The Breakup Artist is an original web comic I wrote and illustrated about Jun Law- a professional breakup artist who is hired by other girls to end their relationships for them.
The Breakup Artist is my first foray into real long-form comic book storytelling and something I am quite proud of. It ran from 2017 to 2021. You can read it in it's entirety here.
Here is a sneak peek of the first chapter.
The world of The Breakup Artist is large and diverse. Although, it is not the focus, I wanted to make sure it had a predominantly Asian cast and is set in one of the most diverse cities in America: San Francisco.
Explore the world of the comic!
Explore the cast of characters!
Breaking Down 'The Breakup Artist' Process
The Script
When creating The Breakup Artist I write a script chapter by chapter. From there, I write and re-write the individual scenes before I finally break up a scene into pages. I typically designate a page based on the amount of dialogue.That way, it does not appear too cluttered with word balloons and art.
Take this excerpt from Chapter 35.
PAGE 2
1 Jun: ...but Chelsea just got out of a relationship with her long-time boyfriend and…
2 Chelsea: Psssttt…
(Jun looks around annoyed)
3 Tell him how I wasn’t looking for anything serious.
Rough Sketches
Once I break up the pages, I can clearly visualize how to layout the art. I always start with a rough sketch of pages to get the flow of the panels and how they related to each other. I also draw roughs of the word bubbles so I can have an idea of the spacing between the panels.
Linework
When I like how my panels are and the composition of each one, I will trace over it with more polished ink lines.
Grey Tones To give the art more depth, I add blacks and shadows using various grey tones.
I also add some extra elements to make it more realistic, such as small breath coming
out of the characters' mouths or a blush on their cheeks.
Backgrounds
Unless the background is an establishing shot, I add it last after I am finished with the figure drawings.
Typsetting
I add the word balloons on top of the art using Adobe InDesign. This is where I make
final edits to the dialogue to either make it snappier or more concise. Sometimes, I may even
delete entire lines if I realize the art conveys the scene.
Final page
Finally, I publish the complete page. To read the entire scene, click here.
