Scott McCloud, in conversation with Peter Doherty

On the 9th of March I attended this special event hosted by Travelling Man and Thought Bubble, where we Peter Doherty talked to Scott McCloud about his work on his latest book 'The Sculptor'. There were many pieces of insightful advice from McCloud that I kept note of, such as how he had this idea building for thirty years, and had noted it down roughly, and these 'storyboards' would later be vital to his page layouts. He said how he thought that things like page layout are often thought of so much that people forget about other important elements, such as the flow of visual narrative, and how background characters often feel lifeless, he tackled this by photographing people in the street, and using them as reference. This way every background character had their own story, and life, which made the world feel much more complete. McCloud uses mostly three tier systems, and uses Photoshop and Illustrator on Cintiques to create each page. He said how if you story is to have a message, you must know this from the beginning. From the very start of your planning, what it is you want to get across, and to do it in the most entertaining way possible. For our comic, we know exactly what this is.  We have a strong message of saving our species and the natural world, along with vegetarianism, not necessarily eating other animals, but more about how we butcher them in the masses, born to die.

McCloud talked briefly about the bleeds in a page, and how to use them. He uses them in this book, to 'prolong and event in the readers mind, to keep them thinking about it'. Whats important is that your consistent with how you use them. He also said how he doesn't like comic that often change artists between issues, something I strongly agree with, and that he avoided this by doing it all himself.