How do I get going?

Gerard Lee April 18, 2021 at 2:26am

Hello there! I am a total amateur, but if I may make a suggestion? The way I work is I write out the dialogue along with notes of setting and actions in parenthesis. What helped a lot when I was beginning was to draw essentially equal sized panels onto a sheet of typing paper and to pencil in the dialogue. The point was not to do the layouts initially, but to see physically how much space your dialogue takes up on paper. I highly recommend it, whether your draw stick figures or more advanced art and layouts. My very first ever comic script literally had dialogue passages that took up literally a whole page! While I suspect that some clever artists could make this work, it's not ideal you can imagine! This process of drawing out your script also teaches you to figure out what really needs dialogue, and what is better left to the artist to convey visually. It helps you to crop and edit dialogue that is potentially overly verbose, while still keeping the unique 'voice' of your separate characters when necessary. Anyways, sorry if this isn't helpful. Good luck! P.S. If you'd like to see how I do scribble layouts, you could visit https://www.facebook.com/The-Edge-of-the-Flock-1529798467297248 for some example.

The Edge of the Flock

The Edge of the Flock. 70 likes · 1 talking about this. "The Edge of the Flock" is an amateur home made Christian scribble comic by Gerry Lee

Brien Sparling January 10, 2020 at 8:46am

Hi Chris (I'm copying my response here for the benefit of those who are following this discussion string)
, Glad to see you pursuing your writing talent to the point you have a completed script, and you're now to the point of hunting for an artist. The CCAS web site has a forum which answers some of your questions, at https://christiancomicarts.com/forum/COLLABORATION%21. Its not a tutorial for collaboration( and this site could use one, hint hint ) but essentially the process starts with the creator assessing their own time-talent-money-contacts.
This has become a bit of an amateur site, with a lot of highly motivated writers and artists who are just starting out. You could put out a detailed request for collaboration on this site, along with the CCAS Facebook site and maybe a Christian site on Deviant Arts , and see if artist respond. Your proposal should have an overview of your story, target audience and format(comic book, graphic novel, webcomic...) and what you can offer to entice an artist to work with you.
God bless your efforts in his name.

COLLABORATION! - Forum

The CCAS has provided opportunities for fellowship and mentoring among Christian comic book professionals and enthusiasts for over 20 years.

Dan Stephens > Brien Sparling October 8, 2020 at 9:52am

Page not found. That would be wonderfully nice!
- Brien Sparling > Dan Stephens October 8, 2020 at 10:49am
  
  Thanks for the heads up; I corrected the forum URL to https://christiancomicarts.com/forum/COLLABORATION%21, But I see from your post that you already found the collaboration site.
  
  COLLABORATION! - Forum
  
  The CCAS has provided opportunities for fellowship and mentoring among Christian comic book professionals and enthusiasts for over 20 years.
Christopher J Manta > Brien Sparling January 10, 2020 at 10:59am

Thanks for the advice!

Allen Martin December 23, 2019 at 8:16am

The basic format is a good guy versus one or more bad guys. The reader/viewer needs to see both in action and at their individual hideout. Generally, all superhero movies involving a single hero have the same basic format: bad guy does something bad, hero tries to intervene, bad guy gets away. Then we see the hero and the bad guy preparing for part two. When they meet again, the hero does not do that well and the bad guy gets closer to his goal or target. The third time the hero is better prepared and the encounter sees him starting to gain the upper hand. The final encounter is the most dramatic. The bad guy is about to blow up the city, or the hospital (or other building) or the world. The hero has to be clever but the bad guy is prepared. An epic fight follows and the bad guy dies/escapes/is captured.

That's it. You need to create a background for the good guy to make him three dimensional. A pretty girlfriend is usually added but not necessary. Whatever powers or gadgets he has need to be different than what's already out there. The same for the bad guy, who usually has a henchman or two. Good luck.

Christopher J Manta > Allen Martin January 10, 2020 at 10:44am

Thanks for the advice Mr. Allen.

Kevin D. Lintz December 12, 2018 at 6:19pm

I would suggest you write down the main scenes of the story. It can be in paragraph form and should just be overviews of the action. For instance:

Three bears make a meal but it is too hot, so they leave their house to go on a walk.
A young girl enters their house when they are away. She tries their food, damages their furniture, and then falls asleep in their house.
The bears return and investigate the damage. Finally they locate the intruder and she flees.

After that, decide how many pages you would like to spend on each scene. You can choose several pages for each scene or just a single page. For instance, the first scene with the bears could be one page, or you could stretch it out to multiple pages.

After that, show your descriptions to other people and see what they think of the story. How well does it flow from scene to scene? Does it have a good ending? Is it interesting?

After that, it would be best if you find an artist. You should have your artist included early in the project. That way they can lend their creative ideas to how the pages should look. You should include your ideas about the page layout, of course, but don’t write a complete script with every scene, page, panel, pose, and balloon already decided. That won’t allow your artist to make any decisions and they won’t be as invested in the project.

Christopher J Manta > Kevin D. Lintz December 14, 2018 at 10:15am

Thanks,

Sounds like some good ideas!

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