I worked on this 32-page comic, off and on in my spare time, from 2003 to 2009. I struggled to write an original story and I was stubborn. I came up with individual scenes and I shuffled them around until a narrative fell into place. The narration was the glue that held the whole thing together.
This semi-autobiographical comic follows a comic book maker as he explores the Union Square and Williamsburg neighborhoods in New York City, searching for inspiration and wondering if he should give up this particular creative pursuit.
The photography is meant to represent the real world as it is and the illustration is meant to represent how the protagonist sees both himself and the world around him. Most of the illustrations started out as blind contour pencil drawings, which I then refined as I inked them in. Friends and family helped me out with the photography.
I built panel layouts in Adobe Illustrator and then import them into Photoshop, where I could add and manipulate the panel art. This process also allowed me to alter the panel layout, or replace an element in a panel, without having to redrawn anything else.
Flying Solo was first self-published in 2009, included in the 2112, 2014, and 2021 edition of my comics anthology Sketches and Streams and reprinted in 2023 with a newly designed cover.
