Sigune's How Not To Draw Comics - Part I

This is the start of an ambitious project (*grins*): I intend to disclose my comics-making processes. It is a bit futile really – after all, my methods are frightfully unorthodox and you really don’t want to go copying them. But somehow I like the idea of showing you all my blunders because, no matter the results, it is a labour of love and I like to share it.

Warning: stubbornness, chaos and incompetence ahead – and hopefully a little charm too ;-)…




1. The Why of My Comics

I doodle, always and ever. It is a habit I developed when I was twelve and in my second year of secondary school, during French classes – I had picked up sufficient French in the last two years of primary school to be bored in my second year; I could easily follow class and doodle at the same time. It quickly became a kind of automatic activity, a compulsion if you like: I just can’t keep my hands still when I know there is a pencil near. College notes, textbooks, stray bits of paper – all eventually end up covered with little figures, faces, hands, feet, sometimes even small dramatic scenes with or without text. It was at the age of twelve that I drew my first comic (a rather embarrassing affair). ( Read more... )

2. The First Attempt

I became intrigued with Snape after reading Order of the Phoenix (as you probably all know by now) and inevitably found myself producing doodles of the kind you can find in my first journal entries: faces, swirling capes, black blots. My first interest in Snape was visual, though it was, from the beginning on, complemented by his history as well.

Looking back at my earliest sketches, I find it very amusing to see that all the (original) characters I would eventually write about in prose came into existence on these sheets of scrap paper: Brynhild (then called Bromelia), Septimia, Stephen and Rabastan are there, whereas there is no trace of Harry, Hermione, Ron or Sirius, characters I only started to picture on request from my sister and my niece. It was while I was doodling that their stories sprung up, too. Before I knew it, I had a Snape backstory in my head, inspired mainly by OotP’s “Seen and Unforeseen” chapter. I can’t quite recall how she arrived or where she came from, but Septimia De Quincey, pure-blood and Dark witch, took shape; she eloped with Rabastan Lestrange, divorced Snape Sr, and after a second wedding gave birth to Radamanthus and Lavinia Lestrange. I imagined Severus having a strong bond with his mother and somewhat ambiguous feelings towards her on account of her elopement (she failed to take him with her); and I thought that maybe her new husband was the one who facilitated his introduction to Voldemort. ( Read more and view my first page... )

Mrs Lestrange and my first fanfics grew out of the Snape scenes in Order of the Phoenix, but soon my imagination was kindled by another set of Snape episodes: those in Prisoner of Azkaban. Snape’s rage in the hospital wing spawned more fanfics, The Dark Night of the Soul and The Tunnel, two pieces that I hold very dear. But despite my happiness with them, I was not satisfied with words this time. The story of Snape’s near death at the jaws and paws of Lupin-the-werewolf holds sheer endless fascination for me, and it just begs to be visualised. When reviews of the film version of Azkaban made it clear to me that I was not about to see Alan Rickman go berserk, and that the entire history of Wormtail, Moony, Padfoot and Prongs’ enmity with Snape was suppressed, I knew that the honour of picturing the tale rested with me :-D… And so I set to work.

Next time: The serious work…