You're either very brave or very crazy.

I guarantee you'l be more of the latter by the time you've finished

Look forward to seeing your work Rick!

It's odd. I'd go with crazy. But I seem to have developed this odd feeling, this alien emotion or desire.

I think I've become...ambitious.

I mean, going by what I've heard others refer to or read about in books. This may be that. I dunno. I've got no experience with it.

It could be like the psychopath imitating social behavior without understanding it.

Maybe we should stick with crazy.

Same here!

Well, it's not going to be anything fancy or spectacular. There's hardly any action in it til the end. And certainly not much traditional superhero-type action. There's a lot of walking and a lot of talking. But it's an origin issue.

Action can come in the next one which, I hope, someone else can draw.

Holy cow, you're angry. I don't think I've even seen it until now.

The composition is nice and the characters are placed well within the frame.

I think the yellow hero in the helmet is best of all the figures -- the body language is natural and his proportions are solid. The yellow and green figure is okay but a bit stiff... I can't quite put my finger on it but I think you were to bend his right arm more, it would seem a bit more dynamic.

The girl's pose is nice and dynamic but her legs look like a man's -- a little too big and thick for a woman's. Even if you were intending them to be thicker because she's a runner, they still have a "mannish" quality -- look at Frank Cho for how to do thick, feminine legs. Also, I'd generally advise against drawing too much muscle definition on a woman overall.

What's with the blue guy? Is he riding the lightning? If not and he's trying to shoot it to keep the other runners at bay, it seems odd that he's shooting it around his own feet instead of directly at them. The pose is strong, though.

I'm not a great colorist but I'd also say you should make the colors in the background less saturated as well... and perhaps make some different choices. Red and yellow are the first two colors the human eye sees, so the bus and the red object really take away attention from the characters in the foreground.

Finally, regarding inking -- for the thicker lines, consider tapering the lines down to a finer point as you end them. I've created the example below. You lines seem to end as the top one does; try ending them like the bottom one. It'll make the lines and figures seem more organic.




Hope it doesn't feel like I'm being too negative but I figured you'd want the straight poop. I think it's a fun, nice drawing that captures a very "fun" sensibility. Keep at it!

No, you're not being too negative. Not at all. I WANTED some critique. I always do. But particularly on this one. So thanks for answering the call.

Yes, Mr. Speed is a little stiff. I find it hard to loosen up figures, even if they're technically correct. He was the figure I was least happy with.

Yes, Spazz's legs are supposed to be thicker than normal. But I can agree she probably needs less definition overall. It's the black of her costume that made me put more muscles lines in. I could probably drop the ribs for instance. I deliberately tried to save myself some time by NOT putting detailed anatomy on the other figures. But I WANTED to.

Yes, Lightning is supposed to be basically skating backwards on that energy, if not actually transforming into lightning himself. He's not concerned with keeping them away. The point being, as fast as these people are that are chasing him, they have no chance of catching him. Spazz is trying to flank him; she has no hope. She's having fun and breaking regulations; she's not supposed to be using her powers openly or without the other members of her team. It's Dr. Tachion who's pissed off and the one who started the chase. But Lightning's transformation has left him somewhat dim on social conventions; he's not even sure why they're chasing him. As soon as he loses interest, they will be left far behind.

Of course, Swanderson could say Dr. Tachion moves at lightspeed, in which case the scenario I just outlined would play out differently, but the frozen moment would still work. It's all daydreams anyway.

I can agree with all of your points. It was an experiment anyway. That's really the first time I've tried an inked, colored scenario involving a background and multiple characters.

Thanks, Hanzo! I do appreciate it.

No problem. I should also note that the reason I spotted and focused on those particular issues is because they're all issues I struggle with as well, so I hope you don't think I'm acting as if I'm "above you" in any way.

Hanzo is so freakin' negative.

PAGE 2 (I haven't decided yet just what I want to do on page 1):




And the script for Page 1. The formatting is wonky from the transfer but I'm not fixing it.

THE LIONMAN
#0

“A PRINCE OF THE BLOOD”

34 Pages

By RICK HANNAH

PAGE ONE

Splash:
THE LIONMAN stands in silhouette with a backdrop of the Washington Monument and related background at night.
Small details evident on the figure but mainly black. We want to save a reveal for later. Eyes visible.

SMALL TITLE: THE COMING OF THE LIONMAN!

SUBHEAD: KING OF THE CONCRETE JUNGLE!

TITLE: A PRINCE OF THE BLOOD!

CREDITS:

CAPTION: “THE WORLD IS A HARSH PLACE, THIS WORLD…” – A SAYING OF THE amaZULU

Bonus points to anyone who can figure out how I came up with the name "Michael Baker".

That page looks great.

The script was TL;DNR.

(But since the character is called "Lionman" I assume it's about a guy who goes to Jamaica and is reincarnated by the power of reggae.)

Looks good!

+1

+1

more please

Wow, you really put a lot of work into textures! Nice work.

Completely logical conclusion.

Doot! Thanks and glad to see you in here. Your first appearance, I think.

Thanks to everyone else. But really, if you see something wonky you will not be doing me any favors by not saying anything.

I see stuff I will go back and change. The shadows on panel 5 don't look right, for instance. I may let the colorist (me, I'm thinking) futz around with the shadows.

So much for me trying to come up with a simpler style like Miller or Mazz. I just can't do it. I AM trying to work looser, believe it or not, and a lot of that texture is just a bunch of squiggly lines. It looks like absolute crap close up. Good that this will be reduced to print. But damn I'm already tired of trees and brush. And there's 4 or 5 more pages of it.

As for the script I'm a little leery of this because almost everyone in this thing is some kind of ethnicity. I can only hope I don't screw any of that up. Every bad guy in this first issue is in some minority but that's the world we're moving in. In future issues we would get to corrupt and evil white men. But I figure that if most of the black and Hispanic parts on TV crime shows are written by white guys I can try the same. Maybe I should use my sometimes pen name for the credits, "Rico Paez". That surname belongs to me thru my maternal grandfather. I dunno. But it makes me nervous in these hyper-sensitive times.

Also trying to eschew, where I can, captions. Seeing as how this is the modern style. And there are no thought balloons in it anywhere. This makes it simpler. For instance: just saying "Washington, DC" instead of saying "Washington DC. The city of the powerful. The city of the hopeless..blah, blah" and so on with purple prose no one will care about.

Anyway, however it turns out, I'm committed.

One minor thing I'd suggest about panel 5 is that that shadow looks a little odd by its lonesome.

Page 3:



The thugs probably need to be tattooed up but I'll have to decide on that later. Some of these guys are awfully sensitive about that sort of thing and I sure don't want to copy, even by mistake, some actual gang's inkwork.

Yes, I'm a coward.

Yep, it'll be fixed one way or another.