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Archive for the 'Black Rose' Category

Black Rose, Book One

The final couple weeks of May were largely devoted to Black Rose – specifically, to putting the first collected book together and getting it off to the printer. Though it seems like that would be a simple job (just gathering up all six issues into one document), we did a lot of additional work to really make this volume shine: a new cover, a revised map, seven additional pages of story, and tiny edits throughout.

1_frontcoverAaron came up with a new illustration for the cover that really does a great job of encapsulating our protagonists and their role in the story.  It can be difficult to condense a long story with a sizeable cast into just one image, and I think keeping the focus on just our two main characters works very well.

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We added seven new pages throughout the book, expanding on moments that could benefit from additional art or story. The primary addition was a new four-page introductory sequence that better establishes the world and its underlying conflicts.

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One of the challenges I faced in designing the book was how to incorporate the full-color covers to each issue.  If you’re not aware, color printing is much more expensive than black and white, and the only way to print just a few color pages was to stick them in the middle of the book (which would be very distracting to the story).  However, simply grayscaling the existing color covers made them look, well, like color covers that had been grayscaled.

The solution I eventually settled on was using just the inked linework from each cover, with some of Aaron’s ink washes in the background to add depth.  This way, they more closely matched the rest of the interior art and didn’t disrupt the flow of the story, functioning instead as chapter intro pages.

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Another design dilemma was what to do with the few one-page gaps between our irregular-length issues.  The simple solution (and a common practice in comic book collections) was to use a few images from our ample stash of concept art.

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We recently ordered a second print run of the book, for which I wound up going back and making another round of revisions.  This time, my focus was on pulling some of our word bubbles away from the central gutter of the book.  I hadn’t accounted for this when originally lettering our issues (they’re saddle-stitched, and have no gutter to speak of), and found that while none of our word bubbles were unreadable, repositioning a few here and there would definitely improve things for the perfect-bound collected volume.

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Our map was another item in need of revisions.  We had planned out the map way back for our very first issue, but the Black Rose world has continued to evolve since then, so a few locations needed to be renamed, added, or repositioned.  The map is also printed much larger in the book than it was previously, which necessitated some tweaking from a design perspective.

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The books were printed by Rink Printing in South Bend, Indiana, and we cannot recommend Rink’s services highly enough.  Their print quality is spectacular, even though the books were run on a digital press as opposed to offset.  The paper stock we used (something very important to me, as a designer!) is a great 70# matte that gives the book a more premium feel than many mainstream graphic novels.  In fact, our 164-page book is as thick as a 220-page volume from Dark Horse!  You can feel the difference just by holding it and flipping the pages.

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The back cover continues the black bar from the front, with an illustration of Arion and Aliyana facing an Athelican city and their own uncertain future.

All in all, this book represents a huge time investment and accomplishment for all three of us, and we couldn’t be happier with it.  If you’d like a copy to call your own, you can pick up the book direct from us in our online store.

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Big things are ahead for Black Rose!  Aaron has been hard at work on Issue #7 — the first issue in our second arc — as Chris and I continue to refine the rest of Arc 2’s scripts.  We just got back from our second Ash Con of the year, and are gearing up for the Cincinnati Comic Expo later this month.  We’d love to see you there!

What I’m Working On: July 2012

My biggest project during July was a major overhaul to a previously-completed project: an interactive map for internal use at Parkview Hospital. This map started way back in 2010, and has been periodically expanded on with new location sets and additional functionality. It now includes around 200 locations, drag and zoom capability, and popup address bubbles. Give it a try for yourself!

Parkview interactive mapSpeaking of Parkview, I also did a large set of web banners for their family birthing centers this month:

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One of the less-fun aspects of projects such as this is having to resize the same basic creative into a bajillion different sizes — it’s a time-consuming process that is fairly brainless, essentially the design equivalent of an assembly-line job. But there’s usually a nice paycheck waiting at the end, so I can’t really complain. The banners turned out purty nice, too.

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Last month I did some Olympic-themed banners for TriHealth — this month, St. John Providence carries the torch (literally).

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Fire is always a challenge to animate — it can appear and move so differently depending on the size of the blaze. I’m very happy with how this one turned out, and feel it strikes the properly dignified tone of the Olympic flame.

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I also did a small banner campaign for TriHealth’s Bethesda location, which included an oddball expandable size.

trihealth_bethesdaIt was a big month for Black Rose as well — we released our first trade paperback collecting all six issues thus far!  The big debut for the book was at Ikasucon here in Fort Wayne, which is the first anime con we’ve exhibited at.

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Ikasucon was a good show and we did well there.  However, it was also a loooong three days, and the crowd, though very large, wasn’t as interested in independent comics as our typical convention crowd.  Just a different demographic than usual.  So we may or may not be back next year — we are looking to exhibit at fewer but larger shows. I’ll have a post later this month detailing my design process for the book as well.

The rest of my time has been consumed with editing our home movies from last year (a process I’m trying to do annually to keep the queue manageable) and looking for our first house!  I think we’re finally getting things narrowed down, and should be making an offer within the next couple of weeks.  Busy times all around!

SPACE and Summit City

In April, Chris and I took Black Rose to the Small Press And Comics Expo (SPACE) in Columbus, Ohio. This was our first time at SPACE, our first Ohio con, and our first two-day con, so we didn’t quite know what to expect.

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Arc One Complete!

Ash Con Feb 2012

In February, Chris and I took Black Rose to Ash Con in Indianapolis. It was our first time at Ash, and it turned out to be a great show for us. Though smaller than some of the other cons we’ve been to, the demographic was heavily skewed toward comic shops selling back issues, trades, and other merchandise. This worked out well, since we were one of the few creator-owned books there, and since people were coming to the con with plenty of cash! Best of all, an Ash Con happens every couple of months, so we plan on hitting another one later this year.

We’ve also hit another very exciting milestone for Black Rose: the release of Issue #6, which finally completes the first arc of our story! It’s been a long time coming and we couldn’t be happier to get this issue out there. Get your hands on a copy pronto!

Black Rose Issue #6

There’s a lot more ahead for Black Rose — and a lot of new work I need to get on here, too. More stuff coming soon!

Bp

Black Rose on the Road

Chris and Brandon at Kokomo

As I mentioned in my last post, it’s been a busy time for Black Rose recently too. Here’s a recap of what’s new on the project!

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Summit City 2011

The Black Rose spread!

This past weekend, we took Black Rose to the Summit City Comic Con here in Fort Wayne. Pics and more below!

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Black Rose at Kokomo

Subdued by Stormtroopers

We took Black Rose on the road last weekend to the Kokomo-Con in (where else) Kokomo, Indiana. The con was smaller than Summit City, but they gave us a pretty nice booth setup and we got to meet a lot of cool new fans. More pics below!

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Black Rose Numero Dos

Aw yeah…it’s that time again.

Black Rose Issue 2

Upon reaching the ancient fortress city of Adrost, Arion receives his long-awaited walking papers. But with them comes a peculiar invitation to a banquet from the even more peculiar Baron Lord Ardam – and there are one or two surprise guests in attendance as well.

Yes, the second issue of Black Rose has been completed and it is awesome. Aaron really knocked the art outta the park on this one, and Chris has crammed so much delicious foreshadowing into the dialogue exchanges.

Kokomo-Con

We will be debuting the issue at the Kokomo-Con on Saturday, October 23rd, along with copies of Issue 1 and slick poster prints of both covers. If you’re in the area, stop on by!

And soon after the con, those goodies will also be available in the Black Rose online store, which is currently under construction along with an overall website facelift. I’m knee-deep in HTML and calculating shipping costs at the moment — just one of the many projects demanding my attention nowadays.

More new work later this week!
Bp

Summit City Comic Con!

Summit City Comic Con - Our table!

What a busy day! The premiere of Black Rose and much much more at Fort Wayne’s first comic convention. Lots of pics below!

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Black Rose at Summit City!

At long last, I finally get to announce this!
Black Rose

Black Rose is a fantasy/western comic about a brother and sister caught between two warring empires. Originally created by Aaron Minier during his college years, my good friend Chris and I were invited onto the project a couple years back after the original writer departed. Rather than simply continuing the story, we wound up taking everything back to basics and reinventing the entire world, adding a lot of complexity and realism.

Anyway, the big announcement is that the first issue is finally complete, and will be debuting at the Summit City Comic Con here in Fort Wayne, on Saturday May 22nd. We’ve got a table at the con and will be selling a limited number of issues, so if you want one, you’d better come early! Aaron will be doing some sketching as well, and we’ll have some artbooks full of concept art you can look through too. And of course any of us would be MORE than happy to talk your ear off about Black Rose, what our influences are, where the story might be going, etc. Come on down!

Summit City Comic Con

We’re looking into publishers at the moment and have gotten some interest, and we’ve also contemplated launching Black Rose as a webcomic — this story is coming out one way or another, and hopefully we’ll have that situation figured out soon.

Besides contributing to the story, I also edit the scripts, letter the pages, and do most of the design work for the project. Over time some of that work will wind up on here as well, but I’m waiting until we solidify our publishing plans before revealing all our hard work.

Until then, you can visit the Black Rose website and make sure to subscribe to our email list — we’ll keep you posted with any and all news as we progress toward world domination.

See everybody at the con!
Bp