AMBIDEXTROUS: A COVER STORY

[MattBrady]

by Brandon Thomas

I remember when Jack Warning was just this huge nerd…

Nearly everything about The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury has undergone some manner of evolution, but none more so than the role of the resident boy genius, sidekick, and transcriptionist. There were some aspects about his character that I just didn’t understand until spending more time with him in the scripts and giving him more interactions with Miranda. Originally, he was something of a stereotype---the boy with the golden brain and the cool goggles that always followed close behind on Miranda’s adventures, pounding notes and real-time recollections into this laptop made of hard light. It was kinda funny actually, imagining this young kid running after Miranda and typing into his journal, as they’re being chased by robotic gangsters or something. But it quickly became apparent that didn’t necessarily fit with the tone and velocity of the book.

Miranda Mercury just demanded more from a partner, and someone that just trailed behind her would ultimately slow her down or piss her off. The question really became, “Why would Jack be holding this computer or some other cute little gadget when he’d be more useful holding this giant _____ Liefeld gun?” So, his prominence was increased, and now this first arc is all about the relationship between him and Miranda, which is proving far more compelling than whatever it was I thought the arc was about. Now the concern is ensuring that neither of them terribly overshadows the other, which honestly is a great “problem” to have. In Miranda’s eyes, they’re both equal in the partnership but Jack knows better and sometimes behaves like he knows whose name is on the book. Which, I suppose, explains why issue 297 is the first cover he’ll be appearing on in this arc, that editor supreme Joe Ill rightly calls “Time Runs Out.”

With our launch about a week away, Lee Ferguson suggested that it might be cool to show the process going into the creation of the cover to episode 297, shipping in June.
So we got everyone available to contribute their thoughts on the cover when it landed on their desks, along with all respective results. We’ll begin with the script of course, after some editing to remove a couple highly classified details and a smattering of profanity…

The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury
Episode 297
“…and The Raiders of _____ Time!!”

by Brandon Thomas
Initial Draft

Note: Okay, here we are…the very first 22-page Miranda Mercury adventure. Stop laughing. I mean it, Lee 

Anyhow, this is the much-anticipated ______ and will no doubt blow the minds of nearly every person that thought after two issues they’d figured this book out. As you said before---other books should feel extremely self-conscious sitting on the stands next to this one and the following should make it even worse. They really ______ up, Lee---and I don’t have any intention of letting them get away with it. Let’s get started again…

Episode 297, pg. 0 (COVER)-

(1) An image that your son gave us provided the idea for this cover, be sure to let him know that. Miranda and Jack are riding a saddled pterodactyl through a city that’s a delicate combination of steel, glass, and overgrown plant life. The setting for the first half of this issue is a planet where humans and dinosaurs live together in relative peace, and this unlikely union is reflected clear across the planet’s landscape. This should be sharply contrasted to where 295 began—this isn’t the far flung future with gleaming monorails and towering buildings, but something more similar to present-day New York or Chicago, if those cities were attacked by Poison Ivy over and over again. Buildings that are crawling with vines and shrubbery, like the architecture was grafted onto a jungle barely cut down. There will be plenty of opportunities to dig into this over the next ten or so pages, but I wanted to give you a decent lay of the land before we begin.

In this shot Miranda has the reins of the prehistoric steed while Jack is hanging off the creature’s side (attached to it with a harness) in one of those completely badass action movie poses that are usually found in…well, completely badass action movies! In his possession is the coolest _____ bow you’ve ever seen, the strings of it made from blazing points of blue energy that match the arrow he’s preparing to fire directly at the camera. Legolas ain’t got a thing on Jack here and seeing as how the young genius hasn’t appeared on any covers yet, this should be a moment for him to shine.

MIRANDA
DO YOU HAVE THE SHOT!?

MIRANDA
JACK, DO YOU HAVE THE SHOT!!?


Lee Ferguson, artist/creator-
Just look at that first page of script, and you’ll see why I love working with Brandon so much. And it’s funny because while I grew up reading old, beat-up, hand-me-down copies of Romita’s Spidey stuff and Stan and Jack’s FF, Brandon first fell in love with a totally different era of comics, around the time Image exploded onto the scene…and yet our sensibilities are so similar. I still can’t figure it out, but I’m really enjoying the ride…

The challenging thing with the covers for Miranda Mercury is that they not only need to be a cover that’ll grab a reader from the shelf, but they are also the first page of the story. So the temptation is to make each of them into a glorified splash page, which would be wrong, I think. What I consider a splash page isn’t going to grab any readers in the store or in the catalog. Maybe I’m over-thinking it, but I really feel that a splash has to function differently than an actual cover, so the tough thing is to find a way to make the cover function in both capacities. The sad truth is that I really, really enjoy working all this out.



And with this one, I had a pretty clear idea from the start where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted the logo to be at the bottom of the page, with Jack somehow overlapping it, and his arrow pulling the reader’s eye right into that logo, with the light sources and design of the figures and buildings also all pulling us in that direction. But…it really took me quite awhile to get it to work the way I wanted. I ended up poring through the 52: The Covers hardcover, looking at a bunch of JG Jones’ work, seeing how he led the eye across the page in different ways. That’s a guy who knows what he’s doing. Also picked up Excess: The Art of Michael Golden at the time I was working on this one and that was another big help, as Golden is another master of composition.

Sigh. Once I got over my inferiority complex and stopped sobbing in the corner of my office, I got back to work. Had to adjust the figures, enlarging, shrinking, tilting one way and then the other (thanks, Photoshop), comparing to different background comps, while
trying out a few different ideas for light sources. Finally, I got the figures worked out and balanced with the background details and with that logo in mind…without it I think it still looks a bit off, but I know Matty has my back. The actual penciling didn’t end up taking very long at all.



And the absolute best part of finishing a Miranda Mercury cover? Or any Miranda page, for that matter? It’s that then I get to see what Marc and Felix are going to do…

Marc Deering, inker-
Lee consistently delivers some of the best covers I’ve ever seen. The first cover to Miranda was a huge, bold new step in an artistic direction that I didn’t expect from Lee. Whereas his original line-art was almost scratchy, with a very Hitch/Neary grit to it, then he delivered the “new” version and I was absolutely blown away. He forced me to really take my time and make sure that every line was as perfect as I could make it. He’s been that way with every page since and this third cover is no exception. I love the movement and bold attitude that Jack is portraying on his face---he’s really coming across as a badass and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

The entire time working on this page I was listening to Sevendust’s Animosity album on repeat. “Shine” is the appropriate song for this one because when it’s all said and done, ink is thrown, colors are splattered, that’s exactly what all 3 of us did.

Felix Serrano, colorist-
From the moment I saw the initial pencils I had one thought stuck in my head--they're in the Savage Land. Then I saw the inks and things just started to click from there. It was clear to me that this image was triggering all of my art school fantasies of working on something that incorporated all sorts of cool sci-fi fantasy elements. Being a huge Frank Frazetta fan, I decided to go in that direction for this cover (and will for the issue) and Lee confirmed it for me when he mentioned that was the vibe he was going for. So, I hung up most of my gradients and flat color for my arsenal of "organic" brushes.
I wanted this to feel like a fantasy novel cover but still preserve the "Miranda" aesthetic.

After leaving Felix’s very capable hands, the only guy left to check in was production man Matty Ryan. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to contribute thoughts to this feature, but it’s likely he’d comment on how again I made his afternoon slightly miserable by calling for a couple edits to the first draft. Can we have bigger bubbles? Can we shift them over, down, up, etc.? With me and this book there’s always something I’d like to read differently, which is why the stories often go through a couple drafts and have their dialogue polished up at every possible turn. Still, he puts up with my little perfectionist quirks and always delivers an attractive and easy-to-read product. And his hands were the last to touch the best Miranda cover we’ve ever done.

Hope you guys enjoyed this one and expect much more of this type of commentary in the future as the book actually materializes in stores on February 27th. Thanks to my team for taking time out from their busy schedules to drop by, and to the people that dropped by the website after the official release went out last week. Check out mirandamercury.com at your leisure and feel free to send any and all thoughts to miranda.mercury@gmail.com about well…anything, really. After more than two years, we’re about to finally get started…

Next: The Miranda Mercury launch spectacular! Everything you need to know about the book before it shows up in your stores! More lettered pages! More hype! And the future revealed as I run through some upcoming scenes from upcoming issues! Could it be called anything other than Ready or Not…? Come back in seven days and find out!

B

[GLX]

That's a cool idea for a cover.

[Marius665]

That cover is clean son

[Snotling]

That is a kick ass cover. It took me a while to figure out what Jack was standing on, but realised that he was actually falling while maintaining a badass action pose. Which is nice.

I am so looking forward to reading Miranda Mercury. Looks like it'll be a blast.

[matchesmalone]

That is a nice cover, and good luck to them with the series. That having been said I think it is unfortunate that it places a bit too much emphasis on her breasts. They are rounder than they should be, and they are directly facing the viewer - unlike anything else on the page.

[PatrickWedge]

Originally Posted by matchesmalone

That having been said I think it is unfortunate that it places a bit too much emphasis on her breasts. They are rounder than they should be, and they are directly facing the viewer - unlike anything else on the page.

With the boy, Jack, placed in front of Miranda and the dinosaur, with a bright flaming arrow, jumping at the reader, a large dinosaur being ridden by a female in front of a giant moon and moss covered buildings....and you feel her breasts have too much emphasis? Compare this to most of Marvel and DC covers where the females have balloons implanted in their chests and their spines are disjointed.

Color me curious. To each his own. I feel the point of the cover was handled well. And it was neat to see how this process went about.

[jmringuet]

Putting the logo at the bottom is not a great idea, and there are too many tangents in that image, it makes it hard to read. Other than that good job, it pops in a kinda Marvel way. I really like the use of a speech balloon, neat idea (old school).

[Cray_ws]

Originally Posted by matchesmalone

That is a nice cover, and good luck to them with the series. That having been said I think it is unfortunate that it places a bit too much emphasis on her breasts. They are rounder than they should be, and they are directly facing the viewer - unlike anything else on the page.

I think you're reaching for a complaint when its really not there. Miranda looks looks fit, and little bit of breast size is healthy looking. She's not showing bare cleavage or posing in a provocative way.

If anything that is obviously wrong with the way she's drawn, it's the lack of legs and feet shown despite having Jack in front of her. But anyone can nitpick about any piece of art. All an artist can do is limited the obvious mistakes.

[zeraze1]

Originally Posted by Cray_ws

If anything that is obviously wrong with the way she's drawn, it's the lack of legs and feet shown despite having Jack in front of her. But anyone can nitpick about any piece of art. All an artist can do is limited the obvious mistakes.

Well, Miranda's right knee is clearly visible just behind Jack's head. Her right foot is obscured by Jack in the foreground doing his cool airborne archer pose.

Personally, I'm impressed by the cover because it is both cutting edge (digitial colors, pencil styles) and retro (word balloons). This is appropriate for a comic like Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury that puts a fresh 21st century twist on a well-worn genre, the space opera.

I'm so glad I got this book on my pull list.

zeraze