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EXCLUSIVE CONTENT! WHEN COFFEE MEETS COMICS!

I had just finished inking the final boxes and bubbles for “Sasquatch: Klondike” Issue #1 on my premium Strathmore Bristol with a Sakura Micron 03. It had taken a couple runs through, mostly in pencils without setting any of it to ink because a first attempt at lettering comics takes a lot of practice. This draft was different. Aside from a few simple and easily executed touch-ups using custom-cut sticker labels in the near future, this draft was basically finished.

I reclined casually in my dinner chair. Our dining room table in the corner of our living room has become my makeshift office, a cramped space but sufficient for my purposes. The results were mostly satisfactory and it was gratifying to see that part of the process completed as I perused the Yellow Pages of my mind for a print shop or office supply store that might be open during this shutdown so I could transplant these letters into Photoshop and onto Chad LeDuc’s wonderful art files. I took a celebratory sip from my morning coffee, cold from hours of neglect as my laser focus had been centred on the project.

In a haphazard demonstration of Jungian psychology, my hand decided I wasn’t done sipping as my mind told it to return the cup to its home at the back of the “desk”, dribbling six volatile drops of coffee across the middle of my finished work. My lightning-fast reflexes, similar to the super strength of a mother whose child is pinned under a car in a ditch after a cataclysmic crash, kicked in before I had a split second to consider my course of action. Without a trace of a thought, I snapped up the paper towel I had been using to clean my speedball pen nibs and gave the sheet a panicked swipe, probably to prevent the coffee from soaking through to the other side and thereby destroying all the letters and not just the second half. Who knows what pure adrenalized instinct is thinking?

The moral of the story, kids, is that coffee and comics do not mix! Another moral is to trust one’s artistic instinct if one is leaning toward lettering a comic exclusively on Photoshop using downloaded fonts. The final lesson learned was that it is okay to admit to oneself that pivoting creatively is never a waste of time. The practice in hand lettering has been essential and shown constant improvement, but this first issue is not the place for it. It wasn’t until the splash that I realized just how evident the inconsistencies and imperfections in the work itself were. The time spent on these pages blinded me to the necessity for a better finished product. I will continue to improve and practice for later issues.

We’d love to hear of any similar experiences you’ve and the lessons learned from them! And if you would like us to forward them to the small community we’re building, give us permission and we’ll make it so! Stay tuned for more news and exclusive content coming soon…

-Johnny Cassidy

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