Making fake things real.
Some thoughts on designing fictional locations.
It’s 4:20 am (nice) and I am up finishing some script clean up for Puppy Knight book 2. Book 3 if you count the short Josue and I did with Silver Sprocket! I thought I would hit some kind of balance or stride with taking care of the Grandparents where I would be able to focus more on writing thought out pieces, but things haven’t worked out that way. Even if I am not sleeping enough and the entire world seems singularly focused on consuming all of my time with concerns and active problems I need to solve I am grateful to have these little worlds to escape into. It is what it is. Luckily tonight it is good.
I am going to finish the piece on drawing trees, but I need a bit to get those details together. I have also had a few new thoughts related to the shape of branches I am digesting. Tonight I am just going to talk about what is going on right now. Writing comics, comic scripts, and designing locations that feel good.
When I write comics I don’t usually do a traditional typed script. I know there are a lot of opinions on it, but I have always struggled with the idea of writing comics with just words. It doesn’t make a lot of sense and every time I have tried it has resulted in comics with great dialogue that are boring as hell to look at.
When doing my scripts I will usually make a large single image with a hundred or so blank “pages” on it. Sometimes I will write basic big “ideas” with just that are a sentence or two for scenes and think about how they press into each other and work together. Most of the time I will just start drawing things I think are cool and the characters doing things I think are fun.
Tech note- For my writing file I use a VERY low dpi since I am using a 2nd generation iPad Pro. (I do most of my work in it. They are about 250 bucks refurbished. The screen is big, and it still works for everything without a hitch in 2025. I need to find the cash to upgrade because the screen is almost demolished from use, but it’s good enough!) The DPI is not a concern because it’s just writing and if I want to use the initial drawing and skip penciling you don’t print those lines anyways.
So much of my writing is based on putting things on the page how they would look on the actual final page and thinking about the space left on the page. Once I know how a page starts and ends in a satisfying way there is only so much space left to move from the first idea to the last one, and a lot of time the amount of space and shapes of those spaces left will fill itself without much effort if things are going well. I will write more in depth about this process later! But it works for me.
When passing these loose “pages” off to another artist there is an extra step I have to do where I clean them up and clarify what is happening. When I finish my own pages I will often leave some panels blank and about 25% of the dialogue is completely missing. The section I am cleaning up right now has people moving through a large Museum and I realized I needed a LOT more information than I had included about the actual space.
It is important to me when I work with any artist that they have complete freedom to make the spaces and images their own so this kind of work is a delicate balance. I usually don’t give much information about the space because everyone has different approaches and ways they work. When you send someone a sketch of a panel it can feel like an order to replicate it exactly as is, but if you have read a comic I wrote and sent these kinds of pages you are not seeing my actual drawings. Everyone puts their own spin on things and I love seeing where people take them.
So this is a museum with as much and as little information as possible.
I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time in museums as a kid in Philadelphia so I didn’t have to create anything. Everything I wrote and everything I drew are just things I have seen. I didn’t make up anything. I just remembered things. And I drew the things I had big feelings about and let the things that didn’t get a reaction from me pass by.
One of the compliments I get a lot is that the places I draw and write “Feel real.” It’s always confusing to me because the places ARE real. This is a comedic fantasy book where everyone is a dog, but it doesn’t matter. A museum is a museum. A tavern is a bar. Fantasy and sci-fi are just a final coat of paint you put over real things.
I am not saying this is easy, fast, or simple. But when you go back in your head to a place or event you aren’t remembering every detail, and what you remember is factually inaccurate. But the things your brain decided were important and the feelings you have are entirely unique to you. And if you are very lucky other people will respond to those things and feelings.
Thanks for listening to me ramble. Thanks for giving me money to sit around and remember going to museums as a child. I am gonna dive back into this and get it off the plate. I did these outlines a few months ago and I’ve made some giant leaps in my art and comfort with drawing and couldn’t help redoing this panel how I thumbnail now. Wild stuff!
-Mike
wow!