"Stick em up...!"

Here is a scene from Mzansi Beats' second issue. Who is this guy with the piece and what is he doing with Bonisa? Guess you'll just have to check out issue 2 eh...? :)

Concept sketches

Ryan Carolisen will be handling pencilling duties on one of our stories "Kasi Wash". Here are some of his character concept sketches!

Street Beat

A very cool by-product of Ryan's tag stencil!
I'll probably use this later for something... ;)
A.

Tagged!!

We recently had our year-end function and Ryan thought it would be cool to tag our shirts with the logo. Mahlon was one of our lucky tag-rats and recieved a sweet spray-on logo.

In defense of Moray's paycheck

In case anyone wonders what I do at Beat Comics, I thought I'd give you a for instance of what some of my job entails using an actual example from one of the stories we're working on. So it's a deleted scene...

Before the script even gets to page illustration stage, Eddie Maluleke (the editor) triple checks everything from dialogue to plot structure and scene transitions. I then check page to page and panel to panel (as well as structure) and the script might go backwards and forwards a few times until we're all happy.

Karl Mostert - the penciler - then does thumbnails of all the pages which we discuss and then he proceeds to do pencil layouts.

Excerpt from the script by Wayne Robbins:

FRAME FOUR
SCENE
Close on the getaway driver – gangster 3 – as he takes a bullet.
GANGSTER 3
Yaahhh!
GANGSTER 2
Sbu’s hit!

Karl's initial illustration (BEFORE) had the driver and passenger swapped (most likely a result of doing to many american comic book submissions). It's my job to pick up such anachronisms and get changes done to correct it.

In the AFTER version: Karl swapped the characters. I also asked Karl to add in a section of the steering wheel to just ensure that the reader is absolutely clear that it's the driver that got shot. In addition - bullet time is slowed down so that the reader can see that the bullets are coming from behind. All this might not be necessary as the preceding and following panals on the page clarify the action, but I'd rather not have the readers lose their "suspension of disbelief" at all.



Mike Crafford inks from the pencils and Andrew Cramer ads colour and lighting effects -and I get to interfere with every process along the way, which is why I am still smiling.



END

Thanks,
M.

Scenes from Crime Reporter/ 'Unicity'

Here are some sneek peeks at the Crime Reporter/ 'Unicity' story.

What have the duo discovered? You'll have to wait and see...!



Who is this nasty character!?



What are Ayanda and Neo up to...?

Scenes from Mzansi Beats.

Here is a sneek peek at some Mzansi Beats artwork. Stix has some rough encounters on his path to fame.

Mzansi Beats!

The popular group are back, new and improved! Here are Stix and Bonisa...
Pencils: David Blaine
Inks: Ryan Carolisen
Colours: Mahlon Haupt

Some character designs...

Here are two characters from the crime reporter story...
Pencils: Karl Mostert
Inks: Michael Crafford
Colours: Andrew Cramer

Meet the team!

First up we have the editorial team, from left:
Eddie Maluleke, Zanne Cronje, Moray Rhoda and Anita Pyke.


Next we have the team working on the crime reporter story (fondly referred to as Unicity), from left:
Karl Mostert, Michael Crafford, Andrew Cramer and Wayne Robbins.


Finally the team working on Mzansi Beats: David Blaine, Niq Mhlongo, Mahlon Haupt and Ryan Carolisen who also pulls double duty on a 3rd story along with Lucas Malambe (seated).

Brainstorm!

Here is the team doing a little brainstorming for some plot and story ideas.

Welcome to Beat Comics!

Beat Comics


It’s not that easy to define exactly what Beat Comics is … the simplest “box” we can put it into is possibly to explain what we hope Beat Comics can become:

Financially successful SA Comics with a pure entertainment focus. Nothing more, nothing less.

Beat Comics is plugged into the financial support and distribution infrastructure of Media 24 – thereby creating a situation where creatives can finally concentrate on creating and not get stuck in the thousands of problems associated with printing and distribution of comics in SA.

So, does Beat Comics hope to become the saviour publisher of all the unwanted ideas that are gathering dust in drawers all over SA? No. Initially we are working on 3 in-house projects that are all very diverse in content and style, and also two freelance projects with artists based in Johannesburg and Durban respectively. The projects that are in-studio are fiction projects with a local focus – so no superheroes (...yet! :-D - AC), but on the flipside also no soccer.

At this point we won’t be adding extra content but we are very happy to look at portfolios, so please feel free to contact us with any questions or to submit artwork.

Stick around – we guarantee it’s going to be interesting.

- Moray