Comic Book Production

A comic book is a story that is told through a series of sequential images featuring dialogue and sounds which propel the story forward. The stories can be humorous or dramatic and can consist of any story genre.

Comics are printed in issues on a regular basis. Each issue may contain a series of, a part of a longer story which will be told over a series of issues or a whole story.  Graphic novels are an extension of this, forgoing single issues and telling a whole story in one book.

The process of creating a comic book begins with a story. Once details of the plot, characters, locations etc have been produced it is all compiled into a series bible similar to TV, film or animated series.

From this visuals can be designed, story arches can be plotted and refined into scripts.

Using the script and designs thumbnails rough drafts of page layouts can be drafted. This phase is where the panel art, sequencing, dialogue and overall layout of the page are worked out.

Once this is finalized art begins. Traditionally comic art was drawn in pencil, the line art is inked and then coloured also using ink. Now a great deal of comics are coloured digitally, however penciling and line art inking practices vary from artist to artist.

Lettering typically is done digitally as it gives a far more consistent finish to the page but there are some who prefer to produce lettering by hand or using stencils.

In the production of modern comics, digital practices like photo manipulation, 3D modelling and Matte Painting are becoming more widely used as part of artists’ pipelines. More varied art styles are being achieved through digital drawing and painting, offering far wider artistic expression than at any time in the history of the industry.