Inky Fingers

Cerebus #84 (March 1986)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from The Beguiling, July 2004)

As a way of communicating the Dickensian grime that I pictured in Iest’s Lower City, I had Gerhard fade out the black areas with black fingerprints, created by dipping his finger in India ink and dabbing the outer edge of all the areas of solid black. Which - when the underside of his fingernails stayed solid black for a few months - really begged the question of whether doing the backgrounds on a comic-book was actually the white-collar job it had appeared to be.