Fun stuff: Later today I’ll be working on page 41, which is pretty close to the end of Chapter 1. If you want a sneak peek, I’ll be screencasting, and you can come watch a page of Eleanor being made, and say hello. Follow my Twitter for more info!
The early pages of this chapter are pretty special to me. For years, while Eleanor was a novel-in-progress, and not a comic, I would take annual trips to Oregon, hole up in a cabin for a week or so, and write piles and piles of new words. It wasn’t unusual for me to crank through fifty or sixty thousand words during one of these getaways. The downside was always going alone, though. My girlfriend (now my wife) would send me away, distraction-free, to work on the book, and I’d always return with dozens of new chapters.
So in early 2011, a few months after I’d turned Eleanor into a comic, we took a trip to Washington and stayed in a cabin on San Juan Island. Felicia attended Cat Bordhi’s knitting retreat all day long, and I puttered around the (way, way too big) cabin, penciling out new pages and inking them. When Felicia would come back from her day’s fun, she’d look over my shoulder at my progress. Then I’d haul in some firewood and we’d make dinner.
In other words, what I kind of discovered what that creating a webcomic is a wildly different experience from writing a novel. It’s not as solitary, and I can work on pages anywhere, and I particularly enjoy company while I’m doing it. (So be sure to check out the screencast later today!)
Today’s comic tiptoes a bit farther down the new road we’ve struck out upon. You’ve noticed by now that Eleanor isn’t exactly around just yet — she’s not even born. Agnes and Paul are young, growing up, in love, and doing that young-married thing.
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