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BACKSTAGE – BREAKDOWNS – YOUNG JUSTICE #8
Thoughts on Young Justice #08
by Christopher Jones
I’m back! I’ve been encouraged to continue sharing my thoughts by way of a page-by-page breakdown of the latest issue of Young Justice. I’m happy to oblige, so here are my thoughts on Young Justice #8!
Page 1: I tried to compose the opening page – including the panel shapes – to create a smooth flow of movement as Artemis draws an arrow, notches it, and draws the bowstring preparing the let fly. Pretty happy with the result.
Page 2: And so it begins. Overall, I enjoyed drawing the big MONQI fight sequence, but by the end of the issue I was more than ready to be done with them! They’re creepy, nasty little things in this sequence.
Page 3: It was interesting drawing scenes that were depicted in an actual episode of the show (in this case, episode 5: “Schooled”). I tried to find new angles on the action, both to make the moments work their best as static comic book images as opposed to animation, but also to give fans a different view rather than just copying a screen grab.
I also need to give a shout out to Zac Atkinson for his color work on this issue. The bulk of the interview is cutting between the Team fighting Amazo inside the school gym and Artemis fighting MONQIs outside. There are no lights on inside the gym, so everything is lit with the same bluish moonlight as the outdoor scenes and Zac does a great job making it feel like a dark night time scene without actually going so dark it’s impossible to see.
Page 4: Artemis pulls her crossbow – not entirely sure how that collapses down into her thigh holster.
Page 6: The script called for the MONQI to cover Artemis’ eyes in panel 1, and then its tail tightens around her neck in panel 2. I created a single image to include both these actions, but then divided it with a panel boarder so there was still a 1-2 beat to the actions. I thought this preserved the action as called for in the script but gave us a big close-up shot to break up the smaller action panels.
Page 7: Amazo was a lot of fun to draw. I love old Silver Age characters, and the Amazo design for the show is terrific. He’s huge, and the segmenting of his robotic body makes him look like a big, deadly action figure!
Page 8: This is an interesting page. I wanted to create a direct flow of the arrow’s path in panels 2-4 which meant I needed to use the full diagonal area of the page. But since that sequence was preceded by a panel 1 that had to go in the upper left corner, I was stuck with having to make panels 2-4 read right to left which you usually don’t do. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, with the arrow from panel 2 breaking the frame and pointing towards Amazo in panel 3, then passing through him as he turns intangible in panel 4, still traveling in a direct line from it’s trajectory in panel 2. The final panel with Robin seeing the arrow burying itself in the gymnasium floor is really close to how that moment looked in the TV episode, but it’s tweaked slightly.
I love how Zac colored the intangible, transparent Amazo. Very ghostly, very cool.
Page 9: If I had it to do again I probably would have put borders or gutters around the panels on this page. Zac does a valiant job making the panels distinct by varying the background color with a gradient.
Page 11: More ghostly Amazo. I managed to show Amazo as transparent in the line art this issue, drawing both the Amazo figure and the horizontal lines of the gymnasium bleachers, and Zac carried the effect through in the coloring. In issue #9, you’ll see some shots of Miss Martian in “camouflage mode” which were accomplished by providing her figure as a separate layer over a background drawing which Zac then composited with some transparency at the coloring stage. You use different techniques depending on the specifics of the scene.
Page 12: This was scripted as a sequence of panels with Amazo’s head exploding, then toppling, headless, to the floor. I ended up combining several panels into one panel with multiple images of Amazo falling, with his upright figure placed breaking into the frame of panel 1 so it’s head would have been in the center of the explosion. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!
Page 15: Wow, who DOES that poster belong to…?
Page 16: Isn’t that always the way? You come home from a night of patrolling to find Batman and Green Arrow waiting for you in your living room?
Page 18: Love the look on Artemis’ mother’s face in panel 4.
I’ve seen a lot of people speculating about the connection between Artemis and Green Arrow, and a lot of people seem thrown by her adopting a green costume that seems to echo Green Arrow’s look before meeting him as seen in the timeline of events in this story. I’m not privy to any of the behind-the-scenes decision making that went on in designing Artemis’s costume for the TV show, but I’m actually not bothered by this. For one thing, a green costume for an archer I think could have as much to do with drawing inspiration from Robin Hood as Green Arrow. And even if it IS a Green Arrow reference, it’s not like she’d never *heard* of Green Arrow before meeting him. He’s the most famous and iconic archer hero in the DC Universe. I think it makes sense given her aspirations that she might have been inspired by Green Arrow even before he appeared in her living room with Batman.
Pages 19-20: This is almost entirely a sequence seen in the TV episode 6 “Infiltrator.” Again, I was trying to portray it accurately but change up the “camera angles” a bit.
That’s it! Another fun issue, and next up we get Captain Atom, and a murder mystery. I hope readers enjoy these insights into my own perspective on Young Justice as it comes out issue by issue. Going forward, I’m going to be doing these “commentaries” on my new blog – http://blog.christopherjonesart.com
I still very much plan to stay active on Worlds Finest Online. I’ve really appreciated the support and the form to interact with fans of the projects I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with since my The Batman Strikes! days. So please, check out my blog (and my gallery which you can link to) and I’ll be back on World’s Finest Online (or the Young Justice micro-site) soon!
The World’s Finest would like to thank Christopher Jones for his participation and taking the time to do this special breakdown!
Young Justice comic series artist Christopher Jones provides The World’s Finest with a closer look at Young Justice issue #7, which focuses on the character of Artemis. Below, Jones breaks down the issue, providing his thoughts on the issue and looking closer at certain aspects of the issue itself. Click on the thumbnails for a closer look at each image.
Thoughts on Young Justice #07
by Christopher Jones
I’ve been really anxious for people to see this one, because this is the issue where you really start to get a sense of how vital a role the comic is going to play in fleshing out these characters and this world. It’s really exiting stuff if you’re a fan of the show.
Page #2: The “27 / Bludhaven” route information on the bus was my contribution. Bludhaven was a way of further indicating that Artemis isn’t in the nicest part of town, although this might not literally be Bludhaven. That’s just part of this bus’s route. The 27 is a reference to Detective Comics #27. It’s a number that I drop into anything Batman/Gotham related a lot.
Page #4: Here’s where we hint that Artemis has a sister who is actually Wonder Woman. No, wait…
Page #6: It was interesting finding ways to conceal the face of Artemis’ father. The way his head goes off the top of the panel on this page is something you’d never ordinarily do, but here it works. Note Artemis’ bare feet in panel one. Her boots are on the floor by her bed on page 4!
Page #7: I really liked this page. On a book like this you want to keep the art fairly simple and clean so you don’t want to go crazy with shadows on faces, but here was a great opportunity to use lighting not only for mood, but to give animation design faces a greater sense of weight and form in close-up than they might otherwise have.
Page #10: We went back and fourth a couple of times getting these thugs to look right. The script called for them to look big and tough – I guess so they looked like formidable opponents for Artemis rather than strung out punks who you might expect to be knocking over a low-end liquor store. But apparently my first pass on their ski-masks made them look to super-villain-y. I revised their masks to be even more rumpled and ill-fitting, and that seemed to make everyone happy. The thug with the shotgun was drawn to have bare arms, but a watchband got interpreted as a sleeve cuff and he ended up wearing a long sleeve undershirt in the finished art.
Page #13: I always wanted to do a spoof of the TV show cops set in Gotham. It would have consisted of an evening of following Gotham patrolmen around encountering stuff that was way over their head, or finding criminals tied up and left for them as Batman or some other Gotham hero is fleetingly spotted like a Bigfoot sighting.
Pages #14/15: The script called for a montage without panel orders. The motif of the arrows to help break up the layout was my idea. “No panel borders” is challenging enough when it’s just figures, but when you have to show a hit of a location or a scene to give those figures context, that’s tricky without creating panel boards of some kind. For those who enjoyed this spread, keep your eye out for similar sequences coming in issue #9!
Page #17: The sequence of Artemis climbing the tree was scripted as multiple panels, and I thought having multiple figures over a continuous background image opened up the visuals and gave the page more flow.
Pages #18/19: I didn’t get to do many full-page shots let along double page spreads during my days on The Batman Strikes, so epic shots like this are a treat. The challenge here was finding an angle on the action that reflected what was seen in the “Schooled” episode of the TV show, but also placed the characters to work with the order in which they were mentioned in the scripted dialog. This is the kind of thing that takes a lot of care when planning the artwork for a comic and isn’t that apparently when looking at the finished product!
Pages #20: Here we go. Lots of MONQI droids. By the end of issue #08, I’ve drawn enough of these guys to last me for a looong time! But you’ll have to check that out in a month’s time!
The World’s Finest would like to thank Christopher Jones for his participation and taking the time to do this special breakdown!
The World’s Finest recently approached and asked Young Justice comic artist Christopher Jones to discuss his thoughts and provide commentary on his stint on the acclaimed comic title based on the fan-favorite animated series. Jones joined as regular artist for Young Justice as of issue #5 and provided artwork up to the final issue with #25, save for the odd fill-in issue. Below, Jones provides a series of commentary and production artwork from his time on Young Justice. Continue below for much more!
How time flies can you’re having fun. It’s hard to believe that issue #25, the final issue of our Young Justice comic is out, as it seems like just a couple of months ago that I drew issue #5, my first on the title as penciler.
I don’t think I’ve ever worked on another project in comics that I feel as proud of as this run. I love these characters, and got to draw some iconic moments and fantastic stories.
I think the character designs from the TV show are brilliant so it was no hardship to follow them, but I was delighted to be giving the chance to design the Young Justice versions of characters like Talia al Ghul, Grodd, Deadshot, and Brainiac.
And I couldn’t have asked to have better partners in this series:
It’s hard for my to pick a favorite issue or story from the run, as one of the pleasures of it was the many characters and storylines that were constantly changing and rotating through, making it impossible for me to get bored. But I can probably site some favorite moments…
Young Justice #6
Young Justice #7
Young Justice #8
Young Justice #9
Young Justice #11
Young Justice #12
Young Justice #13
Young Justice #15
Young Justice #16
Young Justice #18
Young Justice #19
Young Justice #21
Young Justice #22
Young Justice #24
Young Justice #25
Plenty more of Christopher Jone’ artwork, commentary, and thoughts can be found at ChristopherJonesArt.com. Major thanks to Christopher Jones for providing his time, thoughts, work, and effort into both this special commentary and his work on “Young Justice!” Issues from the “Young Justice” series from DC Comics can be found through digital outlets and at all comic book stores and retail locations!