Breaking The Golden Rule

"You don't make an album sleeve before you write the songs" 

                                                                            - Bill's Golden Rule

Maybe it's an extension of my personal damage but in my head the cover of any book cannot be made until the story is complete, the editors have given final approval and the publishers are ready to go to print.  The cover developers have read the book and have chosen a moment to capture (or a tone to set) based on the content within.  Making the cover too soon dooms the project to failure and curses your fingers to cramp whenever you pick up a pencil.

So the first thing I set out to do was to design the title text/logo and draw the cover.  I knew the moment I wanted to capture:

The evil lab tech has just spewed his manifesto to the shocked members of the office meeting and raced off into the production area.  He climbs up to the top of an open-topped mixing tank and dives in...

This is the climax of the first Volume and a picture I've had in my head from the start.  I decided to go with a traditional comic cover format - a spot for the title, a block for the comics code of ethics and room at the bottom for the title of the issue:

Cover Layout

Now the sketch.  I start with the tank in the foreground and the lab tech leaning over the edge - poised to dive in.  In the background, our salesman is pushing his way through a pair of double doors and shouting for him to stop.  I was thinking that a chemical lab like this would produce some nasty fumes so I wanted a giant exhaust fan as a focal point.  And to join the fan to the action I placed a mezzanine with assorted pieces of non-descript heavy equipment:

Cover Sketch

I wanted some eye popping color and decided my light source for the page would be the sun shining through the exhaust fan:

Sketch With Light Source

Before I got too far along with inking, I wanted to finalize the placement of the title frame:

Cover Sketch With Title Frame

For the record, there is no official business entity called "Persuading Comics."  Many moons ago I was in a shitty punk band who only wrote songs about drinking and being angry called Chemical Persuasion.  I've set this raw expression of whatever as my benchmark of creativity and have kept the 'Persuading' in all the stuff I do as a nod to myself that I'm "keeping it real" or some such bullshit.

Over the past few weeks I've done some more work to the cover and to spare you a detailed description of every iteration along the way -  have gotten here:

Cover First Ink

Cover First Airbrush

Volume One Cover To Date

I'm left with defining the mezzanine and equipment, the room itself and some detail and shading on the tank.  But I've spooked myself out of breaking the Golden Rule for now.  So I've started work on page one - which will be next discussed.