You can click on the image above to download a PDF of the pages. You’ll enjoy it more if you read the blog post first.

I have certainly done better drawing before and after, but I never did a better comic than The Global Gazette #1. Years of ideas and enthusiasm were packed into the mere 12 pages that made the first story of Three & the Historical Society, and unsurprisingly it is the work that has resonated most with readers. Ultimately, comics – good comics – are about great storytelling and not necessarily great drawing. And you must say something true, regardless of the genre you’re clothing your story in. I don’t know if I consistently lived up to that, but that is the belief that guides me.

Rather than rehash where Three came from, here’s the blog post that kicked off this blog in 2006. You’ll also find it as the introduction in this post’s PDF.

This post was originally just going to be The Global Gazette #1 and the marketing materials that were generated to support it, but as I went back through the files one more time, the story of Three wasn’t just the two stories and pin-ups. Why not show the process that went into creating it?

I don’t think I intended the PDF to be 158 pages, but this is a near-complete look at the work. As a result, we’re breaking the chronological order that I produced the work in by skipping the three non-Three Global Gazettes that were done between the Gazette #1 and the second Three story that was Three #1. We’ll backtrack and continue on with the Gazette next post.

The work in the PDF is self explanatory going from roughs to pages to supplemental materials, and I’ll limit my comments this time to the biggest misstep I made, which was taking the two stories and re-editing them into one story, and having it be the second version of Three #1 in 1999. You’re going to get to a post if you keep reading this series called “Comic Book Artist,” so I’m not going to go into the disintegration of a relationship and a significant life change, but the revised Three was done during that period.

Just as guys like George Lucas shouldn’t go back and rework their films (other than clean up the technical parts), my results were equally disappointing. I do think it was valid to address some of the lack of weight in the drawing of the original stories, and it would have been fine to explore the additional textures I did as an experiment for my own benefit, but it’s not something you should publish.

On top of that, the new drawing that was added was nowhere near the quality and detail of the original work. I had been doing simplified ink drawing for a Flash music video that never got made, and it damn near ruined me as an ink illustrator as evidenced by this work.

It really hammered home for me that the work has integrity, and you’ve got to respect it while you’re doing it, and after it’s out there. Without that respect, you can quite easily destroy what you’ve built and lose the connection to your audience.

Whatever problems I had figuring out the next step for Three, I wouldn’t try to perform selective surgery on the stories again.

If you’d like to read the stories in colour, there is a smaller package available over on Catspaw Dynamics eBooks in the Comics section.

Up next : The Global Gazette #2 : metrOwerks

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