"Crule and Unusual" is a vile little story in which everyone dies, and you're glad they do. Rich begins by sketching his idea out on 8.5” X 11” cardstock from Office Max with a Bic Magic Grip 0.7mm #2 mechanical pencil, also from Office Max. Note that we rough in our lettering right from the get-go. This is pretty much the only way to make sure you don't end your story in the middle of a page. That can be catastrophic, unless you have a Twinkies ad to slap in there.

The rough is scanned, Brightness/Contrast-ed in Photoshop, printed out at 115%, and lightboxed by the selfsame Rich, who adjusts the composition and adds detail on the fly (see panel 8). We hand draw the panel borders (mostly with Penstix, which are cheap and have a line that doesn't spread), but they can be added digitally if you're Germanic about right angles.

Steve scans the finished pencils and B/Cs them in Photoshop until the borders are almost black and most of the schmutz is gone. He prints out a full size copy on bond paper at the “quality” setting, and does a light-and-shadow study with Verithin black and ulramarine color pencils. Note how it’s actually starting to look like something. This is why he gets the big bucks.