The making of “n.e.s. #113 of 480”

Today Russ Kazmierczak, Karaoke Fanboy and creator of Amazing Arizona Comics, texted me while I was working on my latest page. Russ was letting me know that he had finished, and was printing, Volume 2 of the COVID-19 micropoems he’d written, with minor contributions from me.

We bantered awhile (example: I told him about my latest Bad Pun, “Gatored Community,” and talked about how to get it to work), and then I showed Russ my work in progress, in steps as we texted:

GB: Work in progress. Not much drawing left, but a boatload of dialog in word balloons…

RK: Looks great!

GB: Thanks. Good thing it doesn’t have to. 🙂 Gil Kane once discussed the “Little Orphan Annie” strip–said the artist may as well have been drawing lumps of coal. The illustration took a back seat to the word-ballooned story. Somehow that is comforting to me. 🙂

RK: Oh, I’ll hang my hat on that one!

GB: Ha–your drawing is quite serviceable. John Byrne Jr. with a touch of Fred Hembeck. –Only better, he hastened to add…

GB: Now it’s just a race to the punchline. –Oh, and coming UP with a punchline…
I see I left out a parenthesis…

GB: Then “And YOU are captain AND crew.” And then maybe “Where to?” Or “GO BIG or GO HOME–wait, you ARE home…” or “Bon Voyage…”

GB: One thing I like about word balloons is they are composition-balancers.

RK: Absolutely, I wish I used them like that a bit more.

GB: And you can get playful with the tails…

RK: Definitely

GB: And sometimes tilt the words for dynamic angling. That’s rarely done in what I’ve seen. There’s a right-angle anality to almost all lettering…
…so when you throw that off the reader is a bit frissoned without knowing why.

RK: Definitely serves to reveal a disorientation in the speaker…or like you said to GIVE disorientation to the reader…only in comics art!

GB: All done but the cleanup. And..you…were…there… 🙂

RK: Awesome to see and read the process! Thanks for sharing this

GB: That was fun! So, what DOES “n.e.s.” stand for?

RK: Boy…that could be a stumper…Neo Existential Sketch is the first to come to mind

GB: “Existential” IS a word in one of the candidates! Well done! –Hey, is it OK with you if I include this exchange of ours in my blog post?

RK: Ha! Awesome…and of course

GB: Great! Thanks!

RK: No problem!

GB: ETA 8pm. Or nine. Or next week? 🙂

RK: I’ll keep my eyes peeled

GB: Painful!

RK: Ha!

****

Here then, Friends, is how this one particular work (almost) came to be. I say Almost because there was more than Cleanup involved–a whole other stage, in fact. Next post is the Reveal!