BLACKOUT page 5

The big final page 5.

First up, it's become night. Getting to play with a whole different slice of colour was actually kinda refreshing. You gotta remember, you guys take SECONDS to read each page, and it takes me up to 10 HOURS to draw each page. I gotta keep myself amused some how. The only way I keep myself from staying off the bell tower with the rifle is by rationalising that if each person takes 10 seconds per page, then 600 people have to read it to make my time worthwhile. I'm pretty sure there's 600 people reading this bad boy. Oh, and the phat deposit from NBC into my bank account keeps me weighing in on this side of sane too. =)

Anyway, back to the comic.

I wanted to go warm in this top panel for two reasons. One, I wanted to illustrate that it was a scene where these two characters are comfortable with one another. It's a nurturing atmosphere. Secondly, I also wanted it to contrast with the third panel as much as possible. Warm/Cold. I'm a genius like that. I mean, who else woulda thought to balance blue with yellow? Get this boy a Nobel Prize!

Sorry. Colour theory is probably not the talent of mine that's going to set the world ablaze.

In the script, the blackout panels are supposed to be flat black. There's also a little sound effect: SZZT which got replaced with SHOONK. If a vote was taken, I'd vote for SZZT only because he didn't inhale and knows how to treat an intern.

So instead of just filling the blackout frames black, I tried to make sure a window was in the frame each time so that we had some light. I basically just copied the frame above and repainted the lighting without the internal light from the room.

But the real money shot is panel 3.

As people who have read my previous comments on my HEROES work would know, I'm a big believer in trying to make the extraordinary look believable.

The arc-up by the patient in panel 3 was especially challenging. It was the first display we had of any powers in the story. It needed to be exciting enough that you'd want to come back and find out what happened in the second half. But I didn't want it to be insanely over the top either. The kid's not Electro and Mohinder ain't pulling on the red and blue spandex.

A big part of it to me is Mohinder's reaction. The dialogue that I was given for Mohinder is a little different. In fact, in my script he says nothing. I tried to tell the story with his shock and his body language. But again, he's not diving for cover or doing anything over the top. It was an interesting choice by Mark (I assume) to chuck this line of dialogue in.

I'm eagerly anticipating the reaction to part 2. I'm much happier with it than part 1.

By the way, I hope I didn't offend anyone with my last post. I was just trying to find an amusing way to highlight some of the... less substantial theories on the boards.