A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran

I’ve got a load of important work to do before Christmas. Serious computer technical problems cost me days of labor, so I apologize for the radio silence.

Cross-posted from my portfolio blog:

Sometime over the next week or so, I will finish up my new graphic novel with Barry Lyga. Coming in at about 120 pages, it will be out from Houghton Mifflin late next year. This is the first major project on which I have done a significant amount of digital inking. I’m bringing it in behind schedule, in part, due to the painful digital learning curve (I’ve found it easier to learn to paint digitally than to draw digitally – not sure why.) But I have learned so many new skills, it is unlikely I’ll be doing much hand drawn art for comics in future.

The contract for another graphic novel showed up about a week ago, and these digital painting skills will come in handy. This will be my first fully painted work – cover to cover – in some 20 years. My last painted GN was a mixed bag of an effort, but I got such a great reaction to the work I did on Derek McCulloch’s short story for Tori Amos: Comic Book Tattoo that it ended up sending more work my way, including this graphic novel contract. I can’t tell you anything more about it at this time, except that it will be an adaptation of a short story by a major author from a respected publisher. I will both adapt and do all art.

In April I will finish up both Gone to Amerikay and Stealth Tribes, both for DC/Vertigo. This is almost 300 pages of hand drawn work. Gone to Amerikay is the most challenging project I have ever done, and I am extremely proud of it. Steath Tribes is a fascinating dark SF tale by Red and Transmetropolitan scribe Warren Ellis. It has some of my very favorite work, from design to finals. I absolutely love it.

With the exception of about a dozen pages of Stealth Tribes, all pages on both books are penciled. I will do nothing but inks for months. I am delighted with the work on both projects, and since all my books are very near the end, I am exhilarated, and frustrated, dying to finish them off and move on. Somewhere between completion and completed, there is the twilight zone of “For God’s sake, I can’t believe I have to render more windows on that cityscape. Please get me out of here.”

After that, you finish the book and feel terrible that it is finished. You want to go back over it all and do it better.

Since I have so much work, it is doubtful I will be able to travel. I am terrified of getting the flu and blowing my schedule. I might do a book festival or two, but I probably won’t be able to appear at any conventions next year.

And congratulations to Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner for their Golden Globe nomination fro RED!