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Cloud Town Tuesday Part 5, comix commentary with friends

Daniel McCloskey: [00:00:00] The quality of this video is astounding. You all look magnificent. Okay, so, welcome to CloudTown Tuesday. The day where I share a page from my graphic novel, CloudTown, 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. I'm gonna try talking I don't want people to see me. I'm gonna play the time lapse of me doing this page. Alright. And like, we're gonna talk about it. Are you gonna be in the video too? Yeah, I I am in it. You gotta you gotta I'm definitely in it. Hey, whoa, whoa. I don't know if there's enough space.

No, I'm not going to sit. I'm just going to crouch. I'm going to sit on your comics. We're the Three Stooges. Time lapse replay. Alright,

Apple: you guys take the wheel.

Daniel McCloskey: So, uh, this is a time lapse? Yeah, so [00:01:00] this, I don't actually remember When this was drawn because the process of like the spread page in the zine version Was a two page spread and I spent a lot of time following this bird that actually mattered more in the story in earlier version like around Where's the bird?

It's not even in here. My god Um, I think it comes back and has like a minor role in the final version. I like how you've laid it out um But oh yeah, so like this You Okay, so this was for the actual comic because at this point I found out I wasn't gonna have space. For a thank you page maybe even like I thought I was only allowed 224 pages So I wanted to put in like little thank yous to my friends.

It's okay No cursing Kirt my patrons are used to bad quality, but they're not used to curse So so I started putting in thank yous in this Like, that's my buddy Nate, who I did Bears in Space with. Oh, that's cool. And, like, [00:02:00] that is, uh, the Tell Me Something I Don't Know podcast logo, which was Jim Rugg's podcast prior to, um, Oh.

Yeah, and Ed was on it for a while at the end. That's cool. And also Jason Lex, who's a cartoonist from Pittsburgh. So that's like, you know, year zero. I mean, they all were doing stuff even before that. I definitely was excited about having a car crash in the second story up here. The thing that is weird to me watching this is like, it seems like I have like no idea what I'm doing.

I'm just like drawing bits here, bits there. I generally feel like, like that, like, you generally don't know what you're doing. I mean, no, not you, but me. Like when I'm drawing, I don't know what I'm doing. And then, you know, it always feels like a struggle. Yeah. So I think that's just, you know, part of it, you know.

But I wanted a foot. That's cool. The one thing I think I would [00:03:00] change in how you're doing it is the lines for the foreground, middle ground, and background are equivalent, so it blends, it flattens. Get out of here! So Alyssa is actually at work right now while we are just out in leisure time, so she has to keep running back to the desk to help people.

Yeah. So, like, So wait, what does that mean? So, like, this part right here, um, is the same line, uh, quality as the background. Yeah. And also, you have the same level of detail, roughly, as the background and the foreground. Right, so that's something I didn't learn about. That's Till I worked at this comic shop.

So we're in Mission Comics right now. I drew this entire graphic novel and then got a job here. And I read 5, 000 more pages of comics, like since getting this job than I had prior. I've bought comics and I've put them on a stack. Is that equivalent? You've read a lot of pages. And [00:04:00] you went to art school, I went to writing school.

But like, yeah, so, for example, I found out that like, manga artists, like, usually the main artist does the main characters, which are usually the foreground, and they all do it in a thicker line. And so, I only discovered that that's one way that artists create perspective, is by having the line quality smaller when it's farther back, basically.

Or, or bluer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And generally, you know, it's like with atmospheric perspective, there's going to be a thinner line and less detail the farther you go back. I mean, also this is my first time really working in an infinite zoom situation, working digitally on an iPad where you can always zoom in to get detail in the background.

And it is one of the great, um, strengths and weaknesses of iPads is like, right. Or. Yeah, you have the ability to constantly add more detail and therefore things can get flat, weirdly. And also, the danger of that, because I do a lot of that when I do digital, where [00:05:00] I zoom in, throw in some lines and zoom out, is that sometimes you'll start Putting in detail that's not going to be able to be shown on the page.

It'll just be a blob or come out as gray or black when it's printed. Like, there's this little dog in the footprint of this creature. Like, hey, stop cursing on my page. It's fine. It's kids books. Kirt has a super adult book that's doing very well. We'll bleep those. I won't. It takes time. Or maybe I'll just cut him out.

I'll be like, stop cursing. Uh, but yeah, I thought like, to make it more dramatic, to have like the sense of loss. Like so, I was having him howl. That's, that's his house. Yeah. But his doghouse is fine. He's fine. He's gonna be alright. He should be okay. Well, in the earlier version of this story, this is like the opening page now, kind of.

But they used to like, they had a night where they survived a hurricane. Him [00:06:00] meeting a giant monster. But, it was like, kind of a waited reveal. Because they were like, hiding in their basements. Much like you might, you know, with the normal hurricane or storm like i did when i was a kid and storms would go through the east coast And like then they're on their way to school And then they're like wait, isn't that like mr.

T's house like their old teacher or something? It's like they're like, yes

We're different kinds of writers Also, uh talking about atmosphere You put in one, uh, tone down for the foreground, middle ground, and background. Go either way, but you can have, like, a lighter tone in the background, and then it slowly gets darker as you go foreground, or the reverse. You know, and that helps create that illusion for going into depth.

As you see me, like, working this forever, like, as it gets later, you'll see me kind of intuit that, even though I don't know what I'm doing. Like, and sometimes I've found, , one of the things that made me feel like, [00:07:00] is just understanding some of those rules a little bit. I really like the lettering. The cloud town and the arrow and the belt.

Thanks, yeah, this is like supposed to be like So the belt, what's the belt again? It's just the giant wall. Oh, okay. It never gets in detail. It's just the wall that goes across the island. And the, and the, like, the rip in the universe is on the other side of the Oh, okay. There's that howl, and But, like, yeah, it's not really something that most people will see.

Although, one of the ideas, like, I also don't know what that, um, like, little billboard is in the background. I suspect it's a joke. Um, or something. Oh, you forgot? I don't know, and it's too small to see. You're doing in Comic advertising. Yeah. It's up in, like, Coca Cola. Maybe it was top of the line. One of my old comics opens with a billboard.

So is this somewhat of like how you, you know, like sometimes you have a map and it's pointing out like different landmarks? At the very opening I have like a, there's like a, [00:08:00] an app that shows you where your kids are basically. On the island especially, like when there's a monster coming. So before this was a page where you kinda saw the map.

Oh, you know this music's gonna be in the video. Seems alright. And it's like I drew pears and apples on the wallpaper here. It's like why, why did I do that? Where? There's like, the wallpaper behind this lamp in this crutch house. Yeah, that actually feels like it's, uh, particles on the ground. Yeah. Oh, that's neat.

You did a, um, a, uh, Ziptone effect? Yeah, I was experimenting with it, and I started doing more and more of that. Like, honestly, because I bought a program that let me do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, like, That's nice texture, too. My editor was trying to, you know, was wanting me to use different shades... and stuff, but I didn't understand what she was talking about.

At the beginning of the project, it was like, it's just gonna be two colors. Yeah, that was black and blue. And then I tried to convince them to make the two colors [00:09:00] like, colors that could mix, right? Like a dark blue and a dark blue. Dark red. Right. Then I could do purple and red and pink and light blue.

Right, right. But, it was too late. Well, that would be cool. Yeah, no, I'm interested in doing something like that. Now, uh, With the, with the blue, can you have different gradations of it? I can, and I can mix it with gray. Okay, so you can mix it with that. But I didn't really start experimenting with that till after the whole book was done, and I finally had a Like I really didn't look over the book with the editor, like the art of it, until the book was completely finished, which Which was unfortunate because it would have saved me months of time Right, but I was really proud of that when I figured that out where I was just like cutting chunks of the sky And using different like erasers to getting, soften it up Also, I'm constantly Googling, like, car crashes, flipped sedan, like, or, like, hurricanes, tornado damage.

I look up tornado damage stuff all the time. In the original [00:10:00] version of this, I don't, oh, there's the bird. In the original version of this See, actually, the bird is a really good addition, because it does create that foreground. I think it gets cut out, I'm not sure, I can't remember. Okay, well, I would remove it.

I'm just, what am I doing now? I like this punk rock house. Oh yeah, so all the houses have spikes on it? So that like, you don't want a creature to step on it? Step on it. Oh, okay. Oh no, so I'm drawing, figuring out the next page on top of this page for some reason. I don't understand why I chose That's awesome.

Is that what's happening? I don't know what's going on here. What am I doing? I do know that this bird I specifically chose because it's one of the few birds that go to north america and also the pacific islands And they're water birds. So you live on the water mostly and so I had a subplot that may show up in a book one day where like People were smuggling information out of cloud town by like Tying RDF tags to these birds.

Oh, that's [00:11:00] cool, that's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. Um, there's a lot of stuff like that. Yeah, that's interesting. It is. So you finished the whole book, showed it to the editor and they said, okay, we got, we've got some notes.

Well, we did the script a lot. A lot of it was in script editing and if I were going to do it again, I have really, I have really concrete ways of how I would try to interact with the editor. Um, and one thing I would want to do is I would want to maybe not do scripts. I want to do tight outline. I want to do thumbnails.

Right, right. And I would want to have a approval for at least a chunk of comics that has every style that'll be in the book. For the dialogue, would you still use script? Or would you No, because it's Like, how do you go about, uh, tightening the dialogue? In outline and in script, like, that is like a screenplay, right? Right. But screenplay dialogue, if you actually get the original version of the screenplay, the screenplay isn't what's on camera.

Oh yeah, [00:12:00] it's like, while you're doing it, that's like your improv time, that's like That's like the live dialogue, and then you cut stuff down. So, I just feel like, in the actual comic making, you can cut out a lot of dialogue, or you can be like, oh, I'm realizing that this might be confusing to people, I can have someone complain about something, you know.

Yeah, there's also just the space demand, too. Yeah. Like, so you have to make sure the dialogue's really crisp. I mean, that's one of the problems with scripting. So it moves forward. Each panel. Yeah. And, and also just the page, just feeling the page out and feeling how much space is gonna get built. Mm-Hmm.

and having room for jokes. Yeah. Because visual jokes take pages like Yeah. Like if you want someone to fall. Slip and Fall on a Banana peel, that might be two pages. Yeah. You know, like. So, if you don't leave allowance and space for that, it would be a problem. What about, uh, Who's on first, what's on second?

Yeah, that's a whole graphic novel. That's a whole graphic novel. Abbott and Costello by IDW. My mom was just, uh, at a lecture by [00:13:00] some children's book author that was very successful. He's in his 60s. And he's like, oh yeah, someone tried to hire me to do a graphic novel, and I asked how many pages it was, and what it was paying, and I was like, "no".

What you get paid per page for a children's book is so much better. It's a bigger, uh, kids need to read more children's books. No kids, read comics. Yeah. Or, just read. Yeah, reading's good. So, this was also a back and forth thing because originally I wanted my pen name to be Bean Can Dan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had, or just Bean Can, so that was a back and forth.

It's a good tag name. Yeah, I don't know, it's just hard to, I've, I've spent, I'm so sorry to the other Daniel Patrick McCloskey. Like, cause I've spent. Apple just, like. Gave up on us. Nah, screw it. Alyssa, it's alright. What? It's alright, you gave up, it's okay.

Apple: Oh, I didn't give up, I just, I need my chair space.

Daniel McCloskey: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeaKirturt. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, [00:14:00] I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll switch. Oh Jesus! All your horror manga. Do I have to buy these now? You have to. Yeah, well, Kirt just bought four more books. Alright.

Apple: Alright. Tag team.

Daniel McCloskey: Were you listening?

Apple: A little bit. I was kind of, uh, using my Crayola crayons and coloring.

I

Daniel McCloskey: mean, you're also at work.

Apple: Yes, I am also working.

Daniel McCloskey: This is just like one of the pages I drew. It was like early on, I think? Although I would have been coming back to it a lot. Cause it's like the opening page of Cloudtown.

Apple: How long did it take to draw this?

Daniel McCloskey: I have no idea. Everything took for I guess we on the time lapse replay, we're at 14 hours and 53 minutes.

Apple: Damn. Did you use photos for it?

Daniel McCloskey: I did not.

Apple: Okay, cool. It did not occur

Daniel McCloskey: to me to do that.

Apple: Damn, so that's from an uh, imagination?

Daniel McCloskey: Yeah.

Apple: That's really good. I

Daniel McCloskey: started using photos a couple of times, uh, like in the last few months of working on the book. And I was like, wow, this is awesome. It takes [00:15:00] no time. If I just like, I was like drawing a street scene and then I was like, wait, and I just like went outside, like stood on a little ladder, took a picture of my street, brought it in, traced it.

And uh, I was like, wow. That was, that was smart. Let's do that. Wait, at

Apple: what point in your comic did it take, um, for you to realize that you could use photos? I

Daniel McCloskey: mean Well, I didn't do that until it was almost done. It felt like, I also, like, have, like, weird preconceptions. Yeah, I almost put a monster there. I was like, no, too much.

Like, I have weird preconceptions about what is, like, real cartooning. Oh, see here, Kirt, what you're saying is, like, I've tried doing the different tones there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. But by the time I came back and did this, I had finished the book. So, the first half of us seeing me trying this drawing, I hadn't drawn the book yet.

And then I went and drew the whole book and then came back and messed with it. By the time Amulet there showed up, I didn't even know what the imprint was. You know, like, how, it might be a good thing to, like, look how, uh, the guy on Attack on Titan, either the manga or the [00:16:00] anime. Draw scenes within a wall, walled area.

Yeah, that dude knows how to, um, scope cities. I mean, it just has reference. You know, I haven't read the makeup, so I don't. The original art for it was. It's pretty bad, honestly. It's expressive. Yeah, that's what I said. The colored versions are shit. Oh yeah, the colored versions. Colored versions. I mean, don't read the colored versions.

I'm sorry. Like, this is just garbage. What about this?

Uh, the gods, I think you're gonna get this wrong. No, it's backwards. So the attack on titan fans psychically, like, like, how dare you criticize our story. So like, this is like, what am I even doing anymore? What is going on? So this is Yeah, why are you adding on to it now? Oh yeah, this is a different page. I just started drawing a different page on garbage.

The coloring's garbage. [00:17:00] The art is smart. Is it

Apple: smart? Well, I mean, if it, well, I guess if it's just a different thing completely and not related.