End Game

Mikko Kuitunen

EndGame First edition

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Mikko Kuitunen Orivesi College of Arts, 2013 http://endmerit.blogspot.fi

Afterwords You have just finished reading my first published comic, EndGame. This comic was drawn and printed in Orivesi College of Arts, as assingment to finish due to Tampere Kuplii-comic festival in March 2013.

I hope this afterword will be enlightening to everyone wondering what creating comics is like, and helpful to those who consider drawing their own stories.

I came up with the story of these two nameless assassins fairly quickly after getting the assingment. Originally I was going to place the story into wild west, because that would’ve been convenient environment for the kid and his parents to live and be buried (That’s why I couldn’t make them live in city; You can’t just bury people there without being noticed). Soon enough, however, I decided to scrap that idea, because wild west, sniper rifles and city with scyscrapers mixed together don’t make believable environment. Eventually I decided to not introduce the kid’s home more than I did, and instead concentrate more on the interaction (both vocal and silent) between the kid and the killer.

As for the style of the comic, after starting the drawing process, I soon found myself drawing very ”mechanical” line, using ruler alot, drawing lots of flat, clean surfaces, and overall lacking attention to details. Fortunately I figured to turn that problem upside down with flashback segments, using completely different style to draw. Not only it creates huge contrast with rest of the story, it also feels justified, because distant memories are much more ”messy” than recent ones, not to mention present.

Even though I got this assingment almost half year before the deadline, in the end I found myself in a hurry. The story was originally supposed to be about 40 pages long, but as it was expected (and told by my teacher), the closer I got to deadline, the clearer it became that I just didn’t have time and energy required to draw such long story with complicated pictures as I envisioned in the beginning.

As with most artists and most creative processes, occasionally I found myself struggling to find motivation to keep going, or to finish this comic at all. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be satisfied to my story with all the edges I had to cut, and that the comic would overall ”fail”.

Luckily, I found myself talking about my problems with Emmi Nieminen, whose (possibly) unintentional wisdom helped me to keep going. To quote her words (more or less accurately, at least), ”The point of this assingment isn’t really to succeed anyway.

It’s more to teach you guys about everything it takes to make and publish comics, especially making yourself schedule and managing to hold onto it. It’s great if you succeed to make great comic by doing so, but either way you guys will learn alot and be more prepared next time.”

Thinking about that really helped to get different approach during rest of the assingment, and might’ve just improved quality of this story altogether.

Thanks about that, Emmi. You’re great.

Thanks to: My fellow students at Orivesi, for offering help, inspiration and constant source of amusement during these past few months.

Petteri Tikkanen, for helping me realize the potential you can reach with brush.

Ville Pirinen, whose assingment made me consider using brush and ”dirty” painting-style with flashbacks.

Mikko Huusko, who tought me the importance of putting time and effort into texting.

Scott McCloud, whose ”Understanding Comics” and ”Making Comics” have really opened my eyes to huge potential of comics.

Emmi Nieminen, for showing general interest during drawing process and giving great advice and ideas.

Special thanks to Tuuli Lukka for inspiring me to come study to Orivesi, and being someone I can look up to and strive towards.

Someday I wish to reach your level.

And Anni.

”That’s not why I’m here. What I want... ...Is you to understand what happens next.”

Promising new artist makes his entrance into Finnish comic scene, as Mikko Kuitunen brings us this story of two nameless assassins, questioning the balance between revenge and honor, asking ”What should you do when someone deserves to live AND die?”

This is one story you may not want to miss.

Mikko Kuitunen, self-review

EndGame is a pretty good story. Worth checking out, I’d say.

Henna P aaso

”And whether or not you’ll end up desiring revenge... ...there’s one advice I can give.”