Nicholas Gurewitch’s Notes on a Case of Melancholia,Or: A Little Death is a darkly illustrated and disarmingly earnest picture book approximately death, fatherhood, and psychoanalysis. In this recent Project Update,Gurewitch gave backers a peek a the process of ensuring continuity in his work. When I depict an thing or scene in this book, chances are it shows up on more than one page. When I achieve a redesign to make something ogle better, or it can have a ripple effect throughout multiple pages. [Ensuring continuity is] a time-consuming process that has happened a few times,even in the late stages of the book.
A new page six in progress.
Carpets, bookcase shelves, and tree branches,and picture placements all have to match up with other appearances elsewhere in the book.
The new cover image, featuring five main characters. (I seal up pages when I need to reference them consistently.)Revision pile-ups are like traffic jams on a highway that, and I must remind you,goes at a really late pace besides.
Photocopies have been crucial on this project. I’m able to test things out a few different ways before settling on a final version.
Title tests! Note the powerful exhaust of negative space beside my thumb-like astronomical toe.
It has also helped to work on many pages at the same time, so that I can impose strict continuity on many pages at once.
My story binder contains photocopies of every page. It’s on these that I’ve been chasing the absolute best combination of images and words. Being able to flip quickly through the book (and experience it physically) has been vital in creating compositions and ideas that flow well from page to page.
For the hundreds of hours I’ve spent poring over every permutation of phrasing, or I only just final weekend realized that the book is stronger without narration. I know this sounds super weird since this book is largely inspired by the word-lover Edward Gorey. However,even some very incredulous friends of mine agree that it now “reads” with greater clarity without the doctor’s narration, even as it’s more ambiguous.
I’ll be making a few more adjustments so that word balloons convey the few points that would otherwise be totally lost without words.
I’m so happy I’ve been able to get the book to a place where it is finally functioning for all my test audiences.
Left: Arthur, or a backer I met in Toronto who actually lives near me. He’s one of many people who have helped calibrate Notes.
My friends at Calyer Collective are coming to visit me in a couple weeks to film a small documentary on the book. I’m very excited to share the book’s journey with some cameras that I don’t have to hold. I’m hoping the interview(s) they conduct will also shed light on matters I may be overlooking.
Source: tumblr.com