one action (or one action per limb, as in panel two). That's because comics are static pictures. Very often, you'll see beginning writers try to stuff a bunch of action in one panel because they're visualizing a moving scene. We don't have those in comics (yet. Which reminds me, a comic of all lenticular panels would be amazing). I also include hyperlinks in the script where necessary so that the artist doesn't have to go all over the internet looking for reference images. There's a lot of sound effects in this page, and I try my best to imagine what that sound is. But I also include in parenthesis what the actual cause of the sound is, just in case our letterer has a more...sound idea.

 

Alright, from there, the artist puts together a thumbnail - a quick sketch of what the page looks like in terms of body placement, panel layout, and so on. We do this to make sure we're doing what the script says before delving too deeply into artwork, and it helps plot out where speech bubbles and sound effects can be placed.

You can see the artist includes notes for himself in the margins. As the writer, I might have some comments - for example, the inking beater in the last panel should be much larger, about 10 inches in diameter. Once approved, the artist begins penciling the pages.

 

Do you see the major change from thumb to pencil? No, it's not the beater (though it is bigger). Michael turned Gooseberry around in panel three, so we can see the agony on his face as he takes a musket-clubbing to the arm! Great artistic decision there, and that's why we have artists! Once pencils are approved, on to inks.

And there's the inked page! Michael's style comes through beautifully. Can you see where we made a change for the sake of continuity? When we turned Gooseberry around, we broke his left, sword-wielding arm. In panel four, his right arm was dangling. We're all human. Mistakes happen. So Michael was awesome enough to make the fix (quickly) to keep continuity!

 

From here, the page will be colored by the inimitable Linda Scott Campbell, and then sent off for lettering.

 

So, if you thought this was cool, you might be interested in our "Archivist" tier of support when the campaign launches. In addition to the print and digital copies of both New Amsterdam Game comics, you will get a digital copy of our "process page" book. This will include the script, thumbnails, pencils, and inks for every page of Gooseberry's Counterfeit Caper.

 

Anyway, that's all for now. Again, thanks for following and we look forward to your support!