The background image was made for panel 8 on page 1 of my 2009 comic Super Duper Ham: Day One. I looked up the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn on Google Maps to draw this aerial view of Bee Ball Park (McCarren Park).
The foreground image was drawn for panel 1 on page 20 of the same comic.
My drawing style relies on a lot of crosshatching. For this comic, I drew the different elements of each panel separately, and then combined them in the computer. All that crosshatching made it hard to sometimes see one image clearly when it was layered over another, so I inserted layers of transparent white to separate the foreground from the background.
When I made my 2011 collages, I decided to create a similar effect using white paint, but what really made them work for me was the addition of the black ink to accentuate elements that are closest to the foreground. I used this technique in the panel art in my 2013 comic Blanco y Negro.
When I started showing/selling my black and white collages at conventions, many people indicated that they were more interested in colored artwork. The last show I did was in 2014. In 2015, I decided to rework some of the collages still in my possession to add color.
In most cases, I do think that adding color did enhance the artwork and I’m looking forward to seeing how people will respond to them now.