Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

Seven Years In The Studio

El Grande Comic by Joseph Karg and Elio Guevara. Close Date: July 13^th. Publishing Date: December 2014

El Grande is a graphic-novel meditation on mortality from Joseph Karg (Archer, Chozen) and Elio Guevara (Spectrum) that speaks with a sceptical voice about the future of our most closely held beliefs, our destiny as people, and our planet, but in a super fun way with guns and boobs and drugs.

If Leaving Las Vegas had a baby with Groundhog Day, and that baby went to the future, it would be El Grande.

Joseph Karg writes,

Elio Guevara and I both hold masters degrees from the Savannah College of Art and Design, but when our first graphic novel "El Grande" is published this fall, we will have finally graduated from the only program we've ever truly cared about; actually making comics.

You want to know how to make someone's jaw drop? Try telling them you've been making a sixty-two-page comic book for the past seven years. That usually works for us. Questions will come flooding in immediately like "Do comics take that long?" and "Why would you do this?" and "Isn't there a better way?" It's usually at times like this that a little back-story becomes necessary.

Elio and I are thirteen years apart in age. Elio (43) emigrated here from Venezuela in the late nineties to attend graduate school at SCAD. I (30) didn't begin my artistic career until 2003, when I met him for the first time at the Art Institute of Atlanta. We both now teach there. By the year I started writing and drawing, Elio had already been pursuing a career in comics for several years with little success. In 2007, when we began our work on El Grande, Elio had come to believe that the only way he would find success in the comic book industry would be to create his own book. He had an idea of what he wanted, but needed a writer to help him develop it. That is where I came in.

Since we weren't looking for a publisher to print this book, we placed no limits on the contents, format or length of the project. It could have curse words! It could have nudity! It could have suicide! It could have long walks on the beach! The sky was the limit, and we were determined to create a project that no one had ever seen. We spent nearly a year writing before we drew a single panel. This was a passion project for us. We worked nights and weekends and took breaks whenever necessary to keep a roof above our heads.

Elio would try to bed rich old women while I skulked in the alleys. He wore a cowboy hat. I had a health problem. Wait, I think that was something we watched on Netflix during an all night art jam.

Anyway, from 2008-2009 Elio took a year off of the project to pursue some fine art opportunities while I worked in a sculpture studio in Atlanta. I think my body is 30% resin now. In mid 2009, I left sculpture to receive an MFA in Painting from SCAD Atlanta and Elio and I began working on the book again. We had learned a lot from our time apart and decided to scrap the pages we had done in the first two years and approach the style from a more radical angle.

The images just weren't exciting enough, and the storytelling could be better. In our time off, Elio and I had both become enamored with the simplicity of Joe Kubert's camera movements as well as Jorge Zaffino's flare for dramatic lighting and intense facial expressions. We wanted those in our book along with Tanino Liberatore's textures and Moebius's everything.

Elio had been experimenting with markers, color pencils and digital application techniques for his design demonstrations at the Art Institute, and had stumbled on some very intriguing results. This is how we will draw El Grande. Elio had only scratched the surface of what this image making approach could produce however and we threw ourselves into the deep end of experimentation. The results were insane. We believe something very special about El Grande lies in our technique and truly helps it stand apart from nearly all other comic books.

Since 2009, Elio has illustrated 120 pages of El Grande. We originally designed the story to be released in three parts, but since the artwork takes such a long time to produce, we thought it better to release it in six parts in order to give our readers new content more frequently. With book two already finished, we can release it next year around the same time as book one while having books three and four well on their way. One book per year for six years is our goal.

In the amount of time we've been working on El Grande, I (Joseph Karg) have graduated from college twice, been engaged, worked on several animated television shows (including the geek fan favorite ARCHER), become a college professor and started performing comedy on a regular basis. Elio Guevara has taught full time and made El Grande. This is his life's work.

We can't express to you enough how much this means to us that you understand what we've invested into these pages. We've never cared about anything more and we hope you'll give us a chance to tell you our story. Please share our Kickstarter link and tell your friends about the project. Thank you!

**FOR BLEEDING COOL READERS**

If we are able to raise $500 over the weekend, Elio Guevara will illustrate a full color image in the style of El Grande of any two characters of your choosing FIGHTING! Batman vs Superman? Finn vs Jake? Zack Morris vs Screech? Anything at all! All you'll need to do is cast your vote in the comments of this article for who you'd like and we'll choose the most popular one and post it to the Kickstarter next week as a special Bleeding Cool update.

Kickstarter: http://kck.st/1nOQ7An

Our Site: http://www.elgrandecomic.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eggraphicnovel

Tumblr: http://el-grandecomic.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElGrandeComic

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