Chapter 37: Little Boss

"Well, I am going to be busy with other responsibilities so I am going to take the same route as my old friend Edward." Sullivan just answered while musing himself with their following reactions. "I, however, made sure that your bickering won't become a hindrance to your work."

"How?" Another employee asked. Although it wasn't what they expected, appointing a professional manager is the most optimal solution. Every one of them was also eyeing each other from expecting that someone among them would take the lead. "Who would be our point person?"

Their previous disagreements were due to having a lot of people ambitious to lead the animation way. If the boss could have appointed someone, then they wouldn't have had that problem.

"I'm pretty sure you've already met him but let me make the introductions." Sullivan iterated while gesturing to the boy on his side. "As I said, I'm not the Creed you should try to impress but another Creed I've brought along."

The onlookers already knew where everything was head and the old man's next words proved their conjecture. "Meet my grandson, Alex. Alexander Creed. Tasked with babysitting you and propagating the comic titles under the Creed Comic brand."

"Hello." Alexander just gave a single tiny wave as the focus was put unto him. "I guess I'll be working with you from now on."

Is this a joke? This was what everyone wanted to ask but kept to themselves as the smiling old man and indifferently dashing boy in front of them were clearly people they need some time getting used to and someone they can't afford to offend.

They own the signatures for their paychecks after all. The recent line-up of IOUs was enough to keep themselves shut from voicing out their doubts.

Still, the prospect of having a kid as their boss was enough to make them speechless.

Even though no one opened their jaws from the shock, Sullivan assumed that they were doing so in their mind.

Seeing that everyone was at standstill, Alexander could only sigh as his little boss work has just started.

"Well, since there are no more formalities and whatnot. The afternoon work hours still haven't closed and there's still enough time for us to get together. What better way to do so than our first collaboration?"

Everyone was back to reality as the little boss pulled the box cover to reveal its mystery.

Alexander held up the folder for Dragonball issue no. 1 and said. "In this folder is a comic book issue of my own creation. It is quite unfortunate and too late for me to know that working on normal bond paper isn't really the best fit for comics."

"For me to know what you can do, recreate these penciled pages into bristol paper, ink the details, and color to complete it."

"I'll be monitoring and scouting your tables to oversee the major decisions and answer your questions about the work."

"There are 24 pages here and we will divide the work amongst ourselves."

"Comprende?" Alexander listed his instructions as logical and simple as he could.

Everyone could only nod at his words while still disconcerted about their overturned expectations.

"Good nods." Alexander took their nods as an agreement and simply kickstarted everything. "Then let's get to work."

Sullivan took a backseat and observed everything. He had a checklist in his head and everything he's noted so far is pointing to the unpolished potential of his grandson.

Every pair took their page issues as distributed, took bristol papers from their stock, and went to work.

Being overseen by a nine-year-old seems to have spurred them to do their best and to prove that their older age had merit.

They were now quite fearful that they would become insignificant if all nine-year-olds are as accomplished as this new little boss of theirs.

Every pair that he approached and talked to could tell his extreme familiarity with all the pages which meant that the boy made the artworks himself.

It had to be said that Dragonball was a 1984 Toriyama inspired while the artwork's fluidity was from the 1991 Bone comics.

As such Alexander knew that the lack of edginess and its design was years ahead of time, so it came to no surprise as to why these art people were looking at him with impressed looks.

The unpaired one was out of place but she was tasked with the cover page or the title page. Aside from recreating the original with a fully inked and colored version, Alexander also worked with her to plan out the layout of things.

The cover page is what attracts the buyers to the comic book but it also had other necessities. The book title, the publishing companies name, the pricing, the creators, and all that.

Alexander now had to consider all those as everything was really going into the scale of formalities.

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Within the expectations of Sullivan and the appreciation of Alexander, working with wannabe animators did have its noticeable perks.

Animators practically work with a lot of repeated images that average to about 100 pages and each had a consistent design.

Alexander had seen a sketcher or two mess up with the recreation during inking and instead of him worrying to pick up the mess, the sketcher just recreated everything again to satisfactory levels.

It helped that the Toriyama plus Bone design was simple and easy to work with due to its lack of shading complications. The simplistic animation direction of the Japanese had helped in that regard.

The Goku style of one artist was the Goku of all. They each followed Alexander's template and this was their advantage against the comic book professionals.

Each prime artist wants to stand out in that field while these animators turned comic artists know the value of conformity.

Even the chosen colorist had much more creativity with the coloring and make their lighting mastery and color combination quite beyond what Alexander was expecting.

Conclusively, working with animators is convenient, conducive, and exceedingly better than what Alexander could think of.

The employees were now also adapted to the little boss. The boy was quite nitpicky with their minor mishaps but it also made their final product much better.

Before they knew it and when the page colors were drying, the content issue was finished.

Everyone got to know the compiled issue after that and they were quite looking forward to how their work could contribute to the quirky characters as they rush to completely collect the mystical Dragonballs.

When the little boss Alexander revealed that he already has the next 23 issues at bay on the box, they could only hold their breath from being too impressed and from the anticipation.

All that had to be done was to compile everything and Sullivan already has that covered along with the distribution.

The roller coaster of the Saturday was closed at 5:00 PM and everyone went home ruminating the ups and downs of the day.

The animators now had the guarantee that Creed Comics isn't too bad to work for and their little boss not being bad to work with.