Creating Comics!

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Title: Snow Leopard

Client: With Honor, (Comicbook Artists Guild, 2010)

Media: Pencil art by Albert Luciano; inks by Alex Rivera; letters

and final layouts by Shawnti Therrien

Creative Process

This is the title page for the story. Each story in

the book will have its own distinctive title page,

with an illustration and full credits for the story.

Using photo references, I did detailed pencil

illustrations of Zhau Qi, a.k.a. Snow Leopard,

the main character, and her companion Kira, an

actual snow leopard. They are treading Mt. Cho

Oyu, an actual Nepalese mountain where much

of the story action occurs. I used various images

found on the Internet of Cho Oyu, actual snow

leopards in Nepal, and the actress Gong Li as a

template for Qi. Shawnti Therrien used Photo-

shop to digitally ink my illustration and color the

piece. She also used similar photo references to

preserve the authenticity of the final image.

H

enry Covert is a writer, an artist, and a

musician whose journalistic works and illustra-

tions have been published in venues such as

Dark Discoveries, Shock Cinema, Eye magazine, Video

Eyeball, Slam-Bang Comics, Farmerphile, Terminal Brain

Rot, Astonishing Adventures Magazine, Creative Loafing,

and Indie File. In early 2010, two of Covert’s comics were

published: Kirillian Creed, which he created, wrote, and

illustrated for Slam-Bang Comics; and Snow Leopard, a

comix story written and created by Covert for With Honor,

a manga-style graphic novel anthology. He is currently

developing two original metafictional comic book series,

Conclaves and Prima Materia.

Henry Covert

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Henry Covert

Henry Covert

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I was not able to illustrate the story myself as

originally envisioned, so it became a collabora-

tive effort. I still insisted on, and was granted by

my editor Shawnti Therrien, a strong hands-on

approach at each stage of the strip, from inception

to completion of Snow Leopard. Hence the story

showcases each contributor’s respective talents

while still adhering to my original vision.

Step Two: Albert “Albie” Luciano used spe-

cial manga-specific art boards to render the penciled

pages directly from my layouts. There are a few

instances where Albie puts a subtle spin on the angles

or expressions while remaining true to my original

thumbnail layouts.

Step One: This is page 12, as plotted and laid

out by me with art pencils on small hand-cut vellum

boards for the thumbnail layouts. I laid out the story

in the right-to-left manga format, utilizing space

judiciously, because this was at a climactic point in

the narrative of the fifteen-page story. I had to convey

key information at this point that would move the story

smoothly along to its resolution. I worked from my own

completed script, but I adjusted the number of panels

and placeholders for the final text as I did the pencil

layouts in order to keep a natural, almost cinematic

flow going from page to page.

Henry Covert

STEP-BY-STEP

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Step four: This is the final page as lettered by

Shawnti Therrien from my script. Shawnti also arranged

and moved the panels subtly against a completely

black background, to bring the black and white visuals

more to the fore. She used this technique on every

page of the completed story. The subtle juxtaposition

and resizing of the panels allowed the best possible

placement of the captions and balloons from my script,

and also maintained the authentic right-to-left manga

flow of visual information.

Shawnti and I conferred closely on choosing the

appropriate balloon and caption styles and fonts to

distinguish the story’s narration, and the various char-

acters’ spoken and telepathic voices (the “mindspeak”

of the snow leopards, demonstrated heavily on page

12). Shawnti also added grayscale toning to Alex’s ink

work. She did everything in Photoshop.

Step Three: Alex Rivera inked over Albie’s

pencil art using India ink and rendering the inks entirely

by brush. Alex retained the clarity of the images, while

lending them depth and weight. Alex and I conferred

closely on this page, because accentuating the poi-

gnancy of the script’s subject matter was crucial to me.

He was highly successful at this.

Henry Covert

STEP-BY-STEP

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Henry Covert

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