Comic writing tips

Covers

• Never put too much narration on a book cover, because you won't be able to build it as you want.
• Important: all figures must be distinct, and the forms not stuck on each other.

Retaining your voice

• You must be prepared to defend yourself

Panels 

• The smaller the panel. the more focused it is.
• Huge panels are for the cool stuff!

Narrative

• No more than 100 words per page.
• Think as if you're writing for the best publisher/artist and you must grab the artist's attention.
• Does the reader's mind automatically fill the gaps between the panels?
• Panels must answer: Who / What / When / Where / How 
• Draw subtext
• In comics you'll have to use a certain level of exaggeration.
• Sometimes, breaking the 4th wall is breaking the flow of the story. Often the characters must be focused on each other.
• Create suspence by withholding a big event till the next page. If there's no suspense, end the scene on the page and start a new scene at the next page. 
• More panels -> slow down time
• Less panels -> more powerful timing
• Close shot -> sparingly, for emotion and variety.
• Medium shot -> the average panel, but there must be size variety.
• Focal points should be simple, balanced, not close to the border, varying in shapes, numbers and sizes.
• Downshot: superiority, detached, voyeristic feeling
• Draw three levels when you can: foreground, middle, background. Less makes you look lazy.
• Focus on what best tells the story, crop everything else out.
• Pull the camera as close as possible, but don't crop for no reason. 
• (Example: phone call scene. He zooms in the heads of the two men progressively closer at each panel. Then pulls out at the last one to reveal a gun.)
• Also vary shape of panels
• Put the viewer close to the action
• Use diagonals and 3/4 views most of the time (and foreshortening)
• Don't tilt panels too often or too much. Instead, use perspective to create diagonals.
• Don't overdo "tricks". They lose their impact and become confusing.
• Best way to balance the composition is to put the large forms mainly around the perimeter than in the middle.
• Show movement towards where you want the reader to look (not out of the page).
• Use contrasts for depth and attention. High contrast = depth and drama.
• Surround complexity with simplicity.
• Frame your complexity with simplicity.
• Frame your center of interest.
• Surround white with black or gray.
• Night: automatically more dramatic. Also use weather to add visual inerest to the scene, even if it's not important to the story.
• Watch out for tangents and overlapping objects (but possible a pg with intentional tangents)
• Place baloons so that they lead the reader's eye to the next baloon
• Exaggerate!

Character expression

• Take the expression to your own body to feel the muscles and the feeling. Study what happens to your own face.
• When they start feeling alive, the reader will care because it feels like the characters care.
• Shoulders do a lot for the expression.
• In balance, head (nose?) and weight foot are kind of in a line.
• Anatomy: find the photo of a ripped model and map out the muscles. 
• Draw all sides of a face in a page.

Drawing process

• You can always correct, even ink (keep a copy of pre-lineart). Don't worry about mistakes.
• Process: inking -> lettering -> color
• Nothing makes a picture look more amateurish than bad lettering.
• Think before you draw and prioritize. 
• Figures first, then backgrounds (figures are more important).
• Nothing should be, or appear to be, accidental.
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Other

• The idea is not to be perfect, the idea is to always get to the next story.
• Manga is seductive due to reducing a human body to a language of symbols.
• Characters should be clearly diffrentiable.
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On writing comics, general

• Start from the big picture and then focus on the small things
• Work from the general to the particular to not get cornered
• you should be able to get to the story just by looking at the pictures, then cary the narrative weight. Everything you do must have a purpose.
• Aboid redudancy.

1. Write outline
2. Break the outline down to pages
3. Break pages to panels
4. Break panels into words 
5. Add sound effects and captions
6. Refine the dialogue
7. Write the script

Working with thumbnails

• Composition of the pages
• Composition of the images
• Relationships
• This is the art of comics!

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Trivia

• Frank Miller was both a writer and an artist.
• The costume of Phoenix was green because silver printed badly.