SR 1 PAGE ONE

THE FIRST ISSUE BEGINS.

Blasting out of the gate with the most dynamic page in the whole book! You are welcome.

I mentioned last week that Rikki Simons was one of the key people (along with Jhonen Vasquez) who encouraged me to make a Serenity Rose comic. For this I will never forgive them, and am also eternally grateful. That’s how comics work!

I don’t remember what specific “Photoshop assistance” Rikki provided for me, but it might literally have been “gave me a copy of Photoshop.” My PS skills were pretty much infant-level ca. 2001.

Can you believe we didn’t even have computers for character design on Invader ZIM? I still remember using a hammer and chisel to carve Mortos Der Soulstealer on the rock wall of my cubicle at Nick. The color department (featuring Rikki) had Photoshop, but all line drawing from character design to BG’s to storyboarding was done in classic caveman ways. We might’ve been one of the last productions to wield chisels, actually. Lost art, dearly missed!

No chiseling for me at home, though. My process for the first two Serenity Rose books involved scanning mechanical pencil drawings into Photoshop, playing with levels and curves, then dropping in some grey tones (and later bits of color). At first I was selecting the toned areas with a mouse, but eventually I graduated to a bleeding-edge Intuos tablet about the size of four postage stamps pressed together. Heaven.

This particular page here utilizes the mind-blowing “invert” procedure. Highly, highly technical stuff… They say the process defeated nearly every elite haxXxor of the age, but luckily I had access to Ultimate Adobe Guru Rosearik “Rikki” Simons for any questions. I suspect he told me which menu included “invert,” then called me a serial killer for drawing all those teensy-tiny little happy faces.

(SIDE NOTE: I used to wear a happy face button on my jacket every day for about a decade. If you were at a goth/industrial/noise show in the LA area ca. 1997-2007 and saw a nerd in a black jacket with a happy face button, that was me.)

SR 1 PAGE TWO

“Dear Diaries Are Stupid…”

Always been proud of that lil’ bit of snottery. Sera will go through the motions of journaling, but she’s going to make sure posterity records she didn’t like it. I don’t know much about court-appointed psychologist procedures (research? BAH!), but I suspect this diary was never meant to be read by anyone but Sera. Meaning no one will ever see this little snarl. But venting a wee bit probably released a few endorphins, right? Pretty good reason to keep a diary!

Huh… Maybe I should keep a diary… (Or, y’know, just type up some thoughts in a newsletter once a week.)

I’m noticing right here on the first proper page of the book we’ve already got GENDER STUFF. Sera dismisses diaries as “girly.” (Which comic books are not, apparently? Good to know?) 2023 me wouldn’t write it the same way, but it still feels right for Sera. She’s pushing back against societal expectations and assigned gender roles, which we all have to do at least a tiny bit to figure out who we really are. What we don’t have to do is have big ol’ chips on our shoulders about it, though. Right now Sera’s carrying a chip the size of several California redwoods. Can she whittle it down??

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

Just a few minutes ago I sent all the SHOCK CITY special features off to my editor at Viking. Hope she likes it! If she does, it means my only major task left is the final version of the cover.

At this point I am desperately trying to resist the urge to flip through the book over and over and over, because every time I do that I find 800 things I’d love to revise.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” – The guy who worked on the Mona Lisa for 16 years until he dropped dead.

NEXT WEEK: BLACK, MOSTLY.