Dec
30
2014
Macbeth is coming in just a month. The official release date is Feb 10th. You can pre-order it with your local/favorite indy bookstore or on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, etc. I will sign all pre-orders placed with Politics & Prose, and you can order signed copies directly from me starting a few days after the release. The eBook should also launch on Feb. 10th on most platforms.
To whet your appetite, I have set up an official product page (with interior preview) here. And now, I’m going to give you a look at the process I used to create this book…
As usual, I sketched the rough layouts using Adobe InDesign. This has the advantage of being super-easy to edit as I go along (as well as later, after I get feedback), being able to quickly move things from one page to another, use type and object styles to control document-wide formatting, and have a single master file. The main disadvantage is that the master file sometimes gets too big. I’ve learned various tricks to deal with that but it can still be a little tricky to manage.
After sketching and editing the rough layout, I printed each page in a light yellow and drew over it with pencil.
I scanned the drawings back in, used a b&w adjustment layer to get rid of the yellow lines, then did a greyscale value painting on a multiply layer over the pencil art.
I added textures I had created with ink washes on watercolor paper, then I added local colors and effects.
Sound effects go on their own layer so they can be removed or changed if the book gets translated into another language.
Finally, I dropped the art back into InDesign and drew clean borders and speech balloons.
– Artwork copyright 2014 by Gareth Hinds, shown by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville MA –
Dec
08
2014
- Official poster for STC’s The Tempest
On Friday I went to see Shakespeare Theatre Company’s The Tempest. This is a really GREAT production of one of my favorite plays, directed by Ethan McSweeny. It’s the best Shakespeare play I’ve seen so far in DC, and one of the most lavish Shakespeare productions I’ve seen, period. It’s up ’til mid January and I HIGHLY recommend it. More details and sketches below, though you might want to stop reading now to avoid spoilers.
Incidentally (and in the interest of full disclosure), I am doing a workshop with STC about adapting Shakespeare to comics on Dec 21st at 4:30pm.
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Dec
07
2014
Those who aren’t on my mailing list may not have caught the fact that I’m currently working on a graphic novel adaptation of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. It seemed imperative, therefore, that I see Nightfall with Edgar Allen Poe by Molotov Theatre Group at DC Arts Center. It too is an adaptation of several of Poe’s stories, performed in a small venue on an intimate scale, and both my wife and I enjoyed it very much. It leads off with The Raven, which is pretty good but probably the weakest of the pieces. The strongest is their rendition of The Tell-Tale Heart, which features some truly impressive makeup and brilliant choreography. Unfortunately I believe this run is now over, but perhaps it will be reprised at some point.
Here are a few sketches I did during the performance (some minor spoilers).
The playbill credits the following:
Elliot Kushner – Poe
Matthew Marcus – Edgar, Policeman 1
Adam Adkins – Roderick Usher, Policeman 2
Stacy Whittle – Madeline Usher
Yoni Gray – The Raven, Sante
Jen Bevan – Lenore, Old Man
Eric Coble as scriptwriter, Mark Kamie as Director, Gregory Martin as composer/sound designer, Jen Bevan as choreographer and costume designer, Pete Vargo on lighting, Brian McDEermott on set design, Production Stage Mgr Katherine Offutt, Alex Zavistovich Board President and Fights/Props/Effects, and Emily Gray as Run Crew / Props Mistress.
Excellent job, all!