! Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Take These 8 Steps to Make Your First Web Comic Written by Christian Crawley Published August 2017. Read the original article here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/steps-make-first-web-comic/ This ebook is the intellectual property of MakeUseOf. It must only be published in its original form. Using parts or republishing altered parts of this ebook is prohibited without permission from MakeUseOf.com. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Table of contents 1. Why Are You Doing This? 5 Can It Make Money? 5 2. Understand What You Need for a Web Comic 6 3. Writing Your Comic: Listen to Advice 7 Create an Outline 7 Blocking and Thumbnailing 8 Writing the Script 8 4. Find an Artist 10 Where Can You Find an Artist? 10 Storyboarding, Layout, and Design 11 Plan Ahead 12 5. You’ll Need Typesetting or Lettering Skills 12 6. Patience and Planning 13 7. All Done? Time to Publish! 13 PDF 13 Blog 14 App 14 8. Get Some Publicity and Spread the Word! 15 A Single Idea… 16 Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! You’ve had the idea drumming through your head for weeks, maybe even months. There’s a story you need to tell, and the best outlet is in comic form. But you’ve never written a comic, you probably don’t draw, and you’ve never published anything online. In short, you’re stuck. How on earth are you going to start this off? In fact, how are you going to finish it? Creating a web comic is not easy. But once you’ve done it, you’ll feel immense pride in the finished product. And it will push you into trying again and again. Your efforts might even attract attention from comic industry professionals. In 2010, I wrote and published a three-part web comic, a project that required massive online collaboration. We’re going to take a look at the entire process of publishing a web comic, from concept through to publishing, using modern tools and publishing options. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! 1. Why Are You Doing This? Comic book writers make big bucks, right? Well, a few do. Those working for DC and Marvel, mainly. Perhaps Titan and IDW. The rest… not so much. If you’re planning a web comic project to make money, you’re in the wrong game. But there is something that can help if you’re trying to make it as a comic book writer, artist, or both. Rather than producing a full-length one-shot (a single issue with a full story) or a full series of comic strips, focus instead on something shorter. For instance, rather than a five-page comic, produce five one-page stories. Image Credit: Clipartman.com via Shutterstock When it comes to speaking to editors and showing off your portfolio, what impresses is finished work. Not unfinished work, or work you haven’t done yet. A quintet of single page tales will show that you can start and finish a piece of work. That’s an important quality in any comic book creative. Can It Make Money? Finally, you may want to consider revenue. Can this web comic make money? In the case of an app, it might be paid, or you may add some ads. For a website-based comic, advertising is again a good option, as is using a voluntary payment system (such as Patreon) to generate income. The best option is to find the solution that works for you and your readers. Expecting to make money from a project like this is not the way to get started. Income should be a reward, and may not even cover the web hosting costs. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! While it’s possible that some profit can be made from associated merchandise, this can be expensive to produce and sell. Without a large enough audience, this could be more trouble than it’s worth. 2. Understand What You Need for a Web Comic Before you start, have an endgame in mind. Know the story you’re going to tell, but also have an idea of how you’re going to publish it. You’ll also need to give thoughts to the other elements of creating and publishing a web comic: • Outline — Have an idea of the storyline. You’ve probably got a few strong visuals that you want to include. An outline can help these hang together, and will prove useful in finding an artist if you don’t have the ability. • Storyboard — Also known as “thumbnailing,” this is a visual outline often created by the writer to help focus the script. Image Credit: Undrey via Shutterstock • Script — It’s important to approach comic book scripting in the right way, adhering to the industry standards. And if you can’t write, you’ll need to find a writer! • Artist — Without artistic ability of your own, you’ll need an artist with knowledge of sequential art. But where will you find one? How much do you need to pay them? • Typesetter/Letterer — This is almost always overlooked by first time independent online comic projects (guilty as charged). Can the artist handle this? If not, it may be something you’ll need to learn. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! • Publishing — Simple PDF? Comic-focused WordPress plugin on your blog? Perhaps it will be released as a smartphone app? It’s a good idea to do some initial research into this before you start writing. Once you’ve got a handle on what is required, it’s time to start work. Use the following to help you focus on your web comic project, find collaborators, and complete your project. 3. Writing Your Comic: Listen to Advice Whether you’re working with an artist from the beginning or you’re striking out totally alone, you’ll need to be able to produce a professional script. This means taking on board some well- known standards for comic scripts. Watch the YouTube video here: Stan Lee: Advice for Comic Book Writers and Other Artists But first, create an outline. Create an Outline You need an artist, and you need to focus your script. Create an outline for both of these purposes. It shouldn’t be too long; no more than a single page. Do this with your favorite word processor (or note-taking app). Make sure you know how the comic starts, and how it ends, and demonstrate the progression from A to B in the outline. Know what your story is about. Then think about it. What’s the core message? What’s it really about? Once you know this, you can start thinking about your characters in more depth. The outline should summarize the story. Make sure you have one, as it is a very good way to get an artist interested. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Blocking and Thumbnailing To create a script, you’ll typically need to expand the outline. One way to do this is to do a page- by-page outline, blocking out what appears in each panel, and some key dialogue. A good tip I picked up is to use a grid, specifically a spreadsheet, such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, to do this. This way, you can easily specify the page, number of panels, and a brief description. An alternative tactic — or one to use in conjunction — is thumbnailing. This is where you create a small storyboard to help you visualize the finished comic. Memorable images and splash pages you want to include can be scrawled here in rough pencil. Writing the Script When you’re ready to write the script, you should be clear on the outline and have a blocked-out version ready to use, perhaps thumbnails too. Everything you’ve done so far is leading to this moment: writing the script. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! Image Credit: stickerama via Shutterstock General scriptwriting tips are easy to find online. However, writing comics is a slightly different technique. • Use no more than 35 words per panel. • The character speaking first should be on the left (or their speech bubble should be, at least). • Have no more than seven panels per page. • Don’t start a new scene midway through a page — wait until the next page. • Take advantage of the page turn to deliver surprises. Although these tips are mainly for page-based comics, they can be adapted for strips. The words-per-panel is an important rule, but a strip will probably have a three-to-five panel limit. With strips, each panel can be a different frame, and the entire sequence can tell a full story. It depends on how you plan to present your story. Any word processor can be used for creating a script, from Google Docs to Microsoft Word. But you might prefer a tool dedicated to scriptwriting, such as Final Draft or the free tool, Trelby. Copyright © 2017 MakeUseOf. All Rights Reserved ®. ! 4. Find an Artist This is the really tricky part. If you don’t have the requisite artistic ability, you’ll need to find someone who does. Unless they’re very generous (preferably a good friend), then this will not come cheap. Of course, you could teach yourself to draw, using YouTube channels, for instance. But this will take a while, and set your project back months. Watch the YouTube video here: How to find your Comic Book Art Style Pt. 1 I had an advantage here: I edited a popular website, and used my position to hold a competition for a comic book artist to collaborate with on the comic.