Images from Limbo, created by Caspar Wijngaard (illustrated left) and Dan Watters (illustrated right). Screencap viaEver wonder what it’s like to collaborate on a comic? This week’s mini-comic masterclass, Strip Panel Naked, is the first in a two-part interview series with comic creators Caspar Wijngaard and Dan Watters. Their fantastic book, Limbo, from Image Comics, follows a rough-and-tumble detective as he works his way through what seems, on paper, like a fairly traditional film noir world, but Watters and Wijngaard completely play with the visuals. By infusing it with VHS voodoo, neon 1980s colors and a VCR aesthetic, writer Watters and artist Wijngaard create a fresh, bold new comic. Strip Panel Naked host Hass Otsmane-Elhaou interviews the duo about how the worked together to create a stunning 24-panel, two-page spread in the comic.
The duo explain their writing and illustrating process as one of complete collaboration. In the pages being dissected in the video, the creators talk about their main character’s marathon run through various panels that each represent a television channel. “I only actually outlined what he was running through in the first 12 [panels],” explains Watters. “And I kept thinking of channels for him to be jumping through, and I got about halfway through and I think I’m going to hand this to Caspar and he was just going to be like no, I’m not doing it. But then he just went ahead and did it himself, and his are better than mine.” The interview continues with the two comic makers going back and forth talking about the experience of making these pages, their visual influences, and deciding to add Max Headroom into these pages late in the development stages.Watch their entire conversation, and get a glimpse at a wonderfully successful collaborative partnership, in this week’s Strip Panel Naked below:
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