Writing Joseph

I've written another story for Bible Society, this time Joseph. Following on from the Women Of The Bible, which I now have sample copies of that I'm taking into schools, along with feedback forms (hopefully we'll see it published soon), this is my latest commission and it's been great fun to write.

Notable has been the conditions under which I've produced it. It was done entirely while sat in a fold-up chair in the back room of Heather's recent exhibition. Whereas I'd normally sprawl over the desk in my office, paper strewn everywhere, and my laptop waiting for the second stage of the writing, this time it was all done with no space to play with and, literally, on my lap.

Stage one is scribbling the story out in biro. That's where the gags come, the visuals get dreamt up, and the first bit of editing happens. That took two days in the gallery (which we set up on Monday and took down the following Sunday).

Step two of my Bible stories is writing all the words into the voice bubbles, which will then be the bubbles of the finished printed artwork. This method is how Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Gaines used to do EC comics 65 years ago. They'd type all the text onto the artboard and supply that to the artist to draw on top of. Well, it's my method too. That stage took two days too.

Step three, usually, is for me to draw rough visual versions of every panel, and it is this that get supplied to the editor to approve. And that's where I stalled this time round. As you can see from the sample above, drawing straight onto the computer screen via the graphics tablet, sat on my lap, is not something at which I excel. I need to do that bit at a drawing board in my studio, and can take another two days. So I decided against it, and instead sent me editor Rachel a script that looked like this.

Luckily for me, not only could she understand the story from text alone, but also she liked it. So the script was delivered to her Friday afternoon and, following a phone call on Thursday morning, I had a couple of pages of rewrites to do and we have a 23 page story ready for me to draw.

The rewrites, to keep up the novelty working method, were done while sat by Mum's bed in The Knoll care home in Kibworth. I was there all day Thursday, stopping off en route from two days at schools in North Lincs. Two pages of new material, scribbled, laid out and delivered from another fold up chair.

I'll be doing the artwork in my office. And, spoiler alert, it will be the last piece I do there before I have to move out of my office.

It's good to write and draw comics for a living, I'd love to do more of it. I look forward to delivering a story I'm happy with. Stay tuned.



Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.