Multilingual comic creation

My comp copies of Ri Ra #2, the Irish language kid's comicbook, just arrived in the post the other day and looks great. I have a 3 page story inside and with not speaking enough Gaelige to write the script myself, I had an odd process with this one.

I started off with the basic idea for a story, following on from the same theme and characters from #1, based on a young boys first year at school. I broke the idea into panels and scribbled the layout down on paper.

Then I sent Desy Downey, a fiddle playing, Irish language teacher of mine, the layouts with a brief description of what was happening in the story/panels and the kind of thing that the character would be thinking.


For example:

PG1


Ttitle
1/ Close up on Boy, wearing hurling helmet
2/ Grumpy PE teacher is telling the boys about team spirit. The boy is the smallest in the line and is not looking forward to the match because in his old school he was really bad at sports.
3/ The teacher goes into a rant about how winning is more important than playing. 
4/ The boy is picked last (as usual)


Then Desy came back with a poem that would be laid over/incorporated into the art, with a rough translation of what he was writing. The verse obviously reads a lot better in Irish than it does in English, but the English text doesn't appear in the comic at all.


PAGE 1


1 NARR (Ar ais ar scoil agus anois corpoiliúint, (back to school and now PE)
 agus tá a fhios ag cách go mbeidh muid ag fulaingt! (and everyone knows we’ll all be suffering)
2 Múinteoir ;  anois a dhálta, an rud is fearr ná comh-oibriú (Now students, the best thing is team work)
Buachaill ; Tá sé cosúil le seanscoil s’agamsa, b’éigean dom éalú !(IT’s like my old school, I have to escape!)
3 Múinteoir ; agus rud is measa ná ag cáiliú an clúiche (and the worst thing is losing the game)
Buachaill, is fuath liom spóirt níor mhaith liom é chóiche! (I hate sport, I’ve never liked it)
4 Múinteoir: Tá mé dul a roghnú na foirne anois, seas suas go modhúil (I’m gonna pick the teams now stand up orderly)
Buachaill:  Mise an duine is lú, beidh mé ag fánacht go dtí an deireadh! (I’m the smallest person, I’ll be waiting untill the end)


After sending the text and layouts of for approval to Aidan Courtney for approval, I drew the finished art; Linework on paper, colours in photoshop then letters with Adobe Illustrator.

For example. page 1:

You can see I'm drawing in a more cartoony style for this comic as its aimed for ages 8-14 year olds. If you want to get a copy you can order both issues online here and its available in a lot of Irish comic stores as well.
If you know of any Gaelige speaking schools as well, you should let them know this is available as it works as a really great teaching aid.

Rí Rá

I drew a two page strip for an Irish language kids comics named Rí Rá sometime around last Christmas and just got my copies in the post this past weekend. The comic is a great looking little package with a host of Irish and European talent creating short strips for the anthology.

I can hold a simple conversation in Irish but I wouldn't consider myself fluent, so when I met Aidan Courtney at the Dublin Comic con last year and mentioned submitting something to him I brought on board an Irish language teaching friend of mine, Finnbar Christie. Since my style of art, even in this more cartoonish form, doesn't really suit slapstick humour, I came up with a simple plot and asked Finnbar to write a poem over my layouts. Aidan liked this idea, something different from the other strips and ties in nicely with the expansion of Irish literature which was one of the main goals of the comic.

I created the whole artwork, from linework to colours to letters, about 95% digitally in Photoshop. I think I drew one of the panels on page 2 by hand, but ended up changing it a lot in PS anyway.

Here is page one of my strip. If you want to find out what happens to our title character you'll have to buy the comic. Does he hate school? Will he like it? Will he get expelled for setting it on fire? OK that last option is the least likely considering the target audience is 8-14 year olds but hopefully you'll be able to follow most of the stories by just looking a the art even if you don't read Irish (and theres a glossary at the back if you want to pick some up).

And here's the cover art by the wonderful Bob Byrne.


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'm not sure exactly where you'll find copies of Rí Rá. I know it's on its way to a lot of Irish bookstores and Libraries, including www.ennisbookshop.ie but if you want a copy you can contact coimicigael or Aidan direct.

Tomorrow is the end of my blog-a-rama nd come back then and I'll prob be back to the regular Wednesday and Sunday schedule after that.