Alan OW Barnes

Wow! I’m almost 24 pages into Basilica (I’m posting the last 3 pages over the next week), and this will conclude chapter 1.

I have to admit that this is the first actual sequential comic I’ve drawn since middle school. I’ve drawn plenty of pages, single images, logos, storyboards for :30-7:00 films, etc. I’ve even drawn a 20 minute motion comic. But this was the first time I’ve ever tried to tell a story with nothing but words and pictures. Let me tell you, it’s a lot harder than I thought.

It may be hard because I’m having to invent a lot. I want my comic art to look like the ’serious’ artists of the genre. By serious I don’t mean the ‘really great artists (though I think they are really great), I mean they tell stories with weight. I’m thinking of Alex Maleev, Michael Lark, Steve Epting, and Butch Guice.

My artwork doesn’t come close to any of them. I’ve got such a long way to go as an artist and as a storyteller. I have been able to make pretty good looking single images so I had no idea about the problems creating consistent line work, cinematographic lighting and camera angles, recognizable characters from panel to panel, backgrounds, props…holy crap!

So, I’ve decided to go to art school. I’m going to keep making this web comic, don’t worry, but It will probably continue to morph in terms of it’s look until I am confident that I can tell a whole story with a single look, or I have enough control to make sections of my comics look the way I want. For example, I would love to have the kind of control Dave McKean possess. I still blown away every time I look through Violent Cases and realize that he simply turns on the style he needs for each panel.

I’d also like to have an Alex Maleev type command of texture, and a Butch Guice command of the ‘normal’ mainstream sequential art language.

That all having been said, I have decided to break up Basilica into 8 page stories so that you will be able to read a satisfying chunk every month instead of every 3-6 months. I know I can produce 2 pages per week.

The other issue here is that I will only be producing content while the Art Institute (where I teach audio production) is actually in session. The reason is that when AI is not is session, I find that I must commit my time to tasks that need larger bits of time, like film making. I can’t easily make a film, no matter how short, while school is in session because I need 8-12 hour sections of time to produce the work.

Comics can be drawn, and music can be composed in the nooks and crannies. Getting actors in a room that has been lit properly to say a bunch of words emotively that they have not had proper time to memorize takes a really long time.

So, that’s the game plan.

AIA is in session 40 weeks per year. So hopefully, that means I’ll produce 80 pages per year of Basilica till it’s done. I foresee it taking 3 years.

I will also be drawing Darkness at the rate of 10 panels per week. Darkness is easier to keep consistent because it’s black and white. Darkness volume 1 will be about 500 panels, so I hope to have it done by the end of the year.

I’ve got other stuff planed, but let’s get that far before I start telling you about it.

Anyway, this leads up to the big news which is: I start art classes at SCAD in September. I’ll be working on a degree in Sequential Art. I hope I will learn all I need in order to achieve the goals I have for myself in the medium.