I'm Making a Magazine and I Think I'm Done

www.joesartgoeshere.com/things/loom08web.pdf

There's a version at a bit of a lower-res.

This is the 2008 Art Annual for my college. We're making it look like an old comic book, so I'm doing all sorts of comic book-y things. Lots not done yet. Basically, I'm throwing out last year's subtlety and making the art the main attraction. It's BIG and BOLD and that's how I WANT IT.

...and that's cool 'cause I'm the only one fucking making it. There's an entire design department here that REFUSED to help me. I BEGGED the teachers for staff, and they said they tried! Oh, thanks for that, I guess nobody wanted to. Say, where'd you guys get that fully-staffed Digital Art & Design Club with your names plastered on it from?

So, being that I haven't much of a design staff of whom to ask opinions, I'd like to ask TNL's. Why? TNL is awesome. LIU is not. It's not polished yet (and that first layout is abysmal), but fire away.

Some notes:
1) We made a hyper-Asian friend of ours the honorary, school-approved mascot. That's why that Fantastic Four piece has cat ears and what-not.
2) I did not draw the F4 piece. I actually have an illustrator. Hooray! I'm making it into a spoof of the DC "Inspirational Poster" ads like the one with Darkseid and the rings. "Teamwork." I have that slated as a divider to break it up, even though there's no real sections this year. Traditionally, Loomings is broken up by medium. This year, due to the bickering between departments in this school, I chose to bunch them all together and make them live with each other. There are no "sections" but I thought a couple of themed dividers would break it up a bit. The next is a SpiderMan drawing he made that I'm going to add to a subscription page.
3) The same guy made the cover, which isn't done yet. My girlfriend (who made the "Quetzlcoatl" and "Whatever You Want" pieces) inked it so it looks amazing. <3
4) The spreads are not in order.

small thing:

Over on spread five, the left page - why not have the full sized panel first, then the detail? If you're going for the comic look, it seems natural to show more info before zooming in.

Some of these are a bit harder to go over - do have a specific order of works to follow? Must all works have some full-size representation? Some of the spreads feel like there's areas of negative space that can either be filled out, or further utilized.

It's amazing that you're doing this all on your own too! Do you have a deadline to meet, or does thing get published pretty much when it's done?

Well, here, I'll explain a little more:

Here's last year's. This one was me and someone else doing the design. What I didn't like about it as the ridiculous amount of negative space. The art was too small and there wasn't enough of it. The comic theme was partly because I wanted to and partly because the grid-like structure would allow me to pump up the images.

Some of the random, colored boxes and negative space of this year will be replaced with entries from our "doodle contest," so it won't be just empty.

There's not much in the way of structure, either. I know what should be in there, and it's going in. No order to works, either. I just want the spread to have works that at least make sense together. Like I was saying, last year was basically split by art department. These departments constantly bicker. The point of this year's book is two-fold: a) everyone's part of the same whole and b) anyone can submit, art and language student or not. Thus, the work is placed together. The wacky layouts are of shots I took. The grand majority of our "submissions" were my frustrated asking of senior gallery show hosts if I could photograph their work for them because I KNEW they never would. So, I figure if I took the shots, I can do whatever the fuck I want with them.

...and I am.

Sorry for the bitter mood through these posts, too. You have no idea what I've been through. But, there you have it.

Also, by spread five, do you mean the cake monster Happy Birthday thing?

EDIT: Oh, and in terms of the mood of the book, last year was also very ADD-idly aligned and "respected" the artists and whatnot because of my partner in crime having the authority. Now that it's just me, I wanted something more interesting, hence the wacky overlapping layouts.

www.joesartgoeshere.com/things/loom08web2.pdf

Page numbers and some other stuff added. The Captain America spread and the Across the Universe ad are mine.

Don't be afraid of negative space on a page! If you're doing a comic book page thing, get some fucking gutters between those panels! You need a little bit of white space to let the eye rest between images! It's fine if text boxes overlap, of course.

Last year's book seemed to have a lot more structure to it. And I'm pretty sure the white space is what brought that since both layout concepts seem similar (just artwork page by page after the initial table of contents). Even the descriptions in last years layout were placed in boxes like the ones in the panels of this years.

I find the layouts really, really busy. I don't know why you'd want your layouts to compete for the attention of the artwork you're displaying but that's your perogative. I'd definitely try to get some space in there between items.

I like the look and feel of what you're doing, but I'm not design oriented so I can't give any tips about what to do or not to do. Seems like a cool idea, make sure when you finalize it you post it here again.

Alright, putting the layouts aside, I finally received some work from the illustrator. This is to be part of the cover, the rest of which I will design to look like an older comic cover. The original pencils were done by him, the digital inking by my girlfriend, and the coloring by him again.

The problem here is that the artist JUST started using Photoshop and, well, still really doesn't grasp the concept of layers for whatever reason. There are transparent pixels and wonky lines in the coloring everywhere and bits of coloring are spread randomly about the layers. Initially, the guy standing in front was the layer BEHIND the Hulk, and he left a good inch blank in the Hulk's coloring layer so he wouldn't... color over the lines, I guess? With practice, he'll be amazing, but he's given me quite a lot to do, at this point. Heh.

I've been plugging away at this trying to fix it up. The first is what he handed me and the second is what I've been doing with it. All I was supposed to do was the background, but I've been doing so much more. I'm going to round out the shading on the Hulk's skin with a very soft brush (I've started already). Normally, I wouldn't touch this out of respect. But, this is the cover and this thing should have been done two months ago. It needs to be good.

The one on the left is his first version and the second has been touched up by me. The logo and other design elements are still to come. Does anyone have any suggestions? I sure could use some. (Also, these are pretty hi-res. For a good look, zoom in after clicking past the pop-up)

ALRIGHT IT'S CRUNCH TIME.

This thing needs to be done by Friday (my birthday lol). I have most of it complete now. This is the most recent version. Don't worry, it's MUCH smaller this time.

Here is what I'd like from YOU, as an educated... looker.
• The middle spread. It's kinda gross. Those are the winners of the "Doodle Contest" we held and I'm most unhappy with the "FAN ART" text there. Any ideas?
• I still need to make the front and back pages and the back cover, but I think I'll do those at home tonight. Read: Pray for me. I'm modeling the front page after a New X-Men title page with the plot summary being my Editor's Letter and the characters being the people who worked on it (even though it should just be a picture of me, for fuck's sake). The back page is an artist's index that I'll make after a series checklist. The back cover'll have old-style advertisements, if I can pull it off right. Fun!
• Just take a look at the spreads and the flow of the book. Any opinions or mistakes or anything anyone sees, please let me know. I'm just trying to get this done so I can move on with my life.

Thanks so much to anyone that takes time out to help.

The "Teamwork" motivational poster panel jumped out at me, doesn't fit well with the rest of the book, IMO. Just seems poorly drawn and amateurish in comparison to the rest of it.