Hello, fellow zombie aficionados. The following is a demonstration of my process on the  Moonstone release ROTTEN, a monthly book set to kick into high gear as of late May.

Although it has been daunting at times, I was very happy to be able to do all the artistic chores on this book, from the pencils all the way to the finished color product. Mark’s scripts for these books have been amazingly detailed, and like most good writers, he can’t draw a lick. Ask him to draw you some flowers some time. Go ahead, ask him!

Anyway, this is a scene from one of the later issues in the series. I picked it because I felt it showcased the vibe of the book pretty well without needing much in the way of explanation. It’s a pile of frozen corpses, not rocket science. Here are the pencils.

I use regular (and boring) number 2 pencils, and micron pens for the inking. The only thing I really shell out for is the paper. I use a nice, heavy printmaking paper for all of my work. I do this because I like to be able to do inkwashes where appropriate (you can see this more on my graphic novel CYCLONE BILL AND THE TALL TALES), but this scene didn’t really call for it. Here it is with the inks.

It’s at this point where Photoshop comes in. I put the color together in layers, creating a base color for everything first.

I then added a warm tone over everything, partly to emphasize the soldier’s firelight that illuminates this scene (which I have cut out of this presentation to keep from spoiling it for the readers) and partly to make them look filthy. I considered drawing the snow and ice on top of the bodies beforehand, but opted to do that on a separate layer. What you end up with is this.

And there you have it. What’s been cool about this book is that Mark has created different strains of zombie outbreaks, complete with different characteristics. There’s your standard mass of zombies, which I made grey with random discolorations.

There’s the frozen zombies from the demo. These are a little more blue, and they randomly start and stop moving.

Then you have your sexy zombie! Actually, it’s more of a case of a select few zombies that still retain their looks, making them a bit more deceptive to the untrained zombie spotter.

There are a few that have extreme colorations, which denotes a particular strain of the zombie germ and certain abilities that go along with it. I won’t tell you what they are, but it’s pretty cool.

And the worst zombies in ROTTEN? Well, they’re not the undead type. They’re the frenzied masses of normal god-fearing people, trying to make sense of all of this zombie madness through violence, faith, hysteria, and other terrifyingly human characteristics.

Watch out, dear reader! As bad as the undead can be, I’d take them over an angry mob of brainless idiots any day!

That just about wraps it up for me. Check out www.rottencomics.com for more info, and buy ROTTEN!

- Dan Dougherty

Comment on the making of ROTTEN.