The year is 1955 in the small town of Sugar Grove, where their idea of crime is when a teenager shoplifts a pop from the corner store. So, the town is left reeling when a mass grave is discovered in the woods, unearthing the body of a resident long since forgotten. Lilly Hill was a young girl when she vanished without a trace over 20 years ago, leaving a dark cloud looming over the town ever since.   It is up to Detective David Herring to pick up the case right where it left off, although this one is a tad bit personal. He was friends with Lilly in high school, in fact, all the suspects are former classmates of his as well. Could it be Arthur the doctor, John the mechanic, Louis the Radio personality, or Evelyn the author? Will the four reunited friends be able to keep their stories straight after so much time has passed? Do they still feel loyal to one another? Will Dave and his partner be able to get to the bottom of it? And most importantly, will they like the answers once they are uncovered? 

Uncovered Grave will be a 96-page webcomic for $1 a chapter. Each chapter will be sent directly to your email every 2 weeks with brand-new pages and a behind the scenes look
at Sean Dicker’s process.

We are offering three options.

-Each single issue for $4
- A full digital bundle for $13.
-A combo pack: full digital bundle + physical trade for $30

Enjoy the first chapter and the behind scenes look for free!

A word from Sean:

Some secrets should stay buried.

Uncovered Grave was a fledgling of an idea I had right as quarantine started. Something to help me escape from everything happening in the world. That is what comics have always been for me, my means of escape. It all started when I was a freshman in high school, when my art teacher at the time told me I had an eye for black and white and asked if I had ever read a comic book before. He helped me open my eyes to all the many wonderful stories that I could tell through art. Stories have always been incredibly powerful for me, that is why I love that I get to share this comic with you. I hope that this will be the first of many stories I will be able to share with you over the years. To help you escape from whatever reality you are dealing with right now, like so many others have done for me. Uncovered Graves was born from a very simple question. How far would you go for your friends?. What do you want to leave behind when all is said and done? Lilly’s story was so much fun for me to sit down and figure out, and even more, fun to draw. I have always enjoyed the noir art style and the telling of nitty-gritty street-level stories. So I decided to run with it, and bring a  good ol’ fashioned murder mystery right to your doorstep. Honestly, I am at a loss for words, this has been a surreal experience for me. This is my first time having my stories out in the real world and being able to share them with more than just my family and friends. I appreciate every single one of you, and I want to make sure you all can get a real look at myself and the work that I am doing. I want to make the process accessible for readers, that is why I was so excited about doing this form of release with Dauntless. Every week, when a new chapter comes out, every one of you will get an inside look at the chapter. I have fifteen more of these newsletters planned for all of you, ranging from concept art to visual breakdowns of my pages and showing you all my thought processes behind visual storytelling. However, I am doing this for you, so if there is anything, in particular, you want to see let me know, and I will make it happen for you! Thank you all for reading, and I am incredibly excited to take all of you down this mystery with me. Whatever happened to Lily Hill? Find out March 2nd!

Let’s take a look at Sean’s Process

I thought it might be fun to show my creative process for page one of Uncovered Graves. This is what my day-to-day looks like while creating a comic. First up, we have the fun task of gathering reference images. Pictured below is me posing in my small bathroom in my apartment so I can shut out all the lights.

What you can’t see in the picture is about 10 lit candles scattered on the counter and on the floor to try and get the light I wanted.

After I work through the reference, we get to my favorite part of the entire process, drawing, and inking. I use a combination of a brush and an inking nib.

After I draw and ink the entire page, I move on to flatting the page, meaning I am adding basic flat colors to separate out everything on the page. This is usually my least favorite part of the process.

After I have flatted the page, I add some shading to help develop a sense of depth. I also add in a few of the light sources, like the lighter in panel two and the headlights on the car in panel one.

Continuing the process, I add a white layer to fill in all the gutter space to make the page look nice and crisp. Also, I add a watercolor paper texture it is incredibly subtle, but it helps break up the flat monotonous colors and make it a little more visually appealing.

This is the last part of the process before I send it off to my Letterer, Justin Birch. Now that all the shading and light sources are in place, I add lighting effects to the whole page to unify all the colors and tie the page together. Finding out what works best for my pages took a while, but for every page, I have a watercolor sample that I use as a hard light layer. I find that using physical watercolor textures helps the page feel like it has a more traditional approach. 

There you have it! A step-by-step process to what creating a comic page looks like for me. 

For supplies, I use a 2h pencil and a regular rubber eraser. I get A LOT of use out of my erasers. I have been known to completely restart a page if I am not feeling it. Something I have learned over the years is that every art pencil company has a different formula of drawing lead it seems, just because it is labeled 2h does not mean it has the same feel as a different pencil from a different company. If you haven’t guessed already,  I am partial to a certain brand of pencil that I have literally been using since high school. For inking, I use Bombay India ink and a Deleter G nib as well as a Windsor Series 7 #1 brush. I have been using these tools since 2015, they just feel comfortable to me at this point.

 I have a lot of fun doing this work, and I am still in awe that I get to do this for all of you. Thank you for reading! I will see you again on March 2nd!