My chief comic-book character, The Silver Angel

[fpb]

This is the central character of a superhero universe I created. She also features in two of my Harry Potter fics: http://www.thedarkarts.org/authors/fpbarbieri/SA.html and http://www.thedarkarts.org/authors/fpbarbieri/HGN.html. In the future I may feature sketches of HP characters and situations.

Comments

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

Cool! Is this your own drawing, or somebody else's? (I don't really know how the whole comic book thing works.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Mine mnine mine!

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

Nice! You'll be posting more, I hope?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yup. And thanks.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I don't really know how the whole comic book thing works
The stages are generally as follows:
1)Writing. This can be divided into plotting and scripting, and at Marvel Comics the scripting is often done after the art. Most writers, however, do both at once, and some supply some quick breakdowns for the page as well.
2)Penciling. The technology of printinb comics means that the best and cheapest results are achieved by ink drawings, but the pencil stage is essential because it is infinitely easier to make correction and changes in pencil.
3)Inking. Though the pencil artist is generally taken to be the artistic author, and the inker only a sort of glorified assistant, there are cases in which the former is lazy, incompetent, inexperienced, or talentless, in which case the inker gets to do a whole lot of fixing. Conversely, a lazy or crude inker can do much towards wrecking even the greatest pencil. Jack Kirby, the greatest cartoonist who ever lived, was often particularly unfortunate in this regard. (Being a very kind and gentle man, he refused on principle to ask for a change of inker, feeling that he would be taking the bread out of someone's mouth, and only once could be convinced to get rid of a particularly disastrous specimen.)
4)Lettering. This often includes word balloon placement, an important skill (unless the previous stages of the work have all been done by a writer-artist, in which case s/he has already decided on balloon placement).
5)Colouring. This, of course, does not include the large amount of comics published in black and white.
In most commercial comic books, the duties are shared between at least five people, writer, artist (or "pencil artist", or "penciller"), inker, colourist and letterer. This is because most comics have to be published monthly, and it is very difficult for one person to produce 22 pages plus cover a month. Sometimes the penciller only does what are called "layouts", without placing shadows or details, in which case the other artist is credited with "finished art". Often, especially in independent comics and newspaper strips, the same person does most or all the work; the late great Charles M.Schulz (Peanuts) used to boast that he had never used an assistant in sixty years of professional life.

[tashmania.livejournal.com]

I really like it :) I have little or no talent for drawing, therefore I'm always intrigued to see other people's work.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I also thought I had no talent for drawing, until I started drawing.

[chthonya]

Impressive! I keep forgetting about your involvement with comic books.


4)Lettering. This often includes word balloon placement, an important skill

What sort of considerations come into play there, then, apart from not obscuring the action?


I'm looking forward to seeing more of your illustrations.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It's easier for me to do it than to explain (as a writer-artist, I normally lay in my own script). Anyway... The reader's eye is trained to go from left to right and from top to bottom. (In Japan the motion is from right to left, which means that Japanese comics have to be photographed in mirror-image fashion before they are translated for the Western markets.) The layout of captions and word balloons must follow this natural motion, take up as little of the art as reasonably possible, and break the script up into natural units, breaking off at dramatic points. Of all these requirements, I would say that the first is the most important: failing to understand it means that the dialogue will be read in the wrong order, with the inevitable results.

[chthonya]

It's easier for me to do it than to explain

Thank you for taking the time to do so, then - it's always fascinating to find out what thought processes lie behind something that I'm used to seeing but have never had to think about.