Mice on the Move!

Script to Art: an inside look at the comic book creative process

When I created my Substack my intention was to share my creative process. What better way to do that than to actually show you a page from a script and the artist’s interpretation of it?

This is a splash page from Rodney’s Dreams: Country Mouse, City Mouse (which you can read right here on my Substack). My goal was to have a flowing conversation between the main characters and the other rodent residents of the mansion as the Country Mouse and City Mouse move through the “apartments” inside the walls. I was inspired by the old Family Circle “dotted-line” cartoons where we’d see Jeffy running through the neighborhood or different rooms in the house in one panel with little bursts of dialogue.

I think Rodney’s artist, Jules Rivera, knocked it out of the park. She did a couple of really smart things. First, she changed the direction of travel. As you can see, I had written it as though the mice were moving up from the bottom of the page to the top. Which is not the way we read English-language books or comics. Jules flipped it so that we start at the top left of the page and move to the bottom right corner. The second thing she did was to put a red ball cap and green backpack on Country Mouse. With those key visual elements, we can more easily track the movement of the main characters. Enjoy!

Jules Rivera is a hoot and a half. She is dream to work with and I am psyched we have a new Rodney story in the works.

You can follow Jules’ work on Instagram and TikTok. Her Love, Joolz reels are a breath of fresh, often salty, air. @love.joolz