Page layouts have been a real challenge for me lately. I mean, really a challenge. Most of the time, I rough out one or two thumbnail concepts, take the best from each, and start outlining the page. Within half an hour, I’m boxing out the page on a bristol board and a few minutes after that, I’m drawing the page. It hasn’t been happening like that for me lately. At any given point in the comic, I focus on one part of my creation process and push hard to improve it. Right now, it’s my layouts. I feel that my layouts have always been clear and easy to follow; now, what I’m trying to do is add a little more excitement to the layouts. It’s a fine line to walk. Go too action-y and readers are lost in a sea of close-ups of people punching, kicking, and screaming. No one really has any idea what’s going on but at a glance, it looks great. I see far too much of this in modern Marvel & DC comic books. I’ve been reading comics for almost 30 (gulp) years now and if a creator loses me during a page, it’s a failure on them, not me. I’m a well-trained comic monkey. I know all the tricks and treats and follow along with most of the obscure layouts that a newer reader would balk at and probably put the book down, confused at what it is that he or she just saw.

So, I’ll never stop trying to make my pages as clear as possible. But they don’t have to be boring, either. I think page complexity is another one of modern comics’ big problems. Just to read a book and follow along, you need a skill set honed since childhood. That’s not a good way to pick up readers. Comics should inherently be easy to understand and follow, not difficult. They’re picture books, for crying out loud.

Enough about that. This page is about Karter sneaking into the flat to find the notebook (hopefully) left by Nick. It’s a relatively action-free page but I liked the idea of him just waltzing into a house without the police noticing. Well, I suppose the guys standing outside the back door noticed. 😛

Anyway, it was a fun page to draw and the next ramps up the action and should be a real challenge. As always, you can follow the entirety of Variables 2002 #1 by clicking here.

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