Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dark horse, entertainment, Jonathan Case, New Deal, portland periscope

Creating A New Deal At Dark Horse With Jonathan Case

Published Fri, 20 Nov 2015 19:00:47 -0600

Bleeding Cool's ex-editor-in-chief, Hannah Means-Shannon has been settling into Portland comic book life, as part of her new editorial position at Dark Horse Comics.

Which means she was also on hand to attend the local exhibition launch of Jonathan Case's recently released graphic novel The New Deal from Dark Horse at the Sequential Art Gallery + Studio. Case is a member of the nearby Periscope Studios in Portland, and The New Deal is published by Dark Horse.

She posted on Tumblr from the show,

Creating A New Deal At Dark Horse With Jonathan Case

Case explained to guests at the gallery reception, using an example set of pages, that he composed the line art for the book digitally on a tablet, then screened the line art onto a clear plastic "transparent film". Next he created a watercolor spot-color layer to lay behind the plastic layer, in this case a striking blue. Then, another layer containing letters was added. It's a method he doesn't feel is totally original, since it harks back to earlier forms of comic art, and even animation, but in this day and age, the hybrid of methods does feel like one Case has very much made his own.

The New Deal, which Case described as addressing "optimism" coming out of the Depression Era, was a book that was accepted as a proposed project at Dark Horse before he began working on the project, based on previous publications with the company, and Case spent about 6 months writing it and 6 months drawing the book. Working with Dark Horse for the "look" he wanted for the book, they settled on a use of Pantone spot-color in a blue close to his original tint, and arrived at an oversized format with matte paper. When asked by guests why he composed the graphic novel with spot color rather than in full color, Case said he felt this format helped capture the spirit of the 1930′s better, and reminded him of visual culture during that era.

Creating A New Deal At Dark Horse With Jonathan Case Read the rest of what she got up to here.