Rick Riordan has written a blog post about what goes into the making of a graphic novel, using pictures from his forthcoming The Red Pyramid book as an example.
In addition to his latest novel from the Heroes of Olympus series, Mark of Athena, The Red Pyramid graphic novel will also debut on October 2.
Disney passed along some images from the process and the author explains what goes into adapting a full-length book into a graphic novel. “First a script is developed,” he says, “taking the book and condensing it like a screenplay.” There’s an adaptation team whose job it is to take what’s in the book and translate that into dialogue and pictures so that none of the information is lost.
Riordan shows us page 16 from the novel, a scene in which Sadie and Carter’s dad is trapped inside the sarcophagus by Set, the Egyptian god. He also shares examples for each step of the creation process. First the artist does a rough sketch of the page so he knows which scenes he wants included and how he wants it laid out. Then he does another sketch, this time paying more attention to detail and stylization. In the third step, the layout and design gets finalized and colored in. Lastly, the text is added and the page is complete!
Check out the gallery of the four steps below:
The great thing about graphic novels is that they are essentially the same story, but also give readers a more visual look at the characters and settings throughout the book. The artistry looks just as good in this book as it did in The Lightning Thief, and we’re excited to get our hands on the finished product!
Did you buy the first graphic novel for the Percy Jackson series? If so, what did you think? Will you go out and buy this one when it’s released in early October?
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