CREATING

COMICSto fi nish from start

SampleTop file Pros Reveal the Complete Creative Process Buddy Scalera

CINCINNATI, OHIO www.impact-books.com

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To Janet Without you, none of this stuff matters.

To Danielle and Nicole You are Daddy’s dreams come true. Daddy and Mommy love you unconditionally, and we want you to explore your own dreams. Be yourself; we will love you no mat- ter who you become.

To Dad and Mom Thank you for pushing me to try harder and making me read something other than comic books.

Creating Comics From Start to Finish. Copyright © 2011 by Buddy Scalera. Manufactured in China. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Pub- lished by IMPACT Books, an imprint of F+W Media, Inc., 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45236. (800) 289-0963. First edition.

Other fi ne IMPACT Books are available from your local bookstore, art supply store or online supplier, or visit our website at www.fwmedia.com.

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DISTRIBUTED IN CANADA BY FRASER DIRECT Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 100 Armstrong Avenue Scalera, Buddy Georgetown, Ontario, Canada L7G 5S4 Creating comics from start to fi nish / Buddy Scalera. -- 1st ed. Tel: (905) 877-4411 Sample file p. cm. Includes index. DISTRIBUTED IN THE U.K. AND EUROPE BY F+W ISBN 978-1-60061-767-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) MEDIA INTERNATIONAL 1. Comic books, strips, etc.--Technique. I. Title. Brunel House, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 4PU, England NC1764.S33 2011 Tel: (+44) 1626 323200, Fax: (+44) 1626 323319 741.5’1--dc22 2010039542 Email: [email protected]

DISTRIBUTED IN AUSTRALIA BY CAPRICORN LINK Edited by Kelly Messerly and Stefanie Laufersweiler P.O. Box 704, S. Windsor NSW, 2756 Australia Production edited by Sarah Laichas Tel: (02) 4577-3555 Designed by Wendy Dunning Cover art by Alan Evans Production coordinated by Mark Griffi n

ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

In the mid 1960s, Los Angeles coughed up Alan Evans, a kid who freaked his parents out by drawing people starting with their fi ngers. Then came mazes on graph paper, imaginary maps, ads for the phone book, medical illustrations, car brochures, beverage packaging, digital pho- tography, a break for lunch, X-Men for Marvel, animation, video compositing, fi lm effects, and now design for virtual worlds and that cool trick where you trace around your hand to make a turkey for Thanksgiving. Alan now lives in the Pacifi c Northwest and wonders when it’s gonna stop raining. Alan’s artwork opens many of the chapters of the book and appears on the cover. See more of his amazing art at www.alanevans.biz.

ZZ4955i4955i ppp001-009p001-009 FM.inddFM.indd 2 111/18/101/18/10 9:52:409:52:40 AMAM ABOUT THE AUTHOR Buddy Scalera is a writer, editor and pho- tographer. He is the author of the popular Comic Artist’s Photo Reference book and CD-ROM series for IMPACT Books, and he is also known for his best-selling series of photography CD-ROMs, Visual Reference for Comic Artists. He has written for AND THANK YOU TO… many mainstream comics, including Marvel Comics’ • Mike Marts, Mark Waid, Chris Eliopoulos, Brian Haberlin, Rodney Ramos, Deadpool, Agent X and X-Men Unlimited, and he also Darick Robertson, John Cerilli and, of course, Joe Quesada and Stan contributed to Marvel’s all-ages series Lockjaw and Lee—all for making the time for interviews and for sharing so much of the Pet Avengers. On the indie side, he has written and yourselves for this book. self-published several comic books through After Hours • Jim McLauchlin of The Hero Initiative and Mike Kelly of Press (www.ahpcomics.com) with business partner POW! Entertainment for connecting me with Stan Lee. Darren Sanchez, including Necrotic: Dead Flesh on a Sample• George Beliard file of Marvel Comics for helping me connect with Living Body, 7 Days to Fame, Bonita & Clyde and Parts: Joe Quesada. The SitComic. Buddy’s written over one hundred articles • Dan Reilly for key reference materials. on comics for Wizard, Comics Buyer’s Guide and SPIN • Fred Pierce for allowing us to use Valiant images. magazine online, among others, and he was the creator • Stefanie Laufersweiler and Kelly Messerly for the top-notch editing on and editor of Wizard Entertainment’s Wizard World this project. You guys made every page and every chapter better than I and Wizard School websites. Buddy has hosted and could have done alone. organized workshops and panels at major conventions • Pam Wissman for opening the doors and welcoming me into IMPACT. in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, and he served as You made all of this possible. programming manager for the 2009 Long Beach Comic • Alan Evans for (yet another) great cover. It’s good to be a team again. Con in California. Visit his website at www.buddyscalera. • Designer Wendy Dunning, production editor Sarah Laichas, copyeditor com (email at [email protected]). Jeff Suess, proofreader John Kuehn, indexer Kathleen Rocheleau and production coordinator Mark Griffi n. • Special thanks to my transcribers Misha Stewart and Amy Jeynes.

ANOTHER

PRODUCTION

ZZ7063i7063i pp001-009pp001-009 FM.inddFM.indd 3 111/15/101/15/10 10:30:5110:30:51 AMAM CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER 6 COLORING: A CHAPTER 1 Multichromatic Look at EDITING: The Eye Today’s Technology 84 of the Storm 10 The modern-day colorist is not merely an Not only are editors responsible for the artist. Staying on top of the latest techniques creative wrangling of a comic book, but requires serious tech savvy. With BRIAN they also must be masters of project HABERLIN management. With MIKE MARTS CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 2 OTHER ROADS IN: WRITING: The Idea, Alternate Jobs in Comics 98 the Blank Page and The path to a comics career can lead you to How Comics Are Born 28 various departments and job opportunities. Dive deep into how comics are written, from pitching ideas to getting them into CHAPTER 8 print. With MARK WAID THE TOP OF THE CHAPTER 3 PYRAMID: One-on-One PENCILLING: With Joe Quesada 106 Marvel’s chief creative offi cer talks about Sketching Worlds making the decisions that make people One Page at a Time 44 want to buy comics. The most coveted job in comics isn’t all glamour; it takes disciplineSample to survive. fileCHAPTER 9 With DARICK ROBERTSON THE MAN HIMSELF: CHAPTER 4 A Candid Conversation INKING: It’s More Than With Stan Lee 120 Listen closely to the legend who single- Just Tracing 60 handedly transformed the world of comics. Inkers are jokingly misaligned as “tracers,” but they bring impact and nuance to CHAPTER 10 pencilled art. With RODNEY RAMOS NOW, PUT THIS DOWN CHAPTER 5 and Get to Work 134 LETTERING: Getting Professional do’s and don’ts, the truth about self-publishing, plus plenty more pointers for in the Last Word 72 aspiring comic book creators. Most letterers are barely viewed as part of the creative process, but see one poorly lettered RESOURCES FOR CREATORS 153 page and you’ll know just how important SELF-PUBLISHING BUDGET GUIDE 154 they really are. With CHRIS ELIOPOULOS ONLINE CONTENT GUIDE 157 INDEX 158

Stormbenders © 1999 Alan Evans and Buddy Scalera. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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ZZ7063i7063i pp001-009pp001-009 FM.inddFM.indd 5 111/15/101/15/10 10:30:5910:30:59 AMAM INTRODUCTION After this, there is no turning s, you wake up in your bed and believe “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. STAY IN back. You take the blue pill—the story end whatever you want to believe., and I showYou take you the how red deep pill—you the rabbit hole goes.” WONDERLAND —Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix your X-Men comics and forget what you’ve read already. Go on with life. Do not go down the rab- bit hole. You may not want to read this book. There’s stuff in here that will change the way you read comics. IF YOU’RE STILL HERE I’m not kidding. Let me tell you a quick story, just If you’re still here, congratulations. It’s nice to to prove my point. have someone like you around. If you appreciate Back when I was starting college I became the overall analogy, you’re about to become the interested in fi lm studies. This was way back magician’s apprentice. before comics had gained the level of main- I’m not the magician, nor am I the apprentice. stream respect that they enjoy today, so if you I’m just the guy who peeked behind the curtain, wanted to learn about visual storytelling, fi lm jotted down some notes and fi gured out how it was the way to go. Like comics, you could tell sto- all worked. The actual magicians are the people ries and communicate with words and pictures, featured in the upcoming chapters. so fi lm was an irresistible magnet for comic I am, by training, a journalist. If you must geeks like me. know, I have a degree in journalism. I spent a few In a lot of ways, fi lm studiesSample are a great way file years writing for newspapers, a bunch writing for for comic book fans to analyze and understand magazines, a handful writing political literature the nature of visual storytelling. The two medi- and speeches, and whatever else would give me ums—fi lm and comics—have much in common. a byline or a few bucks for a few words. It was all Of course, these days, many educational insti- very interesting, but what I earned I squandered tutions teach comic book curriculum, so your primarily on comics. In fact, one of my motiva- learning options are much broader and more tions for breaking into comics was to get free relevant. comic books. (It worked.) Still, you may not want to read this book. It’s So, since this will become relevant later, I going to do for you what fi lm school did for me. broke into comics as a journalist. I wrote for It’s going to ruin the mystique. different magazines, cutting my teeth on short They warned us on the fi rst day of class news stories, moving up to features and eventu- that the critical analysis of fi lm will reveal the ally freelancing for most of the comic industry language of the medium. It will uncover the publications. I wrote for magazines like Combo, techniques, the business and the tricks of the art Comics Buyer’s Guide, Comics Values Monthly, Scarlet form. That kind of understanding and enlighten- Street, Collector’s Advantage and other magazines ment strips away the magic to reveal how the that fellow comic fans enjoyed. All along, I was trick works. building my ongoing knowledge base of how the If you want your comics to remain magical, industry functioned (and, in many cases, mal- you should put down this book now. Go back to functioned). And getting free comics.

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