Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Joshua Cassara, noel clarke, the troop, Titan comics

Processing The Troop: Behind The Page With Joshua Cassara

Published Mon, 26 Oct 2015 15:00:56 -0500

Posted by Olly MacNamee

With our recent coverage of Noel Clarke and Joshua Cassara new comic The Troop debuting from Titan Comics December 9^th at a comic shop near you, we asked Cassara whether he could share the procedures he takes from pencil, to pen to printed page. This is what he kindly shared with us here at Bleeding Cool HQ:

'Generally I will read the script a couple times and take some notes on questions or ideas I have for Noel. Then spend a full day or two breaking it down and thumbnailing the whole issue to send to Noel and my editor Steve for their approval/notes.

Page 1 thumbnail & pencil/ink/color: I will pretty much thumbnail out the whole story depending on the the script, just to make sure everything flows and fits so I'm not stuck in a jam late in the issue. All the important information is usually all right there in my thumbs. I then layout my pencils on a new board. My pencils aren't generally this tight because I ink my own work, but I think I wanted to get off on the right foot on the first page here. I don't usually do a rough then light box because of time constraints. I ink straight over my pencils. Just ink and water, with whatever tool will get the job done or I feel like using that day. I draw like my work could stand alone as a B&W comic by doing some gray tones/washes. But then you see the amazing colors and palette Luis lays on top of my doodles. It's incredible work especially the way he separates the foreground and background elements. He's definitely putting his own stamp on this series. He's got great instincts and makes me look way better (which is what we all want!)…

Hot Dog panel: maybe my favorite panel of the issue, just because we all know most of us would use our powers for these sort of mundane things.

Stephanie/Terrain concept: For this character Noel wanted a girl who completely turned into rock, but also kept her feminine figure and not into some giant granite monster. Here I wanted to give him some texture options to choose from.'

Olly MacNamee teaches English and Media, for his sins, in a school somewhere in Birmingham. Some days, even he doesn't know where it is. Follow him on twitter @ollymacnamee or read about his exploits at olly.macnamee@blogspot.co.uk. Or don't. You can also read his articles fairly frequently at www.bleedingcool.com too.

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