October 11, 2017

Beer Is for Everyone! (of Drinking Age) by Em Sauter (’11) is out on October 10, 2017, with One Peace Books! Based on her web comic reviews of beer, Pints and Panels, Beer Is for Everyone is all new content.

What are some of the tools you used for Beer Is for Everyone?

I’m actually pretty traditional in terms of my tools for pen and ink. My pencils are a 2H Staedtler (also love their Mars plastic eraser). My ink pens are Faber Castell Pitt pens, and I use only the F one and then thicken the line weight in Photoshop for panel borders (that’s actually a trick I figured out while working on my book because I would use the M weight for panel borders). My sketch book since my CCS days is Bee Pen Sketcher’s 8.5×11. I love that it fits in my purse and is spiral bound, and the pages have a semi-gloss finish that takes to pen really well.

What’s the difference between your traditional and digital work styles?

I do all my coloring in my Photoshop and now my line weights and font, but the coloring in Photoshop goes back to the beginning. My color palette was lifted from Rutu Modan’s book Exit Wounds because her work is so vibrant. I thought about working digitally and switching to an iPad Pro (at the insistence of many of my cartoonist CCS pals like Max Mose (′11) and Nomi Kane (′11))), but I wasn’t ready to commit to that. One day perhaps.

Did you learn any new drawing techniques while working on the book?

My agent demanded I digitize my font for the book because my hand lettering was not up to par (he was completely right, by the way). I love the digital font’s uniformity, and it really cleaned up the aesthetic. I also did some playing around with using textures, and although only in a few panels, it was cool to try my hand at something new because my work is so simple. Lastly—I learned that drawing animals is awesome.

You can also read an interview I did with her when the book was announced.

Interview with Angela Boyle (′16).