After being seen in a few Kiwi Comic Anthologies, I got offered one of my first paid comic jobs (Moth City is entirely self-directed), my chance to help tell a local story, scratch my Commando Comics itch and try some new inking techniques at the same time.
Bolster and Lift Education publish reading material for Kiwi school children via The School Journal, a long running institution that everyone who passes through our school system reads. With the centenary of WWI, they wanted to produce a short comic with a new perspective – the tunnerlers of New Zealand. These soldiers slogged underneath the shells and wire of the battleground above, risking cave-ins, gas leaks and opposing sappers to undermine enemy fortifications. Mining men from small towns like Waiha or Reefton dug in the soil of Europe, scrawling New Zealand’s place names on the walls of their work.
Bolster and Lift Education publish reading material for Kiwi school children via The School Journal, a long running institution that everyone who passes through our school system reads. With the centenary of WWI, they wanted to produce a short comic with a new perspective – the tunnerlers of New Zealand. These soldiers slogged underneath the shells and wire of the battleground above, risking cave-ins, gas leaks and opposing sappers to undermine enemy fortifications. Mining men from small towns like Waiha or Reefton dug in the soil of Europe, scrawling New Zealand’s place names on the walls of their work.
These are the stages that make up my comic pages; Pecils, Inks and Shadows (tonal pass), Colour and finally Grading. This staggered system is something I developed working on my digital graphic Moth City, which you can read online, or via Comixology.
The included images are from ‘Sky-High’ The School Journal, Level 4, June 2014 and are published with permission from the Ministry of Education, Lift and Bolster. Editor: Susan Paris, Lettering and Design: Jodi Wicksteed, Writer: Robert Sullivan and Illustrator: Tim Gibson
You can read more about this job, and New Zealand's history in WWI from my post: Comics for Schools.