Episode 3: The Truth is Out to Lunch, Part 2

Thanks for visiting. This is the second half of Wonder 'Zoi and Wiener Dog's second adventure. It's been a long time coming.

I'm really glad I came back to Wonder 'Zoi. I had left the project stagnant, with our poor hero strapped to an operating table, for years. Wonder 'Zoi, during that time, was as much a victim of my own life-imbalance as he was of the fiendish Reticulans who had captured him. But a lot has changed since then. Work for me is a lot less intense and stressful than it was when I went on cartoon sabbatical. I feel much more on my feet. And I do have to thank a certain special someone for, whether she realizes it or not, giving me a little inspirational push back to the comics. I feel like it's a real accomplishment to finally finish the story, and I'm looking forward to publishing the next installment.

This episode continues to be an expression of my continuing quest to "find" a style and balance the hours needed to produce a top-notch work with those I actually have to make it happen. I don't think there's any question that even the worst page of this episode or Episode 2 is better than the best page of Episode 1. That's in part to my growing comfort level with the characters, my general level of technical competence ramping up with practice, and certainly not least, in part to having access to better equipment, and better knowledge and computer skills, for scanning and finishing the work. In Episode 2 and this episode the evolution can still be seen, as the level of detail in the background art grows to the very intricate scenes in the secret lab, fades back to abstracts again, and finally settles on a balance of simple backgrounds and some computer-applied zip. I'm relatively pleased with the last few pages, which I think have a good amount of "splash" without an investment of time that I simply can't afford to spend.

Consistency of tools and method is something I think has improved with this story. (Here comes the technical content. Comics artists love to talk about how they draw - I think it's a mutant gene.) The basic design, dialog, layout, and pacing is resolved in a written outline and very loosely drawn storyboards. I'd like to have everything resolved at this stage but I don't have the patience to work it all out to that level, and I usually find things I want to change as I get to each individual page to draw. The rough penciling for the page is done on 11x17 copy paper in pencil. Its quality can vary from fine line drawings to loose sketches that are sometimes hard to trace. Again, it's a product of concentration versus patience. The final dialog bubbles and dialog are drawn over the pencil sketches. I then overlay a sheet of vellum over the pencil sketch, and then ink out the drawings using pigment liners. These are similar to felt-tip pens, but have more precise nibs for control of lineweight, as well as good, dense ink. I started off doing major fills using India ink and brushes, but I've since found it easier to apply these fills with the computer. Tighter fills, like eyes and noses, are done with the pigment liners. I use varying lineweights depending on the size and proximity of the object or character being represented. That's a drafting trick.

The finished page on vellum gets scanned on a flat-bed scanner at 300 dpi, and imported into Photoshop. From there I do any cleanup, such as erasing line overruns or scanner ghosts. I generally don't clean everything up, but rather concentrate on the major things. Background tones and fills get added, then the dialog and dialog bubbles are overlaid. The final product is then reduced and saved out as a JPEG for publication. I dial down the quality of the final JPEG images to help reduce file size - I find I can take it back to about 9 ticks out of 12 without sacrificing quality in any significant fashion.

There it is, more than you ever wanted to know about how Wonder 'Zoi comes to be. Episode 3 is the second part of The Truth is Out to Lunch, which was begun in Episode 2. A little bit of inspiration comes from the Westminster Kennel Club broadcasts, and a bit from the X-Files (yes, it was that long ago when I started it) in the establishment of the story in Part 1. Part 2, however, takes the story in a totally different direction, with a lot more action, and a new dimension of the overarching plot as we finally meet the interlopers and their mysterious "All-Knowing Master," who, one can be sure, will be back in later installments. I hope you enjoy it.

Patrick M. Roach
May 16, 2007

Episode 3: The Truth is Out to Lunch, Part 2