And here we go. Or I go. Or Bertram goes. It’s weird having other personas.

So one of the first things I decided about doing these stories was that I would frame them with Bertram telling the story. I wanted to maintain that narrator voice, plus, it hearkened back to things like the Crypt Keeper or Elvira. Or maybe John Hurt’s Storyteller would be more appropriate.

Then I started to write out the story as I would tell it, not quite the same approach as writing DFS because I didn’t need to include all the descriptions and directions. It was an odd experience because despite having told this story probably a hundred times, it’s become something I just do, I don’t focus too hard on the actual words I say. Suddenly they had to be fixed on the page, words and phrases chosen and committed to.

Next I did some quick characters sketches, I’d drawn Bertram before so I was most concerned with figuring out Jack and his mother to start with. There are other characters I’ll need to design, but this was enough to get me started.

I had an idea of how I wanted to lay the first page out, so I set up my page template, (I figured on working to a similar size as what we use on DFS so I used those dimensions to create a template in Manga Studio) and started to sketch out the page.

Next it was taking my script and doing the lettering. Lots of trial and error, both in deciding on the font to use, (I always hated my hand lettering) whether to use different type for narration and dialogue and the titles. They are still pretty plain and I think I’d like to do something more elaborate. Not sure if MS is up to it, or I would have to flip over to Photoshop/Illustrator to do something more elaborate. But it will do for now.

I toyed with inking only the characters and trying to do everything else more like a watercolour painting but really didn’t have the time to experiment too much. Mostly it was just go for it, wing it and hope for the best.

So here it is.