I became the project manager for The Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide during the final, tumultuous months before sending it off to print. Ooligan press had never published a graphic novel or comic before. Our evolving processes, passed down each year to new students, were challenged by this new format, and we discovered just how different graphic novels have to be treated every step of the way.

The Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide, written by Henry Latourette Miller, is a multimedia blend of formatting—part comic, part resource guide, nonfiction advice told through fictional vignettes. The initial editors had to read an incomplete manuscript that looked more like a playscript with directions for the images to be added later. Between the stories depicted in each chapter and the abundance of helpful information provided by the author, we had to make many cuts to shorten the length of the text. This was both to keep the book accessible to readers and to keep in mind the amount of space the images would take up.

After several rounds of editing, we brought in the illustrator Jeff Parker to help us finalize the manuscript. A seasoned illustrator having worked on comics for several decades, Jeff introduced us to publishing conventions specific to the comic book industry. The first lesson he taught us was that we still had too much copy! We needed the text to fit between his illustrations, not overwhelm them. With his help, the author and our editing team were able to cut down the manuscript without losing the important information our readers needed. 

Then came the illustrations. Ooligan designers have worked with image heavy nonfiction manuscripts before (Knowledge to Power, Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley). Still, there is a difference between weaving images through text and building text around images. For this, we had a two person team: Isaac Swindle (lettering) and Claire Curry (layout).

Isaac designed the text within the illustrated pages, making boxes and speech bubbles within the panels. This required special attention to the standard conventions of comics. He had to consider the smallest details like the alignment of borders and the length of speech bubbles’ tails. In order for us to perform our proofreading, Isaac had to teach us these industry standards which opened up many students’ eyes to the complexity of comics. Who knew the letter I could cause so many problems?

Once the pages were lettered, Claire put them into the final layout alongside the fully text pages. While this point in the process was more familiar to us, Claire had to keep a much closer eye on the images. She developed a tracking system to ensure that we received the correct images from the illustrator and then also which ones Isaac had completed. This saved a lot of time during the final production when we realized we were missing some illustrations. Once completed, we were able to send it off to print!

But not without one last hitch. The printer returned our files because of a color mishap! With some final adjustments to make sure every single image was set to black and white (with a spot color), we were able to send it to print on time. In September, we received the physical copies in the office, thanks to the hard work of the editors and designers. After the long and arduous process, Ooligan had printed its first graphic novel.

Written by Alexandra Devon.