Comics Chronicles : Focus on Geoffo

Comics Chronicles est un chouette blog français sur les comics qui m'a proposé de décrire ma manière de travailler sur une page. J'ai donc choisi une page de Vic Boone, et vous pouvez lire le tout ici.

Et vous trouverez d'autres FOCUS ici, avec notamment du Paul Renaud.

Comics Chronicles is a french nice blog about comics which offered me to describe my way of working on a page.
So I picked a Vic Boone page, and you can see the french version here.
Here is an english translation, without the nice interface:

>FOCUS #5: VIC BOONE #01 (PAGE 09) by GEOFFO

BIOGRAPHY

Comic book, Illustration or animation, Geoffo is a multi talented artist with an innovative style based on differents cultures.

Visionary according to some, Geoffo makes the difference with his original and multifaced graphism.

In parallel to his animation school where he did Black Sun, Geoffo was published in the Vic Boone graphic novel in the United States. He also worked on the next Scarce cover, a french comic book magazine considered to be a reference in the world comic book field.

Geoffo is currently working on a revolutionary project for smartphone, Iphone Ipad and digital tablet that will be available in Autumn 2012

SYNOPSIS

Former daredevil Vic Boone is a private investigator in a world etched by the science fiction of drive-in movies and early Hollywood. It’s a landscape of robots, ray guns, and regular Joes. But whether his client is a beautiful socialite or a brain that wouldn’t die, Boone is out to get the job done no matter how bizarre.

COMMENT ON THE PAGE

This is the page 09 from Vic Boone # 01. The first 3 sequences introduced the character as a private investigator, the sci-fi universe and its unhabitants (bad guys, fly man, robots and so on), while this new sequence brings the reader to the past and a more tormented aspect of Vic.

Shawn's scripts are clear enough to give a straight direction and yet they allow the artist to put his touch, or even add some panels (like I did with the first 3).

This page contrasted with the colored and rich aspect of the universe, and that's why I specifically push further the graphic contrast between black and white.

Thus, Vic sometimes appears only as a mere silhouette.

SHAWN SCRIPT: PAGE 08 ( 4 PANELS)

Panel 1: Boone sits on his bed, smokes a cigarette (hangs from his mouth). Nightstand next to it has a small glass of whiskey, bottle of pills, alarm clock, ashtray. The bedroom is moderately furnished. Not messy, but not overly clean. Bachelor pad. On the walls and dresser are a few pictures from Boone’s dardevil days.

Caption:
SO FAR, NOTHING IS GOING AS PLANNED. ANDRE HAD LESS INFO THAN I HAD HOPED, AND A GOOD NIGHT’S REST WAS DELAYED BY THOSE RAYGUN DUMB%$*#.

Panel 2: Boone opening bottle of pills.
Caption:
IF ANDRE IS RIGHT ABOUT HUNT AND FUTRATECH--I HAVE A FEELIN’ TOMORROW ISN’T GOING TO GO ANY SMOOTHER.

Panel 3: Boone throwing pills into mouth.
Caption:
FUNNY THING ABOUT ANDRE--
Caption:
--HE’S SELDOM WRONG.

Panel 4: Boone taking drink of whiskey.
Caption:
ABOUT ANYTHING.

PANEL BY PANEL

  PANEL 01 TO 03
The first 3 panels I added gives a solid past to Vic.

First and second panels are the symbol of a golden age, while the third one shows a past love.

In other words, theses differents elements are linked to a happy period of his life that he doesn't have any more.

Panel 01: "official" picture, showing both his costume and his motorcycle, so I used a knee shot

Panel 02: newspaper article, giving him a "legitimate" aspect, thus the importance of showing the title and some paragraphs.

Panel 03: close-up on a more intimate picture, far from the limelight. It also shows that he didn't always have his white streak. Family or past love, her simple presence on the picture emphasizes that the was important to Vic at some point.

  PANEL 04

A long shot panel which highlights the poor environment of the character, and thus his loneliness. Cigarette and alcohol contributes to this depressing atmosphere.

This is the only panel with background of the scene.

  PANEL 05/06/07/08

We focus on the bottle of pills melted with alcohol. The absence of background, the strong graphic constrast and the close up deepen the darkness of the scene.

To my mind, this page is my favourite (along with the 04 which shows the city), because from a graphic and narrative point of view I could stylised much more to create a strong atmosphere.

To conclude, this graphic "freedom" that Shawn and 215Ink allowed me to have during the whole mini serie helped me to bring a strong touch to this sci-fi universe, but also to slightly redesign the Vic Boone character, to give him more visual impact.

Indeed, I'm really glad to see the white streak that I designed gave birth to an "origin" short story about it (which is in the graphic novel) and his now definitively linked to the character design.

You can check more FOCUS on Comics Chronicles (notably one by Paul Renaud) here (french only).