JL8 #3 - Creator Commentary

JL8 #3 by Yale Stewart

Originally published on December 3rd, 2011

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Look at that, the introduction of the entire class (minus J'onn) right there in the first panel. I'm shocked I had the wherewithal to do that, rather than just focus on the boys. Fairly proud of it though.

This is the first strip where you really see that I have no idea what I'm doing regarding coloring. If you look at the background in panel one, you'll note the very bizarre color choices for the cabinets and cubbies. 

If I remember correctly, that came from the fact that I very much wanted JL8 to be in the spirit of Silver Age comics, so I went back to look at how they were colored and I guess that's the best I came up with, as oftentimes background elements will have non-local coloring. I now realize that's probably a design choice to help foreground elements pop better, but I guarantee I completely missed the memo on that when I was coloring this ten years ago.

I think the Barry bit works really well, kind of creating a cadence to Bruce between strips one, two, and three. In strip one, he's humiliated (the suit), in strip two, he's a jerk (commenting on Clark's costume), and in strip three, he's back to being humiliated. Admittedly, "humiliated" is a bit strong of a term, but I'm not sure what else to say. Maybe alternating between being the punchline and delivering it? I think you get it. Again, I didn't do this consciously, but it's a happy accident. Also, it just tells you a lot about Barry right out the gate (not everything has to be about Bruce).

Lastly, Clark's dialog to begin the strip is INCREDIBLY clunky, mainly because it directly references the previous strip. I imagine people discovering JL8 with this strip are kind of confused at what Bruce and Clark are talking about, but oh well.

-Yale