As I roll down to the finish of Moon Town #1, I’ve decided on a format change for the book. When I first began planning it, I went with a typical comic book format, 6×9. However, after having worked on a story for Tom Dell’Aringa’s Marooned collection, which is a 9×9 square format, I got to thinking the square format was better. First, and most importantly, at 9″ wide, the art is much bigger than the 6″ wide version. And second of all, the square format lends itself to a more horizontal aspect ratio, which feels a lot more cinematic. That of course makes me thrilled.
The only bad news is that because of the page breaks in the new format, there are some blank spots in the book (I’ve doped them in with small question marks). The good news is that I’ll be filling them in with some ideas I’d had along the way and originally had to cut for space. Luckily, those ideas are back in.
The other change to the book – originally it was going to be a 22-page story with a 5-page backup story unrelated to Moon Town, just some funny little story. Instead, I’m going to be producing Moon Town #1 as a 36-page story, which feels really nice and chunky to me. That feels worth releasing.
You can follow along on my progress at the BOOKS page at the website. The first book will chronicle the first 3 chapters in the Moon Town saga, and at this writing, only needs 9 more drawings. Exciting!
What’s the original page dimension you used in drawing the pages? One of the major regrets that I have is that I’ve drawn my pages at 6×9. So I’m not sure how it would look like if I blow it up to anything bigger than that.
Hi Steve.
I like the idea of a 9×9 square Moon Town volume very much indeed. I had never realized, before I read it from you, that square formats are well suited for displaying cinematic action. And after having payed a close look at the “Moon Town, Book One” layout page, I do agree. And the big square panels stand out far better this way. As full page standalone illustrations, which are equivalent to exposition shots in movies.
Ronan grumble (all the time) about the vertical A4/Axxx/… ratios, says it was designed by book reading folks, no comics readers. And that Children books industry alone understand that the vertical format is “unnatural”, as our natural way of seeing, as a species, is 150° panoramic.
Then after all that ranting, he went for an A4 format for his own comic, but hey, he’s French too.
Hai – I drew them at 6×9, but at a sufficiently high DPI that they will hold up very nicely at 9×9, although I may likely drop to 8.5 or 8.25 square based on cheap and easy availability of properly sized shipping boxes/envelopes. That’s one of the problems we’ve run into on shipping Out of Orbit, which is 9×9.
Cathbad – what bothers me about my initial decision is that it wasn’t my decision per se. I let people scare me into a standard, conventional solution, even down to letting Ka-Blam’s standard comic sizes dictate the format of my book. If I don’t want a conventional 6×9 book, then I guess I can’t be a Ka-Blam customer. I guess I’ll have to do it myself, then, but isn’t that really better in the long run?
Why don’t you fill in the gap with some moon-town lore or moon facts? I liked hot Tom’s Marooned preview had some info on the story below the strips. Kinda like a comic-book commentary.
Fill it in with pictures of delicious bacon.
Paul – Filling in with facts is a good idea, but not as good as filling in with well-placed quiet moments to take in the scenery. I feel lucky to have those spots open up like this. I meant to do it from the start and sort of lost track of that goal.
Or, you know, bacon. Delicious, delicious bacon.
What a great idea!
I can tell you all having seen Payload, that it looks great in that format.
The square format sounds cool. I agree that sticking to the “standard” format isn’t a must. It’s just more convenient.
Who are you using for printing?
Tom – yup. OoO format was the thing made me do it.
zcotty – we’re actually looking at several options. More bulletins as events warrant.