Starting my own Comic

ComicNub

The last few years, I've gotten really into comics, and now want to write and draw my own when I'm older. I decided I wanted to start now, but I don't know really how to start. These will probably start out really short (1 sketchbook page) and progress to be longer as my writing and art improve. These will be in my sketchbook, and I'm always open to constructive criticism!
Art- I have been drawing for a little over a year, and I say that I know some basic anatomy. I generally draw from poses, and I do basic shading.
Writing- This is where I really need help. How do I write comics? How do I get inspiration for comics? I would say that my writing is okay, at best. How do I make characters that are easy to relate to? How can I make a creative comic, without making it boring? I have a lot of questions, and I will most likely need a lot of help.

Iruka

For some books and resources, we have a thread here that should be helpful: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/196619/comic-resources-masterpost#latest

Scott McCloud is probably the best place to start, as his books on comics are possibly the most focused and informative on the medium itself. Feel free to post actual comics in the AC for critiques, or questions in the question thread: (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/149588/questions-discussion-tutorials#latest) we also have some links to other art related things over there: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/categories/art-assignments-and-resources

also some cool stuff here: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/198595/comixperimentation-lab/p1

Not to try and drag you away from GV :P

JyrenB

That thread covers most of the art stuff I'd suggest beyond just drawing constantly, so I'll just give one quick suggestion on the writing end. Comic writing is just story writing...which isn't necessarily easy and a lot of doing it well is just like drawing: Do it a lot, screw up a lot, get better with time.

But this book, Invisible Ink, is a pretty good starting point for figuring out story structure and the like.

Iruka

@JyrenB those threads are always a WIP so feel free to add recommendations and such to the post, I'll add them to the OP.

JyrenB

@Iruka I think you've got most of it!

After the McCloud books, my only real go-to resource books for comic making are Framed Ink and Invisible Ink. After that, in my mind, it's really all about just doing it badly until you're doing it slightly less badly (along with reading a ton of books and comics to absorb as much about storytelling as you can).

haaayes

Iruka wrote: »

Scott McCloud is probably the best place to start, as his books on comics are possibly the most focused and informative on the medium itself.

This! He's hands down the best teacher I ever had. I'd also recommend Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner.

Other than that, there's not really a secret to it - just read, read, read and draw, draw, draw. If there's a gap in your knowledge (I always used to suck at drawing hands and feet), don't avoid it and hope you'll get better automatically - figure out what you're sucking at and teach yourself to draw those goshdarn hands and feet.

I'd recommend just having a bash at making comics and putting them online on a blog or some forums or wherever and get chatting to other artists about your work and ideas.

JyrenB wrote: »

After that, in my mind, it's really all about just doing it badly until you're doing it slightly less badly.

Exactly. Everyone was rubbish once!

Dizzy D

With comics the main difference between writing a comic and doing a painting or writing a book, is deciding what information needs to be relayed through the art and what information needs to be relayed through the text. And the only way to figure that out is by practice and reading (and some writers and artists who have years of experience are still terrible at it. I'm looking at you, Chris Claremont.)

Writing: always keep in mind that comics are a medium not a genre, they can be about anything even if a large part of American comics are superheroes (luckily non-superhero comics have been spreading a lot this past decade, so the impression that comics=superheroes is disappearing).

Try to start small, I've seen many writers/artists deciding that they are going to do a large sweeping fantasy epic, but never getting further than a few issues into the first act.