Our Lady Maven Fans,
Having just got the site back up and running, we’re excited to bring you a new art update!
Mid-December Art Update
In the last update, frames of this page had been shown, but this page was fully ink-finished late last week. In this page, we can see Anna entering Cafe Sylvie. Cafe Sylvie is run by a contact of Anna’s and secret member of the French Resistance, Rene Etan. As a local member of the resistance, Rene acts as an observer and connector for Anna’s operations. Situated in the heart of Paris, Cafe Sylvie is the perfect base of operations for an observation post during the Nazi occupation. Rene is trustworthy, and is always sure to pass along the information he collects, when there is a mutual arrangement, of course.
Frame Previews
As promised in the last post, the artwork continues. Here we see five new frames, mainly involving Rene Etan. We are also introduced to a powerful force present during the French occupation, that of the Sicherheistdienst. Initialized as SD, they are the brutal SS counterintelligence division rooting out allied spy operations within France. Anna must avoid the SD at all cost, and does so with Rene’s help.
Digitizing
Work to digitize the ink-complete pages has also begun. This part of the process involves cleanup of the frames and taking them off the printed page for the digital release of issue #1. Here we can see Sarah doing the art cleanup in Gimp.
Tool Intro
This week, I thought it would be fun to introduce you all to one of the tools of the trade. All of the words you see in typeface in the comic issue come from this Brother wp-3550 printer from the 1980s. We do this for an authentic printed look and feel, which we feel adds a layer of charm that you don’t get in other modern print productions. While most of the writing you see in the issue is done by Sarah’s own hand, there are situations where typeface either makes more sense, or would add an aesthetic that can’t be easily reproduced by hand. Not only will this machine let us print entire pages of typeface from blank, Sarah can also feed in inked sheets to add typeface to frames. We promise you won’t miss it when the wp-3550 is used in the issue!
