How to Write & Draw Comics
“I find that art is 90 percent fear!”
Artist, teacher and CEO of MakingComics.com, Patrick Yurick, visited Copenhagen and I got to show him the better parts of the city. We also managed to record a podcast on his view on the craft, career, his experiences with teaching comics to teens, his zombie buddy comedy Hipster Picnic and the future of making comics.
Links to stuff mentioned on this episode:
My video on lessons I learned from working on Thomas Alsop
I’ve just finished my work on the monthly book from BOOM!, Thomas Alsop. This video is about some of the lessons I learned working on that book – hopefully there is some value in it for you too!
What made you decide to work in the medium of comics?
I think I was trying to find the comics medium for a long time, that combination of text and images that’s so good for telling a story. I remember when I was 6 I did my best to retell a scene from my favorite movie with a series of images. When I was 12, I was writing a lot of prose and interspersing drawings to help tell the story. When I finally read my first graphic novel at 13, it was like, “Oh! This is what I was trying to do.” Once I started reading comics and had that model to study, I switched pretty much immediately to telling my stories in that medium.
What part of the process is the most challenging or frustrating to you?
I agonize over my scripts before I start drawing. Writing doesn’t come easy to me, especially dialogue, and I can spend weeks writing and rewriting even a short comic. Having an editor helps a lot (including the times they say “hurry up!”).
If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comics creator, what would that be?
Don’t compare yourself to others too much. A little competitive drive is good, but you wouldn’t want to draw like anyone else, even if you could. It’s better to develop your own, unique thing. As you create more and more pages, your personal voice will emerge and a lot of people will love it because it’s different than other creators’.
More at http://NatalieNourigat.com/
Here is a little trick to get the job done faster, if you’re trying to draw a leather jacket. It works on other things as well!
There is an Amazon link in the resources section to the acrylic markers shown in this video.
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I talk to artist Ben Dewey about art, music and the Faustian aspect of working crappy jobs while pursuing a carreer in comics creation. Besides being the artist and writer of his own Tragedy Series (http://www.tradegyseries.tumblr.com), he is the artist on Tooth and Claw with writer Kurt Busiek, released this week from Image Comics. Luckily Ben is not just incredibly talented but also very articulate about the craft and the life of a creative person. Really good advice in this episode!
For a preview of Tooth and Claw, go here.
Related podcast: Episode 25 – Periscope Studio with Steve Lieber
In any comic, the way the panels arranged on the page is extremely important. Equally important, is what’s inside the panels!Every panel has it’s own composition. And the arranged panels make up the composition of the page.
It is almost impossible to teach composition. In comics, it’s basically the distribution of black (or dark) shapes on a white page. A good composition is pleasing to the eye and helps guide the reader’s attention. The main focus should be telling the story.
The best advice I can give on composition, is work really hard on your thumbnails. If it works in a two-three inch sketch, it will probably work in full size as well. Ask yourself if it’s clear what’s going on. Is the eye guided down the page? Is it pleasing to look at? Does the page “tip” because there is too much or too little black in some areas?
Another pitfall to avoid is vertical or horizontal lines within the frames, like a wall or a door. If the line art i.e. the thickness of the lines are similar, the eye can easily confuse it with the edge of the panel. If you make sure to break the lines within the panels with an object, a person or a speech ballon, and that will help the reader tell the lines apart.
Take photocopies of your thumbnails, and try going over them with a black marker, trying out different ways to apply shades and blocks of light, to make the page appealing. Remember that speech baloons are part of the picture! And if you intend to color the page that matters as well.
When you are working on the actual page, try tacking it to your wall and taking a few steps back. Quite a few steps, actually! If a panel or page works at a ten feet distance, you’ve done a good job.
If you’re working digitally, be sure to zoom out once in a while for the same effect. Or print it out and doodle on the printout to see what might help adjust the overall expression.
In summary: The more decisions you make at the thumbnail stage, the less trouble you will have with composition at the final inking stage.
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