Edited by Justin Eisinger & Alonzo Simon Production Assistance by Shawn Lee Published by Ted Adams
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ISBN: 978-1-63140-811-3
20 19 18 17
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THE ART OF ZACH HOWARD, VOLUME 1: WILD BLUE YONDER. JANUARY 2017. FIRST PRINTING. © 2017 Zach Howard. All Rights Reserved. © 2017 Idea and Design Works, LLC. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 2765 Truxtun Road, San Diego, CA 92106. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.
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One of my favorite pages from Wild Blue Yonder. I kept the layout simple to help the viewer soak in the silence of the scene and weight of the character’s emotional state. I never want the panel borders to compete with the artwork–I feel that they should create a stable foundation for the illustrations and nothing else. For the last panel, I attempted a horizontal longshot that I’ve been trying to perfect for most of my career. This was the first time I felt that I succeeded. As for panel four, it’s proof that even pages I believe to be gems can still have warts on them. I lost the background and simplified the shapes to help the page breathe a bit. However, it seems to have gotten a bit stiff. Luckily, good pages can sometimes survive a bad panel from time to
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I usually make certain all my breakdowns are in place before I start finalizing the pencils (as seen in the last four panels). This helps me plan out where I need to create my heaviest blacks to anchor the design and readability of the page. I tend to get better overall visual balance of the page if I do that. The inks for this page show how I like to contrast my textures to help fill the line art. I feel that texture is what breathes life into sequential storytelling. In doing so and working with these layers throughout the scene, the world and characters begin to exhibit a weight that helps make the fantasy more tangible–helps keep the reader invested. Although using this much texture–hatching and splatter helps tremendously in the overall atmosphere of the page–it can easily be taken too far. One of the great slowing factors of my artwork production is working on the balance between the whites, blacks, and textures. It seems to be a demon I had to tackle throughout most of Wild Blue Yonder.
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This was a page where the writer really wanted to make the introduction to the kids’ playroom feel used and worn in, but also a rare place of fun and security. I tried to antique the final panel to help slow down the reader’s ability to take it in as a whole. I wanted the reader to slowly cascade through the characters and major objects. Compare that with the quick readability of the previous panel. I like to speed up or slow down the reader’s ability to absorb the panels and pages as the scene dictates.