The making of THE KILLING JAR:
by: Justin Zimmerman, Russell Brown and Tom Jacobs
A small Colorado town. Three drug runners with a van filled with product. Two police officers investigating suspicious activity. A heroic young woman with a violent past, a mentally handicapped little brother and her dead father's .38 police special. And a throng of ravenous townspeople out of their minds with drug lust. Mix and...BANG!
Justin: How do you make 100% independent comics? Very carefully! I love comics, but I wasn’t sure how to write for them, specifically. I have my MFA in Film and make my living in that world, so I wrote a feature length story that I figured would take a reader through a good three or four solid comic arcs. There’s a beginning, middle and end there, but there’re also more stories to tell. We’ll see when we get to the end…in 2011. I hired an incredible independent penciler in Russell Brown through a mutual acquaintance, asked my graphic designer wife to get me up to speed on lettering in Illustrator, asked my old friend Tom Jacobs to ink and tone a poster page or two for every issue and went to work. Paid a logo designer. Bought fonts. I eventually found Comixpress.com for my printing needs. Settled on a grainy black and white straight from pencils aesthetic that I could do from my workstation with ease and for little cost, which is a major consideration for this here working man. Did some tests inking, toning and in general, cleaning up work from Russ’ scanned pencils. And started THE KILLING JAR!
Russ: The characters are incredible and compelling…even the bad guys. When you combine the social subtext, the survival horror and the action, THE KILLING JAR is saying something really interesting. And there’s this mood and this underlying melancholy about what’s happened to this town and the people in it…it’s just great to be helping visualize that.
Tom: I like the people I’m working with. It’s an opportunity to work with like-minded and creative individuals. And I figured out this was my fastest path to fame and fortune. Hah! I’m not that heavily steeped in comic culture. My interest in working on THE KILLING JAR comes more from being outside the culture, I think. The story and the characters certainly seem to have a place in the comic book lexicon that I am familiar with. But THE KILLING JAR is unique…something I haven’t seen before. It’s good for me, because there aren’t specific genre rules…there isn’t a certain way for this to look or feel. I can bring my own creativity to bear.
Justin: Because my post-production work is so minimal, I’m going to concentrate on the story to image choices Russ made rather than the pencils to inks to lettering process. That’s not to say I don’t make some tough choices, but I’m more cleaning and tightening lines. Not so illustrative. Lets just listen to Russ, shall we?
Russ: Issue #1, page 2. My first breakthrough page. More about emotion and angle than detail. Setting the tone.
Russ: Issue #1, page 13. A redemption for me, as I was less happy with previous pages. Griff introduces himself as both a leader and a truly sick mo-fo. This was the page to put fear into the readers and Teddy, the gateway character for the villains.
Russ: Issue #2, page 2. Suspense, implied sexuality and danger in the story meant low angles, close shots, shadows and misdirection. Remember, we didn’t know at that point what Teddy was going to do.
Russ: Issue #2, page 18. The first real image that popped into my head when I read the story. Wild, off-kilter, a raving lunatic and ropes of blood…
Russ: Issue #3, page 1. A tough one. A detailed bird’s eye view. Compositing everything I’d done before and making sure everything was consistent for the action coming later. A more technical page, but really enjoyable.
Russ: Issue #3, page 8. Using the panels to signify a lot happening at once. Breaking up the attention but still signifying a single moment.
Justin: Sergei Eisenstein would be so proud of us…
Tom: I try to understand the pages I ink individually as well as in the context of the story.
Tom: In the first image, the sense of impending doom and danger rushing toward Anna…Anna being a defense against that. I wanted to use a strong inking style, a lot of bold, decisive strokes without getting too sucked into doing a lot of fine cross-hatching, keeping the image as active as I could.
Tom: In the second image, the thing that struck me was the immense amount of implied motion. Anna jumping backward, the gun about to be fired…but it’s also a still moment. Calm, serene grass. Her body frozen. It was a moment I wanted to capture more softly and delicately than the above instance. I wanted to accentuate the serenity…the captured moment and the inevitable collision to follow. We know that there’s danger just outside the frame, but in THIS moment it’s just Anna, the gun and the earth.
Justin: I’m a filmmaker by education and trade, so my other artistic contribution to my comic includes covers. I also shoot the annuals, which allows Russ an uninterrupted run on the comic book itself.
Justin: This issue culminates with a home invasion and showdown. In fact, Anna’s home is the physical center of the first arc. The characters are continually drawn to it, then repelled back. I shot this image on 35mm in Saguache, Colorado, then accentuated the crack for a more realistic bullet effect. I washed the image in a solid color and let the natural exposure and contrast do the rest. The more I get in-camera, the more I like the work, usually!
Justin: I used the aforementioned wash technique and removed some elements from this original, but the texture and contrast is in-camera. This issue – like every planned annual – is 100% photography based and this cover is an integral part of the featured character’s story. It’s how she sees herself.
Justin: I like to mix the literal and figurative in terms of the covers for THE KILLING JAR. Here’s a literal cover, shot in the Badlands, South Dakota. Issue #4 will change everything in terms of the characters and their conflicts and I wanted to reflect the new direction of the series in a violent and intense moment.
Russ: The book doesn’t come out faster because I’m a workaday Joe. We are all working people, in fact. I have two kids to take care of and a full time job, so it’s kids, work and sleep…and then comics! This is my first comic job, and it’s extremely frustrating and extremely fulfilling, like a misbehaving ant farm! But it’s a combination of a release, a hobby and a job. I want good projects to attach my skills to, and THE KILLING JAR is one of the greats. I’m growing with each issue.
Tom: I’m not inking every page because I don’t have the time and I don’t have the power to make the time. I have a day job and I have a family. Maybe that’s the downside of me not coming from the comic culture. I can ink THE KILLING JAR fresh and without rules about how comics should be done, but maybe I lack the drive and motivation to stick to a precise timeline.
Justin: I just think the audience is lucky to have you both, period. Well, that’s it for these three working stiffs! Special thanks to Debbie at Excalibur Comics in Portland, Dan Royo, Matt Kubiniski, my lovely wife Shannon and anyone else who’s supported us as we geared up through our first official year. Our best to you as well, interested readers, for supporting THE KILLING JAR!
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THE KILLING JAR can be bought here:
http://www.comixpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=64
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Last but not least, text, illustrations and logo of THE KILLING JAR copyright and trademark Justin Zimmerman.
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