Shatterspin #2 out October 9th!

Tri Vuong

08 Oct 2024 • 3 min read

Hey everyone, Shatterspin #2 will finally be out in comic stores tommorow! I know the release schedule for this series has been a little all over the place and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t even aware of the delay until one of you readers messaged me on this site asking me about it.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the official reasons for the delay (those decisions are way above my pay grade)but I can probably make an educated guess. More than any other project I’ve worked on, the Ninjago books require substantially more time and effort to produce. I would guess they take AT LEAST twice as long to make because every panel is meticulously combed over by multiple departments across multiple companies. In the end, this attention to detail results in (hopefully) a high quality book but unfortunately it can clash with the improvisational and jazz-like nature of a monthly comic book schedule.

Apologies to everyone for the delay, but we hope that in the end the story will be worth the wait. Rest assured, the entire series will be finished (I’m working on the last issue right now).

Ok with that out of the way, I thought it would be fun to show some of the behind the scenes look at how this issue was produced.

From Script to Page

I don’t always write a full script when I make comics because often I’m doing everything by myself. However in this case, because I’ll be working with a team of talented artists and editors, my nonsensical scribbles wouldn’t be of much use to anyone other than me so a full script was necessary.

Here’s a breakdown of the steps for the first three pages of Shatterspin#2:

Pro tip: One page of script should equal to one page of comic.

I like to tweak the dialog in the pencilling stage after I get a better sense of how the characters are acting. Also love the way Riccardo brings his own style to the inks.

Some elements that are in the script (like Zuri’s wrist crossbow)—

—Don’t work well visually so adjustments need to be made in the art.

Panel counts can often differ from script to finished page. I envisioned this as a four panel sequence in the script.

But it worked better as five panels on the page with the actual reveal of the last panel pushed to the next page (not shown here).

So there you have it! Thats basically how these comics are made. Hopefully it’s interesting to see the little changes that occur with each step of the process.

Shatterspin #2 will be out on October 9th at your local comic store so please pick one up!

Talk soon,

Tri