The origin of the Super Powers mini-comics project is covered in depth with the write up about the first two books. And you can also read about the side project featuring Flash Gordon for the Boss Fight Studios Power Stars line.
When the third wave of Super Powers was announced and Nightwing was one of the characters, Bill Wiist and I decided to do one more mini-comic starring Nightwing and featuring the other characters from this wave: Deathstroke and Wonder Woman.
I wrote the story and delivered the script to Bill. Like before, Bill penciled and inked the cover and 13 story pages. I then took the finished line art, colored and lettered it and compiled it into a final form.
Like before, I started by plotting out the story. I wanted to make Nightwing the focus of the story, but had to work Wonder Woman in somehow. So I put her in the role of being on a diplomatic mission and that Nightwing uncovered an assassination attempt by Deathstroke.
Original plot for fan made Super Powers mini-comic #8
With my story beats figured out, I transferred the outline to Final Draft and expanded the story to a full script.
I sent the final script to Bill who then began illustrating the pages.
Bill’s next process was to ink the pages.
Once he was finished with the inks, I could begin coloring.
With the interior pages done, the cover was the last piece for this. Since Nightwing is Robin grown up, we decided to make the cover for this an homage to the original Robin Super Powers mini-comic.
With final inked and colored pages in place, I could finalize my lettering as well as the inside front cover with bios for me and Bill and the back cover "ad" for Action Figure Insider.
We released the free downloadable PDF through ActionFigureInsider.com.
Book and Sound
As a final component to the mini-comic project, Bill had the idea to create an audio version of the Nightwing comic in the style of the old Power Records from the 1970s. He grew up listening to those and always hoped to make one of his own.
He cast his own family and friends in the parts featured in the comics and recruited his friend Jay Ditzer to score the music for it. I mixed the spoken tracks and sound effects and then Jay put the final mix together. I combined the audio with a simple motion graphic presentation of the visuals and this was the result:
This has been a fun project and the Nightwing set of pieces makes a great capper to it all. That's not to say we won't ever make mini-comics again. In fact, Bill did craft another of his own for a personal project.
