There’s an awful lot that can take place between the pencils and drawing over those blue lines with my WACOM tablet. For example, look at the determination on Joe’s face and Giovanni’s consternation (he’s about to be drafted!). If you missed page 10 and you’d like to see this colored and shaded, check out the page here.
Since the story takes place at the turn of the millenium, I placed a picture of the reigning pope on the wall of the coffee shop. Of course, Blessed Pope John Paul II still adorns most coffee bars in Rome! Here’s a close-up of the little “painting” I did for panel one of page 10. Click to enlarge it!
Here’s a pic of how comics also come to be. When the napkins are cloth, chances are the tables are covered with butcher paper, which is perfect for sketching out several pages! Here were some of the first few pages of JC: Ep2 sketched out on a pizzeria tablecloth: (Click for a larger image!)
I often wonder why when I’m trying to hammer out an idea or a layout with a fresh, clean, piece of copy paper, it almost never happens. Put a napkin in front of me and the words and images just come a-flowin’. I wonder if it could be all the “recycling” fumes from these 40% post-consumer waste (or something like that)… This is a thumbnail layout of page 5. Incidentally, this is usually what I do when trying to figure out how a page should look….it either takes place on a napkin or the margins of the script. 
Possibly one of the biggest hurdles I have with Joe Catholic, besides the writing and the busyness of priestly life is lamenting over my art style which is admittedly still developing even in the past 5 pages! I tend to have a perfect idea of what the comic should look like in my head. If I can’t come close to it, I’ll spend weeks (or months) trying to get it right before posting it on the website. Perhaps it’s a little unhealthy perfectionism. Perhaps it’s an appropriate scrutiny. Either way, it’s often what keeps these pages from seeing the light of publishing.
I thought you might appreciate a close up of the St. Michael Medal in the second to last panel. It was only a gesture drawing from memory of a medal that I own, but I thought it turned out pretty good! Enjoy!
(Click the image to see a larger version!) And now you can see how terrible my lines look close up!
