“No Tales longer than 8 pages.” That was one of the rules I set when I started developing this series. I didn’t want stories that required readers to keep coming back week after week just to get to the end of an episode. And they’re a big commitment for an artist, whether it’s me or someone else.

I broke that rule on the 5th or 6th one I wrote, letting it run for 10 pages… and by the time I finished the final draft, it was 13 pages. And I broke the rule into tiny pieces with “24”: a 24-hour comic that (by definition) was 24 pages long… but at least I made and published that one in a single day. I’ve since done a dozen more Tales that are over 8 pages, so obviously that rule doesn’t exist anymore.

I knew going into it that “Grand Prize” would be a long one. Not only does it chronicle a whole day (a bit like “24” did) but it had a lot of character beats to cover. Plus the epilogue. As an outdoor-focused story about a specific location, I knew that I’d have to do it mezzo-fumetti style: using real-world photographic environments rather than the approximations I’d have to do by drawing them. But it still required several visits to the location, which the dialog notes is several miles out of town.

Unlike the first Tale I did with this technique, I didn’t have a complete panel-by-panel script when I started taking pictures, so I had to do a lot of what cinematographers call “coverage” shots: taking pictures of various spots from multiple angles, so I’d have them available to use. And of course I didn’t have enough after the first shoot, so I had to come back (on a day with similar weather) for more. The in-the-river and underwater shots required coming back with a waterproof camera, an inflatable flotation device, and a rope so I wouldn’t float downstream while taking pictures. I had to come back at dusk, and the epilogue was obviously a whole separate photo shoot. It was a total of well over 500 photos. It gave me an appreciation for the challenges of movie-making.

The content of the art was also a bit of a challenge… in the sense that I had to decide how to handle it. It’s a story about teenagers with two sex scenes, after all. I decided to use “R-rated” standards: show incidental nudity, but frame the sex scenes to keep the naughty bits out of panel.