The First Page is the Hardest

Last December, Charlie Capp, an artist looking for full-time work in Seattle, resolved to create a comic book adaptation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Charlie planned to create an illustration for each stanza, for a total of about 150 pages.

February Update:

The biggest challenge of the project so far has been building up the courage to put the first lines of ink on the paper, making the drawing essentially “permanent.” I’ll be incorporating digital tools into my process later so the ink isn’t absolute, but I’m really focusing on making each page a stand-alone image that’s interesting and readable even in its uncolored state. From the very beginning, I was worried about the debut of the ship and felt like I was procrastinating a bit. Once I just went ahead and inked it, I was really pleased with how it came out.

(Scroll down for a slideshow)

I’ve also been trying to increase the speed with which I can make the drawings, since I’ve still got a lot of ground to cover. Over a month into the project now, it’s been very satisfying to see the work take form and see the pages gradually accumulate mass. I’ve been putting them up on the living room wall as I’ve completed them, but now the wall is becoming crowded enough that I need to figure out a more long-term storage solution for the inked pages!

Slideshow: Work in Progress