Game Over Level 7 Is Done!

And what a ride it was!

It took me an unprecedented 4 years to finish Level 7 and, as a result, the book looks fantastic. I spent the past 2.5 weeks doing nothing but drawing Game Over for nearly 20 hours per day. So, the content itself wasn’t drawn in 4 years. It was actually drawn in about 3 weeks.

So why did it take so long?

Life.

My life has changed so much from where it was when I started conceptualizing Game Over back in 2007/2008. Back then, I knew what I wanted to create and the kind of story I wanted to tell. However, as I grew and changed with every passing season and as my art grew and changed with each request, commission, print, book, and passion project, the scope of Game Over changed, too.

Level 7 is the same story that it would have been, but it’s told better and it looks better than anything I could have produced 4 years ago when it was supposed to be finished. In drawing it the way I felt that it needed to be drawn so that the story could be told the way that I knew it had to be told, I learned that I simply could not have created Level 7 four years ago. I couldn’t have created it three years ago either. It was a book that could only be created right now in April, 2022.

As such, Level 7 looks very different and reads differently from prior books. I like this change and plan to keep innovating my narration style and storyboards so that Game Over can continue growing with me and my art. Because Level 7 looks so different, I included some bonus content at the end of the book in a section called “Graphics Upgrade” that talks about why I made the decisions that I made and how that affected Level 7 as compared to prior books.

The most noticeable difference, however, is the fact that it’s now in color. Or - at least some copies are.

For the past decade, I’ve been illustrating Game Over predominantly in black and white greyscale because that’s how it’s printed. Now, however, I’m really tired of working like that. It just isn’t fun. So, I did the whole thing in color. And, because I really liked how it looked, I published two versions: a black and white version and a color version.

I’m exhausted after finishing it, but I’ve never felt more motivated to continue working on Game Over. I’m so happy with the direction of the series and I love how bright and colorful it is compared to the drab grey pages of the past.

The order for the new copies was placed and it will be here in time for Free Comic Book Day! I’m really excited to be at Mythical Mountain to debut my new book and share it with all of you! I hope that you’ll enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing it come to life. <3