| THE MAKING OF HALLOWEEN: The First Death of Laurie Strode.
“BLACK CATS AND GOBLINS AND BROOMSTICKS AND GHOSTS,
COVENS OF WITCHES DEVOUR THEIR HOSTS
YOU MAY THINK THEY SCARE ME , YOU’RE PROBABLY RIGHT
BLACKS CATS AND GOBLINS ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT
TRICK OR TREAT!”
FIENDS!
SO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO MAKING SCARY HORROR COMICS EH? WELL THEN TURN DOWN YOUR LIGHTS Here I will show you what goes into my part of creating art and visual storytelling for the HALLOWEEN comics, as well as reveal some of my methods ( some very specifically chosen for this particular series), and my pencils (something that rarely gets seen).
COVER DESIGN
Well let's start with covers, it is the first thing Devil’s Due had me create for HALLOWEEN: The First Death of Laurie Strode, so they could make sure they had art for the Previews catalog in time, as well as get the extra time in for cover approval,( working on a licensed property EVERYTHING must be approved by the Licensors, or in this case Halloween's main man Malek Akkad.) So my approach to doing covers for Halloween, is thinking about what is VISUALLY ICONIC to this series of films, specifically the first two. Certainly Jack-O-lanterns are one of the first things that pop into mind, fall weather, blowing leaves, kids trick-or treating, and of course Michael Myers,…the Shape.
Whenever I do covers I always start with a small very loose thumbnail, if I can see it clearly small and sketchy then I KNOW someone across the room inside a comic shop will see it clearly when its all finished and printed on the front of an issue.
Here is the thumbnail for issue #1's cover.
THE SHAPE'S INFERNO- Since this story begins shortly after the events in Halloween II, I figured the first cover should help bridge the movie with this comic. At the end of HII The Shape and Dr. Loomis are seemingly blown up in a firey explosion in a hospital operating room. So I liked the idea of the Shape’s head covered in flames, burning from the inside out, like a flaming jack-o-lantern.
This thumbnail along with detailed notes is sent to the Halloween offices for approval, once that happens and all is a go, I pencil , Ink, and color the cover.
However, as will sometimes happen, the licensors did not like the fact that the Shape’s face was too blackened, nor did they want flames covering his face. But as luck would have it, Elizabeth John ( the colorist from Halloween: Nightdance) was available to re-color it since at the time I was busy working on interior pages. And here is the result, the cover for Issue #1 A MUCH more impressive cover thanks to her!
Covers #2-#3
For the other two covers I made, the approval went as smoothly as can be, I did thumbnails and the Licensors approved of them (as they were) immediately! So no revisions were ever requested of the covers for #2 and #3.
And after I had "resurrected" the Shape in the first cover image, for these two I wanted to take our main protagonists from the first movies, Laurie Strode and Dr. Loomis, and just put them in some normal surroundings, with the Shape, silently stalking them, lurking in the BG. This is a BIG part of what the Shape is all about, and one thing some artists have gone wrong with him visually in the past is to make him posed "too dramatically", Michael Myers, the Shape, just stands around a lot, with feet barely shoulder-length wide, arms at his side, ( usually). In Fact visually the Shape is pretty boring, but he has that white mask that terrifies us, and his pure evil intentions. Also I made a conscious effort to make Laurie and Dr. Loomis both have their heads down with disturbed expressions, as if they KNOW he's there watching them. But both are afraid to look...
I also was able to color both of these covers myself, and I found that in both of these images my main concern visually was the environment. For me, the MOST important aspect in the coloring of these covers was getting that feel of fall, and getting the sky JUST RIGHT. The sky and backgrounds were al l"painted" by hand with a Wacom tablet in photoshop. I LOVE to draw nature and trees, as well as the fictional town of Haddonfield Illinois, as I am originally from a small town in neighboring Michigan, I know what Midwestern towns should look like. Cover #2 I imagine in early autumn ( September), and cover #3 is specifically early November after our story is finished.
INTERIORS.
For The Interiors of the books, I use the same process I've used for years, I draw a layout page to scale with the comic, so I have a good idea as to how large images will be once shrunken down in the final printed comic. Here is a scene from Issue #2 with Dr. Loomis and his partner Marion. They have just moved to Haddonfield and are discussing what to do to help Laurie, and the town, from the evil of Michael Myers. Dr. Loomis knows that he is considered a "bad omen" by the locals, and relates to Marion why they must tread carefully. My layouts are fairly rough with the exception of faces and hands in close-ups. I try to get the essential moods I am going for here. Layouts are also where all the story telling takes place.
Once the layouts are approved I blow them up to about 10X15 inches, and trace them in blue line onto the art board. Then I pencil everything in . Tho like many artists who also ink their own work, the penciling part seems more of a chore than anything. In penciling all I’m doing is the technical work of perspective, and facial expressions/body language. My pencils are usually quite light and somewhat loose. They also rarely indicate lighting ( except for major areas of black), so for the most part they are quite boring to look at, this is why I rarely ever save scans of them or show them to anyone. There is no real point , it’s all about looking at the finished inked page.
Once the pencils are done, Its time for the real drawing to begin, INKING! This is the most intense but fun part of the job, MOST of my drawing is done in the inking stage.
This is where all the detail and texture come forward. Sometimes I don’t even decide how to handle lighting until I have a page , or panel outlined in ink. Then with a soft pencil will blow in shadows and blacks.
I use a mix of inking tools, The most important is my Issabey Series 6222, size 4 brush, along with a hunt 102 crow quill, and some various technical pens. I use a mix of Speedball super black India ink ,and Dick Blick Black Cat ink. Along with white gouache, for white details or corrections, tho I also sometimes to do some minor corrections on photoshop.
COPYING CARPENTER, and CUDNEY.
One of the major decisions I made starting on this book, is to mimic the visual style in wich maestro cinematographer DEAN CUDNEY shot John Carpenter's Halloween, and Halloween II. I already list them both as influences in my visual storytelling style, but this was a decision to do my best to completely mimic them (and putting aside much of my own personal storytelling style) as I feel it is an essential component to telling a Halloween story. I'll show you a scene from issue#1 where I think I succeed, and also where I failed.
Issue #1 pg 7, here we are establishing Haddonfield, just after the events from Halloween and Halloween II. We are at the Hardware store where the shape stole his knives, rope and mask from the first movie, the hardware store owner, Mr. Nichols is throwing out the shape masks out of personal disgust from the whole scenario that has turned his town on it's ear.
Now to tell this scene visually, and to also give it the total Carpenter/Cudney touch I had to utilize my "camera" as us, the viewing audience participating in a voyeur/"peeping tom" state. Due to most of the original Halloween movies being shot with a steady cam, it tends to follow the action as another person on the street would see it. There are almost no shots from above or below the action ( tho in some cases the camera will pull back slowly to reveal something sinister,), you are almost always seeing the action as another person in the room ( at eye level), or from the Shape’s P.O.V or over his shoulder or Laurie’s P.O.V.
In Panel 1, I simply stole the exact same shot from the opening establishing shot from Halloween. The Haddonfield neighborhood , And tho you can’t see it in panel 2, while studying shots from the movie I noticed that BEHIND the Hardware store running parallel to it, are railroad tracks. This had a lot to do with how I designed the back alley of the store. I figured it would be just BARELY be large enough for a garbage truck to fit through.
Issue#1, Pg 8
I have a lot to say about this page, as this was my favorite scene in this issue, tho in the end I feel I sorta blew it.
On the previous page 7, panel 6 we could see one end of the back alley, now in Panel 1, we are looking from that end to the other side of the alley as the hardware store owner walks back inside. And we see the shoulder of the Shape coming into frame.
Panel 2- this is a very important and possibly tricky panel to get just right.
Here is writer Stef Hutchinson's description from the script.
Panel 2: Inside the shop. Mr. Nichols is walking towards inside through the door. He looks startled, as if he’s heard something behind him. Behind him we can see a silhouette outside in the back alley.
I liked that this is not a major shot of the Shape in all his glory for all to scream in terror at. In other words this scene COULD be something more dramatic looking, but in terms of the story and pacing we are going for, it’s not. I doubt John Carpenter or Dean Cudney would think so either, Carpenter always wanted everything in Halloween to be played straight and un-assumeing. You KNOW that Michael Myers is there, but it’s not time for him to play his tricks just yet, we just want to give a quick "stinger". So I figured to make this important panel work the way it was intended and the way Carpenter and Cudney would possibly do it, is to draw Mr. Nichols in the foreground to the left, we see him first. His facial expression and turned body make our eye travel through the black space and to the open door, where I drew in the Shape being cropped by the right side of the panel/door. In doing this the composition gives an illusion of movement to the right. And it almost seems as if the Shape really is movieng past the doorway.
Although, this panel is important, it's not THE most important information that needs to be clearly shown. Wich is another reason the panel is not too large. The majority of space belongs to Panel 1, where we establish that the Shape is in the alley, and panel 3 where Mr. Nichols is grabbing his hammer, indicating the danger. And Panel 3 where we see that masks are now gone.
Mr. Nichols grabs the hammer, and when he goes outside to investigate who is stealing from his trash, there is nobody there. And all of the Shape masks have been stolen.
Now this part of the scene is where I failed at being a Carpenter Cudney copycat cinematographer. So here is a totally true story from the drawing board.
Panel 4 doesn't belong. I messed up, second guessed myself and threw in a random down-shot of Mr. Nichols with his hammer, what makes this worse is that it's the ONLY down-shot in the issue. Originally I had it in my layout and on the penciled page as a similar shot to panel 5 ,but closer in. But then it seemed really strange to me that the camera would pull out to show Mr Nichols alone in the alley only to close up on the garbage bin in panel 6, to clearly show the masks are gone. After wrestling with this dilemma, I erased the pencils on panel 4 and re-drew it as a downshot. I liked the visual diagonal composition that leads the eye across panels 4-5 and to the garbage bin in panel 6. As a comic page this works just fine. Tho as a visual representation of Carpenter and Cudney, I think the bottom tier of panels fails. The camera is all over the place and I should have found a better way to depict this all on the ground from about eye level. Tho just like the entire crew from the original Halloween movie THERE WAS NO TIME. TO MESS AROUND. The final panels may not work as a Carpenter /Cudney homage, but works fine as a comic page. So I figured "what the hell … leave it… move on."
Besides, I more than made up for this in a Shape stalking sequence in issue#2. But I wont show that scene here, you’ll have to go out and get yourself a copy when it comes out!
One last thing I’ll mention about what goes into making this book is A WHOLE LOTTA MUSIC! I am a music junkie and total soundtrack nerd, and have it playing at all times. Of course John Carpenter was also a GREAT composer for his films as well, wich is good for me as I listen to the Halloween 1and II soundtracks CONSTANTLY to keep the mood right for this stuff. I also even made up a playlist of songs specific to the late 70's as well. I highly recommend you play the soundtracks while you read the comics…I do.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed our little excursion in the process of making the art for Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode. I hope you all are enjoying the comics, and if you haven't checked them out yet, I hope this article peaks your interest enough to do so. I hope your Halloween this year is filled with spooky partying, fun, and rock’n horror-mood.
And as you read this you probably don’t realize that Michael Myers is standing behind you …. watching you on your computer…. the moment you turn around he will be gone.
See? I told you!
The Shape will get you tho, he always gets the ones he wants in the end.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN.
-Zornow
( must be destroyed!)
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