Graphic Novelist talks about End Pages
Welcome to the first ever page-by-page time-lapse commentary of a complete graphic novel. Today we are looking at the first of Cloud Town end pages. If you're a reader, comics lover, writer, artist, educator, or librarian there may be something here for you! There are spoilers so read ahead at your local library, or favorite comic book retailer. Signed copies are available at my website and the following stores. If your comic book retailer would like to be added to this list, have them shoot contact me via email and I'll send some signed book plates their way. https://danielmccloskey.com/shop/clou... Signed copies available at: USA: CA--Mission: Comics and Art, Comix Experience, Silver Sprocket, Cape & Cowl, Sour Cherry Comics, Escapist Comics, Knowhere Games & Comics, The Comic Bug, Current Comics, Hicklebees GA-- Read It Again Bookstore MI--Vault of Midnight NC--Ssalefish, The Country Bookshop NY-- Books of Wonder, Gutter Pop Comics, Anyone Comics, Desert Island Comics, Everyone Comics IL-- Quimby's OR--Cosmic Monkey Comics PA-- The Copacetic Comics Company, Phantom of the Attic, FireFly Bookstore, Main Point Books TX-- Space Cadets Collection Collection VA-- Velocity Comics WA-- The Comics Place Not on this list and want to be? message me: https://danielmccloskey.com/press Praise for Cloud Town: "Weirdly and unexpectedly wonderful." Kirkus Reviews "A rollicking giant monster adventure will be a hit with fans of Hannah Templer's Cosmoknights and Tillie Walden's On a Sunbeam." School Library Journal "Meet Daniel McCloskey - a bold, new cartooning voice! Cloud Town is a beast! It's original. It's different. It's full of energy and life! Kaiju, skateboarding, manga, YA, so many ideas, and great cartooning! This is a special graphic novel. It feels like the future." Jim Rugg- The PLAIN Janes, Street Angel, Hulk Grand Design, Cartoonist Kayfabe channel "You're going to want to hold on tight for a wild ride from beginning to end! A thrilling adventure defined by Pen's strength and Olive's bravery," Eric Colossal- Rutabaga the Adventure Chef
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to Cloud Town Tuesday, the
day where I share a page from my
graphic novel, Cloud Town, and um, tell
you about the process of making it.
It's like a, um, editor's
commentary on a DVD.
So if you're a comics fan, if
you're a friend of mine, if you
are an artist looking for insights
into the comics process, here
it is, let's go, let's do it.
Guys, uh, so this is the end page,
this should be a quicker one today.
So what you're seeing now is me drawing
and thinking about like a traditional
end page, ones I've liked in the past.
Sometimes I've really enjoyed ones
that are a simple seeming pattern,
uh, that have elements of whatever
story we're about to dive into.
End pages, if you're unfamiliar, are
just that last piece of paper in a
hardcover book that help glue the
cardboard case to the paper of the pages.
And they're often the place for flair,
especially in novels like "text" books.
They'll be a place where there's a
little bit of art and it's the closest
to, I always feel like, the fade in,
the opening kind of credits to a novel.
So after I got that kind of pattern
in there that I was playing with,
um, I thought, well, on the back of
Pen's hoodie, there's supposed to be
a patch that says "whatever forever,"
or at least that's how I imagined it.
Um, my partner used to
say "whatever forever."
A lot.
When, you know, things
didn't matter too much.
Uh, and I thought that was funny and cool.
So, I realized by the end of the
book that all of the scenes that
would have had Whatever Forever
on it, the hood was in the way.
So I was like, well, maybe I can
have a cool image of the front and
the back of each character on the
front and the back of the book.
Penn would have to be in the front
because in the back you'd have,
, Olive to show how much
she's changed with her kind of cool
intense jacket she gets at the end.
You can see the way I'm drawing
over and over and over again.
There's a reason like most
cartoonists and illustrators start
with a general shape and imagine it
and then add the add the details.
Because I always feel like I I am
trying to get away from the idea that
I'm like, kind of sculpting the thing.
Um, when I was young, I used to do,
my sister used to do more drawing and
painting and I used to do more clay stuff.
And the truth is that, um, my imagination
often works best by iterating and
like, Seeing what I see and then
adjusting, which means I spend a lot
more miles with my Apple pencil in
this case, then strictly necessary.
Um, but yeah, that was one idea,
but I had some time before I heard
they really want to end pages.
Um, By the time that happened, I
didn't love that idea too much.
I ended up settling because
again, I had almost no time left.
I only had maybe two
days to do six end pages.
Um, so I thought, What if we
kind of expanded the world?
Because we don't get to see a lot of
Hurricanes, a lot of the monsters.
And I thought of this almost like,
you know, like the Pokemon kind
of playing card idea where you
get to see a bunch of creatures.
So for this first end page, I
just kind of doodled the first
weird monsters that come to mind.
And when people buy copies of
my book, I doodle like the first
monster that comes to my mind.
And, uh, and these are the ones
that popped in my head for page one.
After that, um, I started getting a
little repetitive, so I had to get
creative, uh, in a different kind of way.
Uh, creative, um, creative
source of inspiration.
But that is something we will talk
about next week on Cloudtown Tuesday.
Uh, I am in a rush to go pedicab.
Um, so I gotta go back to my
day job, make some money, so I
can draw you guys more comics.
Thank you for being
here and helping me out.