Well today starts a section of story that we’ve been building to since the beginning. I originally thought about different ways to chop up the pieces for the “strips” that have been running thus far but at the end of the day I decided to just post the whole two page spread. So, for the next little bit that’s what’s going up (this will make a ton more sense once you start seeing the next couple of spreads). Anyway, here’s today’s page:

(Normally I’d insert a small version of the page here but for whatever reason WordPress is fighting me this morning… so here’s a link instead and I’ll try to get the image thing working: read the page here!)

I haven’t really talked too much about the art or story lately and that’s because it was just following along with what I’ve been doing since THE JUMPER started. But now things are going to start evolving as the next couple of pages go up and I’m sure that I’ll have some thoughts for the people that are into that sort of behind-the-scenes type thinking. Sometimes I wonder if those sort of details ruin things, but I really enjoy reading creator’s thoughts, so I’m going to blather on and post some of my own. For this spread I was trying to find a way to separate the “normal” story from what follows when Michael “jumps”. After kicking the idea around I decided on the page tear and I hope that I’ve pulled it off effectively. I think if you read the story (pages) continuously it’s a probably got a better flow, and it will definitely make more sense when you see the next couple of pages. With that in mind, come back and re-read this section and maybe the effect will be more apparent.

I’m really curious about how these pages will be received and what people actually think of the story. So with that in mind, let me know! Posting full spreads will really move the story along, so get ready…

*****

Super busy! EEK!!!
As always, I find that once I get back into the groove with all things On the Verge I really get swamped. But last week I managed to finish off the final touches on THE JUMPER story that I had been putting off for far too long. I also got back to drawing at lunchtime! It’s funny how much I actually missed it. But with THE JUMPER story finally 100% completed I can now turn my attention to the next chapter of work that needs to be done.

Has anyone ever mentioned how much time lettering actually takes? I guess my problem is that I’ve started to add complexity to the pages through lettering and it’s taking more and more time. Anyway, I’m finally finished lettering the next huge chunk of story which is cool because it means that the pages are essentially “done” as far as the overall design goes (and that also means that the rough pencils that I’ve put together are pretty much final too!). The challenge for the next couple of months is going to be turning out finished artwork for pages which I really haven’t done since the end of October. It’s somewhat daunting to see that many roughed out pages that now need to be fully drawn and inked!

With that in mind, I think I should probably finish up some last edits and who can argue with that?