The complete set of all three Story of Lee books is now available from NBM, with the rather appropriate title of:
The Story Of Lee: Complete Set
The set has a cute little specially printed band joining them together (which i want to get one of myself!), and costs $6 less than being each book individually.
Check it out more on the publishers page HERE
Or on my own page: SEAN
The 3rd volume of our book THE STORY OF LEE arrived with me today from NBM. I’m very glad to see it.
One of the good things about books taking so long to make is that when you received the finished book its often a year or so since you wrote it, so you can read it fresh, almost as if for the first time. I think volume 3 is excellent and the artist, Pirelli, has done a very good job on the art – especially as its her first book!
Thats the last in the series and a good way to wrap up the story of Lee, Matt and the others.
Check the book out more on the publisher’s page HERE
Or my WEBSITE
Just came back from teaching about comic books in a university in Thailand, Rangsit university. Thanks to the friendly staff there and the intelligent students. It was an interesting and enjoyable time.
Volume 3 of our new book with NBM, is featured in the cool poster they made to promote the events.
Check the book on more on the publishers page HERE
Or Sean’s WEBSITE
More from Piarelle about how she makes her art:
“Next step, I’d print out the rough drafts to A4 size and trace them one by one (borders and speech bubbles included) onto Bristol board using a mechanical pencil and a lightbox.
Once I’ve added more detail to the page, I would then go on to inking the page using Indian ink and a ‘maru’ dip pen. Once the page is inked and dry, I would then scan it into my computer, clean it up and begin to screentone it digitally.
After screentoning, I would then add the text and after resizing, etc. the page would be complete. I wanted to make sure that I’d meet the deadline on time so at one point, I decided to screentone and complete one page a day – and thankfully I made it in good time!”
The Story of Lee is in December’s Diamond Catalogue and out Feb 2019.
Check the book out on the publishers page HERE
Or Sean’s WEBSITE
Part 2 in Piarelle telling us about her art process on the upcoming book for NBM, The Story of Lee, volume 3:
After thumb-nailing the page layouts, I would then scan them into my computer, produce more detailed rough drafts out of them, place the text on them and send them to Sean in batches for his approval.
Sometimes when I think a panel image would be too tedious to draw, too complicated or appear too repetitive on a page, I would replace it with an image I think would be more effective but easier for me to draw. I’m not sure if Sean noticed that not all the panels featured what he asked for in the script, but once he approved them that gave me the okay.
(Sean adds here: that’s fine by me, the process of one of collaboration, so I don’t expect artists to follow my script 100% on things like panel and page layouts. Often they have better ideas than I do about how to do that).
Check the book out on the publishers page HERE
Or Sean’s WEBSITE
The artist on volume 3 of The Story of Lee, Piarelle, tells us a little about how she works (p1 of 3):
“Before working on the Story of Lee volume 3, I needed to get a sense of the story and the characters, so I decided to read the first two volumes. The first two volumes were worked on by two different artists, so the visual styles were quite distinctive from one other. To me, the story itself made me think of ‘josei’ manga as it had a mature, realistic feel to it so I thought to take that approach on the third volume.
There is a process I went through in creating each page for the Story of Lee, volume 3.
First I’d start with thumbnailing the page layouts. Sean pretty much wrote on the script what he’d like in each panel, so I worked with that. I’d read the script, get a sense of the atmosphere in the scene and compose little page layouts on scrap paper. I like to plan pages in a way that enhances the story’s flow, so I usually plan where the speech bubbles should go at the same time I plan from what viewpoint to draw the images. I try to make both the words and pictures work in harmony together.”
Check the book on more on the publishers page HERE
Or Sean’s WEBSITE
In volume 3 of our series with NBM, The Story of Lee, I’ve written a commentary on two pages at the back of the book, about various aspects that can be seen in the book, real life places, events, Scots language words, etc. I also did this with the other two volumes.
Here are some snippets from that with the relevant pages for you:
On Pages 2 to 4: The character Xavier is based on an international student who was in my Masters degree in Edinburgh University. The kind of person who is smart but can’t resist showing off about it. We had all agreed not to show the results of our first essay, as it was immature to compare marks and not the point of learning. But as soon as he saw that his result was good he showed it off to any one he could. ha!
He is probably now the head of a department of sociology somewhere.
Check the book out more on the publishers page HERE
The 3rd and final volume of our book THE STORY OF LEE is done and dusted (well, a little bit dust remains), and will soon be off to the printers.
I’m very happy with it – the cover is lovely, a sad image but with a beauty to the framing and the texture that artist, Piarelle, has brought to it. She, a young artist working on her very first full length book, has done an excellent job.
It’s listed now in the Diamond distributors December Previews catalogue for ordering, and a February release.
Please check it out HERE, folks!
Cheers, Sean (and Piarelle).
NBM does these little sets in which 2 or 3 books in a series are given a cute little band to connect them into a special set at a special price (a lower one that is!)
Check it out here folks, this is one of my favourites of my own original story books.
“When David loses his wife and child in a tragic car accident, he decides—full of anger at the cruelty of the event—to turn against God. He sets out to systematically break each of the Ten Commandments in order to both spite God and to get his attention! But will he go all the way, and break the commandment “Thou shalt not kill?” Two mysterious figures, Mr. White and Mr. Black, try to win David over to their side: the religious or the humanistic. Deeply sad in parts and comical in others, this modern story explores age old questions: Is there a God? And if there is, does that God care about us?”
Distributors page HERE
Sean’s page on NBM website HERE
NBM Blog 