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Anonymous Ask: I'm sorry if you've already answered something like this, but what's your process when making comics? How do you decide the Paneling, etc? Do you always have a script in mind first or can you do without it?

Hi! And it’s no problem; I love talking about comics and the process of making them ^u^

Generally, I don’t work with a tight script. For longer and more structured comics (for me that means usually something 30 pages or more) I will write out some simple outlines so I have a general idea of what happens in the story, and outlines can include some dialogue and specific descriptions of scenes. HOWEVER, 99% of the actual work of putting together a comic starts with thumbnails, which can range from very messy to ….less messy.

(This is a rare example of working directly from a script, in this case adapting a scene from a play—I wanted to show I CAN adapt script-to-page if needed, heh. As you can see the final panel changed in the end. Also this is one of my NEATER thumbnail examples, as you’ll see later on loool)

Thumbnails are helpful because it helps you plan what a comic will look like in the visual format, under the dimensional constraints of the page. It helps you test out how panels will look before you commit to all the work of drawing the whole thing. A lot can be communicated visually in a few panels that would take a lot of text to explain. I’ve often started out scripting dialogue and narration, only to end up cutting it from my comics because it made more sense to show it visually using the rhythm of the panels or character interactions than just with pure text.

As for “deciding the paneling,” that’s one of the most important processes in making comics to me. I’ve been very influenced by manga in that I kind of prefer a “brick” layout approach to panels (this isn’t an official term, just how I think of it) rather than a standard grid, since it allows for flexibility of the size of the panels while also keeping the reading order clear. an interesting post about this kind of layout in manga can be read here!) I usually intend for my comics to be printed in half-sheet sized zines, so I try to keep the panels and text fairly large and readable. To me, visual clarity is the most important thing in comics and I do my best to try and make sure to make the sequence of panels is clear.

The shape and types of panels are also a great way to convey mood and tone of the story! For example, I go through a LOT of different panel types in my recent comic,“The Holy Cephalaphore.”.

• The first few pages are very dense with dialogue and information, with fairly standard panel borders and a lot of text.
• But after Richard gets shot and the mood changes, I remove the borders and bubbles and other visual noise completely to kind of create a more “silent” sequence.
• It returns to more standard rectangular panels for a short time as Richard, and the audience, are regaining our bearings and moving the story along.
• When the Demoness appears the panel borders take on the shape of the flames, creating a more blurred and dreamlike effect, as if the pages themselves are melting.
• Later in the epilogue, the panels return to a more standard rectangular shape to show how the story is back to a “regular” setting.
• When Philip has his flashback over narration, the panels are once again different, with round shapes that visually distinguish the pages and are meant to show how the scenes depicted are like separate “vignettes” from his life.
• The last page also returns to the more swirly and fiery motifs from earlier, and once again the distinction between the flame patterns and panel borders is eliminated—the text itself is also no longer in boxes or bubbles.

For funsies, you can see my messy thumbnails I did here while planning this all out. This comic was a bit unusual for me in that I did it all traditionally and there wasn’t necessarily as much planning as some of my previous comics, but still for certain sequences I had to “draft” it in a notebook first, sometimes several times, in order to get close to what I wanted it to look like. Here you can see how rough it can get:

I will note that this messy process works for me because I make all my comics by myself, and I don’t need to communicate with collaborators the way one might need to in a more professional setting that splits work between a writer, illustrator, letterer, colorist, etc. The main issue is making sure my thumbnails are intelligible to ME so I don’t look back and get confused at what I’m saying (this still happens a lot though.) If you want to see an example of me making thumbnails for other people, I did a writeup of a comic layout commission I did earlier this year talking about my choices adapting from someone’s script. (Also if anyone would like to commission me for this…hit me up! please! I love this sort of thing!)

I’ve made a lot of comics over the years so I would say I have a pretty good feel for it, and comic panel page composition comes a lot more naturally to me than other expressive mediums. Putting panels together is very much like a puzzle—you want to make sure all the parts are there and arranged in a way that makes sense. And like a puzzle, it’s easy to get stuck and frustrated at times, and I still struggle with making stuff flow well too even now.

Still, I’ve found that the best thing to do is:

1) Read a lot of comics, of different types! Seeing how other cartoonists, even those with different styles than you, do their panels, can help unlock a lot of possibilities for how to express something.
2) Don’t Overthink it! Feels contradictory to #1 maybe, but it’s true. Oftentimes simple is better.

In general, it’s also good to just…play around. In the end it’s all boxes and bubbles on a page. I like planning things out and having it look really neat but i also like winging it. i want to become both looser and more precise and the only way to do it is to keep making things…Will I ever be able to make something actually novel-length like this???? I don’t know! But i do know i love making comics <3 more than almost anything in the world ….