Comics

What makes a good comic strip?

Speech

Images

Story

Techniques

Speech

ONOMATOPOEIA!
Onomatopoeia are words that convey a sound we can hear. We use them in our comic writing to to add to the story telling.

What are some Onomatopoeia words you can think of?

Skill 1: Speech Bubbles

Speech bubbles tell the reader what is happening in the story. Some comics might not need any text to tell their story but it certainly helps!

Image

Characters

Comics need characters to build their story. These can be real life characters or imaginary ones. Our characters can be drawn with lots of detail, or be made from very simple shapes. Take a look at the below comic.

Background

Complicated backgrounds can distract from the main focus of the story. Using a simple background or no background at all can make it easier for readers to understand the story

Skill 2: Tracing

Comic artists use tracing to repeat a similar shape multiple times.

Tools to use for tracing:

Paper
Lightbox or window
Pencil
Printout of shape with various sizes

The larger the subject, the closer it is. The smaller the subject the further away it is

Story

Telling a story

Comics are interesting because they tell a story. A story has a beginning which sets up the story, a middle which has a conflict and creates tension, and an ending that resolves the conflict, often in a funny or educational way.

How we set up a 4 panel story structure.

Establish the scene with context

Show the goal of the scene, what is the aim or goal of the character?

Conflict! What goes wrong or impacts the goal of the scene?

Resoultion. How did the story wrap up or finish? Was the goal succsessful or unsuccessful?

What is the context, goal, conflict and resoultion of this comic?

Skill 4: Scene layout

Using the comic scene set up provided, create your own comic about your day.

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