Making The Hulk Fan Newspaper Strip

The Story

The first thing I come up with when making the strip is the plot, or story. This is done only once, but before I draw the first line with a pencil.

• First, I come up with a vague idea of the story: who the enemy will be, why he/she is attacking the Hulk, the places the story will show, sidekicks and miscellaneous characters, etc.

• Second, I imagine the fight scenes, some dialogs, and play around with them in my mind. This part is fun, cos I get caught in the "movie" I'm making in my mind. If and idea doesn't stick, I look for another one and move on.

• Third, when I have the story more or less written up in my mind, I write a rough first script, on paper or the computer. This script tells the story with few or no dialogs. The reason for it is to just explain in general what the whole story will be about, not to specify what every character will say from start to end.

• Fourth, I think of the story once more and polish the rough first script to get a final second draft. I repeat the last procedure (creating a third script, a forth one, etc...) until I feel I've reached a good level for the story, I move to the drawing pad (what I like to do best!).

I do not need to write complete scripts like comic book writers do, because I do everything: write, draw, and ink. As I process the strips on the PC (see step 9), I decide the final dialog and enter it on the strip.

Drawing Materials

In order to draw, I use the following art materials:

• HB Pencil (Faber or similar brand), for sketches and the final pencil drawing.

• Eraser (any good brand), to erase mistakes and the pencils after inking.

• Permanent Markers (Sharpie from Sanford), to ink the pencil drawing. I use Ultra Fine point to ink, plus Fine, Medium, and Thick points for blacks.

• 12" Transparent Plastic Ruler (any good brand), to draw the panels.

• 9" x 12" Drawing Paper (Strathmore or similar brand), which is acid free, medium weight, and durable, where I draw the strips.

I also use a regular pencil sharpener, a table paper trimmer to cut the borders of the drawing paper, and sometimes a Triangle to aid me in drawing the panels. I buy most of my drawing materials at Michaels.

Drawing Atmosphere

I also need a place to draw. I do not have a drawing table, which are inclined. So I just draw on the table I have in the Dining room. It's not ideal because that table is flat. I have to bend towards it when I draw. That practice may cause back or neck pain, and it is not recommeded by the pros! But when you make something with love, it don't hurt as much :) In addition, since I strictly base my strip on Sal Buscema's style, I have every Hulk issue drawn by Sal on the table. I look at his drawings so I can mimic his style as much as possible when I am making the strip.

Drawing A Strip (Part 1 of 3)

This is were the fun begins. First, I draw a 10" x 3.5" rectangle in the 12" x 9" drawing paper using the HB pencil and the ruler. Then, I look at the story (on the paper I wrote it, or directly in my memory, wherever I can find it), to determine the amount of panels the strip will have. I have to imagine the poses the characters will be making, and the amount of story the strip will tell. This step is nice because it lets me be artistic. But it is also crucial, of it depends the value of the strip. The drawings and the captions should be enough to tell the intended story. Too much or too little of either of them may make a poor strip. It's not easy sometimes to come up with a great strip all the time. (I understand Peter David now, he saying the same things but about comic issues, which is much more complex...) But basically, every strip should have an intro, a trama, and an ending. The intro usually presents what's going to happen in the strip, or refreshes the reader's memory with what just happened in the previous strip. The trama shows how it happens. The ending should be a hit, either showing a happy ending, throwing more complexity to the trama, or surprising the reader with an unexpected finale. Once I decide how the strip will be, I move on to actually draw it.

Drawing A Strip (Part 2 of 3)

I grab the HB Pencil to be able to continue drawing the strip. I separate the rectangle I drew (the strip boundaries) into panels (the smaller rectangles where the action appears). I do the lines by hand, not using the ruler, drawing decent straight lines. I establish all the panels of the strip. Now, I'm ready to do what I like the most from this endeavor: draw the Hulk! Taking a look at how Sal Buscema did the Hulk and other characters in the 70s and 80s, I start drawing the strip in the panels, based on Buscema's style. As I pencil the strip, I also draw the baloons, and the caption boxes so I save the space for the strip's text. When I'm done penciling the strip, this is how it looks like:

Click to enlarge

Drawing A Strip (Part 3 of 3)

After finishing the first strip, I just want to continue with a second one, and then a third, and then a forth... For me it's better to pencil all the way, or ink all the way, not combining these two art forms. I get better results this way, and have more fun too. So I pencil strips until I cannot continue because I'm too tired, or I have something else to do that cannot wait. At the end of my work, I have a stack of one to six strips maximum, all done in pencil, waiting to be inked (some other day). I write the date on them with pencil so I remember when I made them with pencil.

Inking A Strip (Part 1 of 2)

Inkers say that inking is more than drawing than tracing. They are correct. Although it involves tracing, when you ink you're actually re-drawing. Since the inked version of the drawing is the final one, I concentrate very much so the inked drawing is as good as I can make it. The result should be better than the pencil drawing. Sometimes, the inked drawing is a bit different from the pencil drawing. The pencil drawing usually lacks all the details that the inked version has, so that's new. Plus, sometimes the pencil drawing has "mistakes" and the inked version corrects them. As I ink the drawing, I also ink the baloons and the dialog boxes. When I'm done inking the strip, this is how it looks like:

Click to enlarge

Inking A Strip (Part 2 of 2)

Inking takes more time and effort than drawing in pencil. So I cannot ink "in a sit" as many strips as I can pencil. So I usually ink from one to three maximum. I write the date on them with ink so I remember when I inked them.

Finishing A Strip In The Computer

Computers are my other passion. I get to mix drawing, the Hulk, and computers when doing the Hulk Fan Newspaper Strip. It's hard to get any better than that... First, I use a table paper trimmer to cut the 12" x 9" paper to 11" x 8.5", which is Letter size. Second, I scan the inked drawing with my flat bed scanner (I have a Umax). Third, I use Photoshop (from Adobe) to work with the image, and add the captions. The captions are written using the Letteromatic font. When I'm done with the computer, this is how the strip looks like:

Click to enlarge