From Prose to Panels: The Journey of Turning The Phoenix Project into a Graphic Novel

A few years ago, Gene Kim approached me with an intriguing question: What would it take to convert the bestselling The Phoenix Project into a graphic novel? My initial response was one of uncertainty but also excitement. “I have no idea,” I said, “but let’s try.” This marked the beginning of our ambitious journey to transform this beloved IT management novel into a visually compelling graphic narrative, with the goal of bringing its lessons to an even larger audience.

Assembling the Dream Team

To tackle this monumental task, we knew we needed to assemble a team of experts who could guide us through the intricate world of graphic novel creation. While our editorial team here at IT Revolution is well adept at creating award-winning and bestselling books, creating a graphic novel requires a host of new and different skill sets.

To help us navigate the project, we assembled a dream team. First, we brought on Jim Spivy from Working Vacation Studios, a comic book maestro who provided invaluable guidance on the process and continued to offer insights throughout the project.

We also brought on board Mike Collins, a graphic novel illustrator extraordinaire with experience at both DC and Marvel, as well as TV. Mike’s expertise was crucial in transforming our long-form prose into a dynamic visual format.

The specialists from AndWorld Design completed our team, handling the lettering and compositing and bringing the final touches that breathed life into our pages.

The Iterative Approach

Given our novice status in the graphic novel world, we adopted an agile, iterative approach to reap the benefits of fast feedback and learning. We worked in small batches, allowing us to gather feedback from our experts at each stage, make necessary adjustments and corrections, and refine our process as we progressed. This approach proved invaluable, as it allowed us to learn and improve continuously throughout the project.

The Transformation Process: From Text to Visuals

1. Script Writing: Condensing and Adapting

The first challenge we faced was transforming a lengthy novel into a concise script suitable for a graphic novel. This process was far more complex than simply copying and pasting text into a new document. In the graphic novel world, we quickly learned that less is often more.

For example, a six-paragraph press release that set the stage for the entire book in the original novel needed to be condensed into just a few impactful panels. We had to make tough decisions about what information was crucial to convey visually and what could be implied or omitted.

The opening scene of the novel, originally spanning five pages, was distilled into three graphic novel script pages. This process required a delicate balance of preserving the essence of the story while adapting it to a visual medium.

Initially, we started with a DC-style script, which provided explicit directions for each panel. See below:

However, as we progressed and gained more confidence in Mike Collins’s expertise, we transitioned to a looser Marvel-style script. See below:

This shift allowed us to leverage Mike’s deep understanding of panel flow and visual storytelling. As Mike aptly put it, “Graphic novels are a visual medium; trust your visual partner.”

This evolution in our scripting style was a crucial learning experience that significantly improved our workflow and the final product.

2. Character Design and Storyboarding

With the script in hand, we moved on to bringing the characters and world of Parts Unlimited to life visually. This stage involved choosing an illustration style, creating detailed character sketches, and developing rough panel sketches for each page.

We had to decide whether to go with a more cartoonish or realistic approach, a decision that would set the tone for the entire graphic novel. Creating detailed sketches of the main characters involved making important decisions about their appearance. For instance, we decided that Bill would have a chiseled jaw but no cheek dimple. These character designs were crucial for maintaining consistency throughout the novel.

Mike Collins then created rough pencil sketches of each page, deciding on the number of panels and their contents. This process involved translating the script into a visual flow, ensuring that all story elements were effectively captured. The character design and storyboarding phase was critical in establishing the visual language of our graphic novel, allowing us to see our characters come to life and start visualizing how the story would unfold panel by panel.

3. Illustration and Inking

Once we had our rough sketches, it was time to bring them to life through detailed illustration and inking. Mike refined the rough panel sketches, adding more detail and ensuring proper proportions and perspectives. We then had to decide how to treat shadows and other visual elements, choosing between techniques like washes, crosshatching, or pointillism.

Mike’s expertise was invaluable here, as he used these techniques not just to create visually appealing images, but also to enhance the emotional underpinning of the story. This stage also involved fleshing out the world of Parts Unlimited, adding details to office spaces, server rooms, and other settings to create a rich, believable environment.

The illustration and inking phase transformed our rough ideas into polished, visually striking pages that began to truly capture the essence of The Phoenix Project in graphic novel form.

4. Lettering: Giving Voice to the Characters

Lettering is an often overlooked but crucial element of any graphic novel. It’s not just about placing text on the page; it’s about enhancing the storytelling through typography. Our partners at AndWorld Design were instrumental in this process.

Different font treatments were selected to represent various types of text, such as dialogue, thoughts, and narration. Decisions were made about when to use bold text, italics, or different font sizes to convey emphasis, volume, or emotion in the characters’ speech. Careful consideration was given to the placement of text bubbles and captions to ensure they didn’t obscure important visual elements and guided the reader’s eye naturally through the page. Where appropriate, onomatopoeic sound effects were added to enhance the visual impact of certain scenes.

One key decision that had to be made was how to treat the acronym IT. In graphic novel lettering, it is standard for the text to be in all caps. But then how would readers distinguish between “it” and “IT”? We settled on using periods in “I.T.” as well as in “U.S.” to distinguish it from “us”.

As this process taught us, the goal of good lettering is to enhance the reading experience without drawing undue attention to itself, seamlessly integrating the textual and visual elements of the story.

5. Compositing: Bringing It All Together

Finally, it was time for the compositing stage, where all the elements—illustrations, inks, and lettering—came together to create the final pages. This process involved refining the layout, making final touch-ups, and digitally assembling all the elements into the final files ready for printing.

The Importance of Review and Revisions

Throughout the entire process, from scripting to compositing, we maintained a rigorous review and revision cycle. This iterative approach ensured consistency in character appearances, settings, and storytelling style. We checked that the story flowed smoothly from panel to panel and page to page, with no confusing jumps or gaps. We assessed whether key scenes had the desired emotional and visual impact, verified that technical details and plot points from the original novel were accurately represented, and caught and corrected any errors or inconsistencies, whether in the artwork, lettering, or narrative.

Each stage of production involved multiple rounds of feedback and revisions. This attention to detail, while time-consuming, was essential in creating a polished, professional-quality graphic novel that did justice to the original work.

Conclusion: A Labor of Love

Creating a graphic novel is an intense, collaborative process that took us more than a year from start to finish. Every aspect of The Phoenix Project: A Graphic Novel was crafted by human hands and minds, which is what makes the graphic novel format so compelling and beloved by readers.

We are immensely proud of the result and excited to bring The Phoenix Project to life in this new, visually engaging format. We hope readers will enjoy experiencing this beloved story in a fresh way, appreciating both the familiar narrative and the new dimensions that the graphic novel format brings to it.

As we release Volume 1, we’re already working on the next two volumes, which will complete the graphic novel adaptation of The Phoenix Project next year. Stay tuned for more adventures in the world of DevOps, now brought to life in vivid color and dynamic illustrations!

- About The Authors

IT Revolution

Trusted by technology leaders worldwide. Since publishing The Phoenix Project in 2013, and launching DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2014, we’ve been assembling guidance from industry experts and top practitioners.

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