Space Camp: Making Pages 15-17 (Patreon)

Recap For The Newbs: I am revising a chapter from Letters From Space Camp so my agent can send it as a sample to potential publishers to help them realize how much they want to pay me more than their competitors to have the honor of publishing my finished book which will obviously make them back tons of money and we can all retire early (lolsob). In this post I will explain some of the design changes I made between the first and second drafts!

For reference:

• Day Two: First Draft (16 pages) 🔒 Comics Tier Patrons
• Day Two: Revised (22 pages) 🔒 Comics Tier Patrons

The Corner Freak Out scene! This was one of the most impactful experiences I had in Space Camp. In my last post, I explained why and how I fudged the timeline of the story so that Glasses Girl would have her corner shake-out after the reader learns about TIPP, so we, the audience, could see those skills being deployed in an actual situation. 

To make this scene have its own weight as an important event, I dedicated the next chunk of pages solely to it- no sharing page space with my leaky cafeteria sandwich. 

A challenge I run into in all my comic page layouts is that I struuuugle to move the camera (point of view) around, which can leave the reader numb to what's happening in each panel because they're all just too samey-samey and the eye glosses over it. This page is an interesting one to me, because I both played with the camera angles and depth of the stage while also keeping the panels incredibly similar because I fear change. 

In our introductory panel, I have the camera positioned over Erika's shoulder so the viewer can really feel like they're getting her point of view, which helps cement the reader's subconscious relationship with her as the vehicle through which they are experiencing this story. Erika is shown from the waist up, closer to the viewer, while the other characters are shown full-bodied because they are the subject that Erika/the reader is focusing on and silently evaluating. I also arranged everyone's heads to form a pyramid shape, with Glasses Girl being the most important as the tallest point on the triangle. 

Second panel I brought Erika super close to the camera so the reader is now more immersed with her as she strains to hear Glasses Girl's softly spoken words which are hard to hear because GG is physically further away from Erika/the reader. Erika's head is the tallest now, as the reader is meant to be feeling closest to her and her curiosity. 

The final two panels she Glasses Girl full-bodied with the other patient at a medium view from the knees-up. This is to provide a contrast between the fuller, seated, calm presence of the patient against the explosion of movement from GG. Drawing her full body from a great distance also shows how small and vulnerable she is in this setting. She's a storm in a tea cup. 

On the original page, I narrated my reaction and thought process as Erika/the reader watches Glasses Girl from a distance. My agent wisely encouraged me to switch from writing a monologue in the past tense (boring!) to be more active by sharing my thoughts in real time as the event unfolded. To emphasize the impact of this event, I gave GG an entire page to have her freak-out dance. This page is an improvement from the original, but I don't love the confusing path that the reader's eye takes to navigate the page. I haven't shared it yet, but I completely redrew this last week. 

The final four panels I kept the art exactly the same, but I did change the dimensions of the final one. I made it panel-less so that the moment would feel timeless, like Erika and GG are on an island outside from the rest of the world, existing as two small, vulnerable people who are just quietly surviving.  While I know for sure that I nailed that final panel, the configuration of the previous panels is a bit awkward and I'm re-working them now.

Matt is listening to something and I am so distracted so please forgive the lack of proofreading on this, it's 11:44pm and I need to drag myself to bed! MWAH MWAH LOVE YOU.