Mike Luoma back again for another look at putting together my books – making it up as I go along! Thank you for joining me. Hope I'm keeping it interesting for you! That's a challenge you face as a comic book writer, too: maintaining the interest of your reader. How do keep the reader turning pages? How do you hold the comic book reader's attention? In addition to rising action, in a comic book there needs to be page turning tension at the end of every page. Cliffhangers end odd pages, and near cliff hangers end the even. That's the traditional approach, anyway. Page breaks can also be an opportunity to transition to new scenes. The really good comic book writers master these tools, use the techniques but make them seem nearly invisible. They're always in mind as I write, as I try to keep the reader's attention but try not to be obvious about it.

 

Your artist has to, literally, be on the same page! Up through to the second half of Panthea Obscura #2, series artist Juan Carlos Quattordio and myself had been pretty much in sync on what we were putting together, which is kind of remarkable when you consider that we did everything via email. I'm in Burlington, Vermont in the United States. Juan Carlos is from Mar del Plata, Argentina.

 

Here's how our process worked: I'd send Juan Carlos the script, he'd email back with any questions, and then draw the page based on my script. He'd email me a low-res file of the black and white page so I could email back with any changes, any fixes that were needed. Juan Carlos would then color and finish the page and send another low res file my way for approval. Once approved, he'd send the high resolution page files to myself and to Pablo Lizalde, the letterer. Pablo would then add the lettering and send the lettered pages to me as low res files for any fixes needed. Once corrected, Pablo would send the finished, lettered pages back to me as high res files.

 

Once I have the finished high resolution files together, I layout the cover, adding text to the art and turning it into a new high res file. Then I prep the page files for the various formats my comic books appear in, digital, web and print. I first printed my comic books through Lulu.com. The image files were inserted into a Word Document, which was then uploaded and converted to a printable pdf file by Lulu. The covers were then uploaded as separate files. That's how I had put out issue one of Panthea Obscura. By midsummer 2007 Juan Carlos and I were halfway through putting together issue two.

 

There were a couple of hiccups along the way through the first half of issue two, so I sketched out pages eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen, trying to give Juan Carlos a sense of what I was looking for.

 

You can see what Juan Carlos came up with for those same pages. He took a little of what I did and turned it into so much more! Here's the script for page twelve:

 

PAGE TWELVE (five panels)

 

Panel 1: Rayna holds her wide shield of light up with one arm raised, hand up, palm outstretched, as she kneels down next to Cyrus. She is glaring as she looks up at Love.

 

RAYNA:

You shouldn’t have distracted him! - -

Look what you’ve done! - -

You’ve killed Cyrus!

 

Panel 2: Love is crying while Rayna glares at her.

 

LOVE:

I didn’t mean… It wasn’t… I’m sorry…

 

RAYNA:

You’re pathetic!

 

Panel 3: Close up on Love.

 

LOVE:

…but it’s Troy! It’s not those humans! He was about to kill them. - -

There are other ways!

 

Panel 3: Full figure shot of The Deep, about to unleash his power.

 

THE DEEP:

Yes - -

There are.

 

Panel 4: Close in on the fire hydrant from earlier. Water is beginning to shoot out from underneath it.

 

SFX:

Fzzzzshh…. (into next panel)

 

Panel 5: Long shot: We see The Deep, arms upraised, as the hydrant and the adjacent police cars fly into the air on a column of water erupting from underneath the hydrant and the pavement.

 

SFX:

…shhhhwooshhhh!!

 

You can compare the script, the sketch and the black and white versions to the finished page.

It's still a thrill for me to see a page I've written come to life. Even if it isn't exactly what I saw in my minds eye as I was writing, seeing what an artist has envisioned following my words is inspiring! Writing the second issue of Panthea Obscura, I knew I'd again be working with Juan Carlos, and I began to visualize the pages as he might draw them while writing the script. Some things went in because I knew he could do a cool job with them. I'd told Juan Carlos about page fifteen when I was writing it, back when he was still drawing the first issue, because page fifteen of issue two was written with his art in mind. “The Deep” was my Poseidon analog. With power over water, he could, theoretically, “push” all the water out of a human body with a sort-of instant dessication wave. Once I'd thought of that, I wanted to see how Juan Carlos would draw it!

 

Here's how I described it in the script:

 

Panel 1: The Deep throws his hands up as if to stop the Janitor. Power ripples out from the palms of his hands.

 

Panel 2: The Deep and the Janitor, side view, as The Deep’s desiccation wave ripples the air between them.

 

Panel 3: The Janitor is dead-dried, as all the water in his body is suddenly removed, evident in a cloud of water vapor behind his now near skeletal form.

 

Panel 4: The Janitor’s form collapses in a heap of dried dust and bones as Rayna, Chance, Love and The Deep look on. The Deep is looking at his hands, he can’t believe what he’s done. Love looks at The Deep, aghast.

 

By mid-July I had pages seventeen through twenty-two in black and white and pencil back from Juan Carlos, but we had some work left to do. Page twenty and twenty-two were unfinished as he had some questions:

 

Here you have pages 17 to 22. I'll make modifications on the last pages when I add colour and I'll send them you (of course you'll have the chance to modify). In some of these pages I must correct and copy - paste some panels and change order, cause I made a mistake in some panels (I drew panel 4 first and panel 3 after) but it's not a problem. I can modify it on my PC.

 

On Page 20 I didn't finish the last panel cause I wanted to know your opinion. I want to draw the victims in a white silhouette with blood surround and some impacts. I also didn't draw the blood and brain on the board of the possessed guy, not cause I don't like it (I'm a fan of the gore!) But I think that style doesn't fit... but there's no problem with modifying. Just tell me. Well,I hope you like it. And I send you last page in pencil, tell me if the approach is okay.  

 

I wrote right back to Juan Carlos, apologizing for giving him choppy notes:

 

page 17, panel three, Archer needs to be behind rain... something you add in the colouring, maybe?
panel six, I think The Deep's hand should be palm up and out, like a cop's stop signal
the gunman looks incredible in the lower corner!

page 18, panel 2, can you put a sprinkler over his head in that shot, or the hint of it? And maybe a bigger drop of water on the sprinkler in panel 5... Other than that I like it a lot!

page 19, following off of the last, maybe make the drop a little bigger.

page 20, I'm a fan of gore... but also believe that the mind will fill in worse details than most anyone can film or draw. I'm a fan of old horror, where you don't see everything. Maybe half in silhouette, the entire panel kind of fading into red and black? The suggestion of grue without crazy detail? As for brain and blood on the board, I think there should be some spattering of red on the walls. This guy's been shooting people.

And I see where you switched panels... can Chance be more obviously going out the door? And in panel 7, can we see a hint of Mother outside?

page 21 was fine, except missing a panel?

page 22, well, I'd like a bigger stage with a choir in panic in the background. Like a megachurch altar.
I'd like a little more dynamic action on the part of the attacker, too, maybe have him grabbing Joshua Starr by the neck? More of a classic comic book attack?

And remember Media's insert panel in the lower right...

 

On pages eighteen and nineteen I wanted to develop some tension as the gunman struggles to regain control of himself, as he realizes what he's done, and turns suicidal. I wanted to show Love trying to do her thing, to reassure and talk the man down. I also wanted to show the playful yet deadly side of Chance, as he focuses on the drop of water on the sprinkler on page eighteen, causing it to drop just so, onto the madman's trigger finger, bringing on the BLAM! My hope was that would be a real page turner!

 

Juan Carlos got back to me about page twenty's level of gore: “Thanks for your words about my work! About the changes, no problem! About the blood and brain, your opinion is right, I understand the intention better now. Well, back to work!” We'd end up going back and forth a couple of times on this page before we were both happy with it.

 

Juan Carlos sent me the colored pages eleven through seventeen by the end of July. I wrote back:

 

Hello Juan Carlos!

I received pages 16 + 17 yesterday, and they look really good! Appropriate level of gore, suggestive of horrible violence but no gaping flesh wounds! On 12 and 13, (you'll laugh, it's like the water hands in book one) I'd like to see the water and the water power of the Deep glow with a little more blue (ahem). 14 was great!

Did I tell you I'm a guest at a convention coming up? August 11-12, Pi Con in Massachusetts:
http://pi-con.org/

I'm listed under "Panelists", and mention you as "Argentinian artist Juan Carlos Quattordio" when I plug the book. Figure it will be a good opportunity to plug my stuff, including Panthea Obscura. I've been writing a bunch, too. I'm working on my third novel, the last of the "Vatican Assassin" Trilogy. First draft is done, written longhand. I'm doing the second now, just over 100 pages in, probably another 200 to go. I'll do a third draft and then have people read it for feedback. I've got some friends who help me on that.

Well, I'm looking forward to more pages as they come!
 

The convention was 2Pi-Con, and it was my first. I was getting excited – it was less than two weeks away! I ordered up some new business cards and copies of my books to bring with me. I'd had hopes earlier in the summer that we could get issue two done before the con, but that wasn't going to happen. So I put together a “preview” issue two to bring with me, with the first half complete and the second half shown as it was, in progress. Some of the second half's pages were in color, some black and white, page 22 just the rough pencils. The cover was plain white – no art, just text – I didn't have a cover image yet.

 

As a reward for readers of this column and my comic, I'm going to give away my last copy of this preview issue still in my possession. Just email me the answer to this question at mluoma@cosmicbooknews.com along with your name and where you're writing from. I'll hold a random drawing for a winner from all correct entries on May 2^nd, Free Comic Book Day. The winner will receive a signed copy of this rare 2Pi-Con preview issue! Here's the question: What is the god-name of Troy's son Kyle Dogg? The answer can be found in Panthea Obscura:Deifornication. I won't tell you where or in what issue, but it is somewhere in the pages already posted over at Drunk Duck: http://www.drunkduck.com/panthea_obscura. Again, email me your answer at mluoma@cosmicbooknews.com by May 2^nd for your chance to win!

 

My buddy Ethan Slayton, the artist who had done the pencils for the first issue's cover, had earlier said he was interested in doing a second cover. Fortunately for him, he had a project for a British comic come his way. Unfortunately for me, he had to bow out of doing the cover for Panthea Obscura #2, but I was psyched for him! I tried my hand at drawing a cover. Then Juan Carlos volunteered to do a cover for issue two free of charge, so I sent him my sketch to give him an idea of what I was looking for.

 

I headed down to 2Pi-Con in Springfield, Massachusetts on Friday, August 10^th, nervous as hell. I'm an introvert by nature, believe it or not, although I've been able to overcome it. Both radio and writing let me express myself without having to be in front of people. Here I was heading into my first panels, my first chance to act like a writer, lol! It was an educational experience. My first panel on Saturday, on Small Press Comics, had more panelists than people in the audience for some of the time, and there were two of us on the panel. I did enjoy meeting Rick Silva, the writer of “Zephyr & Reginald: Minions for Higher” a cutely twisted little comic book drawn by his wife Gynn. I wandered around the con the rest of Saturday, taking it all in and attending a few panels.

 

My next panel came Sunday morning at 10 AM. A How To Panel on Podcasting. I had been doing my Glow-in-the-Dark Radio podcast for almost a year, over sixty episodes with all the chapters of Vatican Assassin, the songs and poems from Synthetic Marmalade, the essays from Neo-Gnosis and currently the chapters of my then new novel Vatican Ambassador. I didn't know as much about the technical side as my fellow panelist, Chad Bergeron. I'd learned what I'd needed to do my own podcast – I wasn't sure what wisdom I'd have to share with the panel attendees.

 

No worries. There were no attendees! Chad and I killed a little time talking about what we were doing. When I told him about podcasting my books, he told me about this site called Podiobooks.com, where they had authors reading their works, putting out audiobooks in the form of free podcasts. I'd look them up later, when I got home, but this, quite possibly, is the most valuable piece of information I've received in my writing career so far! I'll tell you more about my great relationship with Podiobooks.com in my next installment.

 

My reading and my last panel were scheduled for the same time later Sunday morning. I was double booked! I left a note at the reading telling anyone who might show up to come on over to the panel and headed over to discuss “Viscous Science Fiction”, the most well attended panel I was on. We had a great discussion about tech based and non tech based science fiction. I attended some more panels into Sunday afternoon, and then headed home. As a whole, the experience was kind of surreal, but incredibly valuable! I made a lot of great contacts and was invited to come back the next year for 3Pi-Con.

 

A week after the con, I got another take on page twenty from Juan Carlos as we tried to find the right look for the page. I wrote Juan Carlos, “I like 20 with a couple of reservations... sorry! I think the MAN in panel 1 should be a little more in silhouette, spattered brains and all, not to detract from the drawing, just because I think it needs to be just a little more subtle. The two panels with the Deep and Chance still need to be switched... In panel 6, what do you think of making the victims all black instead of all white?” Juan Carlos sent a third try that nailed it I emailed Juan Carlos:

 

Yeah!! I love the page now! Love the page, Juan Carlos. Great job moving those two panels! Small thing: check the bottom of the Deep one, it's a little uneven. I like the way the bodies look in black, too. Darker. More menacing, maybe because it leaves more to the imagination. I like the way you blurred the black edges around them, adds to the details the reader's imagination will fill in. This is just what I was trying to describe before: Suggest horrible things, but let the reader make it worse in their mind! It's okay that it gets darker.

 

He also told me a publisher down there might be interested in Panthea Obscura in Spanish, so Juan Carlos was going to get some translated pages in front of him. I was excited! I sent Juan Carlos the synopsis for the next two issues so he could read it and have it ready for the publisher. This was some great news. Juan Carlos emailed back with a fourth take on page twenty that brought out the figure of the man in the first panel, not exactly understanding my request to make him more subtle, but it looked good so I didn't mind.:

HI, Mike! Yesterday I sent you one version of page 20, here is another. I modified panel one. Thanks for your words, man! I really enjoy doing this comic, it's a joy for me. I like the characters, the story, you deserve all the success with this comic (well,me too, ha, ha!) but I really like it. This weekend I'll put my hands on page 22. I'll read the synopsis of the next two chapters. I think the publisher can publish two chapters in one issue and next year the next 2. I cross fingers!

 

We were in the home stretch, the final pages, and Juan Carlos got some good news – press coverage in his city's newspaper! He wrote me with a link. If you follow it be forewarned, the story is in Spanish, but you can at least see a picture of Juan Carlos at work:

 

Hi, Mike! Today I'm finishing page 22, tonight or tomorrow I'll send it to you. I'm sending you my appearance in the best newspaper of my city. At the end I talk about you and the comic, but unfortunately they didn't mention the name of the comic and your name, but it says (approximately) "now I'm working on a great comic with a writer from Vermont, USA, about the coming of the greek gods turned into heroes. He's really funny and it's also dramatic, well written, I want to see it published here." Here is the link:
http://www.lacapitalnet.com.ar/hoy/Espectaculos/Noticias/200708254033.html
I hope you like it!  

 

I tried a couple of different on line translation sites trying to get an idea of what they were talking about in the story, but the results were comical! Finally, I emailed a friend of mine who knew Spanish asking her if she could translate it for me. She did, so I was finally able to understand what they were writing about Juan Carlos. He was very complimentary, even if neither the comic's title nor my name made it into the story.

 

Good as his word, Juan Carlos got page twenty-two back to me the next day after sending me the article. A big smile crept across my face. He'd made the adjustments I'd asked for and it looked great!The last page splash is a cliffhanger to get the reader back next time. And hopefully the reader wonders, “Why is Troy attacking a Televangelist?” Because the answer is kind of interesting. At least, I hope it is!

 

Juan Carlos sent me his sketch for the cover the first week of September. He'd taken my concept and made it his own. He got a colored version back to me five days later. I asked him to darken the corners up. The low resolution lettered pages were starting to come back from Pablo, too. I sent corrections on the lettering back to him, and the hi res files arrived in another five days. We had to fix page twenty, though, as Juan Carlos had sent Pablo the wrong version of the file. The cover art was finalized by September 20^th, and the corrected page twenty came back the next day. I was ready to publish!

 

I did my cover layout work, created the Word Document and uploaded my files to Lulu.com to create the comic book. The proof came back the first week of October and I scheduled the book's official release for October 17^th. My friend Jason, manager at the local comic store Earth Prime Comics in Burlington was again supportive and had me bring in my books to sell. It was time to put out a new press release:

 

BURLINGTON, VERMONT October 8, 2007 – Mike Luoma proudly announces the release of Issue Two of Panthea Obscura on October 17^th, 2007! Panthea Obscura is a four-issue comic book mini series created and written by Vermont’s Luoma and illustrated by Argentine artist Juan Carlos Quattordio and published by Luoma through the revolutionary online print on demand provider Lulu.com. Panthea Obscura tells the story of the old gods, now returned. The gods of ancient myth actually existed, still do exist, but they made humankind forget they were real over two thousand years ago. In issue one the gods revealed themselves to the modern world, once again let humankind remember they were real. In Issue Two the gods deal with some of the darker ramifications of their decision.

Led by The Deep, once known as Poseidon among other names, most of the gods act like heroes, but Troy, once believed to be the gods of War and Death, now lurks in his underworld palace and possesses human beings made newly vulnerable to him by the other gods’ revelation. The other gods are doing their best to try to stop those Troy possesses when they run amok, kill people, and mindlessly mouth Troy’s mantra, “Too Many Morons!”

Panthea Obscura will be available online at http://stores.lulu.com/mikeluoma and locally at Earth Prime Comics in Burlington, Vermont. 

 

And so Panthea Obscura #2 was coming out! But I look back now, just a year and half ago, and realize I was still just starting to figure out what I was doing, as far as marketing the book.. I was getting the book out, but it wasn't really getting out there yet. I had more to learn, and the learning curve was steep. Of course, that makes it fun! At the same time interest in my novels was picking up thanks to Podiobooks.com, and I was about to do a public reading from Vatican Ambassador. Things were happening. Slowly. More on the slow build of my writing career next time around.

 

Remember to enter the contest! Email me the answer to the question What is the god-name of Troy's son Kyle Dogg? Send your answer to mluoma@cosmicbooknews.com along with your name and where you're writing from before May 2^nd. The winner will receive a signed copy of the rare 2Pi-Con preview issue! 

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