It's been often said that comics are more about graphic design and poetry than writing and illustration. When a written story gets translated into a comic the work undergoes a fundamental change. That's what today's challenge is about.
Take your favorite anecdote from yesterday's challenge and break it down into no more than twenty-four thumbnail images using one index card per panel. Don't spend too much time on these drawings. They are a plan that you will use to later draw the finished comic. Keep things simple and loose so that you can get into the "graphic design" nature of thumbnailing -- moving elements around to to create a pleasing and legible formal arrangement. This isn't a time to make detailed drawings. Make sure at least five panels capture a sense of place.
Since comics is a visual medium, the old writing dictum "show don't tell" literally comes into play here. If any one speech balloon or caption box has more than two or three sentences, go through and see if there is something in the words that could be conveyed visually instead.
Pay attention to your setting -- if your story has a specific environment find some reference images to draw from, or better yet, grab your sketchbook and go make a few drawings if the location is nearby and accessible.
The beauty of the index cards is that you can remove, rearrange, or add them to make your story flow better. Edit as you go!
And here you can see how those simple drawings were later converted into beautiful finished pages by Nick Bertozzi.
The process of thumbnailing is different for every cartoonist. Hunt around and you may be able to find a process post by one of your favorite cartoonists. Here's a great one from Vera Brosgol about how she created her book Anya's Ghost.
Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco, Noelle Stevenson, Spike Trotman, Chris Ware -- CCS has hosted hundreds of visiting cartoonists since launching in 2005. If there is one commonality in each of their presentations, it is that they each discovered their own unique way of making comics not through some systematic approach but through trial and error.
"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful after all."
If you post your work from this week online, make sure to use the hashtag
#CCS1WeekWorkout so that other workout students can check out your work!
