Zip’s Last Day

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Background details come from combining current photo research with my own memories as a 17-year-old produce worker. Researched everything right down to the cash register. Time of day was important to keep track, which I've done with background details—lots of wall clocks.

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The 4-row layout is proof positive the Stray Bullets influence. This forced me to focus on each panel's storytelling. Hopefully each setting is convincing. Wouldn't want the ghost of Alex Toth haunting my dreams.

The top scene resonated with a lot of my friends, all of whom were burned by selfish employess at the last second.

The police lieutenant is based on Dan DeCarlo.

I don't like the pointers of my word balloons very much. They're too uniform, without enough customization per panel. Most are short and curved, when a lot of them should be straight.

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Splitting the two scenes on a single page is more convincing here than on page three. The solid blacks are my old-school attempt at page design/unification. It certainly makes my dense work a lot easier to read!

John Romita practically drew the bottom scene without knowing it. He brought subtlety to the art of using weather, both as a character and time-tracking element. I first noticed this in his 1977 Spider-Man newspaper strip.

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Stray Bullets creator David Lapham uses a 4-row, 8-panel grid. I modified his approach with a split between flashback and current time.

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The classic Alan Moore/Harvey Kurtzman "close-up to flashback" technique. Established bond between young Zip and Whitey Sullivan/Bulger. I obsessed about nailing the 1970s Brighton Center neighborhood—looking at it now, it isn't as important as I thought it was.

Trying to emulate Artie Simiek's thought balloon style with a vector art application was time-consuming. I still think the thought balloon is a valuable tool, unique to comics, and should be used. Other artists, both new and old, tend to agree.

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Ines is based on Rita Moreno, the only reason to watch West Side Story. I tried presenting her flirtation with Zip without words, through the store window. Does it work?

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This page is directly inspired by Steve Ditko's 12-panel grid. It seemed the best way to display all this dialog on a single page. The characters speak in short call-and-response sentences, closer to real life. Cramming lots of words in single panels proved problematic. On the other hand, dividing the page into 12 equal-spaced sections shows character movement with subtlety and nuance.

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Drawing Zip's hair was troublesome at first. I bought time by "pencilling" a few pages in advance. (See more detail about my digital comics technique.) The answer came by accident, while looking at Steve Ditko's Spider-Man. His taste in literature may be a little dopey, but once upon a time he was great at his day job. He communicated a lot of detail with deceptively simple inking. It's nice to discover the new problem you're working on was solved 40 years ago.

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Designed as the left half of a double-page spread with Page 11. The contrasting rendering styles represent two different units of time; hopefully this is apparent. Once again, I obsessed about local background details (Wang Center and The Roxy, "Rock City" Allston MA) that you'd have to live here to get. Breaking the bottom panel into 6 sub-panels serves two purposes: (a) portraying 3:00 AM urban loneliness unique to Allston and (b) visual alignment with similar panels on the next page.

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Designed as the right half of a double-page spread. 12 panels a page, camera zoom-in, visual storytelling ... blah blah blah. The middle panel - subdivided into 6 panels - took the most work and research. Ines living with room mates in Allston was essential to understanding her character. I needed to establish with visually, without words. The obvious method is bringing public items (TV, stereo, etc.) into the bedroom. The first draft looked like my old Allston bedrooms. A friend pointed out that it looked to "guy-like". This led to me interviewing female friends about how they decorate their bedrooms. Common elements were stuffed animals, candles and family photos. For this local focus group, "Puerto Rican Pooh" was a hit.

I robbed "...masturbate in my body" from my friend Karen Cali, who was complaining about one of her many admirers. When not shooting down losers with a dream, she's a amazing fine artist.

Oh yeah, I got to draw another boob grab.

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The toughest part of this page was finding reference for Panel 2's FBI database web application, as it looked in 2001. I'm still proud of the storytelling and dialog on this page, but also embarrassed by the inconsistent drafting.

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I researched demonology to make a credible monster. Google pointed me to Flauros. According to Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft", the demon is invoked by an evocation triangle labeled Primeumaton, Arrephezaton and Tetragrammaton. I don't personally believe this, but covered up the triangle labels "just in case".

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Chris doesn't notice the giant demon forming behind him. Does his tantrum hide the demon, or summon it?