Denver Comic Con THIS WEEKEND – Schedule Update

I’ll be joining my Young Justice partner-in-crime Greg Weisman at the Denver Comic Con this weekend, so it’ll be a great opportunity to get us BOTH to sign all those Young Justice comic books and prints! And Young Justice fans also won’t want to miss Khary Payton (the voice of Aqualad) and Kelly Hu (the voice of Cheshire) who will also be there!

I’ll be kicking off my time in Denver with the Denver Comic Con Pre-Party on Thursday night starting at 6:00pm at Mile High Comics. So if you’re in the area, come and say hi! (I’ve never been to Denver before and could definitely use suggestions for where to spend my time outside of the convention.)

Once the convention gets underway, you’ll be able to find me at CC9 in the “Comic Book Classroom Corral” area all three days. Here’s a handy map to help you find my table:

Additionally you will be able to find me at the following panels and events:

Young Justice (panel)

Saturday 6/1     3:00pm–3:50pm     Room 108-110
This panel will feature Young Justice writer/producer Greg Weisman, Khary Payton (the voice of Aqualad) and myself!

Young Justice Meet-up

Saturday 6/1     7:30pm–8:20pm     Room 104
We’ll be convening in Room 104 at the conclusion of the “Nuts and Bolts of Writing Comics” panel (which features Greg Weisman and a host of other powerhouse comics writers.) Greg will join us for photos and an informal chat about Young Justice and its fandom. This will be your best opportunity at the con if you want photos with both Greg and me. Come hang out with us!

Signing at the Aurora Rise Booth

Sunday 6/2      12:00pm-1:00pm      Booth 528
Aurora Rise is a Section 501(c)(3) non profit charitable organization founded in the wake of the Century 16 Aurora theater shooting on July 20, 2012. It has been created by victims to help other victims with small acts of assistance and kindness.

I will be spending some time at their booth, signing these black and white 4×5″ Young Justice mini-print cards for FREE. I encourage you while you’re there to check out the cool merchandise, limited edition prints and First EVER Limited Edition Aurora Rise Sketchbook Vol 1 that they’ll have available at the convention! More information on their website.

Comics for *Everyone* in the Family (Panel)

Sunday 6/2      4:00pm–4:50pm      Room 103
A discussion of *all-ages* comics – comic books aimed at older and younger readers alike!
With Jeffrey Brown, Dan Parent, Jamal Igle, James Taylor, Mario Gonzales, Greg Weisman and myself.

At my table, I am happy to sign anything you bring me! I will be doing commission sketches ($60 full characters; $30 headshots) and I will have Young Justice trade paperbacks for sale, as well as a few Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes trades and a couple copies of the new Day of Judgement trade paperback. (There’s a story about that last one… ask at your own risk!!) Oh, and let’s not forget…

Of course, stop by my table and show me that you follow my Christopher Jones Comic Art page on Facebook or @ChrisJonesArt on Twitter and get one of two FREE convention exclusive items:

Out NOW: Young Justice #17 – “Uncommon Demoninators”

Young Justice #17 Cover

YOUNG JUSTICE #17 is written by Kevin Hopps and Greg Weisman and Christopher Jones with color by Zac Atkinson.

• KOBRA is back – and he’s scheming to become a god!
• Don’t miss the action as ROBIN, KID FLASH and ARTEMIS tackle MAMMOTH and SHIMMER!
• Guest-starring BATMAN, THE FLASH and GREEN ARROW!
• The issue is set in MINNEAPOLIS, so for readers local to the area you should recognize a number of familiar landmarks and Easter eggs!

YJ #17 page 1

YJ #17 page 2

YJ #17 page 3

YJ #17 Title Spread

Be sure to pick the issue up at your local comics shop or in digital form!

Out TODAY: Young Justice #16

Young Justice #16

YOUNG JUSTICE #16 is written by Greg Weisman and Christopher Jones with color by Zac Atkinson.

Robin, Kid Flash and Artemis fight crime with their adult counterparts (that’s Batman, The Flash and Green Arrow, respectively) in this first part of a new storyline. As an added bonus there’s an Easter Egg for attendees of CONvergence!

Green Arrow & Artemis

In the Museum

Batman and Robin

Coming in June: Young Justice #17

Young Justice #17

YOUNG JUSTICE #17 – On Sale June 20, 2012
Written by Greg Weisman and Kevin Hopps, art and cover by Christopher Jones.

Issues #1-13 are currently available and #14 is out this week! Pick an issue up in digital form or at your local comic shop!

Creating a Cover: Young Justice #7

It’s easy when you’ve been drawing comics for several years to forget how much things that have become a matter of routine to me are a mysterious and arcane process to people that don’t do this kind of thing. Or even if it’s not all that mysterious, I know I love seeing other artists’ creative process, so here’s a peek into mine.

I’m lucky enough to get to draw the covers for my run on Young Justice. I drew a number of covers during my run on The Batman Strikes, but I didn’t get to do it every month, so I appreciate getting to do all the covers on Young Justice.

Covers are actually done in advance of the interior art as they’re needed earlier than the interiors for the solicitations that are sent out to retails and the general public for upcoming issues. So not only are the covers drawn before the interior art is done, but sometimes I haven’t seen the script yet and only have a story outline or a suggestion of what might make a good cover to work from. I started my run on Young Justice with issue #5, but the first thing I drew for the book was the cover for issue #7 working two issues ahead.

Comic art is done larger than the size of a printed comic, and publishers like DC and Marvel tend to prefer that artists work on art paper they have pre-printed with the standards margins and blanks for the tracking information for all the art they deal with every month. This is a bit of a holdover from the days wen all art was physically submitted to DC where it was processed in-house to eventually go to the printer. These days more and more of the artwork is sent the the publisher in the form of a digital file, formatted to rigid specifications.

DC Comics Art Board

Here’s a sample of what DC’s art paper looks like. The art board is a bristol art paper measuring 11×17, and once the margins you can see here are taken into account the image area is slightly smaller. The lines you see here are actually printed on the art paper in “non-reproducing blue” to make it easier to separate the pre-printed lines out from the art that will be drawn on it.

When planning a cover I like to know the general area that will be occupied by the masthead and logos so I can allow for those elements in the composition. Any background in your image will need to cover the entire image area, but you need to make sure the important elements of your design – like main characters – won’t be obscured by these overlaid elements.

Cover Template with Logo

In Photoshop I’ve overlaid a scan of an earlier cover from the series to scale with the guidelines on the art paper. I’ve also included the UPC code here. The UPC code can move around, but it will appear in one of the lower corners of the book, either vertically or horizontally, so it’s a good idea to allow room for it. Similarly, most comic book covers will credit the creative team of the book, so it’s good to allow for that, too.

This all gives me an idea of the space I have to work with so it was time to start drawing. I knew that Young Justice #7 was part 1 of a 2-parter focusing on the back-story of Artemis, and chronicling the events that led up to her introduction to the team as seen in the TV show. The story showed her dealing with drama at home in her civilian identity, foiling a robbery in her super-heroine archer guise (after a fake-out making it look like she was the one committing the robbery), and a montage of additional crime-fighting, before finally she arrives upon a battle between her future teammates and the android Amazo as seen in an episode of the TV show. I really didn’t want to use any of the imagery from the Amazo battle on this cover, even though it was action involving the rest of the Young Justice team, as I hate it when covers feature action from the past act of a story. It always feels like you’re giving away the ending when you do that, and given that this ended on a cliffhanger, it seemed like referencing that sequence would be a kind of bait and switch, teasing you with a situation that wouldn’t be resolved until the following issue.

Editors often like to see multiple sketches so they have some choices for what cover concept they choose. Here are the three cover sketches I submitted, trying to evoke the elements I knew from the story in tantalizing ways.

YJ Cover #7 sketch 1

YJ Cover #7 sketch 2

YJ Cover #7 sketch 3

The second sketch was a more dynamic view of Artemis as she prepares to fire an arrow in our direction, apparently at the shopkeeper with an open till – specifically referencing the scene from the story wither Artemis foils a robbery in progress (the actual bad guys are behind the counter and the shopkeeper).

The third sketch shows the tension between the drama Artemis was facing at home and the dangers she was facing on the street in her costumed persona. I didn’t think it was likely that #3 would be the one, but it was another option to offer my editor.

In the case of Young Justice, the editor is Jim Chadwick. Cover designs are approved by DC Comics VP of Art Direction and Design Mark Chiarello. Additionally, the co-writer of the book is Greg Weisman, who is senior writer and producer on the animated TV show upon which Young Justice is based, so he has a little more involvement with the production of the title than another writer might. So all these folks get input on this, but the decision came down to me from editor Jim Chadwick – use the overall design from sketch 1, but turn Artemis to face us so we aren’t seeing her in profile. I was a little disappointed by this, as I liked having the curve of her bow echo the crescent moon shape, but this certainly still worked. On to pencils!

YJ Cover #7 pencils

The cover is drawn in pencil on the DC art paper, and as is typical of most art in comics, it needs to be approved by the editor before the art is inked. Thankfully modern technology allows me to scan the pencils and send an image file via email for approval.

YJ Cover #7 inks

Often the penciling the inking is done by two different artists, but in this case I was inking the art myself. The art gets scanned again, this time at a higher resolution. The artwork is scaled and placed on a template used by DC for all standard comic book art so everything stays perfectly uniform. The artwork is then uploaded to an FTP site so that once the art is approved DC can forward the digital file to a colorist who will ad color digitally as well. The original artwork remains in black and white and never has to be sent to DC Comics at all.

In the case of this cover, the color was provided by Zac Atkinson, who has been the regular colorist on my run on Young Justice so far. Here’s what he did with the line art for this one.

Young Justice #7 cover color

Nice, huh? Finally, here’s what the cover looks like with those logos and other elements I was trying to plan for.

YJ #7 cover w logos

And there you have it! I’ll be doing more breakdowns of the process of creating these covers in the future, but for now a lot of the preliminary cover sketches and subsequent stages of artwork are already up in my gallery.