Idea to Object: The Decade Long Creation of “The Perils of Limestone” Comic Book

 

The Making of "The Perils of Limestone" Comic Everyone who lives on the coast or in a large city, with its high costs and density, momentarily ponders the thought while sitting in standstill, never-ending traffic: “What would my life look like if I lived isolated on the quiet prairie with dirt roads?” And thus a seed was planted for the creation of my comic book, The Perils of Limestone. I’m fascinated by natural world phenomena. If there was a volcano channel, I would watch non-stop. Visually I’m fascinated by sinkholes. My brain followed with another thought: “What if you moved to the serene plains and it was just another set of unique problems? Like a sinkhole that caused your house to split in two leaving you trapped in the remaining section hovering on a precipice.” Sarah, the main character in Perils, finds herself at a poignant time in her life trapped in the remnants of her home which is inevitably sliding into the bottomless sinkhole. Over a decade ago, I first wrote this idea down in a small notebook. And thus the process began. I wrote and sketched a general outline of the story. To create reference, I hired a model I had worked with before that is dynamic and absolutely fearless, to pose in the same scenes that the main character, Sarah, finds herself. The model acted frightened, and hovered over a make-believe precipice. The character, Sarah, is stuck in a bathroom with a window too small to fit through. To reflect this environment, the model posed in my tub (she laid on a towel to not freeze). For each illustrated page of my graphic novel, I used the medium I thought would work best and included inks, watercolors, and full-scale oil paintings all inspired by my real life. The cliffs where Sarah sits on a bench and ponders life while looking at the ocean are of Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. My 14x18" oil painting used in the comic: Page as it appears in The Perils of Limestone: Living on the quiet, isolated prairie, Sarah decides to put a bird feeder outside to attract company. The visuals are based on my own bird-feeder which attracted lots of finches (and also inspired the name of this comic book series, Finch). My bird feeder experience resulted in this 13x15" oil painting which becomes a pivotal turning point for Sarah finding strength and resolve. I created maquettes to determine the angles and lighting that provided the most dramatic narrative impact and used these for reference. Spray painted cardboard with a hole cut in the middle and placed on a five-gallon plastic bucket with a tiny cardboard sliver represented the house.   Once the images and words gained a certain maturity and critical mass, I placed them in a Keynote slide deck. This was a powerful step for me as visually it helped having everything together to determine flow and page count. The pages are easy to reorder to create the most compelling story. It also began a very organic process of images affecting the words and vice versa. It helped me weave themes, ideas, and call-backs throughout the story. I continued to develop the images, creating multiple studies of each page before painting the final piece. Once the prose and artwork were completed, I composed them in the printer's template and sent it my local printer. They provided a sample printed copy to make adjustments before the final production run of 100 copies. The Perils of Limestone available now in my shop.