It Is A Circle Blog

One of the things I was able to do whilst in America, was see the process of page creation through from almost the beginning, to the end.

What I missed was the stage where Tom sites down with the script and figures out how much of it is going on the next page and how to lay out the panels. I gather a fair few comics writists detailed descriptions to work from, but I don’t. I’m not a very visual person, and figured out a long time ago that Tom has a far better idea than I do how to lay out comics pages, and what to put on them. The scripts I give him are almost entirely dialogue, with occasional extra details where the plot calls for them. The look of the story is entirely his.

Once there’s a plan, the panels go onto the comic board, followed by some fairly basic outlines to get positioning clear. There may be research at this stage, to find objects, or details of interiors, building and landscape to add interest to the page. Tom is careful to make sure there’s plenty to look at. I’ve helped with the research stage from afar before now, and we’ve drawn on the landscapes of my childhood as well as Maine to create the look of the place.

I’d rather imagined a drawing process where you start with the first panel and work through, but Tom doesn’t do it that way. He’ll move about between panels, sometimes because he needs to reference the backgrounds between them, but often for reasons that I can’t fathom. Basic shapes become details, faces emerge, and then finally the detailed shading happens – a curious process in which graphite is applied, smeared, rubbed out and otherwise kicked into the shape of his choosing. All of the original artwork is done in graphite, which is why the pages take a while to create. Typically half a page a day, if there are no distractions.

Watching Tom figure out perspective is like seeing a magician performing arcane ritual. As a non-artist, I don’t understand it in the slightest, but the results are amazing, and seeing them emerge is quite some experience.

Once the artwork is done, Tom scans the page, and adds colour using a wacom tablet, and does the speech marks on the computer as well. (Having seen his handwriting, this is a decidedly good thing). This part of the process is a lot quicker. Then the computer tech stage happens, and the new page is released into the world.

Feel free to ask if you want more details about any of the above.

We can now offer you a new way of buying posters. http://www.bdposter.com/category.php?id_category=9 

A couple of weeks ago some very nice French blokes got in touch to ask if they could sell posters of Tom’s work and take his art around European conventions. How cool is this? There’s a few posters up already. I haven’t yet bought from the site, so there’s a lot I can’t tell you (and will let you know when I find out!) but the price is good, and we get a better precentage from them than we do from sites like zazzle.

If there’s anything you’d like to see as a poster – any of the banners, covers of Vendetta art that do please let us know and we’ll make that happen. There will be more images going to that site anyway.

A few weeks ago, Tom put some of his art on www.zazzle.com/copperage and we touted it around a bit. I’m conscious that if you’ve not used a site like this, buying on trust isn’t easy. I’ve bought a heap of zazzle t-shirts for myself, my child and friends, and they’ve now landed so I thought I’d post about the experience.

Zazzle has outposts in a number of countries, so if you aren’t in America, have a look and see if you have a ‘local’ branch as it reduces postage costs and means you won’t get hit for unexpected taxes – in the UK (where I am) buying from abroad frequently induces VAT charges, and no one likes giving money to the taxman if they can help it! Buying in your own currency makes costs easier to understand too.

I bought through the UK site, and it’s taken about ten days for the goods to turn up – which is well within the realms of normal for shopping online. The shopping process was easy enough. The t-shirts look great – I have both black and white ones, various sizes. What you get is the design in latex on your garment, and the pictures reproduce very well. The t-shirts are lightweight, and good. Having bought from zazzle I feel entirely at ease about recomending it.

Most of the cost of the garment is taken up with the t-shirt, the printing and the posting. Yes, it is more expensive than buying something out of a store, but that’s inevitable – although zazzle offers discounts for large purchases.

At time of writing, there are Annamarie Nightshade Ts, Hopeless Vendetta ones, young Salamandra, and a version of Annamarie with ‘The Coven’ on it – which Tom did for my singing group (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGOdiA3nbFc )

http://thepaganandthepen.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/interview-with-tom-brown/ for some insights into Tom Brown. I certainly learned a few things during the grilling process. (It seemed only fair to cover him liberally with grated cheese first…)

At some point we’ll organise a few question and answer sessions to post here. Next interview here will be Jimmy Miz from The Vortex Machines, and we also have Donna Barr coming along to chat next week.

I first encountered Oghme through Twitter – which is a great place to make random connections and encounter new and interesting stuff. Being partial to Irish mythology myself, I was intrigued by Oghme. The art is striking, the writing engaging. So, I pounced on Cathbad and Mirlikovir for an interview.

Bryn: I see that both you and Mirlikovir are French, so I was wondering what drew you to working with figures from Irish mythology?

Oghme: Well, we’re from Bretagne, the Celtic part of France, facing Wales. It’s an ancient Celtic country, with a language of its own (Breton), and  has been part of France since the end of the middle ages. But the Breton language persisted till our days and our culture is closely related to that of other Celtic countries, aka Wales, Man, Ireland, Galice…  We’ve been fond of the Cuchulainn epic for a long time, and Mirlikovir (illustrator at Oghme Comics), who has specialized in working with  museums and archaeologists, is as close a specialist of the Celtic Iron Age cultures as can be. Working together on an adaptation of the Cuchulainn epic to Comics has been on our mind for a long time. And as Cathbad (scriptwriter) is fluent in English, we made the choice very
early on to release our comics both in English and French.

Bryn: Of all the characters you are working with, who is your favourite?

Oghme: This one is easy. Setanta !! Setanta is Cuchulainn’s childhood name. And  it’s funny as at the beginning of our projects, we were focused on the telling of the Cuchulainn epic. Not the “Setanta epic”. The main source for this series of tales (also called the Red Branch epic) is a text known under the name of  “Cattle Raid of Cooley”, in which Cuchulainn plays a central part. In this story, Cuchulainn is already a grown up (at least as grown up as can be at age 16) and defeats the armies of four of the provinces of Ireland, united against the northern province of Ulster. We very soon figured that we were more interested in telling how Cuchulainn would become what he was, a very complex and violent character from the Iron Age, than we were in retelling the war which follows the Cattle Raid. So we went for his childhood instead. And even if  some medieval sources mention Cuchulainn’s youth and early adolescence, there’s almost nothing concerning his early childhood. We liked the challenge of trying to figure it out in our own way. Setanta is our hero, our main character, our favorite, no questioning that. But Fergus, Cuchulainn’s stepfather, Amergin the bard & warrior,  Conchobar (Connor Mac Nesssa) the king of Ulster, Dechtire (Cuchulainn’s  Mother), Ferdiad (Cuchulainn’s “brother in arms”) are very interesting characters too. The Gods Oghme and Morrigan play a huge part in our telling of this epic, and we’ve become quite fond of them. And there’s little Bairrfhionn, a made up character acting as Setanta’s young pal. We’ve learned to love the young brat.

Bryn: How did you come to be working together?

Cathbad : I first met with Mirlikovir’s brother, Erwan, who is an amazing artist and old friend of mine (and whose black and white drawings are totally amazing). Mirlikovir has been working for 15 years now as an illustrator for history books and museums, focusing on three periods : Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Napoleonic wars era. But whenever he has time, he focuses on the Iron Age period, and the Epic of Cuchulainn has always been his favourite source of inspiration. He would come to my place at weekends with gorgeous illustrations of Celtic heroes, gods, places… hundreds of them. And one day, he brought with him a series of illustrations representing a young kid playing with a hurling stick and a ball. This was totally new. This Cuchulainn as a kid, Setanta, was a genuine Comic Books character. I slept on the idea, contacted Mirlikovir the next morning to ask him if he would like to try and tell the Cuchulainn’s epic from a child’s point of view, in a comic series format. Mirlikovir was in instantly, this was four years ago. Since then we’ve been dedicating all of our spare time to bringing Setanta to life.

You can read more here –

CucuC – Little Brute from the Iron Age (http://cucuc.oghme.com)
Cuchulainn – The Hound of Ulster (http://cuchulainn.oghme.com)