There are two options to publish your comic book: through a
company or by yourself. There are pros and cons to both choices. Traditional
publishing provides your comic more exposure, gets you credibility, and a wider
distribution. Some cons are they have power over how your art and title will
look like, give you low royalty rates, are very hard to break into because you
are competing with many others, and you may lose some rights of your comic book.
[1] Here is a list of comic book publishing companies:
Self publishing allows you to work on your own pace, you control
the price and cover, can easily make changes, great royalty rates, and every
decision is yours. But you will have to do all the work: “establish a
publishing company, purchase an ISBN, get the cover created, lay out the text,
get listed with distributors…” so you will need a lawyer or a publishing assistant.
[2]
Another option is publishing your comic book online using
e-books with Amazon’s Kindle.
You can also publish your comic books
through online comic sites like DigitalManga or ComiXology. Some on
demand publishers, like Kablam,
have their own website for self-publishers to promote their comics. Since
people are buying online more often in these times, it will be a good idea to
have your comic book in a digital format and sell those through your own
website.
Characters need traits and personalities which the reader
can relate to. To make a character memorable, Glen Strathy says to make
each character unique by giving them “tags” which are basically physical traits
the reader will recognize them by. “Tags can include physical traits, clothing
preferences, hairstyles, habitual mannerisms, facial expressions, speech
habits, noises the character makes, or even scents – anything, in fact, that a
person interacting with the character would notice about him.” [1] Lee Masterson creates a name that is easy for the reader to remember the
character by and give the character a set of problems/dilemmas and how they solve them. His or her choices will show the reader what he or she
is like as a person based on the decisions made. [2]
Creating a character profile form will help organize
your character’s information. You can also answer these 10 questions to create
a believable character [3]:
Where does your character live?
Where is your character from?
How old is your character?
What is your character called?
What does your character look like?
What kind of childhood did he or she have?
What does your character do for a living?
How does your character deal with conflict or change?
Who else is in your character’s life?
What is your character’s goal or motivation in this story or
scene?
Make a personality quiz for your characters. You’ll be able
to tell which of your characters are more distinct and interesting, and then
choose them to be the main characters. This also will show you if two of your
characters act too similar. Furthermore, by giving
this personality quiz to friends or family, you can base the character off the
person who acts more like him or her.
A character’s appearance plays a significant role in a comic
book. Their face expressions, body language, dress, and customs make them more
real to the readers. The genres and comic book style affect what the character
will dress and look like. Learning how to draw human, or even animal, poses
will help your comic. Depending on your
style, character face expressions could be drawn somewhat in a realistic or
cartoon manner. [1][2] Draw various poses of your character that show movement so he or she won’t be as static as the comic page. [3] There are
many YouTubers with excellent tutorials. [4][5][6] Here is a list of a few:
Genres and comic styles affect how character will look like.
In this infographic, I drew Hanabi Baka Sake in the diverse ways of drawing a
character. The characters line-art can be as clean or messy as you want it to
be, what is most important is your story and how your character acts in it.
Just like any art piece, novel, or project, comic books
require a set of materials. Mark Crilley goes over what materials he uses as a
comic artist in his video. Here is a basic list, though of course you don’t
need all of these:
Sketchbook: to draw/write ideas
Strathmore smooth surface Bristol: cardstock paper for comic
book pages
Pencils and Sharpeners
Prismacolor Kneaded Eraser
Black Prismacolor Pencil
Artist Ink Pens of various thickness: Pigma Micron, Copic,
Faber Castiel
Watercolors: Grumbacher, Winsor & Newton
Color Pastels
Color Pencils: Prismacolor (Verithin and Ordinary)
Color Markers: Copic, Touch
India Ink
White Designers Gouache, White Acrylic, White-Out
Different size brushes
With the traditional materials, you may need a scanner and an art program to edit, color, or add text to the comic page. A good site for text
is Blambot which has free dialogue, sound fx, design, and symbol fonts
for comic book artists to use. The two most prominent art programs used for
comic books are Adobe Photoshop and Manga Studio. Paul Holden lists
the pros and cons for both programs in his article. [2] This is a list
of other digital art programs:
Though expensive, Wacom Tablets are helpful with art programs and are a faster than drawing with a mouse. Encyclopedias or other reference books are also useful, especially if your internet is not working. Get books of landscapes, cultures, clothing, anatomy, weapons, architecture, vehicles, or anything that will be of great help for your comic book.
Writing the story before creating the comic book provides a
solid plan for you to follow, and make it easier on you when you are laying out
what parts of the story go on which page. When writing the story, you need to
organize what is going to happen. There are many ways to organize your writing.
J.K. Rowling used a chart to outline the chapters, their titles, a summary
of each one and how it relates to the plot, and the subplots within. [1] Using 3 by 5 cards is another way of creating and organizing ideas for your
story. You write an event on each card
and lay them out on the ground. Then you set them up in chronological order,
fill in the gaps with content that will make your reader want to turn the page,
plan where the chapter breaks are going to be, include cliffhangers, and write
down your outline (or number the cards). [2] You can find other tactics like
these on WritersDigest.
You can also improve your writing by reading books (and not
just comic books) and analyzing what makes it so successful. Writing reviews or
reading what other people write about a book is also helpful. This way you will
learn what a reader expects from a good book and then apply those principles in
your own work. Deb Aoki provides some reviewing tips on her article on how
to review manga. [3] Also, write about your life experiences in a story format
and email it to a friend or relative (maybe even draw it in comic page style).
It’s good practice and I find that I use some of my life experiences when I
work on my comic book.
Know how much writing is needed for the reader to understand
what is going on in the story and include that in the comic book page. For me,
successful comic books have an interesting hook, memorable plot and characters,
and a strong ending.
Advertise yourself and put your ideas on shirts, pins,
stickers, etc. on websites like ThreadBird. Lull Mengesha shows how to
self publish a book in his video in three simple steps: get a copyright,
an ISBN number or barcode, and a print on demand publisher. [2] An example of a print
on demand publisher is Kablam. A comic artist will have to use one of the
various template provided by the website and make sure their work is within the
boundaries. They can then send the files to Kablam and order as many copies as
they want after they check that the first copy came out well. Kablam also has
another site called IndyPlanet where comic artists can share and sell
their comics. Some artists sell their comics digitally as well on sites such as
CreateSpace, Lulu, or ones specifically made for comics like DigitalManga.
Indra Balaratnam has a Masters in Law and is a Mitigation
Investigator. She is a second cousin of mine from Britain and she recently gave
me some helpful tips regarding my comic. I interviewed her for more information
on small businesses, branding, blogging, etc. Below is the audio of the interview.
Indra talks about her friend from the Caribbean who has a
clothing company and how he started it. By wearing his designs over the course
of several months he was able to build a hype that spread across the
university, so when he started to sell his shirts, his friends were willing to buy it. Indra says “It’s all about
branding and how you put label out there…and making connections, networking is
the biggest thing.” It’s good to make contacts in your field and expand on that.
Always be nice to people in your field: Keep your friends close and enemies
closer.
Also be persistent, do what you can to be recognized. When blogging
write about current events or whatever is trending. Write about something in a
unique stance and send them to influential people. “Some people are afraid to self promote. If
you don’t do it no one will know it’s there.”
When you post your content online you’re saying “you have to courage to
put your own stuff out there and it says a lot about you.”