The Comics Bureau

Here is a fas­cin­at­ing peep behind the magician’s cloth, and by magi­cian, I mean Richard Sala, and by cloth, I mean craft.

The DELPHINE series was always inten­ded to be prin­ted in sepia tones. How­ever, I cre­ated the ori­ginal art using blue washes, which, for some reason I found allowed me to “see” the val­ues — from light to black — more clearly than when I was work­ing with brown washes (yes, there was some early hit and miss exper­i­ment­ing). Work­ing with blue washes seemed easier on the eye and each panel appeared more spa­cious and atmo­spheric in shades of blue. As one of my art teach­ers poin­ted out many years ago, “blue is the color of infin­ity”. Per­haps it is this qual­ity that made it easier for me to see the range of val­ues as I painted.