TICKET : HOW & WHY

Ticket is here.

Those of you who frequent this blog will likely recognize the protagonist as Lily von Silvie Lenore, someone I've had with me for the past 6 or 7 years.

Lily von Silvie Lenore
Curious Events

Curious Events is a small book I made, printed and simply bound, for my wife (then girlfriend) and is one of my most closely guarded works. Ticket is a continuation of that story.

To me, Ticket is sort of like a postlude to the Curious Events story. There are four stories in my (yet unreleased) "Library of Curious Events."

Not necessarily essential to the overall story but more of a distillation of the tone and feeling of the books. Another enjoyable visit, for me at least. Curious Events in the abstract -- if that makes sense.

From the teaser itself:

Ticket is a story in pictures and a collection of all things Cory loves to draw. From windmills flying above grassy hills to massive birds landing in Grecian vineyards, Ticket follows the story of a girl, her hat, and the curious events which transpire.

* * *

More than a year ago, I made a list of most of the stories and ideas I had going on at the time. I've kept it tacked up on my desk. Here it is:

If you notice at the top there's a doodle of little boat and an idea called "The Ticket"


That was the first idea for Ticket as it is now. But I can trace that idea to this drawing I did the summer between my junior year and senior year of college:

I've loved clock towers and boats for a long time.

* * *

When the time came to start I made a list of everything I wanted to try and include and made notes and thumbnails. I spent several days deciding what I was interested in putting in it, what sort of things I wanted to do. I spent a while. I finally condensed the thumbnails to 13 spreads.

I then took a Saturday and sat on the couch for about 10 hours and went through each thumbnail and made a bigger, more realized thumbnail.

* * *

Once the little story worked and I had everything I wanted in order, I set to work on the drawings.


They took about a two weeks to get through. I was working on a pretty tight deadline. On top of that, I could only work on it all at night. Unfortunately, there wasn't time in my work schedule to do this during the day so all production on Ticket was done at night.

I'd work like crazy at work on these three commercials at work then come home and do Ticket. It never once felt like a chore. Work did, but not Ticket. Ticket is something I've been wanting to do for a long time and I'm just thrilled I get the chance to see it in print.

* * *

Once everything was drawn and scanned,


I set to work on the painting. This is probably the part I live for. I taped all of them down on boards on the floor of my room (not floor boards, boards laying on the floor -- don't be confused) and got to work.

I made a couple all nighters in the production of Ticket. These paintings represent one of them.

* * *

The next night I scanned them all, complied them in Photoshop, and called it good.

I think I took two nights to do the post-production finishing work. I think. Things started to get fuzzy towards the end.

* * *

They put it all together and sent it off. Then the proof came back.

Check out here for my post about the proof.

A few more days of waiting and now it's all done.

* * *

Ticket's here. I'm glad. And I hope you will like it.


* * *

TICKET IS NOW AVAILABLE!
$ 12

at the Portland Studios Store (direct link)

or

https://store.portlandstudios.com/
(link to the main store -- click on the "Publishing" tab at the top)

Check out our little commercial above. It takes you through the book page by page. This is a compilation of all 28 pages of Ticket for you to see. Music written by Matt Silver.