I wanted to take this post to thank everyone who bought The Black Hole Hunter's Club. Ricky and I (but mostly Ricky) sold a hell of a lot more than we expected to. We are currently working on issues #2 & #3 so we can have #2 ready for Fan Expo 2013 (Toronto) & #3 by early fall. If you are interested in picking up a copy we have them available at 3 of the finest stores in the GTA.
For online orders click HERE for Stadium's Online Exclusives.
Here's a breakdown of the cover process.
#1- We had little time to get our cover done so that we could launch to at
Free Comic Book Day 2013 so I had to do it quite simple. Simple but effective.
Since it's a Sci-Fi we could use space as the backdrop which was very helpful.
I usually do multiple sketches/concepts but for this cover I did only this one
& sent it off to Ricky for approval.
#2 - We both liked the concept sketch so I started on the final version.
My normal method is to fully pencil and then ink my stuff but again, because we had much less time, I did very loose, light pencils and then did most of the drawing in ink with my Winsor Newton series #7 brushes.
I actually did the whole book in this style and found it gave everything a bit more energy.
#3) After it was all drawn and inked, I scanned it in & cleaned it up.
This is the stage where I used a small, soft, low-opacity brush in photoshop
to dot the black space behind to give it those stars.
#4) Now this is the most important stage and where everything all came together.
With little time before our deadline, we reached out to our pal David Bishop and he agreed to color our cover. If you don't know David Bishop, he is another incredibly
talented local creator & he does a great zombie comic called Stranger,
which is available online and in those previously mentioned comic shops.
I also just previewed David's new book 'Of Stone'
that will be out in time for Fan Expo this summer
and let me tell you, you'll want this book.
So, David quickly turned around the colors on the cover and did such a great job.
I know how I would've done it & this was much better than anything I pictured.
Ricky & I both agreed that this had so much wonderful energy now.
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#5 - All I had left to do was create a cool looking title.
I was just playing around with simple fonts that come with photoshop
and this is what I came up with. It's kind of a retro looking thing.
I really just want to make sure I thank everyone involved in making this book such a success. The Comic Book Lounge, Paradise Comics, Stadium Comics, Kieren Smith, David Bishop, Sam Noir & everyone else who picked up the book and who will pick up the book. #2 will be out very soon. Thanks.
