Time and Materials

I'm often asked about the length of time I take drawing these books and what materials were used. (If I were you I'd skip this bit because it's intensely boring unless you're the sort of nerd who's into this stuff).

On average a page took me about two days; a day to pencil and a day to ink. An average day's work would start somewhere between 10.00am and 2.00pm and finish around 9.30pm, though sometimes I'd work till 2.00am if nothing else was happening. Some complicated pages took longer - especially if I had to track down references, e.g. for Dee's den a few trips to the library were needed. I had the hell of a time trying to find a picture of an orrery and eventually found one on the internet. Some of the later action pages were quicker as I dropped out detail to increase the pace of the story.

The whole was pencilled with a 0.5 Pentel Technical Pencil and inked with 0.3 and 0.5 Variant Rapidographs (yes, the sort they've not made for twenty years) for straight or exact lines and detail work and a Number 2 Windsor and Newton Finest Sable brush for hair, folds in clothes, feathering (such as on Victoria's dresses and cloak) and large areas of black. Toothbrushes were used for various splatter effects, such as used on the explosions. These are dipped in, or dabbed, with ink or white gouache and then flicked to produce either a light spray or a soggy splat. White gouache was used for tidying up the black line and for highlights over shading.

The paper was Frisk CS10 Line Paper - an expensive brand that was discontinued shortly before I began work on the book! As soon as I heard this I ran to my local art shop and bought out their remaining stock so I had enough for the entire book. CS10 was designed for use on design studio paste-up work and was discontinued because all this sort of work is now done on computer. Its unique ultra-smooth, non-absorbent ceramic coating meant that there was no danger of rapidograph nibs fluffing the surface or ink creeping from the line. The downside is that each pencilled page needed drenching in cigarette lighter petrol and carefully dabbing with tissue to remove all the excess pencil graphite grease (which causes the ink line to "bead") before inking.

The pages were drawn at 150% of the printed size. To see if there's any discernible difference apart from the advantages listed above, check out the Dramatis Personae page, which was drawn on the conventional drawing board of the type supplied by major comics publishers to their contributors. At one point I considered working with an inker. Several times I produced watercolour paintings, which Angus then dropped in where required, as on page 24.

Models

Usually, especially for commercial strips, I create everything straight on the page, though from time to time I'll stick the occasional friend in the background. With The Tale of One Bad Rat, because of the nature of the story and my wish to firmly base it in reality, the majority of characters were drawn from models, usually friends and acquaintances. In Heart of Empire, the majority of the cast were invented. In the cases where I've used a model, these are all credited herein. I imagine that this is a good time to point out that my partner in creating this CD-Rom, James Robertson, who is also the thoroughly nice chap who created my web site, appears in the story as one of the Leveller committee called "James".

Angels

One of our themes. Images of angels recur all the way through the story and I'm not going to try and point each out individually!

Book Credits

Babbage engine colour-weaving Professor Angus McKie. Mistress of Calligraphy: Ellie DeVille. Cover Concept: Mr Mark Cox. Cover Execution: Messrs Bryan Talbot, William Morris and Prof Angus McKie.

Backgrounds and partial inks (pages 36 - 41, 63, 64, 207, 224, 276) SMS. "Seditious Cartoon" (page 87) John Coulthart. Partial inks (pages 199, 233, 237) David Windett. Colours "Dramatis Personnae", Dan Jackson. "Queen of Hearts" playing card, Kev Sutherland

Movable type and Graphical design: Miss Amy Arendys and Mr Mark Cox.

Special thanks to Mr Kenny Baker.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the following for their invaluable assistance in the production of this CD-Rom. This involved anything from proof-reading to supplying information, advice or artwork.

Mary Branscombe, James Brunton, Mike Collins, John Coulthart, Lawrence Dean, Ellie DeVille, Mel Gibson, Arni Gunnerson, Ed Hartley, Chantal Herskovic, Dave Langford, Tasha Lowe, Angus McKie,Dave McKinnon, Alan Moore, Frank Plowright, Nick Robinson, Pete Renshaw, Mary M.Talbot.

God bless them and all who sail in them.

Comments

I'd be very interested in any comments you may have about this CD and the annotations within. You can email me via the web site:

www.bryan-talbot.com

I do hope you enjoy this unprecedented wander through my disintegrating mental processes and imagine you'll know me far too well for comfort by the time you're finished.

Cheers,

Now you've read the introduction, probably the best place to go to next is the annotations section, where Bryan explains where all of the ideas and references for Heart of Empire came from. In the same overall area as the annotations is the directory of additional illustrations used as references or for inspiration by Bryan when creating Heart of Empire. Also see the spoof biography Bryan wrote for the Trade Paperback version of Heart of Empire, and also the notes on the spoof. Also check out Bryan's real biography.

If you want to jump straight in and start to readthe comic in its entirety, then you can choose from the pencil version, the inked version, the colour version or the high resolution colour version - or you can read the prequel to Heart of Empire, the Adventures of Luther Arkwright in standard resolution or high resolution.