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u/ComicBookNerd · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

There's a ton of advice I could give you - and I'll try to throw a bunch of it at you - but keep in mind I've barely begun this process myself. This is what I can tell you based on what I've observed, take it as you will.

My first piece of advice is to do the thing you said you never do. Put them down to paper. These little scenes and random thoughts you have swimming through your head are exactly where "we all find ideas to start from." It could be a simple scene in the middle of a larger story, it could be the very last words you want to someone to hear. Regardless of what it is, put it down on paper. I always carry a small moleskin notebook with me and have gotten into the habit of just jotting down something whenever it goes through my head. When you're used to just thinking of things, it's a little jarring at first to stop and write it down, but believe me - it will be worth it. This is the fountain of ideas you're looking for.

Arguably the most important thing I can tell you, is to write. Don't worry about whether it's formatted right, if you've structured your characters enough, or if you've done a good outline. Write. Whenever, wherever, as much as you can. You're only going to get better at writing by writing.

That being said, worry about format, structure, and outlines. And what I mean by that, is look back on the work you did, figure out where you could have done better and the next time try to do that. The first thing I ever wrote, I did without thinking about my characters, what they really meant, their back story, the environment they lived in, and said to hell with an outline. After it was finished, I knew for my next project that this had to change.

Consume the media you want to create. Not only should you actively read comics, you should try to consume anything that gives you insight to the business and how other people work. This is a list of books I bought and think have been extremely helpful. They give insight into the importance of creating characters, environments, etc before you even begin a script. I've listed them in the order I personally liked from best to still pretty damn good

  • Writing Comics & Graphic Novels by Peter David
  • Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative by Will Eisner
  • Writing for Comics by Alan Moore
  • Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
  • Making Comics by Scott McCloud
  • Panel One: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers by various

    The last one is great because you get to see the various script styles of in-the-business writers. For comics, I also actively listen to these podcasts:

  • The Process - great podcast centered directly on writing for comics. I honestly cannot recommend this enough, and have yet to find one I like better than this.
  • Nerdist Writers Panel - while this isn't for comics, it gives you great insight on writing in general. It's geared for TV, which I think translates to comics relatively well (in some respects).

    In addition to all that, I follow /r/writing and try to stay active on this subreddit. We've done a few writing prompts, which I think are great ways to get you writing - though I wish more people would take part.

    JoshLees has compiled a larger list of resources, definitely take a look at that. The above listed things are what I consume personally.

    That's all I have for now, and the community can feel free to correct me or add to it, but other than that good luck!
u/RJ_Ramrod · 4 pointsr/ComicWriting

OP you can't learn everything all at once, so you're gonna have to start from the ground up and grind your way toward proficiency in different skills individually

I would strongly recommend setting this particular piece aside for the time being and stop thinking about what else you can do to improve upon it—it's about as good as it's going to get right now

Instead, get your hands on a few big newsprint pads and burn through them, focusing exclusively on your penciling and your ability to recreate 3D forms at will—start with basic geometry and work your way up to putting them together into humanoid shapes and then fleshing them out—this is all about developing a skill called "drawing through the page," where you can look at a blank page and already sort of see how things are going to fit together and what the finished product will look like

Later (much later) you can come back to this page as a reference, and practice telling the same short little sequence in different ways, with different numbers of panels and different layouts, focusing on different things, etc.

You don't need to worry about inking for awhile—but if you really want to, Google for examples of other artists' work, find some of their unfinished pencils, and play around with inking those in various ways to achieve different feelings/emotions/tones/effects

But definitely spend a lot of time scribbling and sketching on that newsprint, because it's the most important investment you can possibly make right now in your future as an artist

edit: also because you asked about resources, this is a fairly old but still excellent primer on everything you're working on learning

But if you're anything at all like me and find it next to impossible to learn things from reading about then in books, seriously consider seeing if you can find a life drawing class you can join—your local community college is a great place to start, as they often give non-students the opportunity to audit classes, and those classes are usually small enough that you can get a decent amount of individual attention from the instructors

u/ZuZu_Cartoons · 1 pointr/ComicWriting

Scott McCloud is one of the standards, definitely start there! Here's a list of some of the more granular/weird ones that are on my shelves:

  • Panel Discussions (lots of great topics like page breakdown, pacing, using your gutters, etc)
  • The Will Eisner Books (Comics & Sequential Art, Graphic Narrative and Storytelling, Expressive Anatomy. I've only read the 1st two, but they're fascinating looks at the older-style black and white layouts, with lots of good tips)
    • ***these use examples from Eisner's life, so 1930s-2005. The older ones are less-than-politically-correct, and the publisher addresses it in the forward, but still, CW.
  • Wonderbook (this is just FUN fiction writing theory, written by the guy who did Annihilation)
  • The Comics Journal (you can subscribe to this at your local comic book store through Diamond. Full of industry talk!)
u/3lbFlax · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

Excellent suggestions!

I would also recommend Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative - Comics and Sequential Art is essential reading, and this later volume complements it nicely.

Ivan Brunetti has produced an excellent book called Cartooning, which is based on the content of a course he teaches - a set schedule of exercises to follow and some excellent guidance.

Lynda Barry is another wonderful comics creator who teaches, and I can't recommend her books What It Is and Picture This highly enough - previews here. They're often more about creativity in general than comics specifically, but they do use and discuss comics and are among my very favourite books, comics-related or otherwise. They're certainly more artefact than textbook, but they're priceless.

Turning to the writing side, there's a small volume reprinting (and revising) advice from a younger Alan Moore in Alan Moore's Writing for Comics Volume 1 (don't bother looking for further volumes, though).

There are probably some more titles on the shelves back home I've forgotten about - I'll check after work. It's mostly going to be independent-oriented, but good advice is good advice.

u/Freakazette · 1 pointr/ComicWriting

Okay! Well, I happen to be a screenwriter, so I had Final Draft anyway. It's not a requirement, but it does have templates for various scripting methods, so, if you happen to have it lying around, it's fun to use. Celtx also works, but I don't like it as much. A cocktail napkin works because there's no official method.

The book I referred to a lot was The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics (link for reference only), but there's a few books out there. My library even had some, so maybe hit up your library. They should be in the writing books section.

I looked online for tips, too, and came across a website that I can't remember that says that one writer writes everything out as a screenplay first, then converts it to a comic script. That's how I ultimately chose to go about it because it's easier for me to visualize the page that way. Plus, by the time I actually get to writing the comic script, I'm already editing and such. That might not work for everyone, though.

Dark Horse has on their website how they accept submissions. They're the only big name that still accepts submissions, so if you plan on submitting, it might be good to learn their way of doing it.

There's no official way, though, like I said. If you stick with the Dark Horse method and somehow DC wants you to write one of their titles now, there's really not that much difference - just tweak some things. And if you can draw as well as write, your script can look vastly different. I have to describe every last detail - artists can do rough sketches.

Not to plug my webcomic, and I do feel bad for it, but it's Mistress Deathspike. Only reason I'm sharing it is because I'm going to share the first three scripts with you, how I wrote them, and then you can see how the artist interpreted it into the final product. It's just an example. You can hate my comic, I'm okay with that.

Anyway, script 1, script 2, script 3.

I hope you find this useful.

u/ajcleveland138 · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

I'd definitely start with /u/nmacaroni 's book. He's pretty active on this sub and is a great resource. If you're going to go all the way and self publish your comic this one helped me out too: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0804137803/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_of_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B1FZETECY1SFP81PS7VE

u/FreddieForeshadowing · 1 pointr/ComicWriting

Peter David has one that I love and I use the advice from it all the time. It's called Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels. It's really good and has some great workshop exercises that you can do.

u/JoshMLees · 5 pointsr/ComicWriting

I'm really excited that this subreddit has gotten off the ground! I know the idea has been proposed a few times by various people, but I guess most people weren't ready to take the reigns themselves!
I think we should defs have links to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics as well as Making Comics as these are almost indispensable guides on the subject (whether you are into webcomics, graphic novels, manga or super heroes)!

u/GenL · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is pretty great.

u/Ultra_Noobzor · 1 pointr/ComicWriting

Oh his art is really good.

I have no idea though how he is going to keep up with that tattoo, redrawing it every scene :o

​

Regarding super powers / ability... You know, there's a book that made see these things very differently after reading it. "The Science of X-Men" was very interesting to me to consider different points of the subject.

It's not just "magic" and "fantasy" explain everything. There could be something more behind it all, also there's a documentary about american obsession with super heroes, but I forgot how it's called.

u/DJ_Masson · 3 pointsr/ComicWriting

So as a writer, there's an impulse to exactingly describe what you envision in a panel--you've got the pacing down, the dialogue, and a firm belief that the comic will go swimmingly if/when the comic comes to life exactly as you've laid it out in exacting detail.

But more often than not, that's miserable for the artist. You're taking absolute control over what happens in a panel, and many artists will feel that you're encroaching on their creative territory. It is the artist's job to produce story in their particular style, and many will hate how restrictive it feels to draw a panel with little creative wiggle room.

Not all, of course. Some artists like very prescriptive directions so they can get on with it. Check out Bendis' Words For Pictures, there's an invaluable section where artists bitch about writers.

As a writer, it's difficult to cede creative territory, but making comics is all about trusting your partnership with your artist. A lot of the time, the artist will come up with stuff you couldn't have predicted.

u/nmacaroni · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

Not rude at all. The new book was just released yesterday and I didn't float it around for advanced reviews, but the first book can be seen on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692577106

There is a viewable pdf with a few sample pages from the book on the link in the post.

u/sektorao · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

Copy your favorite artists and try to figure out what they did and why. You can check this book also https://www.amazon.com/Art-Comic-Book-Inking-2nd/dp/1593074050

This is far from professional, but it's still finished page. Keep it up.

u/TeacherRob · 3 pointsr/ComicWriting

How to Write Manga isn't bad, if you're into the Japanese style.

u/thegraaayghost · 2 pointsr/ComicWriting

If it's a public domain work, I think there are no restrictions.

You may be interested in this series. You can look at the pages for each volume to see some of the works it contains.

u/SortaEvil · 1 pointr/ComicWriting

Speaking of the intersection of real-life torture and comics (what an odd sentence)... I did find this while looking for inspiration.