Monday, September 8, 2014

Days 11 to 18: MAKING Comics!


So once we have made cartoons and comic strips and comics pages and played with inks and inking, it's time to make our own comics. One way to 'write' comics is with a visual draft of the pages, all set out in panels. These draft pages are called 'thumbnails'.  Here, I am showing the class some of the common mistakes made at this stage, which have been given a name by Australian cartoonist Pat Grant: he calls them 'thumb fails'.

And yes, the classroom clock does have whiskers.


James, Michael and Rohan checking out Bristol Board (the thick card that we will eventually transfer the drawings to). Yes the clock has ears, too. It's a comic clock cat.


Travis posed this question, essential to all comic book makers. Bernard tried to work out the metaphorical equivalents of eating an elephant to making a comic.


At work on the Comics Studio: Speed, Jac and Andreas at the front table. Michael, Luca, Aden, Rohan, Daniel and James behind.




Bernard and Liam thoughtfully consider his duck comic. Contrary to their expressions, it's hilarious.


Bernard and Guy chat about whether his comic should be called 'THE-Y' or 'THF-Y' or 'THY-F'. Important issues of the day.


The incredibly prolific Mitchell.


Working in-depth with Guy on the flow of his story.


Some more panel transitions from the School of Scott McCloud: moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject and scene-to-scene.


Moira and Mitchell work on his comic, about his upcoming holiday.


One of the group who has really taken to the old-school technology of ink and nib, Nicole inking her comic strip, 'Loading Sarcasm'.


"Now, back to this scene-to-scene transition, how much time do you think has elapsed here?"


Okay, everyone, let's get a list of our stories, the titles, and how many pages they run for...


Nice.


"Be different," I say to Robert Crumb, who is here coming down from the holy comics mountain, where the voice of the comics god has told him, 'Tell your truth'. The two comics commandments that he has brought down are: 1. 'Be clear', and 2. 'Find your voice'. (hm - I'm pretty sure that was the second commandment...)


Flik: dresses as a wolf, makes comics about wolves.


Discussing the first inking of Flik's pages.


Phong pencilling his story and Liam inking his duck story.

The next step, my friends, is publishing! Warm up the photocopier! And then our launch is on next Tuesday night:

No comments:

Post a Comment