(Click to read part one.)
We went back and forth on changes and suggestions with our editor at Candlewick, Mary Lee Donovan. Kyle doesn’t like drawing thumbnails, so he put together rough sketches of new pages and panels. Sometimes Mary Lee and our book designer, Nathan Pyritz, weren’t sure what they were looking at. A few panels had to be redone entirely to make the idea clearer for the reader.
This process continued until September 2011, when Kyle was given the thumbs-up to start drawing the finished pages.
Kyle wasn’t the only one who had work to do. Although there were no significant changes to the plot, there were scenes and moments I wanted to expand on, not to mention those 30 new pages that had to be created from scratch.
In addition, Mary Lee had a few concerns about dialogue. The one I remember most vividly was a discussion about the the bad guy Pulse saying, “And now this is happening!” while shooting at Smash during a chase. Mary Lee wasn’t familiar with the phrase and was confused about its intended meaning. After several attempts to explain the pop culture reference, I sent her a YouTube clip from Anchorman where Jack Black tells Will Ferrell, “And now this is happening!” before he kicks Baxter the dog off a bridge. I have no idea if that helped or hurt my position, but the line survives.
It’s important to note that none of this was a drag. Mary Lee prefers handwritten notes to email, so she sent each of us a print-out of the comic with her notes in the margins. We couldn’t have been more excited to receive that bulging package!
When I opened my copy and sat on the couch to read, I paused for a deep breath, expecting at least some of the notes to sting. Instead, I was thrilled to find a ton of useful critiques and suggestions, most of which had never even occurred to us. Our eyes were being opened wider and wider.
Smash was our first comic work — not only together, but at all. Even for lifelong comic book readers, there’s a learning curve.
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