This post is the first part in a series I’ll be doing through this month and probably into March about how to make a comic. I’ll cover pencilling, lettering, and inking as well as some of the other subjects involved.
Before you can make a comic, there’s something you need. What is it? Pencils? Pens? A T-square? A twenty pound can of beans? No! You need first and foremost…an idea! But where do you get ideas for making comics?
I talked about this before in the past. I learned from video game programmer Howard Scott Warshaw that ideas are something that you get. You find them. So where do you find ideas? Why, look all around you. You can find ideas anywhere. Hmm, that sounds a bit vague. Maybe I’d better expand on that. Some of you may choose to read your favorite comics (comic strips, manga, the latest cutting edge alternative graphic novel your fellow hipsters are reading, etc) as a starting point. There’s nothing wrong with that – but limiting yourself only to comics is a BIG mistake. You can only recycle what has been already produced. In this case, you should follow a rule that many prose writers do – read outside your genre. Try surfing the web for blog posts and articles. Mosey on down to your local newsstand and browse through the newspapers and magazines. Swing by your local library and do some research. A trip to your local bookstore can do wonders. You never know…one of these trips could spark an idea. Of course, you’ll need a way to capture those ideas. Take a camera with you and snap photos of places, people, and things. You can also do what I do and take a tape recorder (or digital audio recorder).
Take one of these with you where you go. If you think of an idea, you can capture it on tape. Think of all the ideas you can cram onto a sixty minute or thirty minute tape. Yes, there’ll be times where you just talk into it and say “uhhhh…” or “ummmm…” Sometimes you say something strange or ridiculous. But it serves to capture ideas. Another must-have tool for getting ideas is to take a small sketchpad or a notepad with you wherever you go. Continue reading →
