Communicating 09

Here you have the last page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. Once can't think about telepathy without mentioning telekinesis, and since I had ended page 8 with a guy sending a telepathic message, page 9 had to begin with some sort of telekinetic activity going on. Since I had already mentioned painting on the first page, I thought having a telekinetic artist on the last page would be a nice way to go full circle. Also, can you imagine how popular live painting would become? It occurred to me that people love to see artists drawing and painting, and the thought of having them do it telekinetically in front of an audience would surely become a tremendously popular form of entertainment.

After cracking myself up with the French-looking artist (who is one of my favorite characters in the story), I came up with an equally ludicrous teleporting chamber that shouldn't look as much like a boob as it does. The "nipple" was supposed to be a light, but my sister colored it like metal and I didn't want to ask her to change it, so I just went with it. I also like the guy (who may or may not be based on an actual person) coming out of the device, and the two cities he mentions are certainly not chosen randomly.

Finally, I love the monkey experimenting on the other monkey, and I thought it was a nice tongue-in-cheek way to wrap up my silly story, which now looks like a prequel to Planet of the Apes. Movie references aside, I do like this last page, and it probably is my favorite one along with pages 1 and 7. I had a lot of fun drawing this comic book, even though I rushed through the pages so much to have them finished on time. Needless to say, we did not win the contest, but I never expected to, so it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I had a good time, and that I have some sequentials to add to my portfolio. I hope you enjoyed our journey through the history of communication!

Communicating 08

Here you have the eighth page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. As a throwback to what I did on page six, I decided to have a Facebook page as the first panel, and I think it turned out kind of cute. However, my favorite panel is the third one, with the old guy sending a telepathic message to the redhead. At this point, and after having covered as many inventions as I could think of, my sister and I thought it would be funny to come up with some predictions for the future, and I remembered this survey I read about how people would feel regarding having their credit card chips installed in their hips so that they wouldn't need to carry any plastic cards at all. I thought it would be crazy to do the same with cell phone chips, and that telepathy was pretty much just that. Next thing you know, the picture for this panel had popped in my mind. I hope you like it!

Communicating 07

Here you have the seventh page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. This page is also heavy on text, but I really like all the illustrations. Starting with the cute blogger who may or may not be based on an actual person, I think everyone on the page looks rather neat. Somebody pointed out one of the guys in the second panel looks just like me, and I must confess he is supposed to be me. By then I was running out of ideas for different faces, so I decided to include myself as part of the crowd, so I hope you'll forgive my little homage to myself. As for the last panel, I think the guy texting while taking a dump is not only hilarious but also true to life. (Confess, you john texters!) And as an amusing side note, the bathroom is modeled after the one in my apartment. (This is what you see from inside the bathtub.) Talk about being true to life!

Communicating 06

Here you have the sixth page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. This page is heavy on text, and the things I talk about are so abstract I had a really hard time deciding what to draw. I am especially proud of the third panel, which totally looks like a web browser. I was hoping my sister would realize what it was, and when she sent me back the colored version, I was blown away: every little icon was the exact right color!

At any rate, this is probably the least exciting page in the comic book, but I felt I had to convey all that information somehow. Plus, the page was so simple I drew it in record time!

Communicating 05

Here you have the fifth page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. The old lady having TV issues is one of my favorite pictures in the whole nine pages, just like the radio guy on page four, the monk on page three, and everyone on page one. Other than that, I also like the old MS- DOS operating system in the third panel. Ah, the memories...

Communicating 04

Here you have the fourth page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. The first panel displays the second one of the two ideas I originally had when I started thinking about the comic book. My favorite panel here is the third one, though. I love the way the old guy turned out, and he is definitely one of my favorite characters in the whole nine pages. He just looks so neat! At any rate, let me know what you guys think!

Communicating 03

Here you have the third page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. I really like the old monk's face in the first panel --he looks mean and unforgiving, and he is one of my favorite characters in the whole story. The guy in the second panel is Jean-Antoine Nollet, whose early experiments regarding transmitting electricity with a Leyden jar made me laugh so much I had to include him in my comic book. Finally, the guy in the third panel is Samuel Morse, even though my depiction of the famous inventor doesn't resemble the actual Morse all that much. (For some reason, his face looks like he should be in a bill or something.) At any rate, I hope you guys like this page!

Communicating 02

Here you have the second page of Cultura de comunicaciones, the story my sister and I submitted to a comic book contest last January. I like this page, and I think the Greek runner is my favorite panel on this page. I kept thinking of the runner in Las doce pruebas de Astérix, and I tried to reproduce his look from my memories of the character, so he should be considered an homage to that classic of my childhood. I hope you guys like it!

Communicating 01

As you probably know by now, my sister and I entered a comic book contest back in January, hoping we would win a grand prize of 6,000 euros. Actually, I didn't think we'd win, but she was very excited about the idea, so I agreed to participate. The arrangement, as it tends to be the case, was that I would write it and draw it, and she would color it on the computer. The topic they gave us was how technology has impacted the way we communicate, and I had an idea we could draw a story about the history of communication: what the different media and inventions have been, what they brought to the table, and what their limitations were. Actually, the first thing that occurred to me was that it would be funny to have a Native American on top of a mountain sending smoke signals, and that it would also be sort of funny to have a couple of guys using those glasses connected with a cord talking to each other. After that, it was only a matter of coming up with other devices to fill up the minimum number of pages required by the contest administrators (a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 12 pages).

We basically had a month to do the whole thing, so I knew I would have to work as quickly as possible. Since the comic was going to present a humorous approach to the topic at hand, I thought it would be fun to have sort of a Mortadelo and Filemón look to it, which would also allow me to practice my new curvy-line style. (My "Leonardo Da Vinci style", as I think of it.) I also decided to keep the panels and page composition simple to be able to work faster. However, since every single panel in the comic has the same importance, I thought the storytelling wouldn't really suffer, and I still think it didn't. (At least, not because of that decision.) Once all these matters were settled, I started working on the comic book as fast as I could, using the pencil to sketch only the bare minimum and drawing directly with my technical pens for the most part. This, I think, gave the panels a fresher, more dynamic look than what I am usually able to achieve.

Just like the drawing, the writing was done on they fly. I had a list with all the panels I wanted to have in the book, but I did not have a script per se, which means I was writing directly on the page as I was drawing. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to say, and I just articulated it as I went. I think this also gave the book a more dynamic, less static look, but you might think it just looks sloppy.

As it happens, I managed to finish the whole thing in a week and a half, and I didn't even draw every day during that time. If nothing else, creating "Cultura de comunicaciones" was a feat of focus and speed, and I discovered I can work pretty quickly if I have to.

At any rate, I'm happy with how the pages turned out, because this story looks nothing like the sequentials I've done before. (For other sequentials here on the blog, check out Terra Inkognita, With Love, Amor acuático, and Worlds Collide.) Not only does it have its own distinct look, it also looks pretty much like what I envisioned in my mind, and those pictures, like Adam Hughes once said, are the pictures I tend to like the best. But I want to know what you guys think about it, so here you have the first page. I will be posting the whole story through the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned and leave us some feedback!

Votadme!

(Check the second paragraph for the English version of this post)

Hola a todos! Mi hermana y yo estamos participando en un concurso de comics, y los ganadores se elegirán mediante votación popular, así que me encantaría que nos votarais a ver si ganamos un premio. Si sois tan amables y estáis dispuestos a ayudarnos a ganas una cantidad para nada desdeñable, visitad http://www.tucamon.es/, registraos como usuarios, buscad el grupo Creacomic, y votad por "Cultura de comunicaciones", escrito, dibujado y coloreado por "Cleopatra", alias tras el que ya os podéis imaginar quiénes se esconden. Por si acaso os cuesta encontrarlo, es el último de la lista, ya que fuimos los primeros en colgarlo en la página. Gracias de antemano por vuestra apreciadísima ayuda!

And now in English--
My sister and I have entered a comic book contest, and we need your help. The winner will be chosen by the people who visit http://www.tucamon.es/ and vote for their favorite work, so I would love it if you could swing by the website and voted for "Cultura de comunicaciones" by Cleopatra, the pseudonim my sis and I are using. If you think you can spare a few minutes to do this, please go to the aforementioned page, sign up (I know it sucks, but you can't vote if you're not a member), join the group "Creacomic", and vote for us. I can't promise we'll share our riches with you, but you'll make us very happy. Plus, if you believe in karma, your kindness will somehow be rewarded!