I just realized…

After re-reading my post on the Tarquin Engine, I came to a realization. My work on Hot Lunch along with fellow artist and collaborator, Michael Gerard, has carried me through many mediums as well as many techniques, both traditional and non-

For starters, it was a hand drawn and inked series of 10″x10″ panels, we worked large for maximum detail and had fun telling a story full of non-sequiteurs. From there we scanned the work into digital format which ultimately became templates for intaglio (etching) plates. Using those twenty plates (5 of which were screened to produce the title image as a 4-color intaglio) along with 43 others, we “published” a single copy of the “Psychedelic Transubstantiation” as an oversized “broadside” comparable to the, now-historic, newspaper comics of the past.

After that, the lovely Lauria Lovestrand-Trout, came on board and offered traditional coloring to our original drawings. Once again, we scanned in the work and this time we printed (zine-style) a run of 60 booklets sized 5″x5″ to hand out to friends and faculty.

And this is about what we found out about lulu.com, and put together the final, “polished” book. Lately, I’ve been fooling around with a Flash template, too, known as the “Tarquin Engine”. Designed for “interactive” comic viewing, it’s quite easy to use. I started out trying to make it harder than it was, but once I knew how, changes and edits were simple, almost monotonous.

So overall, now, I have taken one body of work and with it have:
-learned the merits and failings of collaborative work
-explored traditional print/publishing techniques
-explored “house” method of comic production; draftsmanship, lettering, penciling, writing, etc.
-explored contemporary print/publishing opportunities (both commercial, and online print-on-demand)
-explored alternative print/publishing methods (laser printer,bone-folder, hand-bound saddlestitch)
-offered digital content in the form of downloadable pdf’s, gif animations and flash animations

funny, what started as a class project, has brought me all this experience, amazing how something so small has the ability to bridge that much distance..