Art & Story – Your Comic From The Ground Up, Pt 4
November 11, 2009 by Jerzy
Filed under Art & Story, Podcast
It’s another installment of the Your Comic From The Ground Up series, and this time we give an hour and change over to a discussion on editing! Time to put away the Art Mullet and get brutally honest and analytical about what’s working with what you’ve done so far and what is not.
As with previous episodes, we begin with a theoretical discussion on this stage of the process, followed by some practical strategies to make your comic a reality.
Theory
Considerations when editing the Thumbnails:
The 3 Big Qualities, Clarity/Flow/Aesthetics
& The 3 Big Concerns, Story/Moment/Page
Clarity
Clarity of Story: Break out your theme (remember your theme from pt 1?) and re-examine your story to see if it clearly reflects the theme.
- Are the characters’ motivations clear?
- Are the characters’ actions logical and reflective of the theme?
- Does the climax (see pt 2) express your theme in a physical or emotional way (or both)?
- Any threads in the story that you didn’t resolve by the end?
Clarity of Moment – Evaluate each and every moment choice in your story and ask what it is essentially “about”. What is the 1 important thing you need to communicate in that panel, and did you pick the moment to effectively communicate that?
Types of considerations when evaluating the “important” moment:
- Acting moment (character story data)
- Information moment (objective story data)
- Aesthetic moment (tonal/style story data)
Clarity of Page – Do the panels and overall composition “read” smoothly? Do you have a visually interesting composition on the overall page that doesn’t work against the information (see previous 3 points) that you want to convey?
Flow
Flow of Story – Have you chosen a pacing style that communicates the tone and energy level you intended?
Lots of scene breaks indicate a fast, high-energy story
Less scene breaks, longer scenes indicate a slower, more contemplative story
Flow of Moment – Do the images in your panel (all elements, including word balloons) interact in a way to guide the reader’s eye in the intended direction?
Flow of Page: Do the images in your panels interact with the surrounding images in a logical manner? Does the end point of one panel lead you to the beginning point of the next?
Cacophony or ambiguity may be what you want as well, but in most cases the reader should know where to “go” next.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics of Story – Have you chosen a visual style to best communicate the tone and feel of the theme/story? Is your story dark and brooding, or light and airy? If so, how does the art style you’ve come up with lend to that?
Aesthetics of Moment – Do the images in your panel (all elements, including word balloons) create a visually interesting or pleasing moment? Can you tweak the arrangement of elements (blocking) or the illustrative details to make it more interesting or pleasing?
Aesthetics of Page – Does the page look like a visually interesting or pleasing piece on its own? When looking at facing pages, do they lead into one another or complement one another?
Practical
Editing
Let 2 Kinds Of People Read Your Thumbnails
People who know you and are familiar with comics storytelling (Art Buddies–even better!)
What they have to offer you:
- They’ll consider your voice and intent
- They’ll evaluate the clarity of information and tone
- They’ll best evaluate your perspective, anatomy, acting moments
- They’ll best evaluate whether or not your aesthetic choices contribute to the tone/story data
People who know you and are unfamiliar with comics storytelling
What they have to offer you:
- They’ll best evaluate the clarity of story and of each page–but won’t necessarily be able to tell you WHY they feel what they feel!
- A good way to get a spell- and grammar-check
What kinds of things change when you edit?
New scenes
Sometimes you’ll need to add scenes to clarify certain points or reinforce certain thematic elements in your story.
Delete scenes
You may have to cut entire sequences that don’t have anything to do with the story.
New Page Layouts
You may find a more interesting or visually pleasing way to construct a page even after final thumbs–or else you may have to change a layout to make the information more clear.
Move Scenes Around
You may decide to insert a scene in the middle of a longer scene, or switch two scenes in a sequence altogether.
Making The Changes
- Tape pages within document or overtop deleted pages
- If loose leaf, draw new pages in margins, insert new scenes between pages
Assignment for this episode:
- Finish all of your thumbnails
- Complete your style tests & evaluate how much was done digitally or analog–we’re going to determine our lettering tool choices and talk about penciling next time.
For more helpful information about topics covered in this episode, check out these past episodes:
Another great resource mentioned in this episode:
The Art & Story Theme is written and performed by
Mike Gilmore & Mike Johnston of The Northwoods Improvisors.
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