She-Devils – First Issue – Get It

I R excite! I will have two things to read on the bus ride him Wednesday!

Put it in my veins!!!!

GAH! I asked my wife to go get Robo, she only grabs the book PROPER not Real science adventures.

“But you’re *all* ladies!”

More or less. A more accurate way of putting it would be; ladies I have become friends with because of comics. They are all artists of one sort or another, and have links to comics, but they don’t all make comics.

I plan on doing a little write up for the TPB.

Not gonna lie, Reddit Guy had me worried that you’d overplayed Robo’s reaction to the She in She-devils – it would have been so easy to do. Instead, there’s one reaction to Hazel and one, separate query about them being exclusively women. Reddit Guy, why you even gotta be like that.

REDDIT is equal parts awesome and awful. 

If you got a copy with blacked out panels then you indeed got a badly printed copy. If you are referring to the panel in the lower right of the picture you attached, that is called “nighttime”. I am attaching my own low-res copy of the page. Its not perfect, but you might be able to notice the difference between what we see on our computers vs what came out of the printing press.

The line work looks exactly the way it has since we started coloring over my pencils, instead of inking the pages, way back in Volume 4. Unless, again, you purchased a misprinted copy accidentally. It looked normal in my comp issues. Perhaps you should return to your LCS and compare it to another copy.

It is true that Robo’s eyes are not glowing in this volume. It’s an experiment. If we like it we will leave it alone. If we don’t, then we will bring back the glow in Vol.8. So far you are the first person to comment on it, so my assumption is that no one really noticed, and if they did, don’t care enough to ask about it. I’m not sure what that has to do with “tell[ing] the difference between the She-Devils and Robo.”

It is true that in the second half of the book the colors are darker and more saturated than we intended them to be -I think that is what you are referring to when you used the word “bright”. It is an unfortunate side-effect of bringing in a new colorist. Since every printer and paper stock is a little different it can take a few attempts to adjust things on your computer in the studio so that you get the results you want from the printer. It will take a few issues to nail things down. We had the same EXACT problem with the first volume of Robo, but since you had nothing to compare it to you didn’t notice.

Regarding the background color changes you are just plain wrong. Each panel changes deliberately and with a purpose. During the events of pg6 thru pg13 we transition from late afternoon, to sunset, and into twilight. Though it was not scripted or asked for, Nick brilliantly uses the sunset to back-light the Tigermoth on pg8 when we introduce the airship for the first time. In Sequential Storytelling 101 that is known as “Awesome.”

While I try to accept the idea that we all have our opinions, and that they are all perfectly valid, this is not actually something I believe in. Because in order to have a valid opinion you have to actually know what you are talking about. It also helps if you use sentences, paragraphs, and aren’t frothing at the mouth while you deliver your opinion.

I appreciate that you miss Ronda. Though you might have taken the time to spell her name correctly and done your research. While she is certainly award worthy, Ronda had only ever been nominated for them, (an Eisner and a Schuster I think). She has not actually received them, as far as I can remember. 

I am genuinely sorry that my working relationship with Ronda did not work out. But not so sorry that I would give up working with Nick to get it back. Nick has an understanding of color theory and storytelling that I have seen in few other colorists working in comics. The more I work with him the more I feel like Brian and I were complete idiots to not go with him from page 1, Issue #1 of Robo. While we are still ironing out some of the technical wrinkles in our process, it is my opinion that the first eight pages of She-Devils #1 are the best looking Atomic Robo pages that I have ever seen.

I am open to civil and intelligent conversations about the way we do things in Atomic Robo. Things change. that freaks people out. We should talk. When I have the time, I take great pleasure in interacting with our readers through the blog and on Twitter.But if you are going to come to our blog just to rant and talk shit about a member of our team, do yourself and us a favor and don’t waste our goddamn time.

Someone always mistakes things that exist only in their imagination for content on the page.

I have some blank speech-bubbles on page 2 of my issue.

Jetpack guy: ???
Robo: Total loss of power, avionics are shot etc etc
Jetpack guy: ???

A bit annoying, but i enjoyed the rest.

The lack of facial detail is two-fold.

First; I am trying to get a little more abstract in how I tackle human faces. Robo’s gotten more and more abstracted since Issue #1, but not much else has. I’m trying to apply this growth across the entire book now.

Second; I am drawing much smaller. The pages in the comic books are at 100% actual size. Normal comic pages are actually about 36% larger, allowing a lot more room for detail. The physical page size, coupled with a lot of long to medium shots required to show interior parts of the Tigermoth, or give a sense of scale to the air battle, all lead to tiny tiny faces a lot of the time. 

I was not too happy with pg13 to be honest though. It was my first time interpreting Veronica Fish’s character at the controls of the airship and I kind of hate her face. Not her real face. It is very pretty. But the face I drew based on her real face. Robo and Hazel’s faces on that page are smaller than the fingernail on my pinkie, so . . yeah they would have to be simple.

My current goal, and area to improve on, is facial expressions -making them telegraph the emotions more, while at the same time simplifying the structure of the faces. Its not easy, and I’m always learning, but I think just about ever panel with Lauren (the crazy mechanic with the kerchief around her neck) works in this regard. Actually, overall, these are the best faces I have ever drawn-maybe not the most appealing depending on your taste, but definitely technically -in terms of putting noses and eyes in the right place and properly shaping the skulls, etc.