Chapter Three
Over the next several weeks, I gradually changed my schedule to match Ava’s. She never insisted on it; it just happened. Like Ava, I came to enjoy the stillness at two in the morning.
The penciling part of the job takes pretty intense concentration. That’s the phase in which you’re figuring out the page layout, the panel compositions, the figure placement, the lighting, etc. We never talked much while working on that. But, we often had lively conversations while we passed the pages back and forth for inking or lettering. The late hours afforded fewer opportunities for me to get home to see my folks. I spent the night at the studio more and more often, sleeping in the spare bed during the day.
Drawing is usually a lonely occupation, so I truly came to appreciate Ava’s compa
