Second Breakfast

It was very important for me to establish who I was in the first column for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, I wanted to introduce myself, but most importantly, I wanted to establish why I can talk about the things I will be talking about.  I needed to be able to talk from experience, and to do that, I needed to tell you who I am, and what I do.  You’d be very, very surprised, but 75% of people in the industry, and it’s fans do not know what a Production Artist, or Pre-Press Artist does.  They’ve heard of a bullpen before, but still many do not know what is actually done in the bullpen.  I hope this column will not only be enjoyed by many comics fans as a behind the scenes in the making of feature, so-to-speak, but also by many professionals, to clarify how production artists are an important and integral part of the comic book process.  We are the artists who just want to make your work look the absolute best it can look on the printed page!

I take a lot of pride and care into putting together comic books, because, frankly, I am working with a lot of amazing writers and artists that rely on me to do just that.  They put their heart and soul into these books: writing them, drawing them, inking them, coloring them, and lettering them.  The least I can do is make sure that all those processes are done quickly, correctly, and with little mistakes as possible so as it’s enough to be able to put together into a comic book.

My job is not solely for the money.  In fact, it is done mostly because I love working in comics, and mainly because I am also a fan, a collector, and an aspiring artist myself.  I know what it takes to create just one page of art and story in just one book, which is why I strive to make it look and print the best way imaginable.  That is really the essence of what being a bullpen artist is all about.  We do not directly draw or write any of our own content in the periodicals (the weekly books), trades, or graphic novels.  We just make any changes the writer, artist, colorist, or editor needs us to correct.  Then we put the book together digitally, and send a PDF file off to the printer, who then ships it to stores around the world.  It’s a lot of work, because there really is only about three people working on about 125 books a month.  That’s an average of 7-8 books a day.  I work from about seven in the morning until about four, five o’clock.  Pre-Press Artist’s work their butts off, communicating with our editors and talent, to fix and change anything that needs to be done on all our comics.  Whether it be art corrections, lettering corrections, color corrections, or corrections in Quark, we are supposed to be a jack of all trades.

When people come around for tours of the DC Comics offices, and they reach our department, I like to tell people that we are like the Wizards of Oz in the comic industry.  You do not know we exist, and if we do our job right, then you are not supposed to know anything was ever changed on a comic you hold in your hands.  What I mean by that is quite a paradox.  Future columns will explain what goes into each aspect of correcting books from the writer, artist, inker, letterer, colorist, and most importantly, the editors.

In my last column, I talked a lot about how I got into the industry.  Now that I had finally made it, I moved into NYC, and began my career as a Production Coordinator.  I did that for a year before switching over into the production/ bullpen area, where I wanted to be to work directly on the books.  Interning there, in 2001, first gave me that edge of knowing exactly what I wanted to do.  But it was a very different time back then.  We were just beginning to discuss converting over to a digital workflow.  By that I mean, none of the comics we were working on were digital at the time.  All artists sent in their artwork as original boards, by Fed Ex.  The artwork then went to the editor of that book, and was marked up with either blue-line pencil, or post-it notes.  Nothing was scanned in yet, there was no file transfer system.  There was very little email at that time here.  Everyone talked by either phone or in person.  How strange, right?  After the editor marked up the book with all the corrections that needed to be done, either art or lettering, since all was done of the original art board, it would come to the production department, and a production artist would log it out of a book log, and take it back to their drawing board in their cubicle area.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Corey Breen
DC Comics Senior Pre-Press Artist
CjB Productions

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