Cover process for A Brigands Tale #2 full colour edition, uh,your honour?

Yo, yo, yo - its your boy, back at the keyboard with another exciting and maybe even educational update.

As you may or may not know, The team at Bolt Comics are re-issuing the now Sold out (also rare and highly collectable might I add) A Brigand's Tale #1 and A Brigand's Tale#2, but this time in GLORIOUS FULL COLOUR! (Yes, they were originally in black and white, but John Hanna of Midnight Runners Comics fame did some schweet tones and it rocked hard - see exhibit A).

Long story short, the suggestion was made to commission a new cover. My initial retort was there is no actual better version of the cover than the original. Please refer to Exhibit B if you don't believe me:

It has it all, sets the scene, the drama, the insurmountable obstacle our hero must overcome to get away with his very life! And he is narrating his own predicament! (yes, your honour, its called a 'speech bubble'). At any rate, I agreed to do another cover. Just don't blame me if even after 10 extra years of making comics, this one is worse than the original.

The first thing that came to mind is that the antagonist in this story has a nasty set of daggers that he wants to make some Brigand sushi (sanzoku sushi in the japanesse - thanks Google Translate!) out of. So of course, my mind instantly went back to one of my all time art hero's (and arguably one of the greatest Batman artists ever), Kelley Jones and his iconic cover of Batman 493 see Exhibit C.

(Yes, your honour, I know Kelley can also be a girls name.)

So I whipped up 2 sketches for approval. Refer to exhibits D and E.

Exhibit D

Exhibit E

Note the pro level of skill involved of drawing separate characters in differing colours in exhibit D, so that when I fire up the trusty old light box, its easy to see which of my own pictures I'm tracing.

So, as per usual, the option I liked better was panned for the other version. In this case it was decided to go with Exhibit E. Turns out though, I have been a bit unwell the last few days and could not seem to muster maximal visual dynamism to work with that choice.

So I give you, the third option, a beautiful symbiosis of both, with what I like to call Exhibit F...

Since it's celebrating and old school Brigand story, I went old school and inked the whole thing with a brush (and ink, obviously. Yes your honour, the term is called inking.) I mostly stopped brush inking because I found I could be more accurate with nibs/dip pens. Even spilled a couple of little drops of ink on the kitchen table. Don't worry they were cleaned up swiftly and the table is all good.

I'm yet to hear if this version will be approved but it was a bit of fun getting to draw Zippy again (yes, your honour, the bad guy is called Zippy. Did I stutter,your honour?)

It goes without saying there will be some digital cleaning up to get to the finished product (Yes, your honour, that means doing computer stuff).

What I'm trying to say is, now it's your turn to be the judge.

Which option did you prefer?

Let me know in the comments.

I rest my case.

Uh, your honour.