As an indie comic creator, I'm always looking for ways to make my job easier, more inspiring, and of course more profitable. These are just a few resources that I've discovered over the last couple years that I couldn't have lived without. Each resources targets a specific area of development. 

​1. ART

Every Frame a Painting

Every Frame a Painting is an amazing YouTube channel with educational analysis on the art of editing and cinematography. Though its focus is on cinema, the visual storytelling principles contained within should benefit both comic writers and artists when it comes to framing their works. Here's just one video of many on the channel that I've found interesting and helpful: 

​2. DISCOURSE

SKTCHD
http://sktchd.com

SKTCHD is/was a comic journalism site run by David Harper with an emphasis on longform content. Though David no longer puts out new articles, his archive remains a valuable resource for indie creators looking to dive a little bit deeper into the whys, hows, and trends of the direct market. David still maintains his podcast Off-Panel, where he interviews professionals from the industry, including less spotlighted (but no less influential) editors and publishers.

You'll find the podcast here.

Harper has kept the SKTCHD website up as an archive.

​3. THEORY

INTRO TO SCOTT MCCLOUD
https://understandingcomics177.wordpress.com/

Written as annotations for a college class, this blog provides an excellent overview of some of the concepts contained within Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Designed as a companion piece, the notes explain the basic framework of Scott’s comic theory, the academic standard taught all around the world.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is an extremely valuable resource for comic creators.

​4. PRINT

PRINT NINJA RESOURCE CENTER
http://www.printninja.com/printing-resource-center

No other website goes into the nuts and bolts of printing in as well laid out a manner as Print Ninja’s own resource center. The information is written for the printing newbie, and as such takes its time in explaining concepts that are often filled with industry jargon.

Print Ninja has a ton of printing options. 

​5. BUSINESS

ZUB TALES - The official blog of Jim Zub
http://www.jimzub.com/

​Jim is a well known and successful comic creator who has blogged about both his experiences working with Image and their particular model of creator-owned. He’s very transparent about everything, and has a great archive filled with resources for creators of all levels! 

These are just a couple that we visit on a weekly basis. Have other resources that you use? Share in the comments below!

Hey folks, Vince here! I’m one of the creators of the comic series Skies of Fire and Glow, and just can’t stop talking about stories! Seriously, just ask one of our other creators Ray, who has had to listen to hundreds of story ideas over the years :P But, that’s enough about me. What we’re really here for is to talk about the importance of paneling in a comic.

What is a Panel?

Just so we’re on the same page, we first need to define what a panel is in comics. According to Merriam-Webster, a comic panel is: a frame of a comic strip. 

a frame of a comic strip…

Well, that doesn’t help much. Why is it limited to a comic strip?!? Needless to say, we need a better definition for what a comic panel is. Luckily, I stumbled upon quite an adequate one on Wikipedia of all places:  

A panel is an individual frame, or single drawing, in the multiple-panel sequence of a comic strip or comic book. A panel consists of a single drawing depicting a frozen moment.

This is a lot better than the Merriam-Webster one for sure! Doesn’t limit a panel to a frame, or a comic strip!

Not really sure about the “depicting a frozen moment” part though. Below is a panel from issue #1 of Glow. Here, Caszy and Koken tag-team to capture a contraption that is on the fritz. As you can see, we follow the actions of Caszy by “ghosting” her movements across frame. Since you see multiple moments using this technique, wouldn’t this image NOT be considered a panel according to our definition? ​​

During the Medieval Ages, up until the 1700s, comics and panels didn’t see much major advancement in Europe. Due to the exhausting engraving/art techniques, visual storytelling was often relegated to single-panel images. They were simply visual additions to the written narratives of books. In Asia, however, cultures were developing towards more detailed and comprehensive sequential art. Lots can be said about this period, but that’s for another time.

By the 19th and 20th centuries, new printing and art techniques pushed comics towards what we are more familiar with. Comic strips (stories contained within four panels or less) became a staple in newspapers. Terms like “panels” that make up “sequential art” were coined by Will Eisner and other creative giants of the era. Entire comic books were being created, and a new industry was born.

In this period, cinema also found its foothold in the world. Being both visual mediums, filmmaking and comics went hand in hand. Storyboarding became a helpful tool for filmmakers to visualize movies. Comic artists and creators often utilized film footage to help their drawings and panel work. Walt Disney married the two mediums though animation. Indeed, a story of panels is as much one of cinema as it is for comics.

Over time, artists learned to create new meaning, moods, and ideas through the panel. Not only were panels used as a technical tool keep the story moving, it became an artistic tool to emotionally charge the story.

Panel Size (Super-Size Me!)

Unlike cinema, comics aren’t limited by the size of the screen. While most movies now adhere to some form of frame size (16:9, 2.35:1), comics have the distinct difference of creating panels of varying sizes. You can have a Splash Page (full page panel), or perhaps a selection of consecutive box panels (like a comic strip). The options are limited only by the page.

There is no right or wrong when picking a panel size. Art is subjective, and artists often have to deal with varying requirements or constraints. Nevertheless, there is a basic language when it comes to panel sizes.

With Size, the main value comes in pacing the story. This deals with how much art the reader’s eye has to digest before moving on to the next image. A Splash Page, for example would technically take up the same viewing time as a selection of smaller panels in the same space. The splash would therefore be a longer “time beat” as you focus your time on only one image. Splashes are great for establishing shots, or wrapping up a scene. They give the reader a moment to set the scene, or digest what they’ve just read. ​

Knowing how to pace your comic between splash pages, half-splashes, and sporadic mini-panels is an art in of itself. Not only does it need to work visually on the page, but it shouldn’t feel too quick or too slow between panels either.

One technique that plays on panel sizes is the fade to black or white. As in the example below from Wicked + Divine, you can visually represent a cinematic fade by shortening the panel boxes until it’s nothing but white or black. It’s a nice touch to slow a reader’s pace to a halt and prime them to start a new scene. ​

We started working with Pablo Peppino in 2013 but didn't meet him in person until this past October, shortly before New York Comic Con. In an attempt to bolster our blog content, we asked him to do an interview with us. He gladly obliged.

1. Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm from Argentina. I'm 37 years old and I started to draw beacuse I thought I was good at it and it'll be easy. That was the most stupid thing I've ever said. 

Art has been the most challenging but gratificating thing I attemped in my life.


2. How did you get into sequential art?

I was studying high arts at the university but the teachers weren't good enough, so I started to look around and I discovered a workshop focused on comic books. There I found a great group of people and a brilliant teacher.

3. Who would you say your major influences are? 

Katsuhiro Otomo, Moebius and Marcelo Frusin. 

4. What tools do you use to work? 

Traditional tools. 2B pencils, microns, etc. I go digital when I'm coloring something.

4a. Care to share what your workspace looks like?

Pablo is nearing completion of issue two. Once his portion of the work is done we pass it on to Bryan to color and then Nic to letter and finalize before sending everything to the printer. 

It's a privilege working with such a talented team, and Pablo in particular deserves special praise. It's been amazing seeing his talent evolve over the past couple of years (we've been working on Skies for a while now) and we can't wait to see where he goes. New heights and all that :).

Hopefully Pablo isn't the only one refining his skills. Vince and I feel like issue two is really where the story starts to pick up. One of the neat things about working on comics instead of, say, films, is the ability to continually write until the letter goes down the book. Nic, our letterer, gives us grief for it sometimes but we love him and y'know sometimes you gotta see things before you know they don't work ;). 

But in all seriousness, people do it in film too. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not something we really embraced until doing this project and that's been an incredible, incredible blessing. Over the course of a script Vince and I will rewrite that thing maybe over 50 times if not more. We still have a roadmap but at this point the issues are veering further and further from the screenplay, and believe us that's a good thing. 

Writing 'The Glow'

That process has sort of transferred over to the new project too, which we're tentatively calling The Glow. We first outlined the story before moving on to screenplay format, but this time with a better understanding of the translation between film and comic. From our observation (and I'm not sure if this is universal..) 15 pages of screenplay will result in about 26-30 pages of comic, give or take. 

Knowing that, the way we're writing is to have little mini act-breaks every fifteen pages or so. We kind of got there by following Pablo's advice; his suggestion was to focus on the first four issues in a single arch. 15x4 = 60 pages, which is about what they ask for in a teleplay. Okay, cool - 60 pages, IV acts. 

Toolwise, it's important that both of us can see the same screen while working. We stick primarily with Google Drive but when it's time to draft the teleplay we switch over to Writer Duet. 

At this stage we kind of rewrite things a bunch of times. Some of it's good, some of it is not so good. The important thing is we can see where it's going. As long as we have that we can always make it better. When we're happy enough with where the script is we turn it into comic book format.

For us, comic book formatting means really thinking about the story visually. We try and break things down into what we feel like are the most important shots using the screenplay as a guideline. 

Our shorthand is based on camera angles, so we'll say things like TWO / SHOT - CASZY AND KOKEN but sometimes the comic vernacular will slip in with something like a HALF-PAGE or (our favorite words) SPLASH PAGE! We probably would never pass any sort of standard for formatting but as long as the artist gets what we mean I think we're okay. We act as our own editors, for better or worse. 

In terms of direction, we're kind of loose about the specifics unless we have something particular in mind. We try to give our artists enough freedom to express themselves and bring ideas to the table while at the same giving enough direction so they can "see" the story, if you will.

Right now we think the first issue is in good shape. The artist search, on the other hand....

- Ray