Breaking into Writing

A good column over at Comic Book Resources from Steven Grant.

Assuming you’ve mastered basic skills of grammar, punctuation and style, and you’ve researched the functions of dialogue, plotting and story (you don’t need to study comics specifically for this, and it’s perhaps better if you don’t; most libraries have sections on writing for theater, TV, etc., and you can learn a lot from reading those books as well as plays, screenplays, etc.), there are a few ways in. None of them are easy, none guaranteed. Continue Reading

Gasps and Guffaws: Balancing Humor and Drama in Webcomics by Jeff Darlington

Free from the stranglehold of syndicate and newspaper editors, webcomics have the luxury of unfettered imagination, allowing creators to develop their characters however they wish, catering only to their own (and presumably their readers’) whims. The protagonist may be a lighthearted loveable oaf, a brooding anti-hero with deep psychological scars, or a seductive vixen with dubious motives. Continue Reading

greeneyes by William Van Hecke et al.

greeneyes, an independent webcomic encompassing several simultaneous plotlines and artists, is run and primarily written by William Van Hecke. It tells of the events surrounding one of the more unusual classmates of Wilkinson School, Urbanite, Mars — the intriguingly-named µ, a young girl with luminescent green eyes, bone studs rather than eyebrows, and a nasty habit of collapsing in inconvenient places.

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Graduation Day: College Comics Cum Webcomics by Sean Barrett

Every online comics reader encounters college webcomics sooner or later. They’re so common you might start to feel like every third comic you encounter is college-based. But, despite the history and nature of college comics in print, it seems the most popular "college" strips are scarcely about college life at all, building instead on elements not found in the real world at all, much less college.
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How Not to Write a Webcomic

Over at Rocketbox, Mordred posts another interesting riff on how not to write webcomics, this time on the “epic” storyline.

Way back in the day when the grass was still green, I said that most bad webcomics fell into four categories:

1. Gaming comic.
2. Geek comic.
3. Wacky University Comic.
4. Foolish gaijin attempts to create manga and fails, horribly.

I’ve recently decided that there is a fifth category of bad webcomic: The Epic Saga. Some of these are sci-fi, some are fantasy, some are set in the real world, whatever. Incidentally, why is nobody doing westerns? For that matter, why is nobody doing anything set in Eastern mythology? Continue Reading

Slush Factory Presents: Comic Writing 101

Keith Giles’ latest SF column on writing for comics covers the very important issue of research.

Research is what separates good writing from great writing. It’s what makes your writing stand above the crowd and it lends your writing a degree of credibility that “un-researched” writing lacks. It doesn’t matter how cool your concept, if you don’t have good research to inject the story with a degree of believability, then you’re sunk.

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Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics

According to Small Press Magazine, Avatar will soon offer the long awaited Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics. This book combines writings of Moore’s which were first serialized in a British fanzine back in 1985, just prior to the release of Moore’s stunning Watchmen

“Alan Moore was one of the first comics authors to write extensively and intelligently about the underpinnings of the craft,” says writer Warren Ellis. “I know people who’ve been waiting fifteen years to see this reprinted. It goes right next to Eisner and McCloud on the smart reader’s shelf.”

The book is scheduled for a June 2003 release.

Thanks to the Small Press Magazine for the links
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