Hub Comics

One of the most-used lines in my Art of the Comic Book class is "In the post-Google era, there's no excuse for not knowing what something looks like". Prior to the internet, visual reference was done in public libraries, personal interviews and taking our own photographs.

Doing the research for "Lucky Seven: The Dee Brown Incident" in May/June 2009 supported this view. The story, covering Boston's difficulty with class and race, takes place in 1990. Recreating the era's surface-level items was relatively easy, thanks to Google and Boston Globe articles. Building visual details, logistics and overall atmosphere was a lot tougher. What did Dee's fiancee look like? How did the characters express their words? Which version of the incident — Dee's or the officers' — was the most believable?

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