It’s true; we’re one step closer to wrapping up not only Chapter 6 but all of Long John! We hit another huge milestone this week by completing a lettering pass on the entire chapter.
What that means is that all dialogue and captions have been placed on the pages complete with word balloons and caption boxes as suits the scene. That doesn’t mean it’s final––that doesn’t happen until it’s published––but the script has already had a handful of passes with another pass done as the pages were getting lettered.
Undoubtedly, as I work through the final stage––adding shadows and highlights to the art––I will tweak some dialogue as I go. However, the story is there; the characters are there. For all intents and purposes, it’s a comic and all we’re really doing from this point forward is adding polish.
I write this post with a bit of shame on my shoulders. Back in December, my good friend, Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics) graciously gifted me with a custom LEGO-ish set that (from MyCustomBrickFigures.com), when assembled, was a super-deformed version of Long John himself.
It was a genuine and heartfelt surprise…that ended up sitting in a box for about six months before I actually put it together. My reason for holding off was that I wanted to film the process of assembly, but the instructions said it was a 100+ step assembly, so I really wanted to put it off until I had the time.
That being said, assembling the toy didn’t take too long and, I guess, I could have filmed it, but I much more enjoyed the process of putting this together while listening to music and just enjoying the minimal amount of time where I had no responsibilities, which is––I would argue––better than creating content.
Anyway, this little Long John is adorable and enjoys a prominent placement at my workstation as I continue to work on Chapter 6, staring me down whenever I am tempted by laziness or distraction.
This was a spur of the moment drawings I made after stumbling on the idea after waking up one morning. Alex Summers, aka Havok, is a Marvel character from the X-Men comics. In fact, he is the brother of the perennial leader of the team, Scott Summers (Cyclops).
I haven’t read too many comics featuring Havok aside from his appearances in crossover events and his first run as team leader of the spinoff series, X-Factor, in the ’90s. I know more about him than stories I’ve actually read.
The main reason my mind ended up on him was that his costumes have always been interesting, none moreso than his original costume created by comics superstar, Neal Adams, in the late ’60s, an era defined by bold graphic design. So iconic it was, that it remained basically unchanged until the late ’80s.
Havok’s original costume design. Artist unknown.
When I first met him, he was the leader of X-Factor in the second iteration of that team. Being a government agency, all the team members wore what amounted to synchronized suit designs, though each had its own personal flairs. Gone were the (most) of the skin-tight spandex, replaced instead with bulky jackets, thick boots, and thigh belts and probably pouched belts, too. While unremarkable overall, it is a fun––and very ’90s––design.
Havok’s ’90s costume. Art: Joe Quesada
When I woke up the other day, I had a blurry idea to amalgamate the two designs, bringing back the austere nature of his original suit and laying it over a more practical, clothing-based design with a heavy jacket echoing his time in X-Factor. The main thing I was excited to draw was the homaging of the goofy headdress of his original costume into the epaulets of his jacket.
