This is the first in what I expect will become a regular series of reports documenting the production progress of my first solo comic Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions Of Doctor Comics. Partly autobiographical and partly fictive it draws on selected animation and comics related incidents and reflections from my academic career including attempts to carry the comics flag within art and design education in both teaching and research, sometimes with surprising results. It also contains anecdotes relating to my Doctor Comics avatar’s adventures and to my own longstanding interest in the study of comics. Following several false starts over the past year the first chapter has been written, the design finalised and the artwork is currently being constructed. Publication was planned for September 2011 but is already looking more likely to be November or December. Printmaking is involved with woodblock, linocut, Japanese sosaku hanga technique and use of stamps, chops and seals. Below are photos of the title block in roughly mounted manner and a selection of stamps that are being employed.
Typographic design of title of comic-© 2011 Michael Hill. (Photo by Michael Hill)
I am finding it a more time consuming process to create a comic than it is to read and review one. It is, however, a creative experience that I am enjoying and one that offers the opportunity for a degree of subjectivity that the disciplines of research and analysis do not. Consequently I anticipate spending more and more time creating and less and less time critiquing comic art and have altered my Twitter tag from ‘critiquing and creating’ to ’creating and critiquing’ accordingly.
Some stamps,chops and seals. (Photo by Michael Hill)
For a visual diary record and time-line overview of this project, see all of the BLOTTING PAPER: The Comic production reports: No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6 No.7 No.8 No.9 No.10 No.11 No.12 No.13 No.14 No.15 No.16 No.17 No.18 No.19 No.20 No.21 No.22 No.23
