When a project is at an early stage like this one, before its public release, pledges often happen on the basis of trust in the creators, or interest in the story, or other in tangibles. After all, you haven't seen enough to fall in love with the story yet!

That's why the team thought it might be fun to annotate the pages that we've released so far, so we can hint at the story and development that's gone into the process.

PAGE ONE

Before we could create this page, we had to research the history and symbolism of Chinese jewelry. In addition to resources on the internet, we visited museums, checked out several books, and then had to decide where to deviate from historical practices for story purposes. We also decided that Xiumei's amulet, which dates back to the Ming Dynasty, had probably been rebuilt several times over the centuries. After all, it's been in active use for almost seven-hundred years—parts are going to degrade and decay, aside from the pearl at its center.

Before China closed its doors to the outside world, the country was part of a vast ocean-based trading network that stretched through South-east Asia and all the way to the east coast of Africa. During the Ming Dynasty, seven treasure fleets were commissioned to engage in trade, bringing back wonders from across the known world.

While his work has been debunked, we were inspired by the work of pop historian Gavin Menzies, who proposed the one of these treasure ships circumnavigated the world in 1421. There are also fascinating archeology artifacts on the west coast of the Americas suggesting that ships from China and Japan occasionally ended up on those continents (intentionally or not). From there, it wasn't hard to imagine a treasure ship blowing off course, getting lost in the Pacific Ocean, and.... well, you'll see for yourself.

We chose a ship from the seventh and final treasure fleet, so that its loss at sea could help motivate the end of that program (although politics were much more to blame.)

The ship design is based on historical paintings, photos of modern Chinese models, and a ton of reference photos that Ben took of a model in the Chicago Museum of Natural History.

While we originally imagined a mechanical sphere device capturing part of the ship and dragging it under the ocean, after much discussion and research about the pressure that different materials could withstand at different depths, as well as the limits of human endurance under fast pressurization, we switched to what you see on the page here. Is it magic? Is it technology? That's not answered for another hundred pages. In either case, it maintains safe pressure levels, because we said so.

This looks so much better as a double-page spread!

We went through many color palettes for this sequence before settling on the sepia tones of old film. While more vibrant versions were beautiful, these colors will help differentiate our flashback from when we jump to the present.

This scene didn't exist in the original screenplay! It emerged out of the storyboarding process, through a half-dozen iterations. Similarly, the text in the prologue was the last piece of the puzzle. We didn't write it until the art was complete. The prologue was originally much more of a mystery, but since we know the entire story, it became an opportunity to seed all of the elements that pay off later in the script.

This moment was part of the plan for the very start. We know that the deckhand had to come back up, that it had to be much later, and that he needed to be transformed by his experience. It also meant developing visual answers to a number of things that we won't see until Volume 2 or 3, so that it's consistent with our worldbuilding when we finally arrive at wherever he's been for the last hundred years.

Another page that was supposed to be all images, with no text, but the opportunity to tease a context that won't become clear until the final pages for the story was too good to miss. Bookends are so narratively satisfying!

This piece of dialogue has had more discussion than anything else in the 140 page script! We'll probably keep editing it. It's so very 80's Cartoon Villain, but we know that the desire for geniuses has to be stated explicitly to set up the title page. Stay tuned for more rewrites, or to tell us in the comments how you would do it.

This piece was so much fun! It's not part of the story: we decided we want to do some kind of class photo to introduce the characters, their relationships, and their personalities. It's a trip seeing these characters after writing and rewriting them for so long, especially knowing their hopes, dreams, secrets, and wounds. They're all kids who are trying to navigate a world that doesn't understand them, all while maintaining social cool and keeping their insecurities hidden. 

So we're curious: without having read the first volume, who do you think these people are? What do you imagine each one wants?

With that, thanks for reading and we'll catch you with the next update.

Wow, thank you all for joining me, Michelle, and Natalie on this journey!

We planned on a tiny campaign to help bring a few friends and fans together who wanted to share in the early stages of creating American Geniuses... and you funded us in fifteen minutes.

In fact, you've already funded more than a third of our second issue!

Of course, we still have several weeks to go, so there's plenty of time for more people to get involved: as supporters, as researchers, as readers, and as friends. During that time we'll share more of our process, the real-life inspirations behind this story, and the obsessive research that informs every page.

In the meantime, below backers can view an example of the different stages that a page goes through after storyboarding and inking: lighting studies, flats (color without shading), shading, and preparation for lettering. (Yes, that is a miniature magnetic Go board.)

Thanks again and we look forward to welcoming more backers to our growing community!

Hi everyone!

Thanks for joining us on this journey. We've been hard at work behind the scenes preparing to welcome all of you to the world of American Geniuses, as well as to our community of early readers.

As promised, you all receive first access in the world to the first nine pages of American Geniuses. Illustrated by Natalie Pujols, this prologue introduce Xiumei, whose ancestral family duty will come into conflict with her own dreams.

Read the Prologue

We'll see you tomorrow for the launch of American Geniuses!