Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
And again, a bunch of graphics for the THR newsletter that ended up going unused this time around. To properly explain why this happens, because I’ve mentioned it a couple times now: the graphics are created a day or so before the newsletter itself, based on stories people think are going to be in there — but in the time between then and the newsletter being sent out, stories can and do drop out for any number of reasons: they’re not ready, they’ve already run on the site because things happened faster than expected, or simply that they’re no longer true.
So, sometimes, graphics get orphaned. It’s why I like to save them all here, so that there’s some kind of record, an afterlife that’s better than nothing.
One of those newsletter graphics entries where I’m not entirely sure how many of these were actually used — there’s generally some wastage, but I feel like in the last month or so, there’s been a bunch that disappeared before the newsletter has gone out, for any number of reasons. So, here are some debuts, I guess…?
Once again, it’s time for the joy that is the THR newsletter graphics. It genuinely is still one of the highlights of my work week to get to do these, as freeform and inexplicable as they may be.
And then, I had a change of heart and decided to use a logo treatment from the actual Strange Tales comic itself; it worked much better:
The first THR newsletter graphics of the year have finally arrived! I’m amused that there was so many similar subjects being covered. (There’s 2 — technically 3 — graphics for the movie version of Ex Machina being planned, and 2 for the new Bad Boys movie.)
And then, two variations on the same graphic, because no-one could work out which headline they wanted…
The first round-up of graphics for the THR newsletter in 2020 happens to round up the last graphics created for the newsletter in 2019. It’s almost as if I planned that. (I didn’t.)
And then, the article changed from ten entries to fifteen, which meant…
The final look at my graphics for THR‘s weekly Heat Vision newsletter is a weird one — instead of six or seven graphics consisting of two weeks’ worth of newsletters, this is six graphics from one week, and, like the graphics from the San Diego Comic-Con edition, six graphics created while I was a convention, in this case, Brazil’s Comic Con Experience. Because, you know, I wasn’t busy enough as it was, doing convention stuff. (Actually, I wasn’t, as it happened.)
These three images were created the night I arrived in Brazil, based on an email request from my editor Aaron; as I’ve said elsewhere, that was the end of 18 hours of travel, and was actually followed by more work, because of course it was. When you factor in the time difference, I think it was 38 hours of being awake more or less, with just a mild restless nap or two in between, all told.
Which explains why, two days later, I looked at that “SCOOP!” — intended as a placeholder for when there’s an exclusive and I’m not available to create a graphic for it, which looked like it may be a possibility at that point for that very week — and thought, “That looks illegible.” (I literally was having trouble focusing my eyes when I handed it in. Secrets from Behind The Scenes!) So, I fixed it.
The same day I fixed that, I got two more last-minute requests. Thankfully, it was the one day of the Brazil trip that I wasn’t at the convention.
At this point, I’ve been doing these newsletter graphics for a little over a year, and 2019 was the first calendar year where they were a constant. We only missed two weeks of the entire year. It’s been a pleasure, really, to do them. I feel like they scratched an itch I didn’t know I had, and I feel more… awake, creatively, as a result. I’m really grateful for the chance to do them, this far in.
