| My comic artist friend Myfanwy Nixon had an idea for a comic book full of actions, big or small, that people could take in these difficult political times, instead of just hopeless despair. Over a hundred action ideas were collected, and over a hundred artists from near and far came forward to illustrate. I was delighted to be given the topic Broadcast, drawing something to accompany text about radio and podcasts being a great way to get a message across, as exemplified by Refugee Radio which operates over the community station RadioReverb in Brighton. |  |
First I went to meet with a couple of people at Refugee Radio to find out how they work. Maybe I could show a true life story of difficulties faced, and how people are being helped. But as I thought about it, I wanted to aim for persuading the average person to get involved and with each draft I simplified the scenario to make this message clear. As it happens, I have a little experience with community radio myself (though my programmes only featured enjoyable chats with musicians) and the inset portrays my own initial reaction to being asked! I wanted to show it's not really too hard.
Having worked out a rough layout, this still kept changing as I tried to draft a final version to ink: it didn't work to show all the tech gear that's really there, and I even hid the presenter's mic as it just looked too messy with two. I hope the background figures convey the idea of a listening audience. This wasn't made any easier by thinking about the importance of doing it really well, especially considering it would sit alongside contributions from some truly great artists...
I won't go into the difficulties of scanning watercolour without it ending up either too light or too dark, with colours nothing like the original. Suffice it to say final tweaks took an absurd number of extra hours. But I made the deadline today, and am looking forward to seeing it with everyone else's beautiful work up on the website soon and printed in a book after that.
Update 21 February: the website is now live at http://drawthelinecomics.com/ Check it out!
Having worked out a rough layout, this still kept changing as I tried to draft a final version to ink: it didn't work to show all the tech gear that's really there, and I even hid the presenter's mic as it just looked too messy with two. I hope the background figures convey the idea of a listening audience. This wasn't made any easier by thinking about the importance of doing it really well, especially considering it would sit alongside contributions from some truly great artists...
I won't go into the difficulties of scanning watercolour without it ending up either too light or too dark, with colours nothing like the original. Suffice it to say final tweaks took an absurd number of extra hours. But I made the deadline today, and am looking forward to seeing it with everyone else's beautiful work up on the website soon and printed in a book after that.
Update 21 February: the website is now live at http://drawthelinecomics.com/ Check it out!
