As the school year came to a close, and my full-time residencies ended, I excitedly began ramping up development for the next Doctor Baer story.
Here’s our monk leading us to the abbey (formerly a church) hiding a dangerous secret.
I’m continuing to look for ways to streamline the drawing process, and leaning on 3d models seems to be the way to go. Here’s the model of the abbey:
I didn’t build this one, though. I hired a Blender artist to create it and the entire town where the story takes place:
This low-polygon representation won’t be useful for making an animation or video game, but it’s exactly what I need to streamline the process of drawing various scenes in Clip Studio Paint.
I’ll say more about the influences behind the locations as I make more development drawings.
Indiana Jones grew much larger than its creator. How do you think you’d feel about being an artist and about Dr. Baer if it found great success and the Dr. Baer intellectual property grew beyond your control of it?
While I like to think I’d be able to let it go and see it turned into derivative works, I know I haven’t always felt this way. So I take a survey of my WHY over the last 30 years.
May 31st marked the end of my first year where I led in-school comics residencies full-time. I’ve been a teaching artist since 2007, but it’s never been more than a part-time gig until the 2023-24 school year. It’s been a rich, meaningful challenge, but this introvert is ready to spend some time in the studio quietly making art for a bit.
On my last visits, some of the students gave me art as a thank you/farewell present, and I feel seen:
You don’t have to spend a year with me to find out how much I love Orko. The fact that a teenager, the natural enemy of all things sweet and sincere, spent the time to make this for me was touching.
And another student celebrated my odd convergence of interests by drawing the Bleacher Creature, a Gill-man plushie I take to every Columbus Clippers baseball game:
My thanks to all of the teachers and schools who invited me into their spaces to work with their students, and to the Ohio Arts Council, whose TeachArtsOhio grants make my residencies possible.
I’m also going to be drawing custom cursed objects for anyone who stops by:
And you’ll be able to get some of the first Doctor Baer talismans! These ceramic objects are in-world artifacts you’d find if you visited Doctor Baer’s spooky home.
Earlier this month I had the privilege of being the visiting artist at the Ashland High School Art Show. Instead of leading some formal presentation, I invited some of their art students to play along in the Super Comics Challenge game show, which reveals the principles and process of art-making through gameful Taskmaster-like challenges.
It was one of those marvelous experiences that felt perfectly aligned with how I like to show up as a teaching artist. I’m grateful to Ashland High School staff and students, and the Ohio Arts Council for making this experience possible.
I just got the advance reader copy of The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue!
It’s hard to articulate the emotions I felt holding this artifact of two years’ worth of effort in my hands.
Which got me thinking about this Thought/Question/Wondering from the Doctor Baer AMA:
Do you ever feel the tension between protecting time to work on your book against time that friends and family want you to spend with them? What does that look like, and how on earth do we find the best balance in this (that’ll bring the least amount of guilt, ha!) ?
So I take some time to explore the tensions between us and the world when we set out to make art.
Gerry D of the Totally Rad Christmas podcast was kind enough to have me on to share a bit about my upcoming middle-grade graphic novel, The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue. We talk about the 80s cartoons that inspired bits of the book, some of my takeaways and experiences making it, and (given the general topic of the podcast), share some of our most impactful Christmas memories.
This is my first public interview about the book, so outside of my Patreon, this is the biggest sneak peek available yet!
The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue is now available for preorder on Indiebound and Amazon, so I think that counts as a cover reveal!
So let’s take a look at some of the concepts I created to find the final cover design. Please note that these were all made before I had to change the character’s name:
This was my favorite one. I liked the journey into mystery, with the threatening face on the cave’s mouth behind them. As if to say they might not know the danger they’re walking into. Very Duck Tales-ish.
The Indiana Jones movie poster version.
An adaptation of the original teaser image, I felt like this one reflected the types of covers found on readalikes. Kind of a movie poster, but the details are dialed back for clarity.
By the time I got to the 4th sketch, I felt like I was out of ideas. Feeling a little urgency to finish with at least 5 concepts, I sketched out a spiral that would lead to the title. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but practice has shown me that putting something on the page to respond to often works. This moment doesn’t happen in the book, but it sums up the vibe pretty well. So well, in fact, that my editor said this was the cover we needed to go with!
Just selling the tone of playful, spooky adventure with this one.
This one has a lot of storytelling in it. But I think it would work better for a monthly comic than a graphic novel.
And one more take at the fifth sketch with a different color scheme.
I liked them all, but I think my editor was right to pick number four. It passes the squint test, the pink ghosts really pop, and the heroes are descending into unknown danger. Which one would you have chosen?
I know a big part of how you advocate for comics and a thing you’ve shared that brings you a lot of joy is the teaching part of what you do– teaching comics. Through the long journey that is making a graphic novel, do you find that you pick up new tidbits/angles/perspectives/lessons that you can apply to teaching your students in the classroom?
Whether or not you’re planning on working with students, reflecting on your artistic experience only enriches it. But I also share how it leads to teachable moments and lessons plans that are fun for beginners.
