CITY: An Edinburgh Crime Series (Statement for Assessment)

In the end I was pretty darn happy about how my comic came out, and the fact that I had actually completed a full comic book. Totally chuffed and pleased with myself. The story I came up with came together rather nicely and stayed true to my original brief and plan. Which was to create a black and white crime, noir comic set in Edinburgh and based around its graveyards; Ian Rankin's Rebus stories were a major influence. Due to time constraints however, the page number went down and down. 8 Pages of story and a cover is pretty decent though - the story makes sense and I like how it ended. Nothing like a good ol' "To be continued...".

My drawing style became more my own on this project, I feel that my influences are slowly getting weaned out and I have started to form my own approach. I use a lot of big black areas, with some hatching and crosshatching, and experimenting with negative space. If in doubt, black it out! 
I had originally planned to get the comic booked published professionally but due to time (Christmas period) I decided against this and to do it myself. Not only did I save myself a lot of money, but I was very please with the results. My DIY printing, stapling and trimming, and size of the book perfectly highlights the independent comic book mentality. That being said, if ever I was to do anther comic - which I probably will - I would get it printed professionally.

Throughout my project I stayed true to my original intentions and researched only relevant imagery and information. I looked at Edinburgh itself, its cemeteries and crime fiction based in Edinburgh; primarily the books by Ian Rankin. I even went to see him talk at the Bloody Scotland crime fiction festival. For my main artistic inspiration I turned to Frank Miller's crime-noir, comic series Sin City (a black and white book drawn with a lot of positive and negative space). My only downfall however is that sometimes I look up something or discover something and not take note of it in my sketchbook.

From the get go I knew I wanted to do a black and white comic using the methods I knew and wanted to use - pencil, pen and black ink, lots and lots of black! When I am so set on my methods though experimentation does not really vary, and when it does I tend to focus more on certain techniques over others. For example, I did a lot of drawing onto black with a white pen and tip-ex. I was totally open to new techniques; maybe I could of experimented with a little print making to get my nice big black areas.


Probably the main thing I learned during this project is time management. I had set myself a big task, and even though I am so pleased with the final thing, I believe I could of done more. I also learned how to acquire and ISNB number and create a barcode if I wanted to sell my books professionally, and even though I did not do this for this project, its a skill that can be transferred over to another, similar project.

CITY: An Edinburgh Crime Series

 Detective Inspector Colin Morrison is a Glasgow cop transferred to Edinburgh. He is overcome by the city’s size. Yes Glasgow is big city but there is something different about Edinburgh; it’s vast and scatted. He is used to crime in Glasgow, it more often than not is drugs and gangs or fueled by religious divide. But Edinburgh is old. It has many secrets. It’s a city full of conspiracy and shadows. Oh yes, it may look bright and put on a good show for tourists: but the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The first case DI Morrison is assigned is a kidnapping. A little girl from Dean Village was stolen from her bed in the night. When we meet up with our protagonist he wakes up in coffin; buried alive...