[Making Of...] Sagefire: As Friends and Brothers

This is a bit of a first in a few aspects. 

Before we get any further, let me state the obvious: I did not do the art here.

The artist who did is Alassa, one of my dearest friends and a common collaborator. Her house was recently flooded by a sudden storm, so she faces a lot of unplanned spending. If you like her art here enough to check her out, please, do consider at least a temporary support to get her through this tough time: https://www.patreon.com/Alassa/

So with that said, now to the point.

You may have seen this online somewhere in the past year or so, or you may even own a printed copy – I collaborated on a Final Fantasy XV themed fanzine last year, writing a comic and an interior illustration.

Not only is this my first foray here on Patreon purely from a writer's perspective, but also my first behind the scenes look at a comic (I'm still working on Almorra's post, but since it took roughly 2 years and several rewrites to make that one, it's a bit difficult to sort the thoughts and materials properly). This will also be, due to both this being a collaborative work and my partner being in need of help and attention, likely my only public post of this kind, as this is usually what I reserve as a patron perk.

Be warned, this will be a longer read, but if you're curious about how things are made or are an aspiring comic artist searching for tips of the trade, I hope it will prove worth your time.

1. Planning phase

This comic is a bit of an odd example, seeing how I usually write with quite a lot more flow, letting the dialogues carry the story and seeing where the scene takes me (although I do have general plans, they can be adjusted). This particular piece, however, was more akin to assembling an IKEA coffee table.

A few things were clear right at the start:

• Keep pagecount at 3-4 pages at most (due to deadline and limited zine space)
• Keep scenes simple to not overburden the artist (Lass went a bit overboard on details anyways, but... well, attempt was made to keep it easy on her)
• Keep the story somewhat vague on context to be accessible to people who haven't played Episode Ignis or don't have it in recent memory
• Whatever the story will be, it will center on Ignis (well... it was an Ignis zine) and lean more towards Verse 2 (as this was Alassa's preferred ending)

Limited pagecount is, at least to me, always the biggest hurdle of any sort of writing. It only allows for minimalistic tools but has to arrive at some sort of a point or conclusion, so literally any detail counts and can make or break the story. But, and that is the beauty of comics, you have two different mediums and thus two different sets of strengths to tell it.

This is also something that is very much easier when doing fancomics, because those require much less introducing. You already have a common familiarity the audience has with the source material working in your favor. (The same principle applies with my charr comics, so I don't have to spend a page or two establishing characters to people.)

When we settled on the setting (the other idea, if I recall, was something with the World of Ruin, which would be more dialogue-oriented), I started to outline the actual script. One of the first core principles I built this piece on was the concept of how the two endings mirror each other and juxtapose (there's a fancy word I don't use often) what I feel as the key differences between Verses 1 and 2.

The common element of the narrative ended up being the subverted expectation – the "It wasn't supposed to end this way" that works as a two-sided blade. Where Verse 1's tragedy lies in the false promise of the entire journey (and especially its goal), Verse 2's triumph rests on defying that ruling, taking said false promise and making it real. It feels a bit cheap to admit, but as a writer, I did little more than just take the elements that fascinate me about the canon story and turn them around a bit like a prism in the sun to see where its elements land.

And since the point of the story is a mirror, it was decided very early on that the base layout would, ahem... reflect that by mirroring itself with a key branching point in the middle.

While it's not immediately obvious from a layman's perspective, it still has the desired impact on readers in terms of tempo and pace, and when arranged a bit, it becomes very easy to spot:

 (A) pages 1 and 4 serve as bookends that both ease you into the story (since it lacks dramatic action, a full page works better than a fractured opening) and punctuate it at the end.

First actual story panel (2B) was lifted directly from the game on purpose – it lets readers familiar with the material immediately know what moment do we enter the game's lore with our comic and sets a clear path forward, while also making sure through text the uninitiated will get some understanding of the base situation: an offer is made, and each of the choices has the following consequences.

Just like in the game, the story splits at that moment into two possibilities, with each of the (2CDE)  lines picking up the same moment with key differences. And while it would have made chronological sense to get the verses flipped and start with the "bad" one on the left, someone decided to go and get the scar on the wrong eye for that, so some adjustments were made... plus, it worked out in the end on the third page, where the (3EDC) panels could have the Verse 1 fade out like a shadow to let Verse 2 gradually build, which wouldn't work quite the same were it facing opposite direction.

Each of the pages also ends at a moment that doesn't disrupt its flow. You should always try to structure your page in a way that makes people want to turn to find out what's next, but also not interrupt the action directly. Think of it like paragraphs, because

you wouldn't want to end one mid sentence, either.

With the base plan done, it's pretty much smooth sailing to the end. All you have to do is pick up a pen and draw. Or, like in this case, get someone to do it better than you while you issue royal commands.

2. Layout and Editing

Before we got quite that far, however, we needed to get the layout done first. After we agreed on the general idea, Alassa took to sketching based on my rough instructions. The first proto-version of the comic looked something like this: 

 She has a knack for setting the scene just right, use interesting angles and expressive characters to best make use of the limited space, which is an incredible boon in comics.

And then I took Alassa's solid work... and scribbled on it like a drunken fratboy left unattended with a sharpie marker. It's exactly at this stage where you find out what works, what doesn't, iron out some of the finer details and pick the keystones you will use to build your work around.

 In this particular example, the zine had unusually restrictive and wide page margins, which led to the whole thing not only having to be crammed into a tiny space, but also read wrong – the panels were too tiny and created a completely different feel than what was required. By doing something as simple as removing the outer panel edges, you can both effortlessly imply on "larger story just off-page", which is true for this particular piece, and draw all of the attention on the singular vertical gutter dividing the two alternate story realities.

It's also at this stage where you can add all the little neat things that are only possible with visual storytelling, like the contrast on first line of page 3, where you have the same scene and camera angle working with Ignis approaching a key ally on one side versus him turning away from his brothers in arms to suggest a the rift hinted at in World of Ruin of Verse 1. You can also tell heaps about a character without actually saying a word from simple gestures alone: While everyone is happy the plan worked and they saved the world and brought back daylight, greeting it like a sight they haven't seen for almost a decade, Ignis admits that saving the world comes as an afterthought to his true motivations, hence why he's the one to not face the dawn with the rest.

Symbolism can be cheap, but also a very powerful tool when not overused.

The biggest perk in collaborative comicwork (and I did work on quite a few) has always been the swapping of ideas between all parties involved.

I honestly can't even begin to express the boon that is collaborating on a comic with an artist who's not only interested but also thoroughly familiar with the world you write for. There's a lot of back and forth and creative input – I as a writer may have a vision, but it's the artist and co-creator who's the first to test it, to challenge it if they find it lacking or to offer ideas and quirks you can easily expand (one of these days, I'll tell you how Ed's apple was inflicted upon the world). I also try to think of things that I know would be fun to draw for the person I work with when script allows, as was the addition of Ravus in full royal raiment on the last page, since the script only required to show Noct as being the young king he was promised to be with his retinue around him, but did not need to specify how to portray that.

3. Finishing touches and lettering

Since this was a zine work, I did run a test print, tweaked some of the color balances a bit and did some finishing touches on some of the effects. (As a rule of a thumb, try to always testprint at least a few of your things before going for physical copies of literally anything.) At this stage, the visual part of the work was done.

And that brings me to the last, but very much not least, lettering.

If you're an aspiring comic maker, I cannot stress this enough: Get. Help. I'm completely serious. 99 cases out of 101, bad lettering will severely tarnish or even ruin your Oscar-winning storytelling and DaVinci-grade artwork, because regardless of how good you are in those departments, your comic will be a pain to read and ugly to look at.

It's not that all the rules are set in stone or that you can't experiment (I very much did here) or that professionals don't screw up (ooooh boy, did I ever), but comics are medium that offers a unique blend of the visual and the literal. And if the literal part is visibly lacking, you're gonna have a bad time.

But letters, eh? How hard can it be? I mean... how would you read something like this? 

 And that's definitely not the only way to screw it up.

I have to take a sidestep here to note that this particular zine was made better than most; the moderators actually did help out with the editorial process and had someone to proofread and touch up the texts, which is sadly rare, but extremely helpful. I cannot overstress how important it is to get a second pair of fresh eyes (bonus if said fresh eyes are well-versed in the language you're writing in) to help you catch your mistakes – and trust me, some of those mistakes are bound to be very dumb when you're staring at the same sentence for hours.

This piece has quite atypical lettering, since the text floating randomly on the panel is not exactly per norm. However, due to limited space and mandatory font size, any sort of boxes were deemed terribly distracting, so we instead decided to mimic the style that is used in the episode itself during key decisions and instead of giving emphasis on bold letters, I adjusted the color slightly to make the highlighted text stand out.

It's definitely not a standard procedure, but as you can see, rules can be bent and there's not really any single way of doing things right, just a plenty of ways of doing things wrong.

But that would likely be enough fodder for a separate post, so let's not bloat this overly bloated article any more.

I hope this humongous wall of text was informative. 

And please, if you like the art you see here, do consider at least a temporary patronage of the artist: https://www.patreon.com/Alassa/ 

Congratulations if you've made it this far down the text drain and thank you for lending me your ear.

Do you disagree with some of my comic practices? Do you have questions or would you simply like me to explore more on any of the topic in the future? Let me know below and see you next time!

Until then, stay safe.