10 Things BEFORE You Start a Comic or Graphic Novel
Do you have a long form project in mind? Are you ready to pull the trigger and start the journey? Well, believe it or not, there are some really important things to know and do before you start. But don’t just take my word for it either, sometimes you need to work for 20 years in an uphill battle before you can get something important through your thick skull. I know, because that is how it was for me.
So, here is my simple list of things to consider before starting your comic project.
1) Read books on the subject. I recommend Understanding Comics and Making Comics by Scott McCloud first. I would also pick up How to Make Webcomics because putting it online is the best thing you can do these days especially if you are a no-name artist or writer.
- Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
- Making Comics by Scott McCloud
- How to Make Webcomics
2) Make a Model Sheet or Turnaround or even sculpt your characters in 3D or clay. The last thing you want to do is start redrawing characters half way through your magnum opus.
3) Start with an idea that you really believe in and want to share with others. This is important. It takes dedication to make a graphic novel so you really need to love and believe in what you are trying to say or do.
4) Write your story before you start drawing it. This may sound like a no-brainer but I have a bad habit of doing this. It always ends in disaster. You don’t want to spend 10 years of your life on something that has no ending.
5) Develop a style that is doable and wont take you a gazillion years. I learned that I didn’t need to ink my pages because I could boost the contrast on pencil lines in Photoshop. That trick alone saved me hours every page. My main character is simple (the cat) and easy for me to draw. If I were to draw a Mech robot graphic novel, it would take me forever.
6) Focus on your strengths. Draw what you love to draw. Don’t make a story about the army if you suck at drawing tanks (unless it’s your mission to learn how to draw tanks while making a GN). But I’d suggest not using this medium to learn how to draw something. It will just look different from start to finish and you’ll constantly want to go back and fix old ugly tanks.
7) If you plan to draw realistic human characters, make sure you know anatomy. If you plan on drawing lots of perspective then learn the rules of perspective. Take some classes or buy some books FIRST. Practice your anatomy and perspective for a good year or two before starting your book. Trust me, you will waste a lot of time if you don’t. Here are some of my favorite anatomy and perspective books that I learned from.
- Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm (anatomy)
- Figure Drawing for all it’s Worth by Andrew Loomis (anatomy)
- Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton (anatomy)
- Constructive Anatomy by George B. Bridgman (anatomy)
- Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu-Mestre (composition)
- Successful Drawing by Andrew Loomis (perspective) <–download links
8) Make rules for yourself to follow throughout your book or it will look like a different book at the beginning and end because you got inspired along the way with some new technique. My rules are pretty simple.
- I only use the paint textures that I made.
- Only 4 panels per page unless it’s a sequence of frames where the camera doesn’t move.
- I draw everything on paper and scan it. No digital lines except for subtle changes.
- All my pages are planned out as double page spreads so I can control the mood and story better.
Those were my rules for reMIND. My next book will have completely different rules because I’ll be inspired by something new at that time.
9) Work in RGB mode but print in CMYK mode. Simply flatten your page and convert it when you’re finished but always save your master RGB file with layers if you need to change it. All printers print in CMYK. Everyone has their own opinion about this so study it up for yourself before you start. All I know is that this is the way I finally chose to do it and the colors in my printed book look perfect on paper. It also helped to have a good designer involved as well as a good printer.
10) Work in at least 300 dpi. That’s what all the printers print at that I’ve talked to. Most Marvel and DC guys create their pages at 450 to 600 dpi but it all gets reduced in the end to go to print. If you want to print posters of your pages then you will want to make your file 600 dpi, though. Once again, figure out what you want out of your project before you just start making 50 pages.
Good luck!
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See Jason’s graphic novel here: www.reMINDblog.com
17 Comments
All good points, as always. If I had to zero in on one that is more important than the others, I think number 3 would be it. Passion is the only thing that will carry you through the difficult times (especially if you’re not getting paid yet). Anyone considering diving into a long project should print this checklist out and put it on their wall. I know I hit every one of these points when I started my most recent project. Good article, man.
As far as color and color modes, if you are going for a flat coloring style or having a graphic quality to your book, consider working in CMYK. Sometimes going from RGB to CMYK creates noticeable color shifts. Some colors, especially reds are especially tricky.
Of course the only way to tell is to print it out! Everything looks better on screen, but if you have the ability to print some pages out on a calibrated printer, you can make better judgements that way instead of being disappointed when your entire print run comes back.
Most printers should let you do some test pages too. Which will allow you to check your colours etc. Also knowing about your paper stock is important, different paper absorbs ink in different ways. When in doubt though ask your printer, they probably know more than you and will want to help if they are after your continuing business.
But yeah, keep in mind when colouring that EVERTHING is printed in CMYK.
Printer Proofs really aren’t the place where you want to be figuring out your color. You’ll never see the entire book that way. The proofs also cost you money. They usually add one or two standard rounds into the price quote, but after that, they start charging. On a recent job that i had go to press, a digital match proof cost $100 each! and thats for one poster, not the entire series.
Before you choose any papers to print on, ask to see printed samples. Preferably something they’ve printed, as paper company samples are so retouched and precision printed..you’ll never get that quality. Ask if they have work similar to what you’re printing. Really makes no sense to look at a real estate brochure if you’re printing a comic. Try to get stuff with 4c Illustration.
If you’re just checking things like pagination, resolution, type size and sharpness, consider using an on demand printer like Ka-Blam. You can print a rough “proof” of your comic for like 5 bucks. Kinkos charges a buck a page or more.
I agree. I started colouring a project in RGB, because lots of tutorials say you should. When I converted it, my clean yellows (Y with maybe a little M) all had a bit of cyan added, and were now murky yellows :-( Ended up having to go over them changing the colours
This is all good advice but maybe rather than starting with a “longform project” it would be better to get the ball rolling with a series of short stories – or even short self contained episodes extracted from the “longform” story. This way one can experiment a bit, see some kind of finished result in the short term, and start getting some feedback while it’s not too late.
Totally agree, I’m a big fan of 5-10 page stories. Alan Moore said that the best practice he ever got for writing longer stories was working on Future Shocks for 2000 AD.
Great point! I guess I should have mentioned something like that in the article. I did a few comic books as tests before I jumped into a graphic novel and that really did help learn some hard lessons.
I’ve used a shorter story to basically art direct my first comic. I was really trying to figure out the visual direction, look and feel…heck i was figuring out how to draw comics in that sandbox.
I expanded upon that and integrated that into my larger story that i’m currently working on.
lol, you described what Carpe Chaos is doing. Short stories (10-25 pages) until we improve enough to do longer ones (80-100 pages), and then even longer ones! And the experimentation is part of the fun!
I think I’ll have to try and adopt the idea of working in spreads, I hadn’t really thought to much about what would happen when I put 2 pages side by side that hadn’t been designed for it.
Might even have the added side effect of increasing my productivity!
Working in spreads also really will help with your sequencing. You have to consider the entire user experience. They’re holding two pages in front of them, not one.
ALTHOUGH if you’re designing your comic primarily for a digital space like the iPad then all bets are off. Take advantage of that single page format.
This is a pretty good list. I laughed when I saw Understanding Comics and Making Comics because I insist all artists that I work with read those books before making any comics. And they’re not just good for learning the basics—all of the tricks that Scott McCloud shows off and explains are also great material for inspiration and getting new ideas.
Not that I’m an artist, but I have a copy of Drawing People by Joumana Medlej which I would also recommend for learning basic human proportions and understanding the subtle differences between races of people. Even for non-artists like me it’s a good read.
I agree – excellent book!
Thanks for sharing your articles Jason! I’m currently writing my own story, so this site should come in handy as I go forward. Once again, thanks for sharing your knowledge and I look forward to reading more!
Great information, thanks for the share!
Great tips great article.