Kevin Mutch

Moon Prince Page 101: Round Up The Fleet!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:25:00 +0000

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Yet Another Process Post

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:27:00 +0000

Here's another little animation, this time showing how page 79 of The Moon Prince was made. As usual, it starts with a quick sketch (or “thumbnail” page) to figure out how the images and words will fit together. Then I make a photo-collage combining snapshots (in this case, of myself and my wife Melissa, who plays the Queen) and simple 3D renderings of various background elements. Next I make a drawing based on the collage, using a Cintiq monitor to draw directly into Adobe Photoshop. Then I add color, tones, and the word balloons and borders (or “gutters”). The whole process takes me about 20 hours!

Rough Pearl Page 15: Are You Fucking Crazy?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:42:00 +0000

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Hey, Look! It's The Moon Prince's 100th Episode!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:35:00 +0000

This week: Our ONE HUNDREDTH EPISODE!!! Whoopeee!!!

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Yet Another Process Post

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Here's another little process animation, this time from page 3 of my graphic novel Fantastic Life. Watching it play, I can't decide whether to cringe at how bad the early versions of the drawings were -- or cringe at how I sucked the life out of some of the nice loose parts of the early versions in trying to "fix" them!

Rough Pearl Page 14: A Dangerous Topic

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:56:00 +0000

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Moon Prince Page 99: Fear and Determination

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:09:00 +0000

This week, an ultimatum is delivered, and a decision is taken.

Click on the image to read the whole page.

Yet Another Process Post

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:16:00 +0000

This time I've made a little animation to show how the cover of my "sampled" comic Captain Adam was done, way back in 1992. The final cover is shown as well as the source collage, which is made from bits and pieces of other comics that I cut up into a big pile, then went fishing through to make a new "story". You can read the whole piece here if you're interested.

Rough Pearl Page 13: The Guests

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:50:00 +0000

This week, guests arrive for dinner.

Click on the image to read the whole page.

Moon Prince Page 98: An Unsettling Accusation

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:17:00 +0000

This week, things take a turn for the creepy!

Click on the image to read the whole page.

Yet Another Process Post

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:29:00 +0000

Here's a behind the scenes peek at the creation of a page of The Moon Prince - page 78, in this case. It starts off with the rough "thumbnails" sketch, just done on printer paper with pen, then shows the photo-collage (with 3D backgrounds) I made for the page, starring myself and my wife Melissa as all the characters. Next comes the drawing I did based on the photo-collage, and then the color and tones, and finally the word balloons and "gutters" (borders between the panels):

Stay tuned for this Friday's episode!

Rough Pearl Page 12: Hearth and Home

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:12:00 +0000

This week, Adam is ready for a nice relaxing dinner.

Click on the image to read the whole page.

Moon Prince Page 97: Only a Lad

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:32:00 +0000

This week, Max gets dissed.

Click on the image to read the whole page.

Plugs Galore

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:27:00 +0000

The day has started with two nice mentions of Fantastic Life!

Tom Spurgeon was kind enough to announce its imminent arrival in comics stores over at The Comics Reporter, and Chris Arrant made it his lead item in this week's "Food or Comics?" at Comic Book Resources.

Rough Pearl Page 11: Life in the Hood

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:31:00 +0000

This week: paranoia, bitterness, etc.

Click on the image to see the whole page.

Moon Prince Page 96: The Moon Pirates

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:17:00 +0000

This week, the Moon Pirates manifest themselves!

Click on the image to see the whole page.

Bat People on the Moon?

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:53:00 +0000

While we're waiting for this Friday's action packed installment of the Moon Prince, I thought it might be fun to show you a few of my influences in writing this part of the story. The idea to have bat-people on the Moon actually goes back all the way to 1835, to a famous hoax published in the old New York Sun that claimed astronomers had spotted creatures on the lunar surface using an enormous new telescope. Wonderful drawings of these bat-men were published and caused a huge stir at the time. Here are a few of them:

You can read a fascinating article about the Great Moon Hoax here.

And my list of influences for this part of the story wouldn't be complete without mentioning Jack Kirby's great comics series Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth, which I devoured as a kid. The ninth issue of the story featured bat people battling astronauts in a balloon! Here's the cover (you can click on any of these images for larger versions):

Rough Pearl Page 10

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:17:00 +0000

This week, it's still very confrontational.

Click on the image to see the whole page.

Moon Prince Page 95: We Don't Stand a Chance!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:20:00 +0000

This week, things get scarier than ever!

Click on the image to see the whole page.

Another Process Post

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:03:00 +0000

Since it's always fun to watch little animations, here's one showing how I made the second page of my book Fantastic Life (in stores now! Or order it here!). It starts with the original pencil drawing (you can see how woefully rusty I was after not doing comics drawing for 20 years!) and then goes through various versions of the page showing the changes I made, and finishes with the final color version of the page.

Rough Pearl Page 9: An Outraged Yuppie

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:34:00 +0000

This week, Adam is both paranoid and self-righteous. Please don't hate him.

Click on the giant eyeball to see the whole page.

Moon Prince Page 94: Careful, Molly!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:36:00 +0000

This week, all sorts of stuff happens!

Click on the image to see the whole page.

Buy the Book!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:40:00 +0000

I've got a few extra copies of a promotional Moon Prince comic book I had printed up to show at conventions. It's the first chapter of the story - pages 1 to 29 - and it's in really nice full color. If you want one, you can buy it for $5.95 here (and I'll sign every copy sold).

Rough Pearl Page 8

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:30:00 +0000

This week, Adam is in commuter van hell.

Click on the image to see the whole page.

Moon Prince Page 93: The Bat-man Speaks!

noreply@blogger.com (Kevin Mutch) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:15:00 +0000

This week, we hear from the bat-man. But what are we hearing???

Click on the image to read the whole page.