We have bold new experiment ready for you to enjoy this week – the very first ComicFuel Workshop podcast! Bizhan Khodabendeh’s “Panel Layout: The Golden Ratio” from 2014 is our most popular article ever posted on our website. So, for season 1 of Gutter Talk we’ve decided to revisit the article in the form of a FREE WORKSHOP.
That’s right! We said FREE WORKSHOP!!!
Have you ever wanted to ask your favorite comic creator a question? Maybe listened to a podcast and thought, I could ask a better question than that? Well, here’s your chance.
We at MakingComics.com are working on designing a new Gutter Talk project (which may potentially be unveiled as a panel at San Diego Comic-Con International 2018 – yes, THAT Comic-Con) and both the questions and the guests will be determined by you. We’ve been so blown away by the overwhelming positive response by learners in our “How To Make A Comic Book” Coursera course that we’ve decided we want you to be the center of what we are doing next.
I’m not going to lie. Scripting is my jam. I’m a writing kinda guy, so excuse me if I get a little resource happy here. But there’s so much stuff to learn about scripts that just giving you guys only a couple of resources might break my heart. So we’ll start at square one.
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“…it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
Rocky Balboa’s inspirational speech to his son in the 2006 installment into the Rocky franchise is definitely the inspiration for this show. There’re a lot of projects I work on right. Art, design, and educational experiences I am currently slaving away over. I spend a lot of time, and incur a good deal of mental anguish, trying to figure out what the “right” thing to do is as a day job. When Rocky talks about taking hits, in my context that is all about my own personal demons regarding my design process. My own shadow/devil on my shoulder telling me I’m wasting my time.
Last month, I’ll be honest, I almost considered #ComicFuel a waste of my time. Three episodes in and I was ready to give up.
I almost didn’t finish episode 3. Even during the process of doing it, I didn’t want to finish it. I did finish, barely, and then I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do another episode the same way again (if I did another episode). So I called Adam and asked him to record a quick episode where we powered through a ton of questions. It turned into a longer episode.
As I sat down with Adam Greenfield this week to record the fourth episode of #ComicFuel I was reminded why I do this. Sure, this episode is WAY too long ( cough-2hoursand14minutes-cough ), but who cares? I got to sit down with my friend and answer some student questions and talk about how to practice art. In my ideal retirement scenario I would spend every day doing this.
I was reminded that MakingComics.com is the purely “good” thing that I have in my life. For me this is the one sacred space in this whole universe where everything we do is just good. We aren’t always active, or on time with our products, and they aren’t always produced with the kind of quality I’d like – but at their core they are good. We’ve made decision after decision to not turn this into a project that will go anywhere (i.e we are staying here for good). It isn’t a startup business – it is a public service. That is what makes it “good”. It hasn’t been tainted by the threats of being economically unviable – because it isn’t.
I thought I was done after my 2 hour session with Adam. Then…
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Holy MOLY, what a whirlwind of amazingness it has been in the time between the release of episode 1 of Comic Fuel and Episode 2! We have had a thousand people download and listen to the episode and I have enough questions that I have to wait for another four episodes before I can put out another call for questions. Wow.
In this episode, episode 2, we’ll discuss project management, the comic creation process, coloring comics, penciling comics, and hosting comics online. The questions came from places like Ireland, India, Brazil, California, and Indiana. For legit #comicfuel we’ll hear about why we do art from Stephen McCranie, transitioning into fame and what is at the core of what artistry is really about from “How I Met Your Mother” actor Josh Radnor, and we’ll also hear about the art of really listening by famed audio producer Chris Watson.
Questions answered in this episode (jump-to specific question times listed below)
Another big announcement is that I spent a lot of time this month creating the Comic Fuel Podcast Wiki (http://comicfuel.wikidot.com/) which will serve as a repository for all questions, notes, and links that are mentioned in the show. Check it out. It took me FOREVER to make, but I’m really proud of it.
The show notes for Episode 2 are at: http://comicfuel.wikidot.com/wiki:episode-2
So you want to make a comic? That’s great! In fact, that’s exactly what a class full of students down at Chula Vista High Tech High wanted to do. And after designing an extensive curriculum, Making Comics Worldwide CEO Patrick Yurick, and incredibly handsome Editor-In-Chief Kevin Cullen, decided to bring all of you burgeoning comic creators into the mixture by giving you the opportunity to follow along with the Graphic Novel Project (GNP) students step by step through this blog! (more…)
Plotting out perspective for comic book page/panel composition is paramount to building great art. One of the hardest elements of composing perspective for a panel is getting all of the measurements just right so that all of the angles for your environmental elements within your panel come out right. Sergey Kritskiy’s perspective tool allows you to create amazingly accurate grids for your comic within seconds.
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. (more…)
Inking may be one of the most misunderstood disciplines of the comic art world. All it involves is tracing over lines that have already been drawn, right? Well, there’s a bit more to it than that; the craft is actually quite complicated with its variety of tools and methods to complete the given task. (more…)
This article applies to more than just the comics industry. I’ve been working as a freelance artist since 1998 and this is some of what I learned along the way. These are my ten best pieces of advice for working independently.
