Post Holiday Blues

I have to admit, I honestly did not know what to write about for my next column.  Coming off a long holiday break, it became difficult to write this.  The end of 2009 was quite strange to say the least.  Going back to December, work got very busy with the holiday schedule that we were on.  Once Thanksgiving starts, actually, everyone at DC Comics begins a Holiday schedule that must work around a wild shipping schedule.  Taking into account the end of the year, and all the days off we would be having, books needed to be out the door at the printers very, very early.  This happens every year at the end of the year, but still always comes as a mad rush and forces everyone to work their tails off getting all the comics out the door to meet the rushed schedule.  Although it makes work very hectic, it is also a lot of fun because everything comes fast and furious, and forces us in Pre-Press to push ourselves to meet those demands.

Once the Holiday hit though, I and everyone at DC was off from Christmas to the 4th of January.  It was a much needed break for all of us.  But it also makes it difficult to come back to work.  As cool of a job as we all have working for this company, it still is a job.  Work is work, and no one really wants to work, no matter what you do for a living.  If we all had the choice, we would all be happy to be home and have no work to do.  So you could imagine how hard it is to get back into the groove after what amounted to almost a  two week vacation for all of us.  After such a nice break, and especially because it’s also the Holiday Season, where we all celebrated something or other, to come back to work after the New Year, was tough.

Once back, it doesn’t take long to get back into it though.  As I’ve said many times before, this being my tenth year at DC Comics, it’s such a pleasure to work here.  I had missed everyone I work with on vacation, and couldn’t wait to catch up, and see how everyone’s time off was.  Then, just being glad to be back, was happy to find that my email box was not overflowing with 500 emails, as is the case when I take off for two weeks.  Since everyone was off as well, it was a pleasure to find that I didn’t have to catch up on the two weeks that were missed.  That does not mean that the comics weren’t still being worked on.  A freelancer’s job is never done, Holidays or not.  Comic pages still need to be drawn, inked, and colored.  As I’m sure they can all tell you, freelancers to our books all worked to some capacity.  They did n to get to stay home and play Playstation 3, like I did.  The fact that they were working on books without anyone being at the DC offices, just meant that some freelancers, especially colorists, had to continue working without us.  Sometimes that meant, skipping turning pages in normally, and working directly with their artists to get pages directly to each other.  In essence, we in Pre-Press are the middlemen between the inkers and colorists, and if we are not around to provide the colorists with the inked art that is turned in to us, they had to take matters into their own hands and get to them without us.  When we all finally did get back to work, we would be happy to find that the comics were still being pushed forward to meet all the dealines that would still have to be meet coming the New Year.

And now it is in fact the New Year, where we find that, yes, the comics still have to be made!  Like I said before, it was tough to come back to work after such a long break.  But once I sat back in my chair and turned on my cintque, and began yet another year in Pre-Press, life couldn’t be better.  A big reason for that was the books I got to work on just in this first week back.  It doesn’t take long to remember why this job is so cool, when you get to work on the first couple of issues of Joe The Barbarian, by Grant Morrison with the AMAZING art of Sean Murphy!  Then to start seeing work come in for Blackest Night #7, placing the lettering on Batman & Robin #7, doing color corrections over Dave McCaig on American Vampire #1, and templating an AMAZING pin-up for Milestone Forever #1 by JH Williams III!  It’s not hard to get back into the swing of making comics when you get to work on material THIS GOOD!

So, another year starts, and I am now really excited for all the things that DC has planned for it.  From Who’s Who to The Return of Bruce Wayne, to The beginning of Brightest Day, to looking forward to making the best comics, mistake free all year!  Not much to show you, or teach you for this column, so I’ll leave you with two of my Christmas Cards I sent out, that I didn’t get around to showing everyone at Master Digital Color, a couple of weeks ago.

Enjoy, I hope you had as wonderful a Holiday and New years that I did, and I look forward to showing you some really AWESOME stuff, examples of more work that we do here in Pre-Press, some cool inside info and stories I have from working here, and of course, WAY more instructional columns on how to make the BEST, mistake free comics out there, as I try to really stress how important it is to do correct, and important production work, which is so key in this industry that is so often overlooked and taken for granted.  Just because you have a well written, well drawn comic, it still has to be constructed and polished to be the book you see in the stands every week.  We hope that when comic collectors and readers go to the store, they’re books are on time, and look the best they possibly can.  Here’s to another year of being the BEST Pre-Press Department/ Bullpen in comics!

Until Next time,

CjB