Printing Grug the Destroyer

To go from not creating any comic book ever to a full 28 page story feels like a hell of an achievement. I printed Grug the Destroyer on paper I sourced specially from GF smith and printed it on a risograph, which gets across the comic book feel quite well.

I learnt how to paginate the book correctly by calling Ditto Press and asking them, unfortunately there isn't just a button I can press on indesign, and the process is quite lengthy because you have to check everything is right at each stage or else your printed book will not work when assembled. After learning how do to this I taught the rest of my class that wanted to print and bind their own comics. Some other students joked that I was running workshops, but I like teaching people. I wouldn't want to be a teacher right away, but when I'm older and more experienced I think it would be quite fulfilling.

Despite understanding the process enough to teach others I managed to get it wrong myself and wasted 50 sheets worth of good A3 paper, thankfully it was easy to rectify the problem but because I hadn't noticed it straight away I ended up wasting money. From then on I ensured all of the people I helped were extra careful when printing their books, as sloppiness leads to sloppy end products.

I have bound a couple (not all as I have not had time/access to the guillotine to make the process much faster) and I think they look great. I did a 2 colour cover, originally intended to be black and blue but the blue ink ran out, so instead I used green (which sort of goes with Grug's title anyway). The cover depicts Grug staring at his reflection and seeing the wicked transformation he will become if he does not leave the path of merciless destruction. The back cover shows the armour at the bottom of the sea, which is where Grugson chucks it at the end of story. I like the idea that the reader will pick the book up, look at the back and front, then after they have read the story they look at the cover again and see it for what it really is.

I know that my strengths don't lie in making comics so much, but I do have a good eye for semiotics and writing I think, so I will continue to improve my drawings and hopefully one day the end result will be really good, for now though I think it's pretty impressive. I'm going to try selling them at MCM alongside Backwards Burd Anthologys, I think after that I'll realise how successful a venture they have been.