Preview page: The School Cafeteria

I already posted part of this page in progress, but I haven’t posted the whole page before, and now you get to see it with Jake’s colors. Enjoy!

(Click on the image for a bigger size).

Free Preview of the Entire Hereville Graphic Novel!

I finished drawing the “Hereville” graphic novel this weekend, and Jake finished colors. That doesn’t mean I’m all done — there’s still a significant amount of work to do (title page, back cover art, fixes requested by the publisher, etc) — but still: YAY! I’m very happy to have gotten the principle art done, and I’m pretty pleased with the book as a whole.

Below: All 139 pages of the graphic novel, plus the front cover. It might be a tad hard to read at this size, though… A larger sized version will be in bookstores in November. 😛

Another Hereville preview image: Mirka’s whole family

All Mirka’s siblings, plus her father and her stepmother, and Mirka herself. This was fun to draw.

(Click on the image to see a bigger version).

A preview page — and Introducing Jake

Here’s a page of art from the upcoming graphic novel. The graphic novel will be 139 pages long, of which 100 are inked and I’m not sure exactly how many (but a lot) are colored. If all goes well, all 139 pages will be complete five weeks from now. And I will be exhausted.

Which brings me to something I should have mentioned; I now have a collaborator on Hereville. Mr. Jake Richmond, my friend and an excellent cartoonist and game designer, is coloring Hereville. Thanks, Jake!

Anyway, here’s a preview page:

Still at work!

Here, you can see my workspace. See, I’m drawing Hereville!

I have the great good luck to be drawing on a Cintiq, which is pretty much the greatest invention since… actually, it’s way better than sliced bread. On the right side of the picture, you can see a bit of my model sheets.

While working, I listen to dozens of podcasts. My favorites include This American Life, The Moth, Here & Now, Podcastle, and Don’t Quit Your Day Job.

Thanks to Chris O’Rourke for the photo!

Lake

Here’s a background I just drew, to a couple of panels on page 57 of the graphic novel.

The Hereville graphic novel will be released in November, but until then I’ll be occasionally posting preview images. Thanks for your patience!

Mirka’s school’s cafeteria

I haven’t forgotten Hereville! I’m still working hard on the graphic novel.

Right now, I don’t have time to do much of anything but draw Hereville, which is one reason I’ve been posting so rarely. I should finish drawing the graphic novel in March, and after I’ll be a bit more active with posting.

Here’s a panel I just inked, showing Mirka’s school’s cafeteria. You can see Mirka and her sisters Gittel and Rochel, sitting at the table closest to the viewer (behind the girl with the spikey hair). Gittel is the one with glasses.

Click on the panel to see it bigger.

Hereville nominated for two Lulu Awards!

I’m thrilled to announce that Friends of Lulu has nominated Hereville for two awards! “The Lulu Awards recognizes the the people and projects that helped to open eyes and minds to the amazing comic and cartooning work by and/or about women.”

Hereville was nominated for the Leah Adezio Award For Best Kid-Friendly Work, and Mirka was nominated for Best Female Character.

To vote for Hereville (or for the other nominees — swell folks, all of them!), go to Friends of Lulu and follow the directions there.

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Hey, speaking of Hereville, whatever happened to it? I’m still working on it, believe it or not. Comics are slow!

The graphic novel will be coming out from Abrams in late 2010 (in time for Hanukkah!). I’m just finishing up the second draft of the pencils now, and I’ll begin work on the final art in a bit over a week.

Meanwhile, just to whet people’s appetites, here’s a penciled page from chapter one:

Sketch of Mirka’s siblings

Although most of them don’t come up in the graphic novel (which I’m working on, really!), Mirka actually has a lot of sisters. Just one brother, though. Anyhow, I thought this sketch of all the siblings would be fun to post.

Barry will be on The Erika Moen show tonight

I’ll be on Erika Moen’s weekly video podcast tonight — you can watch it here, starting at 7:30 west coast time. We’ll be talking about Hereville and whatever else comes up. And you can also type in questions for me live. (There’s an archive of Erika’s past shows here.)

Erika’s a terrific cartoonist, by the way; I’m a fan of her autobiographical comic strip “DAR: A Super-Girly Top Secret Comic Diary.” (But be warned that Erika’s comics include lots of nudity and jokes about genitals and farts, so willing adults only should check out her comics.)