Comics for Beginners

How to Write & Draw Comics

process

Scare Away the Clients

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An advanced technique if you have too much incoming work (or just want to test your own limits) is jacking up the price. Just think of what the fair price would be and add thirty percent. If this makes the client run away screaming, great! On less item on your plate. If they accept your shameless price, great! More money for you, and more motivation to move things around in your calendar and put in the extra effort.

I usually give the high price first, being willing to go down, if I meet resistance. You can steal this tactic:

“My going rate for something like this would normally be around (insert high amount)…”

Take a moment. Sometimes the client will jump in going: “That sounds reasonably.” Boom! No need to negotiate further.

If, on the other hand, your hear them fall of the chair on the other end of the line, you can pick up your thought:

“…but since (it’s you/ it’s part of a larger project/ it sounds like a relatively simple task) I’m sure we can work out (a discount/ lower rate/some sort of bundle deal). How about (insert lower amount)?”

Pricing is all about supply and demand. I’m sure you can find plenty of people willing to undercut you. I mean, you can get a freelancer to do almost everything for $5 on Fiverr.com! You do not want to think of that segment as your competition. 

If your unique expression is what the client is looking for, price matters a lot less. They’re paying for you, for your personality and the experience you bring to the table. If a client mentions that they can get the same thing cheaper elsewhere, I’d recommend you simply agree with them and perhaps even direct them to some of your lower paid colleagues. 

What you offer as a professional is something other than bargain prices, it’s industry experience and a unique skill set. If you speak the same language as the client, culturally as well as professionally, you are great at what you do, flexible and accommodating, understanding of your clients needs – those are reassuring qualities worth paying premium for. Especially if you go the extra mile in terms of showing up in person for a briefing, getting on the phone instead of hiding behind e-mail. 

Deliver on your promises every time and the clients will keep coming back – even if some graphic designer in Bangladesh can do the same thing at a tenth of your rate.

This post is an excerpt from my book SOLO – Survival Guide for Creative Freelancers – Order now on Amazon.

Eating a Whale

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When you set out to write a novel, record an album or draw a graphic novel, it can feel like having to eat a whale. You don’t know where to start, you don’t see how it can ever be done, you wonder why you ever said yes.

I felt this every time I started on a longer comic. I felt like it would be impossible, I felt like I didn’t know how. So I had to look at my book shelf and the pages pinned to my wall to remind myself that I did it before. I sat down with a cup of coffee calmed myself down and opened up my calendar. I looked at the deadline and the number of pages I had to do, then divided that number with the number of weeks available to work on it. It’s stupendously simple when you think about it.

Large projects can be harrowing to tackle, even the ones you yourself set in motion, even the ones that don’t have a clear deadline (especially those!). You need to break it down into manageable chunks. Make a plan but be open for the deviations that will undoubtedly arise. Start with the end goal in mind and work backwards. Plant some goal posts along the way, cross every little task off on a list if that makes sense to you, time yourself if you can.

For my graphic novel STILETTO I decided the book would be 120 pages long. So I created a large sketchbook with 120 blank pages in it and started rough sketching. I had a script, mind you, and I had already broken it down into pages so I sort of knew what I was doing. Still having that sketchbook made it painfully concrete, very easy to oversee the entire book and see how far I was.

As I’m translating this book (which was originally published in Danish in 2017) I just started somewhere one fine morning, and then looked at the word count at the end of the work day. I’d managed to bang out roughly 3000 words so that became my standard. As long as I keep at it, and manage to swat away the swarming thoughts of inadequacy, I’m able to hit that word count almost every day.

I find that when I’m writing a book, it helps me to set the goal of creating a shitty first draft. It can always be edited later. If I set out to write a great book, I’ll never finish anything. In the words of Elizabeth Gilbert: 

“A good enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.” 

For your own projects it’s equally important to set goals and deadlines or you’ll see it constantly get moved back when other, seemingly more important things come up. If you have all the time in the world, that’s exactly how long it will take. You need to make a decision. Saying to yourself: “I’ll do it when I get the time,” is basically the same as saying you’ll never do it.

Time is not something you get. It is something you take.

This post is an excerpt from my book SOLO – Survival Guide for Creative Freelancers – Order now on Amazon.

Case study: STILETTO

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While I was working on The Devil’s Concubine, I had the idea for sort of a sequel, involving the two cops, Maynard and Alphonse. The story is heavily influenced by 70’s cop movies like Serpico and French Connection (the sequel being my favorite) and the inciting incident is more or less lifted from Bullitt. Where The Devil’s Concubine was an attempt to make a slick action movie in comic book form, I wanted STILETTO to have a more gritty and realistic feel to it. 

The style is a great departure from earlier, more inspired from my own sketchbook than anything else. Trying to draw in the very slick style of artists like Eduardo Rizzo or my own mentor Peter Snejbjerg never came naturally to me and the process frustrated me to no end. I decided to try “inking” in pencil and painting the whole thing in watercolor – something I was used to doing in my illustration work.

I did a few tests and quickly realized that not only was this drawing process much more fun for me but I could also work way faster. Since making comics takes sooo long, any way to reduce the amount of hours spent on a page is more than welcome.

For the coloringI went for a expressionist approach rather than realism. Since it’s a cop story, the use of the color blue would be obvious. So I decided NOT to use the color blue at all! I only use blue for flashbacks and dream sequences. Keeping the whole book in dirty yellowish clay tones creates a much more startling effect when the characters enter a bar where everything is red or there is a flashback or cut-away panel in blue.

By this point I had stopped comparing myself to Danish peers pretty much altogether and focused on the US market. I felt I had an intriguing premise, a solid script and a style that immediately got people’s attention, when I showed the book to people at cons. So I was surprised when IDW didn’t pick up the book. I thought I was in and then it turned out to be a revolving door!

Although STILETTO was released in Denmark to rave reviews and an award nomination, It took a few years before the book made it to the US market. It only happened because Greg Tumbarello, this guy Chris knew and we kept bumping into at cons, got a new editorial position at Lion Forge. If I remember correctly, I shot Greg a note on Facebook saying congrats on the new job and we got to chatting. He asked about STILETTO, if anyone had picked it up and I was like: “Er, no. You want it?”

Working with Greg on STILETTO (and this book btw!) has been an absolute treat and a truly humbling experience. Greg has turned out to be not only a fun guy to hang out with but also a smart and well articulated editor with a quality lacking in a lot of people working in publishing; he answers his e-mail.

Lessons learned:

Breaking in is a never-ending process and the quality of the work seems not to matter as much as luck or timing. Sometimes a project that seems like a slam dunk will have to take the long road before finding a home. Be patient and persistent. You never know where the next opportunity, ally or friendship will turn up.

This post is an excerpt from my book SOLO – Survival Guide for Creative Freelancers – Pre-order now on Amazon.

Case study: THE DEVIL’S CONCUBINE

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This book was over ten years in the making, a perhaps overly ambitious project designed to kick down the door to the US market. 

I wanted the book to be look like a music video and be as stock full of gratuitous violence as an early John Woo action movie. I wanted to create a book that my 13-year old self would find it impossible not to pick up. I had a dogma that no matter where you opened the book, there should be someone getting shot, something blowing up or someone taking their clothes off.

For years I tried the traditional route of mailing test pages (this was almost before the internet!) to US publishers, getting rejection slips or no reply at all for years. I tried publishers in France and the UK as well, getting close to a deal a couple of times but never anything set in stone. The industry seemed far away and interests were slim. I knew it would take years (with no incoming salary) to finish the book and was almost ready to give up. It just seemed like it would never happen. Then one night out drinking with a bunch of comics guys in Copenhagen, I got to chatting with small press editor Paw Mathiassen of Fahrenheit. He asked what I was working on and I told him the woeful story of The Devil’s Concubine. I’m sure this dead-end project of mine was a joke among my peers at this point but apparently Paw hadn’t heard it. “Send it to me,” he said and as it turned out that slight interest from an editor was enough to kick me back into work mode.

I translated the script to Danish (it was originally written in English) and rough sketched the entire book in a few months, so I at least would have something readable to present. Paw agreed to publish the book and although it was a back end deal that never made me any money as far as I recall, I could now see the finish line and was able to drag myself out of the ditch and finish the race. I worked on the book any chance I got for the next year or so and The Devil’s Concubine was finally published in Denmark in 2009 – more than a decade after I came up with the initial premise and main characters.

With the book finished, I was now able to present to US publishers with a little more confidence. Time and technology had worked in my favor because now most publishers could be reached via email and I was able to send a full PDF with links to a cool trailer a friend of mine had made in after effects and both a Danish and and English version of a website (created by another friend, still available at devilsconcubine.com). IDW showed interest and we reached an agreement after about a year of going back and forth. The book finally came out in the US in 2011.

Lessons learned: 

Ambition is great, finishing something is better. It’s also a whole lot easier to sell a finished project than an idea. If you want to create something, do it for your own sake in your style rather than trying to cater to any market.

This post is an excerpt from my book SOLO – Survival Guide for Creative Freelancers – Pre-order now on Amazon.

Three Books All Creatives Should Read

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In this video I give three book recommendations that might seem kind of left field. Nevertheless all three have had a huge impact on me and how I see myself as an artist – and as a human!

Here are direct affiliate links to all three books on Amazon:

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick), by Seth Godin

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, by Mark Manson

Step-by-Step Guide: My Comics Process

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This is my next graphic novel project! Filling in the blanks should be no biggie, right? Well, there’s a little more to it than that.

I recently posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook that got a lot of likes – and a lot of questions! So I thought I’d elaborate a bit on how I actually tackle the creation of a comic or graphic novel. I go into detail with certain elements in my premium 10-video tutorial series, but these are the basic steps I go through every time.

1: Script

Having a finished script before you start drawing increases your chance of actually finishing with about 3000 percent. The first 2 videos of the premium series covers this (and those episodes are free). Sometimes I’ll get a script from another writer but I often work off my own or have to break the story down into pages.

2: Thumbnails

This is little scribbles just to get a grip of the page breakdowns. I don’t neccesarily do it for every page but it can be very helpful. The more I plan before I start drawing, the more smoothly the rest of the process. There is a podcast episode about making those hard choices here.

3: Rough sketches

Once I know sort of what the layout of the page will look like, I can start rough sketching pictures. As you’ll notice, this is bare bones storytelling, just enough for others to make out what is going on. No more, no less. I usually sketch on half pages, not full size. No need for bigger format when I’m not doing details – in fact the smaller format often helps in creating a clear layout.

4: Borders and lettering

After scanning my rough sketches, I put them in an InDesign document. If it’s an issue of a comic, I’ll make seperate 22-page files that stick to the same template. I’ll start by creating a standard border for the entire project and just plunk that in between all the frames. Then I’ll put the lettering in where it needs to go. Please note, that this is not the final document! I can adjust the lettering once I have the finished art. For full breakdown of this process go here.

5: Borders and balloons

Using a print-out of my now lettered rough sketches, I am ready to draw the actual pages. BUT, since I might need my borders and speech balloons in a clean format, I do the boring work of inking that part first. This is what the image I posted on Instagram portrayed – I can see why there was some confusion as to how I actually worked!

After I’ve traced the borders and balloons on the board I intend to do the rest of the artwork on, I scan the whole thing. Why? I’ll explain in step #8.

6: Sketching

Using my rough sketches as a guide, I’ll sketch the pages going into more detail, especially on backgrounds and stuff. A picture might change from my original ideas, but I always stick within the frames I already decided on. There’s a video of that process here.

7: Inking

Using a lightbox I trace my skectched pages on the boards that already has the borders and balloons. I can adjust the images a bit if needed. Sometimes I do painted art and other times I ink with black markers. There’s a video of me inking a page of Thomas Alsop here.

I don’t need to worry about paiting outside the borders in this stage because I’ve already scanned the clean pages with just balloons and borders, and no art.

8: Scanning and clean-up.

Remember when I said I might need the borders clean? This is the step. I used to I scan my inked pages and clean up mistakes where I painted outside the frames or over speech balloons. Now I just use the already scanned borders. I just smack my clean borders over the finished art in Photoshop, turn the opacity down a bit so I can see what I’m doing and adjust the corners. It took me a while to figure this out, because sometimes a scanner will skew things a little bit. But I discovered that if I do a “free transform” and focus on the four outer corners of the borders, the rest will sort itself out.

Once the two layers match up, I’ll select all the white within the frames on the top layer and delete that. Then I turn the opacity of the layer back up to 100% and viola! I now have a layer with nice, clean borders and balloons on top, and whatever mistakes (painting outside the borders) I made are hidden underneath. I flatten the file and export it, usually as a high-res tiff file.

8.1: Coloring (optional)

I’m not gonna go into detail here, but you might want to check out this post on coloring in Photoshop.

9: Repeal and replace!

Admitted, I don’t really call it that. But I do have to go through my already lettered InDesign file and delete all the border blocks and replace my rough sketch with the finished art. Some adjusting to the lettering is usually neccesary but then I have the entire book or issue ready to send to the graphic designer or export as a PDF directly for print.

10: Celebrate

I usually skip this step, honestly. But having typed up this post and seeing how much work goes into creating a graphic novel, I feel like I should make a point of this going forward.

Hopefully this answered some of your questions and gave you a few ideas to implement in your own process. Please share this post if you found it helpful!