The writer, Mike Barr,
commented that my signage for the motel was “arch”. He was not complimenting
me. I thought that I was not only being droll but foreshadowing potential plot
developments around Helda and Archon’s expected baby.
Pages 8 and 9 are a fun
little sequence, so I’m posting them together. Lisle arrives in her ancestral
homeland of Lutzany. The writer, Mike Barr, was making an insightful comment on
second-generation immigrants who lose all connection with the motherland.
These pages were really hard
to lay out and make work. Non-artists don’t appreciate how the most difficult
draws are the most prosaic- people getting in and out of cars, sitting around a
dining table etc. The flashing dramatic fight scenes tend to be much easier
because one doesn’t have to connect feet to the ground or convincingly depict
figures occupying the same space.
For instance, page 8, panels
2 through 5 took much drawing and re-drawing to get all the action to play out
on the same composition, and, moreover, to have it appear natural, not
contrived. And to work with the left-to-right/up-to-down comix eye-read. Similarly,
the “Universal Translator” gag took much adjustment and re-adjustment to play
out seamlessly.
By the way, my design for
the cab driver was my realistic version of the “Archie” character. I beat Ed
Brubaker and Sean Phillips (“Last of the Innocents”) by about ten years. And
now the official “Archie” comics are doing it.
These are pages 8 & 9 for "The Mark"
issue 4, volume 2, otherwise known as "The Mark In America",
published by Dark Horse Comics in March 1994. Written by Mike Barr, Drawn by
Brad Rader
Previous pages from “The
Mark in America” are archived on the blog page of my website, www.raderofthelostart.com
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