A peek behind the curtain
I wanted to share a glance at some layouts for a new cover by V Ken Marion for the next issue of Sky Sharks Remastered.
Good morning! Since my last check in we’ve managed to make it through the start of the New Year. January has been hectic as we still attempt to sort through the aftermath that is Christmas in our house, as well as plan and prepare for our daughter’s fast approaching birthday party, doctor’s appointments, utter chaos and system failures at my wife’s school where she works, an arctic freeze that wasn’t too bad but awful as it led to a severe injury for my Dad, and of course, I’ve been working myself silly on coloring Lady Death.
I remember a conversation I had in the early part of 2023 with another artist but I’m currently failing to remember exactly who said it as it could have been a couple individuals. Anyway, something they told me really struck me and I feel that it still applies now. They said “that the New Year doesn’t really start until sometime in March.“
That really struck home with me last year, and feels pretty true on a whole for me. Typically I’m spending January and February trying tying up loose threads from the previous year and it always seems to take much longer than I think or hope it will. And even as I get them done, there’s still often prep and coordinating for what is to come in the not so “new” year.
I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me and just a few individuals, but January never feels like a fresh start.
For the upcoming of issue of SKY SHARKS REMASTERED #2, my good friend V Ken Marion (DC Comics, Aspen, Image) is doing up one of the variant covers in addition to the Classic Fred Perry Remastered Cover and my own first fully penciled, inked, and colored cover.
If you aren’t already, you may check out his social media [Instagram=@VKenMarion] as he posts regularly and I have to say he’s been crushing it lately. He’s been doing some fantastic work lately. He’s always been good, but, in my opinion, he’s on a hot streak right now and is coming off super inspired.
Recently, he provided some layouts to me to pin down exactly what he is going to draw for his cover, and I have to say that I am very excited for it.
Layouts are very rough sketches that allow an artist to very quickly convey an idea for what a page will look like. There aren’t many details and quite often they are very small as several of them may be done on a single sheet of paper. This is a pretty common practice, though sometimes I don’t get layouts for one reason or another. I’m always happy to get them though.
Here’s the layouts he shot me for Sharks so that we could pick which version for him to do up as a full piece.
I will say, that in all of my years making comics and all the different layouts that I’ve seen, this has been one of the hardest choices I’ve had to make. All of the designs are something that I would love to see fully fleshed out. He’s really got a great sense of the series and selfishly I want to have him draw them all.
But ain’t nobody got time or money to do that so we had to pick one.
I couldn’t pick on my own. Usually when I get layouts, there is always one or two that instantly obvious to me. Not this time. As I said I want them all.
Fortunately, that’s what having editors is for. I shared these with editors Austin Rogers and Chuck Pineau, as well as asking Ken for his personal preference. We discussed our personal preferences and why we liked this more than that and so on and so forth.
It was interesting and fun, but in all of the layout rankings from everyone, there was one layout letter at the top of everyone else’s list. So that’s the one Ken is working.
Are you ready for it?
I’m super stoked to share with you V Ken Marion’s cover for SKY SHARKS REMASTERED…
…NEXT TIME!