Anthology revisions, part 1

My story's first contact with the outside world.

Here's an update on the anthology story I submitted to Kids Comics Unite last September. (For a recap of that process, click here.)

About a month after submission, the anthology's editorial and design committees sent their feedback.

Wow, that’s a lot of comments….

The story and art got a big thumbs-up - they were smooth, dynamic, and clear (the editors' words ☺️). Obviously this was a big relief! It made it easier to move that pesky perfectionist voice to the back seat.

Most of the feedback didn't affect the story but still took time and effort to address. For example:

"Full-bleed" art

I have many borderless panels where the art goes "full bleed" (past the printable area of the page). This was intentional - it's a common design choice in graphic novels - but I learned the anthology won't allow full-bleed art. To address this, I added "soft" borders that faded to white at the page’s edge. For some panels, I had to resize the art to fit the (slightly) smaller space.

(left) The original version of Page 1, with full-bleed panels. (right) Page 1 with a soft border added. (I also flipped the last panel as the editors suggested keeping Solaa to the left of Brother Paro.)

Title & byline

I'd been so focused on the story and art that I'd forgotten to tell readers what the story’s called and who made it! It didn’t take long to come up with a title (The Quha Gardens). I spent a lot of time on the lettering - debating whether to draw it by hand or use a computer font, trying different styles, and choosing the size and color(s).

Title designs from the most recent (top) to earliest (bottom), all hand-drawn except for the bottom center design.

The harder questions were where to place the title and byline - and how few panels could I get away with modifying?

(Left) At first I crammed the title into panel 1, but... (right) ultimately gave the title more space (which meant resizing panel 1's and 2's art yet again).

More to come…

These revisions were straightforward compared to one comment about the story - and a tricky panel on page 5. Addressing it took up most of my time and effort, which I’ll share in part 2 of the revision process. Stay tuned!