Rough to Final

Here's a recent comic from start to finish.

As you can see there wasn't much writing involved in this one. I've just done a simple little doodle in my sketchbook and marked it with an asterisk which means it's a comic I will draw up and show my editor at King Features.

I draw the individual parts and compile them in photoshop. Very longwinded but I don't like to draw the various parts in place as I'm too fussy about the positioning of every item. I didn't use much of that kid, did I? Ruthless editing, I call that. I liked him but didn't need him all.

My editor sees my very tight pencil versions and if approved I then trace the rough on my light box and drop the black and white linework into one of my frame templates with the typeface text in place.

I then color it up in Photoshop on a separate layer so that I can use the same file for the grey version that we all have to do for the newspapers.

That's how I do it. Quite different from a lot of cartoonists I know who often ink over their actual roughs and aren't as OCD as me when it comes to neatness etc.