First Draught: Round Two

Date
Launch #7a: July 1999

Concept
This is another one of those ideas that have been floating around in my head for awhile.  Basically, it is my way of insulting a bunch of “beers.”  It’s silly, I’m hardly a conoissuer, but most mainstream beers basically suck; and this is my forum for saying so.  Okay, so it ain’t Shakespeare…

I knew that I wanted to attempt this joke for two reasons: 1) to slam some beers, and 2) to see if I could use the same panel repeatedly to get this kind of droning effect.  In a way, the repetition of panels that are exactly the same is juxtaposed with the idea that each of the beers is exactly the same (each sucks).  Each panel/beer is just a “xerox” of the one before it.  Okay, so it ain’t Shakespeare…but I did want to see if I could pull of a repeated panel without too much art degradation.

Layout
The layout kinda just worked out.  I knew that I wanted numerous panels, but I thought four or six would be the maximum number that I could get.  The reduced panels just happened to line up nicely—plus the title.  At first I thought that the title didn’t quite work on the left, but I think adds some character to the monotony.

Putting it Together
I sketched this out (slightly) in my sketchbook a few months ago; and I’ve been capturing beer names as I thought about them or went to the grocery store.

I started with a 9”x12” sheet and drew out the picture of the guy at the bar.  I realized about ¾ of the way through that I had too much stuff in the panel, so I cut off about 3” from the right side of the panel and about 1-1/2” from the bottom of the panel.  All that you really lose is the guy’s right arm and some extra counter-top (on the right side of the panel) and the guy’s butt, some barstools and more of the front of the bar (on the bottom of the panel).  I realized that this was a lot of information that didn’t add much to the panel.  However, my bottles were in this area, and  didn’t want to lose them.  So after I cut off the right side, I cut out the bottles and pasted them back into the center of the panel.  That also helped me get rid of a cash register and credit card machine that weren’t looking right anyway.

After I got all the copies I needed, I pasted them and the title onto an 11” x 14” page.

Lettering
I re-used the title that I used in my last First Draught piece, which officially makes this a series!  I also decided to do word “balloons” without the actual balloon in order to get more text on the page (plus I suck at making balloons—anybody got an ellipse template?)  I originally thought about putting the beers in alphabetical order, but that seemed a little too much.

Inking
Done some with a brush, but most of the lines are made with a rapidograph pen.

Reproduction
I had to photocopy and shrink this panel twice, and I was really worried that the art would start to break up with so much reproduction—remember I still had to copy it again after I got all the panels in place.  That’s 3 copies!  It held up pretty well (it’s good to start large), but it’s still a little darker than I wanted.

I think I’ve learned to try at least 2 photocopiers whenever I go to make copies.  Again, it made some difference.

Tools

What People are Saying About
First Draught #2

Mark sez:

Very funny stuff. I liked the continuation of the title as I think it is helpful for "reader recognition" so to speak. The art looked fine to me although a little too dark and does the customer’s head seem a little flat? The bottles are well done and I understand what you mean with your NFTB comments on the spacing and think it worked out well. Love the bartender’s comb over. While some might complain about the copied image, I agree that it works as it parallels the copies of the beers. Sadly enough, you left out a number of beers (4-5 by my count) which is fucking scary and actually may add to the insanity of it all. I did miss a special Cej signature. Very clever with the word balloons (or lack thereof) I know why you did it but I don’t think I reader would so more power to you.