THE END: ⚘ 158 Graphic Novel Pages In 1 Year

This is it, sound the trumpets, fire the canons: the big final-thoughts post on book one of Disney's upcoming graphic novel series ARDEN HIGH, Twelfth Grade Night. If you've been around for a bit you know that I graduated college in 2020, then jumped pretty quickly into freelance book illustration, thanks to my agent. I have never done a graphic novel or even considered doing one, up until this past year--and now I've got one completely done in a year, with another coming up next year for book two: King Cheer! I talked about how I felt in the process during the summertime when I was about halfway through in This podcast post and this visual post . This explains how I navigated things like paneling from a script with no prior experience, the character design process, etc. 

I also stated in those posts that as I went, I felt like I was improving. I knew from the very beginning that this would probably be the case, but I didn't realize just how extreme it was going to be. I look at some of the pages I did earlier on compared to some of the final pages and the difference is pretty massive! Unfortunately there isn't much to be done, unless I had the time or resources to completely redo some pages. I did go back and touch some up--for example, one of the character's hair ended up more detailed and curlier by the end of the book, so I went back to some of the beginning pages and gave him a hair fix-up on a new layer.

I also made the silly mistake of not rereading an email that I really should have re-read, regarding the school's colors. I thought I had read "red and gold" so proceeded to color the lockers, the banners, the flags, the bleachers, the sports uniforms....red and gold. AND WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT...yep, the colors were definitely yellow, black and white. WHY my brain decided to register them incorrectly, I have no idea. And the reasoning behind it is awesome and intentional, too--yellow, black and white are the color of Shakespeare's Coat of Arms. So that set me back a bit at the end as I re-colored some major assets.

When I was FIRST signed to the project, I was given a sort of "art test" where I was to illustrate two sample pages. Our main character, Vi, went through a few visual changes as time went on and I was given the very beginning feedback. 

On the far right is the final version of Vi, the one I love so much and get tears in my eyes when I think too hard about her. I love how she ended up looking. It was important to the project manager, the authors, and me, that Vi was not the typical "skinny androgynous" person we often see represented. Gender ambiguity comes in all bodies. As someone who is nonbinary myself, I feel seen by a character like Vi--a person who has wider hips, thighs, but still presents as somewhat neutral. 

Before we go much further, I know some folks are aware of the basic plot of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but in case you don't know, I thought I would provide a simple infographic including some past interpretations in film! I didn't know a thing about the story before this, and now I'm DEEP in it.

If you'd like to watch something that gives you the plot fairly accessibly I would recommend the 1996 film adaptation (this is where the first images are from). The second, more modern example is She's The Man (the second images) starring Amanda Bynes as Vi and Channing Tatum as Orsino. The version you'll be reading in the ARDEN series will be a little different, of course....some major things were changed, added and removed, to portray the story in a modern-day magical high school. Not to brag, but I think our version is pretty--pardon me--fucking great.

Something I didn't really have a lot of knowledge on and quickly realized I would have to get good at was drawing phones, and fake-but-kinda-close-to-the-real-thing social media sites. There was a lot of text communication, "instagram" (but not instagram) stories and pages, and notifications. I know for a fact this will continue into the next books as well, so I tried to take a lot of time to get familiar with how to portray something that I didn't realize would be so difficult to draw! It's like, how do I rip off this interface so that people totally know what it is, without completely making it exactly the same?

There's got to be at least 40 panels featuring digital communication or phones. It's incredibly relevant and adds to the modern factor, but man it was tricky to do! Here's a sketch-to-final featuring Olivia writing out an instagram story (text is not included for spoiler reasons!)

Also, wow, cool, just now realizing I completely forgot to put "AHS" on her tank top, which is on the pages previous to this one. Cool. Note to self to fix that. I can't tell you how many times I notice little mistakes like this, hahaha. I guess it comes with the territory of working very very quickly on coloring 158 pages. If I didn't catch it, the editor surely would. Phew.

My favorite thing to illustrate out of the whole book was the school dance scenes--so basically all of the final act: Act Five. The colors, as I mentioned in my last post were all referenced from the bisexual flag, and Lil Nas X's SUN GOES DOWN music video. I hope the gay youth who read this book know that I did this for them. I've blurred the actual pages but you can still see the color theme. 

I loved working with this color scheme. It was, for lack of a better word, delicious.

Oh, oh and before I start wrapping up: yes, of course I put a ton of easter eggs in this book, who do you think you're talking to? I took a lot of liberties with the background characters, too since there's lots of crowd scenes! I always thought it was fun when show/book creators put themselves or other characters/people/friends in crowds. Here's a breakdown of one panel to give you a taste:

This experience has been unimaginable in so many ways. 

I never thought I could do a project of this size and now I'm looking at it in front of me. 

There were times I laid down in the shower and cried because I was so frustrated (Am I working fast enough? Did I get paid fairly? Will this book actually sell? What if people see all the mistakes I missed? Should I even be doing comics? I don't have time for any other projects, is this my life forever?). And the fact that I have been working on this essentially in isolation for over a year now without knowing how anyone will feel about it really messed with my head. It is such a massive body of work but it doesn't feel real because nobody has seen it. I got validation from close friends who saw me working, and the authors/folks over at Disney Books were SO sweet to me. But overall, it's been a mentally taxing and lonely experience. (It probably did not help that I was also working on two picture books and a book cover at the same time as this massive project. God. Yikes. Not ever taking on that much ever again.)

What has made it worth it is that I love these characters and this whole universe. Even typing out the sentence makes my eyes fill with tears. I can't wait for a teen, or anybody, to pick up this book and feel seen, or smile, or hyperfixate on a character. I hope people do fan art, I hope people cosplay, I hope they make tiktoks (hahaha). I have no idea what anybody will think. Maybe it's the caffeine, but I'm shaking a little just imagining it. 

I think back to last October when I first got the email about the job. Reading the manuscript for the first time and falling in LOVE with the whole thing. Not knowing what I was doing at all, but saying "I'll figure it out as I go", because sometimes you just have to do that.

I'll leave you with this: when I was drawing the final cover (to be revealed), I was getting inspiration from this sexy little image featuring Anne Hathaway as Viola in Twelfth Night:

I did not tell anyone that I was pulling inspiration from this image and sent off my cover design, so it was to my delight when the project manager emailed me back and told me that everyone loved it because it reminded them of....The promotional image of the Anne Hathaway version of Twelfth Night . It made me feel like I had done something very, very right. 

-JG