summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2023-07-04 06:57 pm
summercomfort) wrote2023-07-04 06:57 pm
Entry tags:
Happy Birthday Steve
I made my Happy Birthday Steve comic! It's on tumblr here: https://potofsoup.tumblr.com/post/721920184293654528/happy-10th-year-of-me-doing-this-dorky-comic.
But hey, you're here, so it's my chance to show some process pics:
The section from pg 3 to pg 6 underwent a lot of edits when I was inking, in part to tighten up pacing, and in part because I'd done the layout before the affirmative action decision came out, and I felt like I needed to address it in some way.
pg 3:
I move the "slowly grinding our way to disaster or progress" line earlier, to set the core question earlier. On the other hand, I didn't want to talk about meetings just yet, because I felt like that was jumping the gun -- the reader would need to be more primed to take it seriously. This meant that I was able to move up the railroad strike to all fit on this page.
pg 4:
I did a lot of shifting on this page -- moved the meetings thing again, since it still felt too on-the-nose. I also compacted the Minnesota and California examples so that Steve is talking less.
Another one of the challenges of this comic is always "how to make Steve rant less" -- by default he tends to take up a lot of page space, and the original draft of the page was ALL Steve talking. I need Bucky and Sam to talk, too. Sam tends start with personal experience and look outward, whereas Steve tends to be more about believing and following through on the Big Ideas, so it's helpful for Sam to help ground Steve's rants. On the other hand, Bucky has experience with HYDRA, and with Steve and the 1930s and 40s, and is the one to say "Steve, chill".
pg 5:
I found a place to add affirmative action stuff! In a way that flowed well and felt true to both myself and Steve's opinions! (also a chance to not just have talking heads! One of my struggles with this comic was getting them to do things that wasn't just talking, but didn't distract from the flow of the conversation. For example, an earlier draft had Bucky steal Sam's ice cream and then they get in a snark fight about it, but it cut into the flow.
Another branch that I cut off here was the idea that sometimes when you speak up at a meeting, it turns out lots of other people were thinking the same thing and were just waiting for someone to speak up. I cut that out for a few reasons -- one is that it felt a bit trite, like something that you'd tell a nervous teenager. Another reason is that I feel like it would be very easy to misinterpret as "be the Karen", or neo-nazis being like "if you speak your racist thoughts, other people will support you!" and I didn't want to spend the extra panels that it would take to clarify that that's not what I meant. (Bucky's always the voice of "but HYDRA does it too")
Oh, also, in my campaign to make Steve talk less, I compacted his moralizing and had Sam bring up his VA work earlier, so that it's not Steve lecturing Sam about something he's already doing.
pg 6:
This one actually had two "proto" drafts: in the first one, I spent too much time on dealing with Bucky's angst about being an weapon of HYDRA. (which would be fun for a fic, but not for an 8-page comic rant.) Also, I'd originally gone down a darker path of "but they have the power," but I removed that because I didn't want to spend more panels walking back from that particular precipice (although I could have referenced Putin, hah!)
Then from the 2nd version to the final version, I shifted more words around, to further decrease Bucky's angst and give Sam and Bucky something to say in the last panel. Fun fact: Sam and Bucky's dialogue were original switched, but I realized that the line about Trump works better for Bucky who's trying to come out of his funk. I also spent a lot of time reworking transition lines to hit the right tone, before finally landing at "There's only so many ways to shortcut institutional and societal change."
Anyway, hope you found that interesting. I love sharing process stuff, lol.
But hey, you're here, so it's my chance to show some process pics:
The section from pg 3 to pg 6 underwent a lot of edits when I was inking, in part to tighten up pacing, and in part because I'd done the layout before the affirmative action decision came out, and I felt like I needed to address it in some way.
pg 3:
I move the "slowly grinding our way to disaster or progress" line earlier, to set the core question earlier. On the other hand, I didn't want to talk about meetings just yet, because I felt like that was jumping the gun -- the reader would need to be more primed to take it seriously. This meant that I was able to move up the railroad strike to all fit on this page.
pg 4:
I did a lot of shifting on this page -- moved the meetings thing again, since it still felt too on-the-nose. I also compacted the Minnesota and California examples so that Steve is talking less.
Another one of the challenges of this comic is always "how to make Steve rant less" -- by default he tends to take up a lot of page space, and the original draft of the page was ALL Steve talking. I need Bucky and Sam to talk, too. Sam tends start with personal experience and look outward, whereas Steve tends to be more about believing and following through on the Big Ideas, so it's helpful for Sam to help ground Steve's rants. On the other hand, Bucky has experience with HYDRA, and with Steve and the 1930s and 40s, and is the one to say "Steve, chill".
pg 5:
I found a place to add affirmative action stuff! In a way that flowed well and felt true to both myself and Steve's opinions! (also a chance to not just have talking heads! One of my struggles with this comic was getting them to do things that wasn't just talking, but didn't distract from the flow of the conversation. For example, an earlier draft had Bucky steal Sam's ice cream and then they get in a snark fight about it, but it cut into the flow.
Another branch that I cut off here was the idea that sometimes when you speak up at a meeting, it turns out lots of other people were thinking the same thing and were just waiting for someone to speak up. I cut that out for a few reasons -- one is that it felt a bit trite, like something that you'd tell a nervous teenager. Another reason is that I feel like it would be very easy to misinterpret as "be the Karen", or neo-nazis being like "if you speak your racist thoughts, other people will support you!" and I didn't want to spend the extra panels that it would take to clarify that that's not what I meant. (Bucky's always the voice of "but HYDRA does it too")
Oh, also, in my campaign to make Steve talk less, I compacted his moralizing and had Sam bring up his VA work earlier, so that it's not Steve lecturing Sam about something he's already doing.
pg 6:
This one actually had two "proto" drafts: in the first one, I spent too much time on dealing with Bucky's angst about being an weapon of HYDRA. (which would be fun for a fic, but not for an 8-page comic rant.) Also, I'd originally gone down a darker path of "but they have the power," but I removed that because I didn't want to spend more panels walking back from that particular precipice (although I could have referenced Putin, hah!)
Then from the 2nd version to the final version, I shifted more words around, to further decrease Bucky's angst and give Sam and Bucky something to say in the last panel. Fun fact: Sam and Bucky's dialogue were original switched, but I realized that the line about Trump works better for Bucky who's trying to come out of his funk. I also spent a lot of time reworking transition lines to hit the right tone, before finally landing at "There's only so many ways to shortcut institutional and societal change."
Anyway, hope you found that interesting. I love sharing process stuff, lol.
no subject
no subject
no subject
It means a lot to me.You mean a lot to me.
no subject
no subject
no subject